What is EPGP?

EPGP is a loot system that attempts to distribute loot based on the relationship between two key values; EP and GP.

EP = Effort Points: You gain effort points for the raiding activities you are involved in similarly to DKP.
For example: (this is just an example!)
1000 EP for every 15 minutes spent raiding
1000 EP for every farm boss kill
4000 EP for every progression boss kill
1000 EP for every wipe on a progression boss (to a max of 3000 per boss per raid)

It should be noted as of yet we have not fully confirmed exactly which activities will or will not gain you EP and the precise values you will receive.

GP=Gear Points: You are awarded gear points when you receive loot during a raid. The amount gained depends on the item itself (slot, ilvl) and also how useful the item is to your particular class (eg . a bow grants more GP to a hunter than a Rogue).

These two values will then determine a new value known as priority rating.

Priority Rating

The relationship between your EP and GP scores will then determine a new value known as PR or your “priority rating” to determine the priority you have over a piece of loot.

The relationship between the 3 values is as follows:

EP/GP=PR

A higher PR rating means you are more likely to receive loot.

With the EPGP add-on installed all members will be able to check all 3 values in game with the simple /EPGP command. The screen will look like that shown below.



It is important for people to understand that EPGP is NOT a DKP system.
Your EP and GP values will never ever go down and they are not spent like DKP. For each individual member EP & GP values will grow at varying rates based on raids attended or items gained etc. Again the ratio between these two values will constantly adjust your Priority Rating (PR).

So that
Gaining EP will cause your PR rating to increase
Gaining GP will cause your PR rating to decrease

What are the benefits of using this new system?

1) The tracking and recording of all data using an in game add-on means we no longer need to use an out of game website to track DKP. Every member with the addon installed will be able to track their EP/GP & PR in game at any time. This also means far less out of game work for officers managing the DKP site.

2) The whole bidding system we have currently will be completely abolished greatly reducing the time spent distributing loot after each boss kill. The new bidding system will be described in detail below.

3) The system will penalize players for sitting on their points attempting to stock pile them for a particular item. Instead players will be encouraged to bid on any item that they do need and also hopefully encourage more hybrid classes to start taking some offspec loot. Again this will be detailed below.


“AWESOME!! I’m just going to save all my EP until we reach Arthas and take legendary axe lololol!!”

Good Luck!!
EPGP will penalize you for this kind of behaviour. Each week both EP & GP for each member will decay (be reduced) by a set percentage for example 10%. So that people with more EP will end up losing more than people with low EP. The same goes for GP.

Example:
Player 1 has 30000EP & 150GP (PR rating = 30000/150 = 200)
Player 2 has 20000EP & 250GP (PR rating = 20000/250 = 80)

After the end of the reset both EP and GP are reduced by 10% so that

Player 1 now has 27000EP (30000-3000) and 135GP (150-15) PR=200
Player 2 now has 18000EP (20000-2000) and 225GP (250-25) PR=80

As you can see PR remains the same as both EP & GP are reduced by the same value (10%).
However Player 2 now needs LESS points to overtake Player 1 because his lower EP resulted in him losing less to decay while Player 1’s higher EP value was reduced by more (3000 vs 2000).

As a result it is better to state interest in any items you want rather than wait for one special item to come along.

So what happens when loot drops??

When a boss is killed and loot is dropped a second EPGP add-on called EPGPloot2 will take over, under the control of the master looter.

When the master loot starts an auction players will see a screen like the one below (lower ranks such as alts may only see Need & Pass options)



Each of the buttons should be fairly obvious as to what it denotes:

Need: the item is clearly an upgrade for me. I need it OMG GIEF!!
Minor Upgrade: I could use the item but its hardly better than what I have and some other people may need it more.
Offspec: I cant use the item but it would be handy for my offspec gear set.
Pass: This item is a piece of shit I don’t want it. I pass!!

Classes such as boomkin or other badly itemized classes the wear a lot of cloth gear need not worry as this is allowed for in the configuration so that you nobody will miss out.

At this point simply click the button that best describes your preference on that particular piece of loot.
You are expected to know which loot is useful or not for your class and use a bit of intelligence when deciding which button to press. Needing every item you can equip is not acceptable. Master looters and officers will monitor this and step in if and where needed.

Besides, pressing NEED on all loot (even when it’s actually only a minor upgrade for you) isn’t very smart as the amount of GP paid for a NEED and a MINOR UPGRADE aren’t the same. You pay far more for a NEED (but it gives u also more chances to actually win the item). So if u need on everythin you’ll get low on PR very quickly which reduces ur chances to win a big upgrade later on considerably. So, THINK WELL BEFORE U CHOOSE !!

The master looter will then see a screen like this:


He can see who has selected need/minor upgrade/offspec/pass for the item under auction.

If you look at the tooltip with yellow text in the top right you will see numbers in brackets after each bidder’s name. This number relates to your personal priority rating for loot.
The master looter can then assign the loot to the bidder with the highest priority rating.

This means that there will be no more bidding as in the current system. Once you have pressed one of the four buttons (need/minor-upgrade/offspec/pass) then that is you done. Loot is then assigned based on peoples PR.

