DKP, Alts and You

[Bishan]

So, right now we've got people who are pretty geared on their mains, and are thinking about taking alts in on some of the easier raid nights. This is fine imo, as long as we don't really need your main. There will be times when we do need your main, and you should hop on it without bitching. We won't be heavy handed with this, but you guys know we need certain numbers of things to have the raids run smoothly.

Now for the real meat of it...
Everyone's probably been wondering some of these questions:
Do we have DKP bridged to a person, or is it per character?
Will Alts ever take gear over me when I'm a main?
How do we declare mains and alts?
(saved room for more as I think of it.)

So here's the answers you've all been waiting for:

DKP will be registered to the person, under their main characters name. That means if I raid on Beastman instead of Bishan, I'll get that DKP under one name, Bishan. Time registered is on a per person basis, not per character. Despite the character you play on, you as a person are still contributing and thus it will be credited to you and not a specific character.

Alts will never be able to take gear in raids over mains. Before anyone screams and whines, you guys should all realize that we're gearing up in order to move on. There is always more content to do, and by allowing alts to take items over mains, we would be gimping the guild as a whole by diluting the gear even further. Now, you, as an alt, are allowed to take MC gear as long as no main wants it. If you spend the points on it, it comes out of your DKP pool, which represents you (or all characters).

You will have a declared main and listed alts. Everyone's main atm is very obvious I feel. If you've taken gear from a raid on a character, then that's your main. IE...Bishan is my main, Anna is Anna's main, Spud is Spud's main. Now, just because something is your main now does not mean you won't ever be able to change it. If you wish to change your main, you must have a valid reason/decision, the officers must agree on this, and 66%(2/3) of the class you'll be switching to must give the OK. This seems a little drawn out, but really it isn't a big deal. No officer is a nazi. If you really want to play another class as your main, we'll probably give the OK on it. We won't force you to stay any class if you really don't like it. The class vote is something that shouldn't be a problem, as most people are cool...it's just to make sure that they feel like you're sincere and whatnot. One thing we won't stand for is someone gearing up a guy, switching, then switching back after the alt has gear. That would really hurt the guild, and we think you all realize this.

Now, I wanted to post this because it is something that's coming up as an issue. People are bringing alts to raids, which is definitely not a problem, we're all in this for fun, but we officers felt like this could be an issue. In an effort to clear all this up, this is what we've come up with. Now, this is all subject to change. This is the best we have come up with for now, and if something is deemed not right via further experience then we'll change it. We as officers just wanted to let you know what we are thinking, so there it is.

[walkamoly]

time to start leveling the druid and the warlock

[Bishan]

Well, it'd be less gear wasted =P You should also keep in mind that since you earn from the same pool, you also spend from the same pool.

[walkamoly]

so in a couple months when my priest hits 60 i can come be useful to the raid and earn points that i can spend with the warrior later? good deal.

[Tago]

yeah Walk, thats what it sounds like to me

[Bishan]

As your warrior will still be your main, when we do new content, we'll always expect you to bring your warrior. It is a problem apparently though, as I see this as a sarcastic remark to hoard dkp for use on another char. We may do some kind of tracker such that if you raid too much for too long on an alt, you'll have to make that your main...thus circumventing that problem. Like I said, this is a current rough draft. I'm just setting up the best we came up with currently, we'll add to it if problems arise.

[Shadaraman]

I don't really see a problem here Bish. If we need a person to play on their main, I'm sure most people will be willing to. If not, we can bitch at them until they do. What I see in walk's post is a good thing. People will be willing to bring an alt of a needed class if they can still spend the DKP later on the char they prefer.

[duff]

Originally Posted by Shadaraman

I don't really see a problem here Bish. If we need a person to play on their main, I'm sure most people will be willing to. If not, we can bitch at them until they do. What I see in walk's post is a good thing. People will be willing to bring an alt of a needed class if they can still spend the DKP later on the char they prefer.

but then there "needed" class alt char will be equipped crappy cuz tehy never spend dkp points on it, and only get crap that is about to get DE'd which is only druid shit right, therefore hurting teh raid maybe? not sure, guess there unneeded class main would be super geared though, I dont know fuck it I give up,

over all I like the idea, as long as assclowns dont do stupid asshole shit.

[Bishan]

Originally Posted by duff

over all I like the idea, as long as assclowns dont do stupid asshole shit.

