[Ilumia]

I just wanted to put this up consideration.

If a dropped item is to be defaulted to a class or individual the request should be made before random rolls for the item occurs.

When dropped items are displayed, a request to default item X to class or individual Y should be made.

If the announcement was not made before the raid/ event started and rare item X drops that someone feels should be defaulted to class Y, they should in in an open channel ask for it to be considered.

If an announcement is not made before the random rolls and an after the fact announcement or request is made for the winner to step aside and let others win then, that request should be made and the rolls redone by the appropriate classes for the item if the winning roller agrees.

When rolls have occurred without a prior announcement and the winning rollers are asked to step aside the item should not just be simply defaulted to the highest roller of the requested reserve class. Random rolls should be redone.

Never should a character be berated or threatened to give up the win on an item after the random rolls if they have the winning roll.

Never should a player be threatened for not giving up a loot the randomly rolled for and won.

Any discussion or statements should be made in group or raid channel, people should never send direct tells to the winner to give up their roll or else.

Default loots should be made based on group (AH, guild) needs, never on the basis of perceived rank or relationships, or personnel greed.

Guidelines like these would prevent ugly incidents from occurring, especially if everyone knows them going into an event/ group.

Typically the goal of people in EQ and AH is to have fun and build relationships, but like in really life people become excited or let greed influence their decision which can permeantly mar an individual or the unity of a group especially when its a voluntary association. People shouldn’t be surprised if not everyone voluntarily wants to give up a won loot, especially if group association if loose and in all likely hood they will never see any benefit from doing it. The general guidelines recommended would help keep everyone on a level playing field and minimize the chance of group disruptive events.

I don’t post, so please consider the above for discussion, its not pretty but I think it’s a relatively well laid out set of guideline that in whole/ part/ or concept could help make everyone’s participation more enjoyable.

[Zacatac]

Unfortunately, anytime you go into events where loot is random, there seems to be an issue eventually.

Even when we bid on things, it can go against the grain of some.

It's the same thing we've discussed before with loot, some people want to assign loot based on best case use of the item. Some people got mad when I took a ring with beneficial mana preservation. Some got mad when a wizard got a neck with a heal focus. And others got mad when a nice dagger went to a beastlord instead of a rogue. And some got mad when a nice shield went to a non-tank. . .

Nothing is perfect. Unless you want to go the Pouty route and just decide for everyone who gets what, you'll never have a system in place where every single bit of loot goes to the best class usable.

And even when you do try it, there will be disagreements.

__________________
Quick Story- Long ago I ran Trakanon raids for an alliance of guilds. We go down, beat Trak, a haste cloak drops. I announce the cloak to be "melee only", and a cleric sends me a tell. He wants to roll on the cloak. I tell him no. Then he tells his guild and I (the raid leader) get flooded by tells from other people asking me to allow him to roll. "He likes to melee", "he could really use that", etc. etc.

I didn't let him roll, and he disbanded from raid and gated out. I got tells and later PMs on the message board complaining about it.

So you see, even when you try to do what you think is right, it doesn't always work out.
_____________________

We are also discussing the Wednesday night UF runs right now. The random rolling is becoming an issue when some really nice stuff is dropping and some people really would have bid dkp and taken a tier reset to get it. But instead they get to lose a random roll of the dice.

We need to get the rules in place, and stick to them. If these OMM raids need different rules other than random rolls, it needs to be done and announced ahead of time.

Look for an announcement soon on the Wednesday night raids.

[elric]

Very well said, both of you.

This is an issue, that has been discussed for as long as I've been a SL in AH (and I imagine before).

Basicallly, different folks have different opinions.

I blame SOE for putting too many classes on some needed items.

Each member needs to make their own decisions, imo. Does item xyz help me enough, to warrant winning it over class abc? Also, have I given enough to other folks, that this time I can take it without guilt?

I'll use 2 examples. One was my current neck, from BMK3 that had a heal focus. I needed a focus, felt I'd passed on a lot of items that I'd wanted, so I bid and won. Two is a 2her from the same raid. Asked the SL who was next, if it was a zerker/bst/monk. Zerker was next in line, so I passed to him.

This is a tricky area, one where leadership has tried hard to be fair, hence the current loot rules.

If any member feels wronged by any officer/Squad leader, we humbly apologize.
_________________

[Odnz]

haha yea that queen dagger stuff sucked at the time...

we had rogs with group daggers and queen mal being the only dagger dropping event for a long time.

and she forgot she had it on her loot table for months... lol

July, 16 2009------no queen dagger drops---------November, 12 2009

yea rogs were mad.

so mad they didnt want to spend 40+ tiers

on the MB dagger that was going to bonus weeks before

Fun times tho! lol ....GBU loot policies brought up,

In the end, with too many proposed defaulted items the revolving door of players and 100+ members with differing amounts of available playtime would make it kind of impossible for secondary classes to get needed foci/weaps.

old druid < app cleric
bard < all other melee classes ...
_________________
You backstab Unstable Creation for 78929 points of damage.

