Monday (15 Feb) - Understanding EPGP

Monday (15 Feb) - Understanding EPGP

No, EPGP is not another one of Wild's crazy toons. EPGP is the guild's new loot system. Now that I "think" that Wild has the right addons installed, and might be using them on Tuesday night (assuming the server is sane and assuming Wild gets an invite, neither of which have exactly gone Wild's way recently) I figured I'd better take a closer look at how this system works.

On the surface EPGP is one of several addons that award points to raiders for various things and set prices and criteria for using those points to get raid loot. Past systems Wild has used primarily tracked attendance (here or not here) and the amount of loot won (regardless of gear value). EPGP takes this a little further, in that it awards points primarily based on the time spent in the raid, and sets a specific price for every piece of loot.

EP stands for "effort points" and the guild has initially set that at 10 points for every 15 minutes in the raid. So the typical three hour raid would award a raider 120 EP.

GP stands for gear points. This is what you would have to pay for loot you won. The formula used is rather weird to me, but I'll show you what it is in case there is a mathematician out there who can explain it:

GP = square root of (item value) x 0.04 x slot value
Item value is a combination of gear ilevel and whether it is uncommon, rare, or epic gear
Slot value is a fractional value based on what gear slot the item goes into

The EPGP addon calculates that for us (I hope), but if that isn't complicated enough the actual price you pay is also subject to class/need/greed rules. Buying main spec gear costs the full value of GP; but buying an offspec item only costs 25% of the GP. That doesn't sound unreasonable, but there is still yet another wrinkle to consider when determining who actually wins the item, and that's PR.

Aha, what's PR? PR stands for Priority, and it's calculated by dividing GP into EP. The higher that number the higher the priority.

Finally, EPGP has a decay factor, which the guild assigned as 10% per week. Each week, both EP and GP is reduced by 10%. Use it or lose it.

Now you know about all the pieces. So, having not yet seen the system in action, here is how I hope it works. Let's assume Wild has some EP to spend. An item drops. The addon sends a popup "bid window" that shows the item and how much GP it costs. As set up by the guild, Wild can pick one of the following options: Main Spec, Minor Upgrade, Offspec, Greed, or Pass. It appears that only the full GP price is shown, but I'm hoping that fractional GP prices are also shown depending on the choice; otherwise folks are going to have to manually do those calculations to see if they want/can bid.

Once all bids are in (and here I am guessing a bit at the order of things), the addon will start with the options and then proceed to priority to choose the winner. For example, the addon would first check to see if there were any main spec bids, and if so then would pick the raider with the highest PR as the winner. If there were no Main spec bids, it would check Minor Upgrade, and so on down the line. This is all done automatically, with the item automatically announced and awarded to the winner. That in and of itself saves raids and loot masters a lot of time.

Now, to summarize what all this means. Here I am paraphrasing exactly what the addon authors designed the system to do. Using this system, regular raiders have the most EP to spend, and over time become the best geared raiders. These raiders, by the fact that they need less gear than others, will have the highest PR and therefore will always have the best chance to win the rarer, most sought after gear. Once at the top of the gear chain, as long as you maintain your EP, you will stay at the top of the gear chain.

Those who attend less, will get gear less often, plain and simple, and the gear received will be of less value.

There is nothing wrong or different about this system compared to any other system of loot distribution that tries to meet the needs of every kind of raider. I would call this a top down system, though, one that ensures that those who get the most time in raid (and making the assumption that the better raiders are the ones getting the raid time) get the best gear, and get it first.

So, the system is the system. The hard spot is going to be: How does the guild decide who gets to raid? With still a day to go, thirty guildies have signed up for the Tuesday night raid. There is as yet no firm guidance about how raid assignments are being made in this new situation where we have more raiders show up than we have spots available. So far all they've said is that everything is being taken into consideration from what roles are required to raid attendance, to how many times a raider has been asked to standby. It's a tough job.

As an example, the guild has made a wide swing in it's healer population seemingly overnight. We went from barely being able to scratch together six healers less than a month ago to the 11 healers we had show up last week. Wild did a rough tally of healers that responded to the raid calendar so far. Six dedicated healers have Accepted (which means, I will be there). Five more raiders who have healed but I'm not sure are main spec healers also Accepted. Four more healers are signed on as Tentative. That's potentially 15 healers. How do these factors determine a healer's place on the invite list? Does Accepted get priority over Tentative? Do main spec healers get priority for healing spots over offspec healers? If an offspec healer is actually a better healer than a main spec healer, who gets priority? Does being forced to standby in a previous raid carry extra weight, and trump these other considerations?

I don't know. Wild will be there, ready to go. It's all I can do.