Quoted for truth.

[walkamoly]

Originally Posted by Bishan

As your warrior will still be your main, when we do new content, we'll always expect you to bring your warrior. It is a problem apparently though, as I see this as a sarcastic remark to hoard dkp for use on another char. We may do some kind of tracker such that if you raid too much for too long on an alt, you'll have to make that your main...thus circumventing that problem. Like I said, this is a current rough draft. I'm just setting up the best we came up with currently, we'll add to it if problems arise.

I didn't mean that sarcastically, i meant it more in a "I'll park the priest outside MC so it can get summoned for dispellbot duties when needed and still get dkp on my warrior" kinda way. Specifically on bosses like harryp where i feel fuckin worthless sitting on walkamoly shooting my crossbow every 7 seconds or whatever the insanely long cooldown is. At least on the priest i'd have to pay attention.

[spudicus]

I understand the underlying theory of this, we want to gear everyone up so we can move on. However, if alts are basically taking things that would otherwise be disenchanted, should we have to pay dkp for them? At the very least shouldn't it be discounted? If not, not only do you have to wait months before you can get loot, you now have to spend from your pool taking from the points you would potentially use at some point to gear your main up better.

While I agree with the idea that we should gear everyone up, in essence, the current plan is effectively saying alts get no gear (or don't play your alts), without actually saying it.

I was also wondering what the cutoff is. Do I have to concede gear to someone with a 30% attendance rate when they show up once in a blue moon?

I want to gear my hunter, but I don't want to hurt the guild. It just kind of feels like the 100's of hours we spent raiding in a different guild are now counting against us. I mean I had like 400 dkp unspent when bt went down. I have nothing I need in mc. I'll probably have 500 or so dkp by the time we start getting anywhere in bwl, and even then spudicus has very little he could use in bwl. I'm rambling...

[spudicus]

I think the big question is how far do we seriously expect to go in the future. MC and onyxia will always take 2 nights. That leaves at most 1 night to do other raid content if we don't want to start raiding during the weekdays too. To get anywhere in BWL its going to take multiple frustrating runs per week for many months...are we realistically going to do that? Then, the new 40 man is opening. That adds at the least another night of raiding. Realistically, how dedicated do we plan on becoming? Most non bt have gone from 5 mans and mostly greens and blues and in the span of a month they have killed onyxia and ragnaros. This is not realistic progression if it werent for the bt guys. It won't always be free farm loot time.

My understanding was that most of the people who stayed in hammered and didnt join bt, did so because they didn't want to commit to the hardcore raid schedule and they didn't play enough. Has this changed?

I don't have a problem playing spudicus and not gearing alts if we plan on putting the time and effort and frustration in progressing in further instances. However, if we just plan on farming mc and then maybe running a diff. instance every now and then I have much larger reservations about playing a char I no longer enjoy to gear people up.

[Shavnir]

When the Hammered people split off of BT I think we had maybe 6 level 60s.

A lot of us didn't switch over due to level, not willingness.

Regardless I bet we can do a lot better on one night a week in BWL than you're expecting us to Spud.

[spudicus]

Originally Posted by Shavnir

When the Hammered people split off of BT I think we had maybe 6 level 60s.

A lot of us didn't switch over due to level, not willingness.

Regardless I bet we can do a lot better on one night a week in BWL than you're expecting us to Spud.

I'm just going by what I was told. I heard that the people stayed in hammered because they didnt want to raid all the time or people didn't play enough to make it worth it. If that has changed than I'm fine with that. I just want to be sure we have the dedicated players and what not to progress before we get into the "gear em up" mentality.

I have no doubt that we can progress in BWL eventually. The removal of the 1 hour time limit on vael ensured that. However, I do think it will be incredibly frustrating and it will take many months of little to no progress. I know this because bt went through this frustration and even we had big problems getting enough people to come to the raids because they disliked it so much once the free loot carrot stopped being dangled in their faces ( I believe our 60 pool of members was significantly larger than ours at that time too). I think the frustrations we faced with bwl contributed greatly to our demise and I simply want to avoid a repeat of the past.

BT people were also geared 3 months worth of onyxia and mc farming worth better than we are currently when we were having trouble getting through the first couple bosses.

Just putting things in perspective...

[Titanus]

Originally Posted by spudicus

I think the big question is how far do we seriously expect to go in the future.