Loot priority is as follows
Raider Need > Trialist Need > Raider Minor Upgrade > Raider Offspec > pass.

Do not concern yourself with the trialist rank too much. We can set what guild rank we wish to be the cut-off for people to be considered a trialist/raider as we like so that if we wanted everybody under rank officer in the guild would be considered a trialist.

Furthermore the addon will make sure certain items will go to the correct class first.

Eg.
Daggers go to rogues before hunters.
Ranged weapons to hunters before rogues etc etc

This is done by having two GP values for some values. With the add-on installed you will see both of these values in the tooltip for the item. For most items you will only see one GP value.

Items with 2 GP values include all melee and ranged physical dps weapons (rogues/hunters/dk share) and most 2 hander melee dps weapons (shared with TG warriors/Ret/DK/Arms Warr).


The first value is used for classes that benefit more from the item and the second for classes that take the item as a stat upgrade rather than a main weapon.


For example, a melee class would take a ranged weapon just for it’s bonus stats like crit rating. A hunter would take a ranged weapon for all of it’s stats. So a ranged weapon is worth more to a hunter than it is to say a rogue. For that reason, a hunter takes a ranged weapon, their GP goes up by more than if a rogue took it.
This works both ways: if a hunter takes a melee weapon, their GP goes up by less than if a rogue took the same weapon.
The idea behind this is that for any class, the total GP for your main hand, off hand and ranged weapon comes out to more or less the same value for a given tier of gear.
Here are the classes and slots that use different values:
• 2H Weapon: TG warriors using a weapon for offhand or hunters using a weapon for either hand, the lower value is used. Since the whole MH/OH thing for TG warriors is mostly æsthetic, what most guilds do is charge the lower value for every other 2H weapon a TG warrior gets.
• 1H Weapon: when used as an offhand, or as a tank for tanking, or by a hunter, the lower value is used
• Shields: tanks pay the higher value, everyone else pays the lower value
• Ranged: hunters pay the higher value, everyone else pays the lower value

If two people are interested in an item, but their GP would go up by different amounts, then the person whose GP would go up by more wins the item. If their GP goes up more, then it is worth more to them.
PR is used to decide who gets an item only among people whose GP would go up by the same amount.

Don’t worry too much about GP tho, this is something that is managed by the mod (and the masterlooter). The only thing u actually need to worry about is chosing wisely between NEED/MINOR UPGRADE/OFFSPEC/PASS.

Problems/Solutions

1) EP hoarding:
This problem is non-existent in EPGP because of the use of the EP and GP decay. Only temporal EP and GP are accounted. So the latest you "use" your PR lead the least amount of benefit you get out of it. And the earliest you take an item, the faster its value will decay.

2) New members vs Veterans:
Because of the decay, new members become equal under the system much faster. EPs decay over time so with a 10% decay in about 15 raids a veteran has about the same EP as a new member (if they both attended the same raids). The only barrier to entry for new members is reaching Min EPs in order to be eligible for loot.

3) Members that are geared up vs members that are not:
Members that are geared up already will end up with the highest PR possible and will have first priority over a new (and possibly rare) drop. This will satisfy these members. Members that are not geared up already will end up getting loot in most raids which will keep their priority low. So they will still gear up but they will not threaten members that wait for a special piece to drop in order to get their satisfaction as well.

4) Complexity:
Unlike Zero Sum with taxation, which is very similar, there is no need to rebalance when members join/leave guild, and no changes in tax/decay because of more tries on new content. The reduced complexity of the system allows more people to understand it, which keeps the queries to the guild master low and member satisfaction up.

5) Hard to assign item values and boss kill/tries values:
Because effort points are decoupled from effort points it is easier to assign "good" values for each category. Guild Masters/Officers can focus on balancing different boss kill/tries, materials farming rewards separately from item values. If you notice in the above example nothing would change if each raid was awarding 987 EP and each piece was worth 123 points. Balancing rewards and items is extremely hard; balancing them in isolation is quite simpler.

6) Randomness on boss value in zero sum:
Zero Sum's major flaw is that for the same encounter, you might end up getting more or less points, depending on the loot (which is random). This introduces a major cause of unfairness to the system, since the same boss, which requires the same effort, is worth more in some runs and less in others. In EPGP each boss awards the same EP every time, adding to the fairness of the system.

So what will I need to install?

Every member must have 2 add-ons installed before attending raids under the new system.


1) EPGP: http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/epgp-dkp-reloaded.aspx

This is needed for you to check your current EP/GP/PR using the /EPGP command.


2) EPGPLOOT2: http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/epgploot2.aspx

This is needed for you to see the in game looting system pop-ups. If you do not have this installed you will NOT get loot. So it’s in your best interest to sort it out.

Are there any settings I need to Configure?

Very little configuration is needed. Use the command /EPGP CONFIG and go to player settings. There are a few options there that can be enabled/disabled that are self-explanatory. The rest of the config is for the masterlooter ONLY.


This should be the only option normal members need to concern themselves with.

What about my current DKP?

It has not yet been decided yet whether peoples current DKP will be carried over in some way to the new system using a conversion factor decided by the officers or whether we will simply be starting afresh.
As already informed by Stoker you are all encouraged to spend your DKP now while you have the time!!