Suicide Kings Loot System

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Overview 

• Important Links
• Why Use A Loot System?
• Enter Suicide Kings
• A Working Example
• How This Helps Us
• The SKG Addon
• Special Rules / Exceptions

Important Links

• WoWWiki's article about Suicide Kings: http://www.wowwiki.com/Suicide_Kings
• SKG (Suicide Kings Geo) via Curse: http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/skg.aspx
  • SKG FAQ: http://www.wowace.com/projects/skg/pages/faq/
  • SKG Detailed Documentation: http://www.wowace.com/projects/skg/pages/detailed-documentation/
• Guild of Awesomeness SKG Lists:  Coming soon.

Why Use A Loot System? 

In the past we have used a strictly roll-based loot system.  The problem is that distributing loot this way can actually be TOO fair.  How, you ask?  Because everyone has the same completely equal, yet completely random chance to win.  So you may lose 10 times in a row, or win 10 times.

We wanted to find a loot system that solved a few issues that came up around just rolling for gear:

• Was as easy as possible to use and maintain.
• Promoted the spreading of loot more evenly.
• Would allow the opportunity, for players that loot less often, to increase their chances of getting items they really want.
• Would still allow intermittent raiders to compete for loot, against those who raid often.
• Would impose a penalty, to conciously weigh, when loot is taken, so that people think more about what they roll on.

Enter Suicide Kings

After reviewing several systems such as DKP (far too complicated and hard to maintain), just adding a "you can only win one item per day" rule (didn't meet all our requirements), etc., we found Suicide Kings (SK).

There are only a few simple principles of the system:

• Players are put in an ordered list.
• The list contains players that are currently in the raid ("active"), and those that are not.  Inactive players do not change position, and active players move positions around them, between the position slots that contain active players.
• When players want the loot item in question, the player nearest the top of the list (the "King") of those that want it, drops to the bottom (commits "Suicide") of those currently participating in the raid.
  NOTE: There is no rolling involved.  Loot distribution is based soley on list position.
  
• Multiple lists may be used.  For example, you could have one list for each dungeon, so that looting in one, does not affect position in another.
• When a new player needs to be added to the list, it is possible to let him "roll in," or simply insert him at the bottom/middle/top of the list(s).
• If nobody wants an item, it's disenchanted (DE'd), put in the guildbank, or given to someone.
• Since players can not be in two places at once, the system can even keep synchronized across multiple raid groups.  Players that are inactive, and not changing position based on what one raid group is doing, are active, and changing postion for the other.

A Working Example

Lets take a quick look at how this works, in practice, with a simple example.

Here is what our list looks like to begin with, which contains 5 players: 

1. ThePaladin
2. TheWarrior
3. TheDruid
4. TheWarlock
5. ThePriest

Now, lets say we start a 3-man raid, and ThePaladin, TheDruid, and TheWarlock come along.  They become active.

1. ThePaladin
2. TheWarrior
3. TheDruid
4. TheWarlock
5. ThePriest

They kill a boss, and the coveted [Epic Item] drops.  ThePaladin, and TheDruid, both want the item.  Because he is higher up in the list than TheDruid, ThePaladin gets the item, and commits "suicide", dropping to the bottom of the active players.  The other active players all slide up to the next higher active position.  Notice that TheWarrior, and ThePriest do not change position, and that everyone else moves around them.

1. TheDruid <--
2. TheWarrior
3. TheWarlock <--
4. ThePaladin <--
5. ThePriest

They kill a second boss, and a different [Epic Item] drops. Only TheWarlock wants the item.  He drops to the bottom of the active positions, and everyone active below him (just ThePaladin right now) moves up. 

1. TheDruid
2. TheWarrior
3. ThePaladin <--
4. TheWarlock <--
5. ThePriest

How This Helps Us

There are a number of ways that this system helps us.

• Players are rewarded, by moving up in position, for letting others take the loot.  This encourages people to pass on an item that is a small upgrade, to hold out for a bigger one.  More "bigger" upgrades being handed out means that the guild as a whole is improving gear quality faster.
• Less randomness.  The loot gets distributed more evenly, since this is queueing system, like waiting in a line.  This helps the guild gear up together, and not have a lucky/unluck players with more/less gear than everyone else.
• People who are after specific items, can influence their chances of receiving them.  Frequent raiders are constantly being pushed up in the list as others loot.  Those hoping for a specific "best-in-slot" item can intentionally rise to the top of the list by not looting.  This not only increases a player's gear to peak levels, and thus the guild's overall gearing, but helps morale.  A player can reduce the chances that an ungeared player, that was brought in to fill a vacancy, will get the item they have been drooling over for months.
• It's fast and easy.  We can gain all these other benefits with a system that is fairly quick to distribute loot, and requires little maintenance.

The SKG Addon

NOTE:  The addon is 100% NOT REQUIRED by raid members, to participate in looting.  Only the leaders need the addon, and even that is just to simplify doing it, instead of pen-and-paper.

If you would like to install the SK, you will be able to follow along and view the list as it changes due to looting.  Raid leaders will take control of the list(s), by becoming the list master.  Everyone else who is running the plugin will be asked if they would like to begin syncing to the master.

There is only one setting to change.

1. Type /skg into the chat window to bring up the SKG window.
2. Click on the image in the top left corner to toggle through option panes.

Special Rules / Exceptions

There are a few other things that need to be accounted for. 

• This system favors your ability to loot over time, and de-emphasizes your ability to loot in the moment.  This means that you will get loot more consistently, likely an item every few boss kills, but you lose the ability to get on a rolling hot-streak, and can't win 10 pieces of gear in a row.  Be patient, and you will like it better this way.
• PUG players are difficult to deal with in this system.  Sticking them at the bottom of the list isn't fair, because it favors everyone else before them, but they didn't get loot to justify the penalty like others at the bottom of the list did.  Randomly inserting them could be fair, as could putting them at a fixed point, like the middle of the list.

More coming soon.