[Hasseo75]

Like elric said is all about members consciousness, theorically items go as follow:

daggers with backstab focus to rogues
bows with sharpshooting to rangers
items with heal focus to healers types
items with dmg docus (fire,magic) to casters
h2h monks/bst
shields to knight classes
items with Form of defense to tank types
etc
etc

In a private bid is hard to know who is bidding on the other side so can be hard to make decisions about go for an item or not.

However in /random you can see clearly who wants what so u can make a judgement ... if u still wanting to go for an item "theorically" not for you then dont expect kindnesses if you beat a class that could need "more" that item. is blunt but is the true.
_________________

[Famka]

It gets old fast if you pass on upgrade after upgrade because someone else could use it better though.
In this case, if you want that shield, roll high or save up brews and buy it.
random = random
Cant make everyone happy, its nice if you pass a shield to a knight, but they should not expect it.
I think instead of putting blame on someone for getting an upgrade, we should be happy for them.
Lets stay positive, its only loot, its only a game.

[Ilumia]

In official AH raids I would reccomend that a simple set of standard rules given out before the event be established, that way everyone knows what they are going in for.
If super item X for Class Y drops then it should be called out as reserved for class Y before any random rolls occur. AH did a good job of this for prismatic runes for enchanters, everyone knew the rules going in and no one had to go through the routine of I won, oh no I didnt Player W wants the item. It also creates the ackward situation where player W expects the item is going to be given to them when they didnt win the roll, because they feel they deserve it more then class "Y minus". The term randoms means random, no one should be expected to pass on an item because popular player W has come in 2ed and some one or some few feel player W deserves the item more then the winner.
Passing along items also becomes a problem in a lose association like AH where people are constantly cycling through. The DKP system does an adequate job of allowing long term players a chance at loot they want. If everything is to be defaulted based on class then no one but a knight will ever get shields, bows go to archers only, ect because there will always be a new crop of that class comming into the group.
Saying that you are differing for the benefit of the group sounds great for the people that didnt win or are recieving the item but its been my exp that in guilds let alone loose associations like AH a large percentage of the people comming through come grab their upgrades then move on. In one guild I watched a cleric come in, the cleric was power leveled by the guild, equiped with the cream of the equipment usable by a cleric, given first choice on spells, allowed to loot as much sellable loot as they could hoover up and as soon as the cleric was fixed up as good as the guild could do at the time , the cleric left because they could get into a higher level guild with all the new raid equipment they had. Unfortunately I have watched this same stories happen time and time again on high priority classes such as clerics, warriors, paladins, shadow knights.
In the situations such as informal groupings and open raids I dont think its possible to play the prioritization game after the random rolls are done, what would you do. Differ the item to the next roller if they are a friend or a member of your group wanted it but not if they were an outsider. On truelly open random events there either needs to be ground rules established before rolling or there will be situations where people feel betrayed because they either had to give up items they could have used or were not passed items from the winner they though they should be given.
In open groups and raids people will not want to attend if they are not given a chance to win items that are upgrades for what they have. From my own exp in the last two months I have participated in over a 2 dozen open classic raids, durring the time I won the randum rolls 5 times on items that would have been an upgrade and usable, of those five times I passed four times because they call went up that thats the best melee augment in the game, or the best shield or belt. Speaking from experience it gets old passing on random loots after you have won to people who you most likely will never group with outside of a occasional raid or chance grouping.
Bottom Line When in AH raids the DKP system gives some compensation for people who pass on items usable by others, because it prevents thier DKP from being spent. In open raids where the loots are random not sure what the benefit is of passing by items you have won on the random roll. For groups out side of AH functions the rules will be what the group sets before hand and up to the individual players own discreation. People group and cooperate because 1) they like each other, 2) there is some benefit, 3) it allows them to do something they would not other wise be able to do. People typically dont group simplly for the benefit of others, who are strangers and they may never see again, short term that situation is possible but it gets old fast when you are asked to give and give with out any benefit,. It gets old faster when you go through the emotional roller coaster of "oh I won, crap have to pass it on to stranger W".
Take a look at the old communist social structure in Russia when benefit is determined by who you know and not on you particpation or support and you are asked to give and give without any consideration, the system becomes unsubstainable. I think we all want AH to continue to be succesful we need to keep it worth while for everyone to particpate, recently we watched as attndence dropped so low we either couldnt raid or couldnt raid anything but outdated content. People come and people go if everyone doesnt share in the reward at least a little more people will go then come.
People who become angry because they were not passed an item fall into the same category as someone who becomes angry because they rolled bad, I believe the term "three Year Old" sums it up. As with all three year olds they are not likely to get their way by fussing, most likely they will get the exact opposite result. If they are not your three year old then most likely you will avoid them when ever possible.

