Karma Rules

Halandir · by Halandir on Thu Apr 09, 2009 9:17 pm

Journey Karma System

As we head into Icecrown Citadel and beyond, our plan is to continue using the Ni Karma loot system. We have made changes to the way we implement the Karma system, and we are open to other changes if they need to be made, so feel free to suggest any improvements you think of!

Earning Karma

Karma will be awarded at the beginning and end of each raid, as follows:

10 karma will be awarded at 8:15pm to everyone in the raid group who signed up on time, is online and ready to go. This includes any waitlisted individuals who also are online and ready at 8:15pm.

Karma will also be awarded at the end of each raid according to the folowing criteria:

Thus the total karma awarded per raid is as follows:

Raiders:

30-40 karma total

Waitlisted Individuals:

30 karma total

Hourly Karma

There are two reasons why we have chosen to calculate karma in an "hourly" format. First, we want to keep the karma system simple. Second, we want to encourage people to attend progression nights. Awarding karma per boss kill would result in disproportionate karma totals depending on how many bosses we down on a particular night. With an hourly system you get karma for attending and working hard no matter what bosses we're on.

Raid Signups

Obviously with 30-plus raiders, if everyone signs up a few people will be waitlisted every raid. If you are waitlisted it does not mean that we don't think you're good enough to be in the raid. If we believe you are not good enough we would not have you here as a raider.

We will be putting up raid signups on the website several weeks ahead of time. There will be a sign-up deadline at midnight the night before the raid (so for a Tuesday raid, the deadline is midnight on Monday). The 10 initial karma for each raid is only awarded to those who have signed up before the deadline!

From those signups we will fill the raid spots for each role (heals, tanks, dps) based on each person's primary spec. If we have extra people for a certain role the councilors will pick someone to sit on the waitlist. Waitlisted individuals will be kept track of on the attendance spreadsheet and we will do our best to not sit someone more than once in two weeks. If you do see that you have been waitlisted more than once in two weeks please let leadership know so that we can review the issue.

Raid Schedule

Our normal raid schedule will be Tuesday and Thursday from 8:15pm to 11:30pm Server Time. Occasionally we may extend the raid to 12:00pm server time. If we do this, there will be a "hard" cut-off at 12:00, no exceptions.

Waitlisted Raiders and Karma

When you are waitlisted we want to continue to provide incentive for you to be online during the raid. If you have signed up for a raid it means you have already cleared your schedule and are willing and able to participate in the evening's raid. We will be posting the raid list on the front of the site as soon as we can the day of each raid. If you see your name on the site as waitlisted you obviously have the choice of whether or not to show up. If you have something else you could do, that is fine with us. In the same token we would love to have waitlisted individuals still show up as backups during raid time.

If you are put on the waitlist, and are logged in and ready at 8:15 you will still be awarded the 10 karma for signing up and showing up. If you remain online and available throughout the run then you will be awarded the hourly karma as well when the run is over. In order to receive the hourly karma for the evening you need to be available at a moment's notice for the duration of the raid. You can log on an alt, do battlegrounds or whatever, but you need to be ready to be summoned into the raid at a moment's notice. This is the price to pay for being awarded the hourly karma.

Why should a waitlisted individual receive hourly karma? For a couple reasons: first, we want to reward those who have willingly cleared their schedules in order to raid with us. We appreciate every member of the team and we want to encourage people to be available. Secondly, we want to ensure that we will have a full raid group at all times, especially while in Ulduar. If someone has an emergency and needs to drop from the raid we want to have backups ready and able to be sent to the front lines. Awarding karma to waitlisted raiders is a great way to avoid grabbing pugs from the lfg channel.

Dropping From the Raid

If you do need to drop group for whatever reason during the raid, the officer running karma will round off to the closest hour and award you karma you've earned up to that point. Note: this is for emergency absences only! If you know that you have something that is going to impede you from being there the entire evening from 8:15-11:30 then we ask that you don't sign up on that particular night.

If you want to switch places with a waitlisted person prior to the raid on any given evening, you need to let leadership know before the raid. You will not receive any karma for that particular run if you do switch, but you may give them a chance at loot or it may allow you to take a break if you wish to.

If you are going to be a few minutes late all we ask is that you please let leadership know ahead of time.

Rules for using Karma

10-man raid loot will be rewarded via a roll system.

For 25-mans, everyone starts with 0 karma (this may be modified for each new "tier" of content). Trial raiders who come in after the system has been established will start with 0 karma and will have to attend one 25-man raid where at least one boss was killed (i.e. one night in Ulduar where Flame Leviathan dies) before they are eligible for loot. Eligibility for bidding on loot will begin on the following raid they attend.

Loot Distribution process:

All items will be awarded via standard 1-100 /roll. The way karma works is that you may add your karma to your roll. You may not use partial Karma - it's all or none.

