We tried 80+ on Deathwing extending the first week lockout. Couldn't kill him. We farmed a month and he went down in 5 tries.
This proves a significant shift from the WotLK and 4.0-4.1 design. Output now matters and dance is secondary. In the previous contents literally blue geared players could kill end season bosses as long as they did not fail in the various bizarre dance moves. While the Dragon Soul bosses still have annoying amount of dance, they also have performance requirements. You can wipe despite no dance fails if you have insufficient DPS and HPS.
This design works as you can see from the statistics of MMO champion. On the first month 67K players completed Firelands, but 175K Dragon Soul and 1.31M LFR. The content is clearly used by players but still not facerolled and spitted on. We have every reason to believe that this way of design will continue (success continues, failure fixed)
However such approach increase the importance of gear. In WotLK and 4.0 but especially in 4.2 gear was purely cosmetic or "quality of life" feature, providing only bragging rights and faster runs. In DS and probably MoP gear will significantly effect your performance and chance of kills.
However this rises the question of gear distribution systems. At first I'd like to point out that in a fixed-roster guild gear distribution is irrelevant. The piece will increase the future performance of the raid, regardless of who wield it. Besides loot whores (socials who want to show off their gear), no one will gives a damn who gets the drop as long as he doesn't quit instantly. If you don't get drops, you still enjoy their benefits as your raid can kill more bosses.
In non-fixed raids on the other hand gear distribution will be crucial. There you must mind your own gear as there is absolutely no guarantee that the other guy will raid with you again. He can stop playing, he can quit the guild, he can go casual, he can simply raid on other days as you and you can leave too. In such guilds the only gear that increase the performance of your future raids is your own gear.
So let's analyze the loot systems from the non-fixed perspective:
This leaves nothing but gold bid. Here you are instantly compensated for your performance. You get something that is not bound to the guild, something that you can use instantly by buying BoEs, consumables, enchants, gems. I believe gold bid will become the standard in non-fixed roster raiding guilds. We use it for more than a year without a single loot drama or even debate.
This proves a significant shift from the WotLK and 4.0-4.1 design. Output now matters and dance is secondary. In the previous contents literally blue geared players could kill end season bosses as long as they did not fail in the various bizarre dance moves. While the Dragon Soul bosses still have annoying amount of dance, they also have performance requirements. You can wipe despite no dance fails if you have insufficient DPS and HPS.
This design works as you can see from the statistics of MMO champion. On the first month 67K players completed Firelands, but 175K Dragon Soul and 1.31M LFR. The content is clearly used by players but still not facerolled and spitted on. We have every reason to believe that this way of design will continue (success continues, failure fixed)
However such approach increase the importance of gear. In WotLK and 4.0 but especially in 4.2 gear was purely cosmetic or "quality of life" feature, providing only bragging rights and faster runs. In DS and probably MoP gear will significantly effect your performance and chance of kills.
However this rises the question of gear distribution systems. At first I'd like to point out that in a fixed-roster guild gear distribution is irrelevant. The piece will increase the future performance of the raid, regardless of who wield it. Besides loot whores (socials who want to show off their gear), no one will gives a damn who gets the drop as long as he doesn't quit instantly. If you don't get drops, you still enjoy their benefits as your raid can kill more bosses.
In non-fixed raids on the other hand gear distribution will be crucial. There you must mind your own gear as there is absolutely no guarantee that the other guy will raid with you again. He can stop playing, he can quit the guild, he can go casual, he can simply raid on other days as you and you can leave too. In such guilds the only gear that increase the performance of your future raids is your own gear.
So let's analyze the loot systems from the non-fixed perspective:
- /roll: totally random, so totally "fair". Far from it! You can only roll on upgrades (and actually there is no point rolling for non-upgrades), so the more geared you are, the less items you can roll on. On the other hand the guy in starter gear who did half of your performance can roll on everything, including that last piece you want. /roll favors undergeared players seriously and give no incentive to players with gear to participate
- Loot council: this is a complete nonsense in a non-fixed system even if the council is completely unbiased and fair (good luck finding such). The reason is that the "perfect" loot council distributes the loot according to the needs of the raid. But the very point is that there is no such thing as "the raid" in a non-fixed environment. So even the "perfect" council will decide based on the blind guess on "who will stay longer and be more active".
- DKP: fair if the guild remains successful and active in raiding. You earn DKP according to your effort and you can buy gear from it. But in a casually raiding guild "successful and active" cannot be guaranteed by definition. If everyone comes and goes as he pleases no one can tell if there will be raid tomorrow. Or ever. So you just gather your DKP and then the guild stops raiding and your DKP worth zero. Also, just because some guy were raiding under this guild name longer, he'll have more DKP despite he did not do anything more for your success. He got his DKP raiding with other people.
This leaves nothing but gold bid. Here you are instantly compensated for your performance. You get something that is not bound to the guild, something that you can use instantly by buying BoEs, consumables, enchants, gems. I believe gold bid will become the standard in non-fixed roster raiding guilds. We use it for more than a year without a single loot drama or even debate.
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