Conviction Raid Changes for Cataclysm 11-07-10

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Conviction Raid Changes

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Updated 11-22

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We, as officers, have been discussing some major components that we would like to see in our upcoming raids in Cataclysm and would like to share some of those changes with all raiding members of the guild. The primary goal is to allow new members, as well as long time WotLK members, to get an idea of what is going to be expected during a raid, to get an idea of where we are headed as a guild and to understand what type of raiding environment we would like to create and uphold. This is also a chance for you, as a member of the guild, to offer any feedback if you wish to have an influence on the final implementation of these plans. Some of these changes may be slightly drastic to long time members of Conviction, so Officers are welcoming any criticism or suggestions that you may have. In game, Tore or Doug would be happy to handle and address any questions/concerns that you have. I would like to emphasize that these changes are being made to benefit the guild as a whole and, secondly, to benefit our members.

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Loot System

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The most major change that we will be implementing will be to our loot system. We will be switching from a straight DKP system to a Modified Loot Council based system. I understand that "loot council" drudges up various dark images in some players' minds, so lets first take a look at this new system before getting into the "why's" of making such a change.

Our former system was implemented at the beginning of Wrath and, up until Cataclysm, it was a system that worked decently in our guild; however, with the new changes that we have enforced throughout the past year, there have been too many flaws in the system for us to continue to want to use it. The Officers discussed what direction the guild should go into and then began searching for a suitable upgrade to the current system. The expectations of our former DKP system were to use points that were allocated evenly to distribute loot; however, even with the implementation of a decay effect, there ended up being point bloating, hoarding and ultimately the decision of where loot went was solely up to the individual. The Officers have decided that this method of loot distribution may not be in the best interest of the guild, since many players, as a result, were taking side grades over another players major upgrade.

The new system will use a Points System similar to that of DKP in which we, the Officers, will track Gear Acquisition, Effort, Attendance, and other similar factors. These points will then be used by the Loot Council to determine who gets what. This system is being put in place to give the Loot Council a clear and concise guideline which will allow for fair distribution to players that deserve gear the most, as well as ensure an even distribution of the loot by tracking who has gotten what in what time period.

Due to a developer issue with the LDS System we were previously intending on using, we have decided to simplify our loot system by not requiring the raider-made Priority Lists. Our reasoning is that the points system already ensures utmost fairness, and loot whispers already tell us you want it. This combined with the current state of the LDS System has led the officers to embrace a more lightweight and specifically Points-driven Loot System.

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Example:

It is December and we've managed not to commit suicide waiting for Cataclysm (hurray!). We're raiding, we have killed our first boss, taken our bad screen shots and it is now time to see who is going to get loot. As we all run to the next boss, the looted item will be linked. The raiders (for this example we will be using Teeze and Jub) will whisper the Raid Leader if they want the item.

Both Teeze and Jub whisper for [Epic Healing Mace Y].

The Officers will then refer to our Raider Points data. Using it they see that Teeze has suffered multiple Points reductions. These reductions will be given for several things such as absence, tardiness, and all-around derping. Meanwhile Jub has a Points advantage. Point gains will be given for several things as well, including excellent displays of effort and skill, consistent attendance, and all-around good-raiderliness.

Given that Jub has not received an over-abundance of loot in the last few raid days, his Points advantage would mean that he gets the Mace over Teeze.

Concerns have been voiced about this "over-abundance of loot" deal, worrying that loot would be given to undeserving players just because a more deserving player has had no competition. Rest assured that if a Raider truly does not deserve an upgrade, he/she will will be kicked from guild as we don't want bad or undeserving raiders here.

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Loot Distribution Factors

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The ways in which loot will be distributed will involve a number of factors not just performance as many nay-sayers of loot council believe. When deciding where loot will go there will be a number of positive and negative variables that go into the decision:

Positive Factors in Loot Distribution:
What will count towards you getting loot--

• Attendance.
  
• Punctuality to the raid.
  
• Guild Rank (Raiders before Trials, Officers are not above Raiders in Loot Distribution)
  
• Effort (did you single-handedly keep the raid alive at the last 4%? Were you one of the last 3 people alive and managed to get the kill? For these things you might get a bonus).