Loot awarding will follow these steps:
1. Raid leader/ML will link the loot in raid chat, then announce in Vent to whisper the person running the karma system.

2. If you want the item for your main spec and want to use your karma for it, you whisper "bonus" to the masterlooter.

3. If you want the item for your main spec and DO NOT want to use karma and wish to take your chances with a straight /roll, you whisper "no bonus" (also accepts "nobonus").

4. A separate off-spec roll will be called if no main spec classes want the item.

Do not whisper anything else except "bonus" or "no bonus". The addon is triggered by using the correct word when you whisper.

The leader will say in Vent who is allowed to roll once all whispers are in.

Those rolling "bonus" have their bonus added to their roll, those who roll "nobonus" obviously do not. The item winner will be determined and the item awarded.

Losses for wins are immediate. We use a plugin to track this continually.

Once bonuses have been declared and rolls done, ties will be decided by a straight /roll (with no bonuses).

When you win an item using "bonus", 50% of your total karma is deducted. If you win an item using "nobonus", you lose 15 karma. If you do not win you lose zero karma.

If only one person is interested in the item, they win the item as if declared "no bonus" - meaning it only costs them 15 karma.

Example: straight roll for a generic item.

Let's say we've been running this for a few weeks. Joelis has 80 karma. Neb has 60 karma. Shogunhua has 50 karma.

[Uber Ring of Stuff Dieing] drops. It's useable by all four of the above, and they all whisper "bonus".

Your total score is /roll + karma = total roll.

All three of them roll a 50. Joelis total = 130, Neb total = 110, Shogunhua total = 100.

Joelis wins the Epic and is now deducted half of his Karma and now has 40 Karma left.

How to check your karma total:

The Raid Leader in charge of karma will have an addon running that accesses the karma database. You can whisper the leader with:

km show

and it will return whisper you with your total.

If you are told not to compete for an item by an officer, you may not roll. (This is a very rare circumstance.)

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Important!!! Karma and "off-specs." We will have a thread running where each raider will declare their main spec and secondary spec. You will be able to use karma only for items in your main spec. You will only be able to pick up items for your secondary spec if no one wants that particular item for their main spec.

If you take loot for a secondary talent spec, you WILL be expected to fulfill that role in a raid at some point in time. Please be prepared to be able to switch over to this spec at any time during the raid, that means you need to have your gear along with you, have it gemmed/enchanted, have your glyphs in place, UI setup ahead of time, etc.

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Conclusion

Thank you all for your patience with us as we try to find the most efficient and fair way to distribute loot here in Journey. We realize that no loot system is perfect, but we as leadership agree that this is a reasonable loot system. If you have a suggestion please let one of our officers know so we can discuss it at one of our regular meetings.

A lot of this post is just rules, the system itself is relatively simple. Make sure you understand the process of declaring bonus/no bonus when you want something. The post will be stickied at the top of the forum for further reference and is always subject to updating.

We'd like to thank Honora (80 Pally), a friend from <Alibi> who let us use alot of her work here in this reworked posting. Thanks Aly!

Halandir · by Halandir on Wed Apr 15, 2009 10:17 am

Ni Karma Q&A
Karma is theoretically a "zero-sum" system which means that points leave the system at the same rate they enter. You gain Karma by attending raids and you lose karma by winning items.

When are points awarded?
Points will be given out at the beginning and end of each raid.

How do points work?
Your Karma is added to your regular in game roll. Ergo if you have 25 karma and you use it on a roll of 35 your roll would equal a 60. It keeps loot random while also awarding consistency.

Do I lose all my karma when I use it on a roll?
No. You lose half your karma on every roll where you win an item. If I had 50 karma and won with bonus my karma would lower to 25. This allows you to save for that special item, but it also keeps players from hording karma. If I collect 500 karma I will win the roll but I will lose 250 on my next epic.

How do I use karma?
When the roll is linked and the loot master says to, whisper him bonus to use karma and nobonus to roll without karma.

How do I check on my karma?
The "Karma Totals" page will be updated after every raid and is accessible from the link on our website. Any time you are in raid you may whisper the loot master km show to check your karma. If you want to check everyone's karma you can whisper km show karma all to the lootmaster.

Why use karma at all?
Karma is there to provide a tangible bonus to those who put in the effort to attend raids and kill bosses.

Will we ever not use karma on a run?
We will never use karma in 10-mans. We also won't use karma from one raid tier in another tier of content. For example, we won't use ToC karma in Ulduar, or visa versa.

Will there ever be a reset to karma?
Yes. As we enter each new "tier" of content, we will have a karma reset (which may "roll over" a certain percentage of existing karma to the new tier database).

re: Karma Rules

re: Karma Rules