Yes it has been commented on I like to write.

[elric]

Summ, I understand your frustration, and I apologize for you feeling it.

For official open raids, we do that for recruitment.

Unofficial raids we do our best to be fair.

All I can say is AH does it's best to try, but we're human, and fail sometimes. We do discuss these things, folks.

I DO want the Naggy/Vox raids to continue though.

That said, till more are flagged, they'll have to remain open raids, with whoever leading them setting loot rules.


Elric, the gimp pally with the Ruby Slippers(tm)
_________________

[laenyani]

AH's policy on open raids is that it should always be random. It is used for recruitment. The more non Ahers have a chance of winning the more chance we have at keeping the pool of Ahers full and active.

Ah's policy on open content raid has always been normal loot rules. Its our opprotunity to help gear the masses on group mobs. The reason we do as a raid is we have a better chance of killing more named therefor getting more items, making more folks happy.

Ah's policy on normal raids has always been bidding. This is the reward for being an AH member and attending as many raids as you can. It allows you to build your tiers/dkp to win items.

Defaulting loot is seldom ever done. In the case of the runes you mentioned they were defaulted not because we particularly favored enchanters. It was because the raid force benifited more having the Haste spell from those runes than they would have from any other class spells available from those items. After the enchanters all had haste we went to /random for those items so folks didnt have to spend tiers/dkp and everyone had an equal chance of winning one. Other than the runes the only time i can recall an item being defaulted is because its use was for only 1 class and there was only one of the class on the raid who could use it. That is the only times an item should be defaulted on official raids.

Passing on loot is never encouraged by the leadership. Its a personal choice. Folks cant pass on loot then come back and say to the leadership why did I pass, I really wanted that.
_________________
Laenyani
Muse of Bristlebane
"I remember when patchwork was uber"

[Aleax]

[Ilumia]

I think this discussion is great, as you can see from the comments of the responders there are varrious opinions some very different from each other. Discussions like this help to get everyone's views out on the table.

I think the approach used by AH for a few select items being prioritized to a specific class for the benefit of the group is correct, I just feel there was a misunderstanding by some players that whole categories of equipment should be defaulted to class X, Y or Z that approach was a bit too strong.

The approach where specific items are called out for specific classes before the random rolls is the best approach.

I think the idea of using random loots on open raids to enhance recruitment is the best choice, I dont really see a better option when you have people participating that are not part of the After Hours DKP system.

In my opinon After Hours is a great group of people, it has good friendly players and the leadership is doing a great job. There are some squabbles between player from time to time but if they are talked out they can ussually be worked out.

I hope this discussion has been helpful for everyone to understand the though and options availble for looting rights, there are a many different considerations that have to be considereed and balanced. Its not an easy decision for anyone that gives it real though, the AH officers and leadership do a very good job of balancing and making the hard decisions.

See I can do shorter post but it takes practice.

[Ybolla]

1) Illumia's example of the Cleric is, as we all know, all too common. Only thing that can be done is have structured loot system that is adhered to.

2) AH HAS said structured loot system that is usually adhered to. I'm not sure what event sparked this thread, but I can infer it had something to do with Summ(?) winning a /random and the loot was instead awarded to another raider. That sucks. I hope it wasn't too big of a deal and no permanent damage was done.

3) Aleax is correct. To my knowledge Ybolla is the only regularly raiding Enc with RK3 GroupHaste. AH DID manage to get another couple Encs their runes but...havn't seen those Encs around a lot lately for whatever reason. The PITA is that it takes 8 runes to get the Haste spell. I think boxes should be at the back of the bus so to speak, but it'd be nice to have ALL regularly raiding Encs able to cast our best haste buff.

[Didokova]

I am working on getting an Rnchanter from my guild to Join AH they are hard to find once my husband gets his computer up and running he will level it up fast and join ah too

I have been bringing lots of guests on raids hoping they stick around and become members most i get are from my guild but i have got seveal others to show up too hopefully they become long term assets to AH
_________________

[elric]

Summ is not at all involved in starting this thread.

I and another caster are the reasons behind it. There are no negative feelings atm, this is something we felt needed to be discussed.

As Hasseo pointed out, some classes make better use of some items. Sadly, SOE puts too many classes on some items, and that will cause problems.

AH does NOT need problems folks, we need solutions. This thread is an attempt to find a solution.


Elric, the pally with too many beers in his belly to make his post longer...
_________________

[Famka]

So it would be better if there were 2 of those exactly the same shields, 1 only listing casters and 1 only listing tanks.
Nobody complaining the wrong class would loot it.

Ofcourse if that were the case, whenever there were no casters in the raid, their shield would drop and when there were no tanks, that one would drop.

I think its only a problem if you make it a problem.