I'm gonna go with spud on this one. Honestly, we're geared better than our progression right now. Not that that's a negative thing... on the contrary, having people with gear means we progress faster when we're relearning MC and ony as <hammered>, and start more MC gear. I think that we'll hit a point though, probably in BWL, where our gear will come level with the challenges posed, and we'll have to knuckle down and grind through it. That is the day I dread as a raider.

I love that <hammered> is a big group of friends, because this game is made for fun and should be treated as such. However, I'm worried that as "casual" raiders we're going to hit a brick wall of content and it will stop being fun.

Just my 2 cents

edit... just realized that this is off the thread topic. my bad

[Stug]

We will most likely be doing BWL one night a week, once we get MC down to a one night thing it might be two BWL per week.

In any case we will not step into BWL until rag and ony are on solid farm status, or at least another 2-3 weeks. We dont want to start BWL early as that would be frustrating and stuff. Basically the goal is to have one frustrating fight at a time. So until Rag is cake to us we probably want to stay out of BWL. Once we down razor we will try vael. However we will not be doing vael more than one perhaps two nights a week, he is HARD and costs a LOT.

[spudicus]

someone answer my first post! I think I got us off topic :-\

[spudicus]

Originally Posted by Titanus

I'm gonna go with spud on this one. Honestly, we're geared better than our progression right now. Not that that's a negative thing... on the contrary, having people with gear means we progress faster when we're relearning MC and ony as <hammered>, and start more MC gear. I think that we'll hit a point though, probably in BWL, where our gear will come level with the challenges posed, and we'll have to knuckle down and grind through it. That is the day I dread as a raider.

I love that <hammered> is a big group of friends, because this game is made for fun and should be treated as such. However, I'm worried that as "casual" raiders we're going to hit a brick wall of content and it will stop being fun.

Just my 2 cents

edit... just realized that this is off the thread topic. my bad

I think your on point. This is my concern too. Near the end of BT things were definitely not fun, it was a job and a TONs of people quit the game because of it.

There are two extremes. Hardcore raiders------------------------------------------Spam chat about pancakes while farming mc for 17 hours per run. I would like to fall somewhere in between these two.

I brought this up originally because I think it depends on where we fall in between these two extremes that I decide if I want to make my hunter my main or stick with spudicus.

I'll stay on spudicus even though I don't like it much at the moment, but I don't want to do it if we're only gearing people in greens up to eventually hit a wall and give up. But if we're in this to have fun then I think people should be able to play in alts, and we'll progress at whatever pace we deem to be fun. And the speed of our progression wouldnt matter as much as everyone was enjoying their time spent. It all depends on where you guys think we are going to go and how much work you want to put in it. I am just offering my experience in hopes you will be able to better decide for yourselves what you want to do for the next 6 months or so.

MC and 40 man raids are fun for you new guys now....but I guaranteeeeeee you after 50 runs and 100's of hours it becomes much more tedious. You have to consider the fact that having ex-bt here has saved you probably several months worth of wipes, imcomplete raids, etc...

yeah everyone is gunne be bummed soon when we get absolutely nothing but druid/lock gear for the entire run.

i mean, grats druids/locks, but gfd. wheres the bracers of might blizz??? where??!?!??!

[Sojiro]

Originally Posted by spudicus

someone answer my first post! I think I got us off topic :-\

spud, i think the answer you're looking for is not set in stone yet. the way i see it is thus:

mc and onyxia will eventually all fall in one night. that leaves us 2 nights for bwl (we'll leave AQ out of this for now). i don't think incentive to attend is an issue here in hammered, as most of us are fairly motivated to see new content. 2 nights a week is not bad for trying out new content, and i think we may progress faster than u think. the first time encounters are always the hardest, and maybe thats why it felt like a long time in BT.

our initial forays into BWL will determine what kind of guild we're gonna be. if we're trying 2 nights a week on BWL, and people are in favor of trying for more than 2 nights, then raiding schedules will change, and we will become more raiding. if BWL is determined to put too much a strain on the "fun" quality, then we'll back off, and re-evaluate the direction of the guild then.

everyone has input on this, not just the officers, so after we tackle BWL for the first few times, i hope people will remember this thread and come back to comment on it, both on the direction they'd like to see the guild take, and on declaring new mains.