Negative Factors in Loot Distribution:
What will count against you getting loot--

• Absence (with no forewarning and reason).
  
• Tardiness.
  
• Last relevant loot received (if Rogue A has been scooping up loot left and right, priority will be passed to the loot-starved Rogue B regardless of Points assuming Rogue B deserves it).
  
• Fuck ups (Did your auto-shot pull the boss 3 times in one night? Is this the fourth time you've auto-ran into a trash pack? Did you "fall asleep" and pull Onyxia like three times? Etc.)

NOTE: There will no longer be an "on-time bonus" given to all raiders that are online and ready to raid for the time of our first pull. Instead, we will be issuing a "Late Penalty" to players who are not on-time and ready to start on the first trash pull. The reason for this change is that we believe players are more likely to be on time when faced with a penalty instead of a measly bonus. The penalty enforced will be significant and will most likely affect your chances at receiving loot. Obviously, everyone will have a night here and there where your boss, wife, teacher, etc. will have to keep you longer than expected but as long as we know or your excuse is valid there should not be a reason to enforce the penalty. Yes, we know that if your lateness is unexpected you may not be able to let anyone know but as tight-knit as we are, you are going to have someone's cell phone number. Please let that person know so they can let us know.

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Loot Distribution Procedure

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When a boss is dead and its time to give out loot, here is how the process will go down:

1. Master looters will link the piece of gear in question.
   - "/rw [Super Chestpiece of the Shit] PST me."
   
2. If you are interested in the piece of gear, you will then whisper the master looter with the piece of gear in which you are replacing.
   
3. The master looter will then relay all the tells to the other officers via officer chat.
   
4. All the different factors listed above will be taken into account.
   
5. Officers will make a decision.
   
6. Loot will be given.

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Raid Environment

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This is not quite as drastic of a change in comparison to our loot system, but there will be some specific changes:

1. There will no longer be ready checks except for when we come back from a scheduled break. We will begin our invites at 8:00pm server with the first pull will being at 8:30 server. That means that all players must be in the instance and ready to pull a few minutes prior to 8:30pm. From 8:30pm until 12:30am (when the raid is over), you are expected to be on Ventrilo, buffed and ready to raid. What this means is when a boss is dead, you are moving to the next set of trash while the loot is being distributed. There will be one to two, 5-10 minute breaks per raid for you to get up, stretch, hit the bathroom and get a drink. However, in order to make the most of the 3 nights that we raid, we ask that you limit extended breaks for when it is called. We plan on running a heavier wait list so constant or unannounced AFK's will result in a bench seat so that the rest of the raid can continue to run quickly and smoothly.
   
   
2. The Waiting List. The reality of a 25 man raid group is unfortunately not possible for a healthy guild. Our ultimate goal for our roster is around 28-30 consistent raiders. No one wants 10 people on the bench per night, but we also know that RL happens and that not many people will be able to maintain 100% attendance, nor do we expect that over months and years of raiding. With the help of our new loot mod, we will be implementing a stricter waiting list policy. We want to make sure that the same people are not sitting on the sidelines and missing upgrades by being sat. Aside from being able to keep track of who has sat on the waiting list recently, we will also be able to see who needs what off of specific bosses. In the event that we see a potential major upgrade for someone who is benched, the first course of action will be to ask for a volunteer who would not mind switching out. In the event that no one wants to volunteer, the Officers will take into account the raid composition needs, who does not need loot off said boss, attendance, and previous loot received to decide who will be swapped out.
   
   
3. There will no longer be a raid sign up section on the forums for our main raids. Raiders will no longer be required to sign for every night's raid. Instead, there will only be an Absence Thread for each month. If you cannot make a raid for whatever reason, you will be required to make a post in the thread stating that you will not be able to make the raid. Along with this, you must have the date of the raid missed somewhere in the post. A reason for absence is not required.
   
   
4. Assignment Channels. In order to create a smoother raiding experience, we have decided to add to something that we have been doing for a while.
   

