SWAPS loot system offers another DKP option
by Mike Schramm 
Jul 9th 2009 at 1:00PM
I'm finding myself really fascinated with loot systems lately -- the old DKP is pretty good, but even that has drama, and it seems like there's a lot of interesting ideas going around about how to evenly and fairly distribute loot amongst a group of people. OutDPS has a writeup about a loot system called SWAPS. Instead of sending "points" off into the void, you actually "give" your spent points to everyone else in the raid. You start out with 1,000 free points (though those are distributed over time, to prevent new players from having tons of points early on) and then when an item comes up, everyone bids on it: the highest bid gets the item and the points they bid are spread around to the rest of the raiders. In other words, if someone in a 10-man raid bids 500 points and wins an item, those 500 points are distributed evenly amongst the other nine raiders. While the winner loses the 500 points they spent, everyone else gets a bonus 56 points. The person winning the item "pays" for the privilege of taking it by beefing up everyone else's point totals.It is probably not a perfect system (there's no way to reward points for anything other than loot dropping, for one thing, and while some people have modified the rules to create a separate bidding pool for class items, the basic system doesn't cover class or offspec items), but it does solve a lot of the questions of fairness, and it keeps everything pretty above-board: if you are low on points, the only reason would be that either you just started raiding, or that you've just spent a lot of points on an item. There's an addon, of course, and it will give you all sorts of reports and updates on where all of your raiders are at in the system. If you've been poking around for a DKP system that is based on being open and fair, it might be worth trying out in your guild.
Filed under: Items, Analysis / Opinion, Tips, Guilds, Add-Ons, Instances, Bosses
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
eblume Jul 9th 2009 1:09PM
Combine with this the rule that the winning bidder pays the 2nd highest bid and you'd have a very solid point system indeed!
Treason Jul 9th 2009 1:18PM
And enforce no minimum bids, therefore they could pay zero for loot only they want, and you'd even prevent the 'forgoing early upgrades' problem.
Kyale Jul 9th 2009 1:25PM
So they would pay the second highest bid in addition to their own? Or..what? Sorry, I'm new at all this, and that confused me a bit
eblume Jul 9th 2009 1:42PM
I know it sounds crazy, but in a closed bid system (where people don't bid and then listen to other bids then rebid like in classic Auction Houses), having the winner pay the 2nd highest bid price is the fairest way to bid. It's actually the same system EBay uses, albeit in a slightly different manner - let's say person A bids $50 and person B bids $100. Person B would be listed as the winner, paying $51. The extra dollar is a triviality to make things seem more fair to the uninitiated, the effect is the same.
http://www.beyonddiscovery.org/content/view.page.asp?I=3685
There are other "fair" closed-bid systems, too, but this one is very effective and simple to implement. Basically, it encourages people to 'game' the system in a fair way by simply bidding their entire DKP pool every time they want an item.
outdps Jul 9th 2009 1:09PM
It's one of the simplest and fairest feeling systems I've been in so far. And these systems are all about how fair they feel. Nothing like an invisible hand of a "market" for that ;)
Tridus Jul 9th 2009 1:09PM
Looks pretty similar to the zero-sum system. Though I'm not sure why this is better then standard DKP, since that lets you earn points on progression nights when you might earn a 200g repair bill and not see anything drop.
outdps Jul 9th 2009 1:18PM
This is the one weakness. Luckily, since the loot from a new boss is typically incentive enough to get people spending 200g on repairs, we dodge the bullet. Still, this system won't work for all guilds, especially not hard pushing progression ones.
Vanyl Jul 9th 2009 1:11PM
We used to use that in my old guild. Just called it DKP modified. The only thing you run into issue with we noticed is when people bid low on items in 25-mans. Need to bid min. 25 to get 1 across the board which was hard (the person bidding also got the return in our guild's method). They also gave 5 (later on 10) for on-time/preparedness.
Glaras Jul 9th 2009 1:13PM
Nope. Our guild uses EPGP to make sure it's fair and equitable. Does it mean that sometimes someone doesn't get something they'd really love to have, but they can't? Sure, but with EPGP it's never because someone else who always gets the great loot has the RL's ear.
http://code.google.com/p/epgp/
outdps Jul 9th 2009 1:16PM
I liked epgp too, but I prefer 0 sum because it allows new raiders to get loot faster.
Screwblade Jul 9th 2009 1:19PM
EPGP is the only way to fly.
Morcego Jul 9th 2009 3:35PM
We used to have something like an open roll system on our guild. There were a few exceptions of course, like new people not being able to get items for a given time (or number of raids).
We eventually migrated to EPGP, and we are VERY happy with it. It takes some time to find exactly how to make EPGP work for you. What will you be giving EP for ? What decay ? and so on. It took us almost 2 months to get everything to where it was (plus 2 months of research before we implemented it). But right now, everyone loves the system. Even the new people who come in and have 0 PR. They can see their priority raising fast (because they are not getting loot), and the PR of the people higher on the list dropping fast too. Ok, the gap will still be big for some time, be since they can see the gap closing, it is not a problem for them.
As an officer, I know I'm not the most unbiased person to say this, but I think EPGP was exactly what we needed. Specially with EPGPLootMaster (addon). Loot distribution is so much easier overall.
thebvp Jul 9th 2009 1:15PM
This sounds almost identical to the zero sum system which has been around for almost as long as WoW has been around. It's not anything particularly new.
outdps Jul 9th 2009 1:17PM
This is 0 sum, although 0 sum is more of a math concept than a loot system. This is basically just an addon that has a bidding system and database and does all the math for you.
Heilig Jul 9th 2009 1:29PM
This is exactly what I was thinking. This is nothing new, there's just a shiny addon now.
Reyven Jul 9th 2009 1:37PM
Exactly. This is just zero-sum DKP under a new name and with 1000 points pr player as the total sum instead of 0 points. The end result is the same.
[CK3]-Big_V Jul 9th 2009 4:05PM
Yup. It's simply Zero Sum DKP. Nothing new to see here...move along...
Kak
outdps Jul 9th 2009 4:40PM
To clarify- swaps has been around since before BC.
Lorem Jul 9th 2009 1:17PM
Our guild uses SKG.
Klatz Jul 9th 2009 1:17PM
The weakness is the lack of points given for wipes. So if you're a progression raid there's less incentive to attend new bosses. I also like EPGP but you still have the problem of inflation. You can tinker with the inflation rate but it's still problem for new raiders in well established guilds. I like the zero-sum system with some modification for minor upgrades better in that way.