Static item costs are a bad idea, imo, as we learned quickly fromw hen PiaS was a huge guild. But, it's your decision to make!

Uh, say item X drops and I bid 50

Item x drops next week, other paladin bids 1 because I have mine already.

Just an example.

although both static and auction type systems work, i think auction makes item purchases much more interesting. in any system, you need to discourage hoarding dkp, which is something auction does well.

But that is the price of knowing you can get that item now because it could be weeks till you would see it again.

Agreed. If you REALLY want something, you'll drop bank on it. And that helps move DKP around and is entirely beneficial to everyone else.

Right, I have no real problem with this system, I have had at least two people express frustration, so I figured I'd ask about a fixed system.

There's a pretty decent fix to this. Have a starting cost for items depending on how good it is. For a crappy back item start bids at 5, for a very good weapon or something, start bidding at 25, etc. Combine the two systems.

that's a decent idea, but there are over 1000 items that could possibly drop. it would be quite a challenge to objectively set a starting bid for these items that would be fair over time.

If you see the problem is that DKP isn't moving around... static prices would move even more DKP around.

For example, according for my spreadsheets (not really I just cheated and used greenridges "spreadsheets" LAWL)... only 31 items have gone for more than 25 DKP. (of 186 item transactions...) meaning only ~17% of the items that people have bid on have gone for more than 25DKP.

I'm guessing item level(correct me if I'm wrong) and item type plays a part in the item prices, but normally items would be 25-50DKP. Mean those tons of items that went for 5 or less dkp would have gone for their (higher)static prices meaning MORE dkp would be moving around.

This was just in regards to Itnot's comment about DKP movement.


I'm not against gearing up alts (seeing as I have several), but in the same situation, if someone is bringing an alt, they would be paying the same for items as someone's main. Doesn't sound fair for someone's main to pay 80 dkp for an item, just to have it go to someone's alt the next week for 12.

Why was it a bad idea? What made it such a bad idea? Just bc Pias was a big guild? (We only have 38 people in our dkp system... not all of them are active... and raids are only 10 and 25man)

From my experiences, static prices with zero sum has been the fairest and smoothest. No politics involved with bids etc. But I'm open to hear why it's a bad idea or why it doens't work.

Keep in mind, though, they're doing static item costs with zero sum, which means the points are still getting distributed.

I'm not entirely convinced that static or auction are the best either way, merely different. The benefit, imo, of auction-based prices are that the items will drop in value as time progresses.

With 25 man raid groups, it's getting close to the lower-bound where auction-based items go.

You COULD implement static prices for class-specific items, or combine "minimum prices" with the auction based. If you remember, that was how we did PiaS raiding: Minimum prices with auction-based.

If you have a way of balancing dkp so veterans don't have so much dkp hoarded up that new players won't get any decent gear for months it's not necessarily bad. But as greenridge pointed out, it takes a lot of time to determine point values for each item. And even if you find ways to simplify it (like assigning point values to specific stats or certain tier pieces) item values will change overtime as the items themselves become less desirable.

There IS another option (soon, anyway), but it would likely require you to transition from greenridge's setup (and I don't want to ruffle any feathers), but stat-based formulaic static prices can define an objective static item pricing setup. This is something I've got in the works, that would allow you to set up a custom formula for items, which would them import the stats of that item, apply the formula, and set the price accordingly. This allows you to give weights to certain stats as they are maximized for certain classes.

But this is probably a month or two off.

This particular problem was handled (at least partially) by decay.

Some of the reasons I prefer static item costs:

Item prices are set, meaning anyone that gets a certain item spent the same amount of DKP to get it... you can't get anymore fair than that.
(Note: I've heard of item prices being changed after a certain # of them have dropped, this may be to make it cheaper for newer people?)

DKP is moving around more, items go for their set prices, someone doesn't luck out and get it for 1 dkp

Rewards those that show up the most and/or have not gotten any pieces

Saves time on loot -- no more waiting around on bids; those who want the item send their tell in, person with most DKP at the time gets it (unless there's another way)

It's key to note that this setup requires a HUGE effort on the part of the officers to establish the pricing, AND to adjust the pricing over time. This is no trivial task (I say this as someone who did exactly this for over a year - it's a chore).



The 1-dkp stuff is a problem, absolutely. Minimum bids would help to alleviate that. When we did it, we'd simply say "The opening bid on this item is X DKP", where X is a number we either pre-determined, or if it hadn't yet been that, we would determine it on the spot.



I don't see how that's different either way. It's zero sum, which should just mean the prices are getting redistributed.



It'll be the same either way, in my experience. Either you're waiting on indecisiveness, or you're waiting on multiple bids. Either way, you're waiting on user-input. If you set a time-limit on the auction bids.

item prices should not be the same over time. imagine if on our first naxx25 clear, a betrayer dropped and since then, none have dropped. wouldn't you think that it should have gone for a very high price?

now imagine if a betrayer had dropped every week since our first clear. this item would basically be worth nothing, and we would probably be giving it to hunters for 1dkp.

This is an important point to make. Items do drop in relative value over time. The only two ways to balance that out is by:

1) Dropping prices over time, while new bosses keep their value
2) Keeping prices the same over time, and new bosses are worth more, which means, in a zero-sum system, new items need to be spent more.


The auction-based system has the unintentional side-effect, especially with a smaller raid (25 vs 40), of having that price drop like a rock because there are less players to compete against, while the static price system requires a HUGE amount of effort on the part of the officers, imo.

The prices-based-on-stats method would go a pretty long way to ensuring fair pricing, imo, which is why I'm finally making an effort to build it (it's been a feature request for years).

I'm with you, vetrans shouldn't be able to just horde DKP, and as chops pointed out, this is where zero-sum comes in. Greenridge has commented that our system is approximately zero-sum, with some decay factored in (am i wrong here?) so when new members are added, they start off with a certain amount, and it's still approximately zero sum. (LOL DKP-tax brackets for the top dkp earners)

I guess I should emphasize my first point on why I think static prices are better. And most of my reasoning does branch from the fact that item prices are set.

Talking to ismael today, one of the examples I gave was this: Person A -- reliable raider, shows up 90% or more of raids, has decent DKP. Has only 1 raiding character.
Person B -- Shows up about the same as Person A, earning equivalent DKP. Has an alt that occasionally raids.

Note: Ismael has set some guidelines on alts raiding (no new content, can't be decked out in greens, etc), but we've strayed away from the gear requirement (read: alts in greens getting carried)

Situation: Person A desires an item X, auction system, he bids 80dkp and wins.
Few weeks later, Person B's alt comes in, item X drops again, alt bids and wins with 20DKP.

With static based prices, if Person B's alt wants that item, he gets it for the same price as Person A. Otherwise, you can get into some sticky situations with people's alts getting "carried."

This looks like a good place to use my discretion.