Celtic Heroes

Very well put Swan.

I have played Epona for 3.5 years now and wouldn't play anywhere else.
Yes there are occasional disputes with some undesirable players but generally these are few and far between.
I wouldn't swap our rolling system for any other as it is surely the most fair and democratic system there is.

Ehh I don't want to be rude but rolling a dice has nothing to do with democracy. Voting on each other comes closer to a democracy then a dice.

5 rogues attend a 170 5*, 4 from different clans and one clanless. A purple horn drops, each player votes themselves most deserving of the horn, what do you do?

Voting also favors large clans. While Eponians cooperate across clans, our friends tend to be in our own clans--it's the magic of blue text and basic psychology (if curious, look up mere exposure effect). Larger clans will vote their own members and consistently get all loot, which will anger all smaller clans, which will lead to war and break the peace.

Voting is also inefficient. Server resets, and 30 players rush to Hrung. You wanna spend 2 hours arguing who deserves an imperial heat dmg brace, while Mord is dying? The solution needs to be quick, otherwise for server resets, no one will settle with the outcome in a timely manner, who gets the drop will still be uncertain while the attendees decide to sweep other bosses.

Each server to his own. While u said not to bash rolling, u just somewhat bashed loot counciling.

I should clarify, loot counciling worse on a large scale. In a post a few days ago (can't find it anymore, weird) I said that loot counciling is fine for smaller clans, but upscaling it to a large clan, much less a server, is unsustainable.

I dont play Epona so do as u wish, if u think peace is rainbows and sunshine, go check Epona forums or have Epona friends. No world is sunshine just because there are no lock fights, u can look at Lugh which had that system.

Of course Epona is far from drama free. But that's my point, that's the beauty of it, is that I can dislike some 220+ warrior and when he groups me for a boss I accept his request, and the same would happen vice versa. Somehow, I don't know how, Eponians manage to set aside their differences and group everyone present at a boss, regardless of clan.

Lugh's collapse just makes Epona that much more special. It's now the last standing free server and if OTM implemented an official cross-server transfer/trade system, high levels from all servers who have gotten the short end of the competitive stick would be flocking there.

Again, ur still putting down voting while defending rolling. Im not a fan of rolling, but Elementals of Belenus exists since 2011 with voting while we also take attendances at same time (and keep track, we count all raid bosses except gele until we'll take him), and Belenus until the destiny release was in top 5 of all bosses kills (in new engine release we had a massive amount of ppl quitting, mostly not being able to play, some couldnt log at all some crashed/lagged and never came back), and now we take attendances too and we're on our way to gele with 40+ ppl to attend on our first attempt.

To defend rolling u cannot put down another system, because just like u said, rolling may not work for us but it does for Epona. For u to call it worse and especially worse for large clans, is a statement done with little basis and a lot of bias, being an Eponian urself.
I dont mind rolling as long as it isnt my clan, each clan to his own and each world to his own systems and choices, whether its the DKP Avalon has or whatever is different in other DKPS, or as Zyz mentioned a mix of rolling and voting or just voting, each thing fits different playstyles and for us we always try to take a mix of other playstyles, take advices from other worlds and see how we can improve ourselves while still going the way we like to. I find rolling the worst system for me, but whether or not it works for others is something else.

And again, Lugh tried it and clans fell apart, Belenus and Lugh were communicating and helped each other on mordy and necro (our first mordy thanks to Lugh helping us with strategy, we gave those who helped us necro strategy) and we had a Lugh player who made a lvl 4 toon in Belenus and we let him join Elementals and all our groups, and he told us the downsides of the rolling system at least in Lugh, so for me I'll be against using it in the clan Im a member of.

I think u made very biased statements in this thread, and this thread as a whole is biased, and even tho u insist on defending rolling system, thats not how u should do it.

On Epona I almost always log in dual device with rogue/ranger. I was aware of the server rules before I transferred there and considered pretending my 2 chars were mains. Instead I went for transparency, going so far as to dress my chars in almost identical fashion on day 1, because I value the ability to socialize freely without having to worry about pulling off some bipolar act with the overhead of constantly worrying about keeping a secret alt. Is there a secret alt in Epona rolling double at bosses, maybe. But it's safe to say that doing so requires an unclean conscience or a pathological liar. Like the Void Moon landing on a 194 warrior, it is a very small issue, definitely not big enough to break the server culture.

