With so many great bloggers writing about potential changes in their loot distribution systems I decided that I should ring in on the subject. I was reading Rhidach’s post where he mentioned that he was thinking about trying EPGP and since I delegated loot in my last guild using this add-on, I wanted to give a quick rundown of how it works and why I am such a huge proponent of it.
The add-on takes a lot of the burden off the loot officer. Basically it keeps track of everything for you! We had it set up to give 25 EP every fifteen minutes and all we had to do get our raiders together and turn it on. It even has an optional built in peripheral that allows people who want to be on standby for the raid to stack some EP. So if someone has to sit out they can still be rewarded for being online and ready to fill a raid slot should someone have to leave. Every time the reward goes out the raiders on standby whisper the Loot Officer to be put back on the list to get EP so that you know when someone has to leave that standbys will be there to take their place. We set the amount of EP rewarded to standbyers to be equal with what people in the raid were able to get. EP can also be handed out to players as a onetime value for providing services to the guild.
Each piece of gear is weighted by the add-on with a GP score. The equation used to weight gear takes into account Ilvl and the equipping slot and a two hand weapon would be weighted heavier than a one hand. The GP number is automatically assigned to the roll when the item is handed out but this number can be adjusted for instances like OS or Greed items. It uses the equation EP divided by GP to get a player’s priority (PR) on loot rolls. Priority is displayed in a players officer note.
The system is very flexible! You can change the amounts assigned for the values EP and GP as well as take back any amount using the log should you make a mistake. No matter what amounts you assign for EP rewards, if they are consistent then the system is reliable. The amount of effort a player puts into the guild is equivalent to the gear that they receive. The add-on also has some nice adjustable features that address some of the shortcomings of other loot distribution systems like DKP.
A weekly decay in EP and GP is done manually to prevent hoarding but keeps priority the same. There is also a base GP built in which is immune from decay. This makes sure that when new members join up their GP is not zero which would give them PR over everyone else right from the start. There is also the option to use a minimum EP which ensures that a player must put in a certain amount of effort or in most cases attendance in raids in order to get priority on loot.
We only ever had one person who took issue with this system. The rule was that you could use your PR to get any piece of gear you wanted and the system works because like suicide kings if you get a piece of loot in most cases you’re going to end up at the bottom of the priority list. A healer who had the priority rolled on a dps offhand. Needless to say the ranged DPS who also wanted the offhand was pretty upset. I had to make clear that this was not a loot counsel system and that if the healer wanted to use their PR to take the loot then they get the loot. That ended in a mid raid rage /Gquit.
We never had another problem with the system and it worked for us as a ten man guild but can work just as well in a twenty-five man raiding guild. We made sure to clearly explain the system to all of our new guildies and point out that they could track their PR and the PR of others by looking at the officer’s note for each toon (which we left open to view by all members). No system is perfect but this system, run by responsible leaders can distribute proportionate to how much time and effort a player puts into the guild.
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