We would like to add several chat channels to allow us to communicate raid assignments in a hierarchy fashion rather than to have 25 people speaking over each other in Raid Chat with the Officers attempting to give out instructions. We have attempted to use over Ventrilo or in-tell assignments but, unfortunately, not everyone receives given instructions for whatever reason. In order to eliminate confusion, we will be implementing the following channels:

• Tanking Channel - Voltage
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  All MT/OT
  
  
• Healing Channel - Teeze
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  All Healers
  
  
• Crowd Control Channel - Doomwreck / Doug
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  Mages, Locks, Rogues
  
  
• Stuns/Interrupts Channel - Cathexis / Torethirnyi
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  Rogues, Dks, Shams

The Healing Channel has already been a channel that has been utilized for years in Conviction. The concept is the same, with additions made for other necessary assignments. The classes listed are not set in stone, they are simply basic ideas and people will be asked to hop in and out of channels based on specific encounters. In order to avoid confusion with the assignments, we are going to ask members to not "hang out" in channels that they do not need to be in (for example: CC classes hanging out in healer channel and vice versa) and that these channels be kept as clear as possible so that assignments can be clearly determined. Basically, next to each of the channels an officer designated to make sure that the proper players have the assignments we need. Channel names will be given out on a personal basis so that we do not have non-Conviction members joining our channels.

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How will all of this look?

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The ideal pull from the start of an instance would look something along the lines of this:

We expect Crowd Control to play a much larger role in Cataclysm raiding. The classes listed above will, by default, enter their respective channels at the start of or prior to the beginning of a raid. Doug or Doomreck will be responsible for marking CC targets and relaying assignments to the Crowd Control channel. When all players are clear on their targets, Doug will message Shinebox and let him know that his channel is clear. When all channels have been cleared, the individual Officers will give his/her go ahead to the Raid Leader. The pull will then begin and trash will be cleared to our first encounter. The Raid Leader will still be giving a general overview of the fight.

For example, "Voltage will be tanking the boss here, melee will be doing this, ranged/healers will be doing this, etc." depending on the particular fight. All channels will handle their necessary assignments, clear to Shinebox, pull and kill trash mobs, move to next trash during loot, rinse and repeat!

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Recruitment

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We are still looking to fill out our roster for Cataclysm. Our current class needs are:

• Blood DK
  
• Rogue
  
• DPS DK
  
• Ret Paladin
  
• Holy Paladin
  

None of this is set in any kind of stone and Officers reserve the right to add, delete of modify any of these changes. There are certain things that Officers may not be willing to change, things that we are more than willing to change and things that we may not have even thought of. Again, these changes are being made to make the most of the time that we spend raiding. To make it smoother, cleaner and hopefully more fun. I think we are all a bit competitive and want to stay as close to the top as possible in Cataclysm with a 3 day schedule. We hope that these changes will put us in the right direction to do so. Any concerns, ideas, suggestions, and anything that relates to feedback would be greatly appreciated.


~Officers of Conviction

Well I support Loot Councils completely. It might just be that I was a tank in my BC guild that used a Council system and I didn't really have to share, but w/e. I liek em.

This one seems to put a LOT of emphasis on BiS though, which I've always thought is kind of silly. How many of us, after a year of ICC raiding are in full BiS. Theres a ton of gear in between heroics and BiS and there didn't seem to be any method for requesting or distributing this gear. The video or the post mentioned that you could prioritize which gear you wanted the most which is fine, but it didn't seem to imply that this would be done on a slot by slot basis. Even right now there are I think 5 weapons better than what I currently have, but not as good as heroic Oathbinder. Will we be able to create slot by slot lists? I'm not sure how great a toll that would take on a mod, but it seems to me that if we're going to be operating off of wishlists, that ranking every piece of gear you *could* want would be the best bet. If 10 people want X piece of gear, which is BiS for none of them, you could simply check which one of them ranked it the highest. Maybe thats what the mod intends and what the video implied, but it seemed to completely gloss over nonBiS gear.

The way he went through arbitrarily ranking the gear kind of confused me as well, but that seems like its mostly an officer issue.

