I recently got into this conversation with a guildmate and all I could think of was that it discouraged people from trying new content (for us worth only 1 pt / 2 hours and 2 pts for being on time or about 5 points per evening) over doing old "farmable" content (for us worth 3 points / kill and we get on average 20 points per evening). I was trying to suggest we lower the 3 points down as the items being dropped by these guys goes down as well ... we average about 200 points inflation per evening and about 3,000 points higher each month.

For example, last month our highest dkp person had 133. This month, we have 18 members over 133 and the highest is at 298.

But other than encouraging people to attend the groundbreaking new content, are there any other down sides to starting to inflate our dkp out of control where an evening is worth 20 points but people have literally thousands in their bank?

I recently got into this conversation with a guildmate and all I could think of was that it discouraged people from trying new content (for us worth only 1 pt / 2 hours and 2 pts for being on time or about 5 points per evening) over doing old "farmable" content (for us worth 3 points / kill and we get on average 20 points per evening). I was trying to suggest we lower the 3 points down as the items being dropped by these guys goes down as well ... we average about 200 points inflation per evening and about 3,000 points higher each month.Or remove the point per kill (shouldn't it be only on first-time kill anyway? Once it's in farmable list...) or don't give points on kills if no loot is given to anybody.

And people should be more willing to try new content, especially if they are already "full stuffed", rather than farm old easy killable mobs... No? :o

Do you have some sort of decay in place?
If not I'd recommend that. I agree though, we have been talking about not giving points for mobs we fail on or if no master chest is dropped. I'm a little leery though. I also have to think that at some point you just have to let the system work. Eventually something is going to drop that's going to cause a bidding war. Or, if the loot that is dropping is not worth spending points on why bothering doing those mobs?

Decay isn't necessary, as long as your income-outcome is roughly the same. We maintain zero-sum artifically, but we do so because new people entering our system aren't hopelessly behind. As long as the average DKP is zero, we know where to start people. [You can artifically start people at any point in your DKP system, but you get the idea.] Also, zero sum lets casual players in our guild keep their relative standing without the system passing them by. There's some inflation in the SIZE of our encounters, we now give more and take more, so that newer encounters are worth more, and that old items decay in their effective price.

Don't let people have millions of DKP when items cost 5. Admittedly, our top raiders have enough for 4-5 premiere items, but, honestly, they deserve it. As long as people at all points in your system can get some items, you're probably fine.

We average around 15-20 dkp a night but people spend 150 on most smaller items and over 300 on things like 2.0 orbs.

It works out for us. We also recently stopped giving dkp for wipes on trivial mobs. Not to bring down our DKP numbers, but to encourage us to not wipe. =p

But other than encouraging people to attend the groundbreaking new content, are there any other down sides to starting to inflate our dkp out of control where an evening is worth 20 points but people have literally thousands in their bank?

Yes. While this is a very extreme example it also helps demonstrate a point. If an evening, even a single item is worth 20, and people have thousands saved up over the course of a few months, say that breaks down to like 1,000 a month over 20 raids, or 50 per night on average, for example.

This is the downside. Someone can raid 19/20 raids (95%) versus someone that raids 18/20 raids (90%), and that 5% difference will result in over 2 extra items (or credit for 2 items in the future) each month for one (1) extra raid. It will reward your very very top tier of attendence a lot by giving them the edge, and fuck everyone below them, even if they are very marginally lower on the attendence scale. While this is a rather extreme example of inflation, that's essentially what it does over increased increments of time if you allow a solid amount of inflation. It rewards the top people much more, for not so much extra work.

Balancing dkp earned with dkp spent roughly, or for the most part eliminates this scenario, or makes it so unnoticable where it doesn't become a factor. A small amount of inflation won't hurt you very much, as long as you are fairly close to being balanced. Extreme inflation, however, does cause a lot of problems with people that will continually lose items to the person that manages to hit one extra raid a month than them.

We recently had this issue come up in our guild and it rapidly became a moot point as we entered Time 2.0 (a/k/a Anguish). Find a new farm zone and the points will take care of themselves.

Rizzoid pretty much hit the nail on the head. Find more targets to kill and the loot issues go away. Although every new zone/expansion a raiding guild hits you will always have those freaking little cry babies worried they won't get to loot an item first over the next player, who coincidentally probably played in the said guild months even years over the person complaining.

I visit my last guilds forum from time to time and each and every month loot topics rear its ugly head. Its the same thing over and over, although this time I see those at the top bitching and moaning at undergeared players who are hoarding their points for that "one" unique item all the while sacrificing many slots which are in need of serious upgrading. This is the only problem I see and one I hated... in this particular guild you can go negative many points but its all relative..all your loot points means is the order in which you get to loot an item if you so choose. In many cases it was those that played the most, almost 99.99% of the time. The ones that logged in 2-3 times a week where the biggest complainers and thread starters like it was those who played the most's fault that they had shit loot and shit for points. Ah the good old times of EQ.

Top heavy is bad. Eventually you'll have your very top tier of dkp earners capable of buying whatever they like still remaining miles ahead of anybody else. It may not be noticable right away, but over time it can create quite a problem.

We use a pretty basic system that awards points based on the items that were bought during a raid, keeping the average dkp for everyone at zero. The inflation issue came up with us recently because, as a wow guild, we have a number of people that are new to point systems and didn't understand why we didn't award points when nobody bought anything or we didn't kill any mobs, since we were still spending a lot of time raiding.

I think a lot of people feel like they're wasting their time when they aren't getting some kind of dkp reward for wiping learning new encounters (<3 repair costs).

In WoW there isn't the luxory of finding a new place to spend points since the difficulty level between BWL and MC is fairly signifigant and we can't get members out to BWL since its only worth 5 pts and MC is worth around 24 / night.

Top heavy is bad

Why do you think that those who both put massive amounts of time raiding and in many cases years with in their guild be such a bad thing. I know Talisman (different server but nonetheless) been around since Beta uses this very same loot system. There are people with 1000dkp and people with neg 300. Take a look at their roster and their mangelo's. No one is hurting for loot and in many cases the only deciding factor of who has the most points is simply who gets to loot first period. Wait your time and your turn will come as well. In Kelraz's sitaution... if your worried about people getting to high on dkp for an encounter you beat over and over. Lower the points earned and if the loot is rotting, no points should be awarded.

being top heavy in itself isn't a bad thing. being top heavy because of inflation cripples any new person coming into the guild. The people that raid the most will get the most points, and in most cases have many more, most likely a few loots more worth of points. This isn't a bad thing unless there's inflation. If there's rampant inflation then the already high totals are artifically higher still. DKP in must = DKP out, or at least very close.

DKP in doesn't have to equal DKP out, as long as you can calculate the median and make sure your casual players (if you support them) maintain their positions relative to the median; and if you enter your starting players there.

You can, however, start people where you want. Put them at the bottom if it makes sense to do so.

But, if you DON'T take those corrections, inflation is a problem.