Also you mentioned a late penalty, which I have no real qualms with. You'll find (I hope) that I'm always on @ 8 or earlier to gather flasks and do whatever I need to prepare. I do wonder exactly what this penalty will entail though. Since you're no longer using a system that assigns an actual number or value to a player, I wonder how you will fairly punish people. With DKP you can simply remove X points and be done, and that person might still be on top, so they've lost no loot. Will this penalty just be a straight loot exclusion, or maybe a downranking on all loot priorities? I do wonder.

The website is just so that the officers can easily track who has gotten what and when. All the decision making will be taking place with a numerical ranking system the officers are putting in place. You are ranked on the criteria provided above in the Loot section. Numerical ranking will not be public. Based on the criteria above you should have a good idea on your standing.

As for the "arbitrary ranking" in the loot website, it's not arbitrary, it just was in that video. YOU, the raiders, will decide how you will rank a piece of gear. You will be making a priority list (or two or three) on Wowhead (or other supported website) and we, the officers (or you if we can get the devs to make importing by raiders possible without seeing other raiders' lists) will be importing those lists to the loot website. You decide the value of a piece of gear, the website just tell us, the officers, that you want it and where it drops from. It also tells us if you got it and when you got it for the purposes of making sure that one guy isn't hoarding. Wowhead has built-in stat scaling on their item filters so it can make a nice list for you very easily that you can later tweak.

Here's my take on the BIS thing.

Don't think about it as BiS, and I actually should have mentioned to remove that and replace it with "priority." What is on your list doesn't have to be your BiS, you decide how to rank your loot. It is your desired priority for loot, a "request" if you will. If you want to rank the slightly lesser belt over the BiS one in hopes that it drops sooner, you can. But, of course, the better belt (and everything else) gets bumped down. The intention here is to make sure that the best loot goes around evenly. We don't want one guy rocking full BiS while everyone else is still clawing at upgrades. If you rank all your BiS max, then you won't be getting anything until BiS loot starts dropping. We want you to have to think and make decision on what you want, not just default to "I want my BiS and I'll take anything else they give me."

The list should be able to have multiple items of the same slot. So you can have one better belt and one lesser belt. You will have to prioritize them separately. It will be your decision whether or not to prioritize the lesser belt higher. Say the lesser belt is on a boss we have on farm and the better belt is on a boss we still have trouble with. If you prioritize the lesser belt higher you have better chances of winning it but whenever the better belt drops you're at a disadvantage. The inverse is also true.

Also in my head I'm leaning towards having two lists, one for Normal modes and one for Heroic. This will alleviate clutter and help you itemize since I know that, in rare instances, the heroic one might be worse due to stat caps and stuff.

Rawkstar wrote:

Also you mentioned a late penalty, which I have no real qualms with. You'll find (I hope) that I'm always on @ 8 or earlier to gather flasks and do whatever I need to prepare. I do wonder exactly what this penalty will entail though. Since you're no longer using a system that assigns an actual number or value to a player, I wonder how you will fairly punish people. With DKP you can simply remove X points and be done, and that person might still be on top, so they've lost no loot. Will this penalty just be a straight loot exclusion, or maybe a downranking on all loot priorities? I do wonder.

We will have some numbers running in the background to keep track of bonuses and penalties. These number will be run on a small scale i.e. small increments given so that when a penalty is given, it will have a greater affect.

Not gonna lie but after 4 months in conviction with alot of patience i ended with pretty much all my bis, but then again I was always lucky with drops

Gryffith wrote:

Not gonna lie but after 4 months in conviction with alot of patience i ended with pretty much all my bis, but then again I was always lucky with drops

And the idea for Cataclysm isn't to back pedal in anyway. We think we can just deliver things smoother with this method.

i haven't watched the whole video yet but this seems like a very practical solution. a lot of loot-council based guilds tend to wing how they distribute loot and i felt it was always haphazard at best. i never liked DKP because people hoarded it all for BiS gear, or some malicious players would run up prices to get others to waste theirs. the only advantage i saw in it was that it was a structured system, whereas loot counciling was always done on-the-fly. "oh, hmmm, well he has good attendance and it's a great upgrade for him, let's give it to him" doesn't hold as much water as spending currency on an item. with this it looks like a fully-functioning system that encourages a level of interaction and thought between the players and the guild.

i REALLY like the idea of how if a raider puts all his/her BiS gear on priority, he/she may not really get anything else and could be stuck in a drought where nothing drops, whereas a player will put his/her non-BiS gear on priority will get more benefits early on, though in the end it should balance out as the BiS player gears up. my only question is, if RNG comes in and mucks everything up by dropping BiS gear constantly, will the player(s) who put BiS gear at the top get ALL the BiS gear that drops, or will some level of intuition on the officers still factor in for the other players?

Slowpenguin wrote:

my only question is, if RNG comes in and mucks everything up by dropping BiS gear constantly, will the player(s) who put BiS gear at the top get ALL the BiS gear that drops, or will some level of intuition on the officers still factor in for the other players?

In the event that one person is hoarding too much loot and distribution is unbalanced, Loot Council will intervene. The LDS website tracks dates of gear acquisition, so it should be a quick and simple process to determine when one person is getting too much.

/rw [Super Chestpiece of the Shit] im glad i have that piece already..


as much as i dont enjoy the change i do. because now jub wont have my off hand >:O.
also is that a semi reason my constant nagging of it? i hope so but not really.

as for the raid starting at 8:30 thank you ive been waiting for that...i hate late raid starts that we had. so basically me and rac have identical gear. basically the same other than pants/boots.

if /rw [Super Chestpiece of the Shit] drops and i have it 3rd on my list and rac has it second and we have identical items, he would get it cause its second on his list? just want no holes in my head. but rac wont be here just a hypothetical. gonna miss my rac ...

btw us shadow priests need a "only good players in the raid" channel.. im sure jon agrees.

Brace wrote:

if /rw [Super Chestpiece of the Shit] drops and i have it 3rd on my list and rac has it second and we have identical items, he would get it cause its second on his list? just want no holes in my head. but rac wont be here just a hypothetical. gonna miss my rac ...

Assuming you and Rac had similar attendance, punctuality, and loot distribution, yes.

Basically this:

-Priority list tells us how much you want it.
-Attendance/effort tracking tells us how much you deserve it.

In the scenario you mentioned, assuming you deserve it equally, it would go to the person who wants it the most, i.e. the person who has it higher on their list.

Show up and down bosses; gear drops. From what I have seen so far the people in this guild can DPS, HPS and TPS in any gear. Maybe this sounds flippant, but I don't care about gear. It's just icing on the cake. As long as the guild cares about its members and the officers don't show rampant favoritism any system works. I can say that the immense amount of thought and consideration the officers seem to have put into this shows that they do care about the guild as a whole so I am not concerned.

Heh, after reading my post it sounded negative. D: Meant to be a good thing.

We have revised the Loot System that we will be using. It mostly remains the same, but due to development issues with the LDS we are choosing not to use that feature.

Please read the changes in the Loot System section of the initial post for a more detailed explanation, as well as further elaboration of the current Loot System.

Interesting system.

I have always preferred Loot Council to anything, because it favors progression and "what is best for the raid."

This could work. Do we have to "do" anything aside from show up and raid, linking our loot? Like MAKE those BiS "want" lists?

Lenneth wrote:

Interesting system.

I have always preferred Loot Council to anything, because it favors progression and "what is best for the raid."

This could work. Do we have to "do" anything aside from show up and raid, linking our loot? Like MAKE those BiS "want" lists?

We are no longer requiring raiders to create BiS or "want" lists. If you would like to do so in your leisure time, for your own personal benefit, than I would encourage you to do so; however, it will not be held against you during a raid if you do not have one.

We require raiders to show up on-time, be prepared (flasks/pots/food/repaired), follow the new and old implemented rules and perform to the best of your abilities. When loot is being distributed, you will need to link the current piece of gear that you will be replacing to the LM. We will do the rest from there.