I have gone for transparency myself, which is why it is rather upsetting when some people cheat rather obviously but not enough other people know what to look for or really care so much and it goes unchecked. On my world it's definitely been over 5%, possibly 10-20% or higher with regards to cheating.

This is why I'm interested in different worlds and how they handle it. For example, on taranis we share bosses like dl/xdl and it's the first 8 that group alt or main. It arose directly because you can't tell and the cheating rate was pretty high.

Some other worlds give alts nearly the same dkp and thus they are allowed to earn almost as much as mains. I'd be suprised if the cheating was anywhere near as bad as there is far less incentive to lie.

Also, multi logging is advantageous at every server reset. With 2 devices you can kill and roll on 2 bosses simultaneously, no one's stopping you from that. Once, I attended Snorri and Hrung at the same time.

Sounds like this happened once in several years and is not typical.

All systems have problems but in my eyes the more inequality for work done to reward given the less fair and the less functional the system will be.

As a point of comparison my clan on taranis rolls for loot. We also have dkp, but after a few kills everyone has points for anything and points per drop are fixed. I've only seen points come into play less than 5% of the time, the only real thing it does is stop new clannies from getting good drops for a few kills at least. Inactives that pop on after months of no logging can still win godlies. Mains are first, only if all pass will alts be allowed to roll. As it is I've played 4 years under two variants of these rules and not gotten a single godly on my main (100s of kills) even though I would have given all my dkp for a godly breath brace (I always log 5+ toons so it's the bomb) but since it's cheap it went to someone who uses it about half the time or less and would be unlikely to spend a ton of points on it.

The only good part is we have enough alts now (over half the end game toons that are active have been alts lately) many of the mains are overstuffed with godlies and voids and typically go inactive because they are bored or make alts and stay on to help. So at least I've gotten a fair number of low and medium tier items.

It's actually funny because noob mains will say I'm greedy rolling on almost anything even partly useful with alts. As an alt under these rules, as a rule, you will never get what you want (basically are banned from those items indirectly) and rolling on everything you can means you at least will get a few useful things during very lucky times when the mains on happen to be stuffed full. If you tried to only roll on good useful items you would simply never be geared.

We also rolled on Lugh. Many problems arose that you didn't mention.

1. Greed over need
Many people started to share accounts, log alts and claimed they weren't who they were, just to roll for more drops to either sell for profit or share with their clan. For example we had people win multiple garanak SETS and ammy's, withholding from very active players who needed them.

2. Hard bosses even harder to kill
With so many clans and so many people it was ridiculous to try and form plans for any boss raid. It took us about 58 people to kill necro the first time. Most people failed to understand their role, and actively participate. Just afk auto the boss and roll for your drop when it's over.

3. Selfish, uncooperative people
Once it came down to one clan doing most of the work, camping and killing. We used our elixirs and plat to kill bosses, and people outside of our clan didn't even bother to use a haste ring with mord spears and zero lixes whatsoever. They acknowledged their gameplay as a free ride ans took 100% advantage over it

4. Highly diluted loot
Not 1 player had "epic gear". Maybe 1 godly thing but that was it. It made our players very underpowered compared to an organized dominant clan. Loot was just too widely dispersed to make anyone effective.

This and other reasons led to the final collapse of this ridiculous rolling system we had.

But to be honest, rolling was fun and I liked that part about it. I think we were just fed up woth being used and doing 99% of the work and coming home with nothing at the end of the day because some lazy people won it all.

I think rolling could work in a clan with good teamwork and friendship. As long as everyone passes on drops they don't need, and allows their clanmates to build their characters without trying to hoard all the best gear.

4. Highly diluted loot
Not 1 player had "epic gear". Maybe 1 godly thing but that was it. It made our players very underpowered compared to an organized dominant clan. Loot was just too widely dispersed to make anyone effective.

If you are lock battling then decked out toons are important. If you don't lock battle then distributed loot (dps) is actually highly effective if you have enough people/alts. Due to damage/skills being on a square root return it's pretty obvious the best dps overall would be to spread it out so everyone is moderately to decently geared. Direct add gear could go on anyone of level. This only really breaks down when there are few on, alts are heavily discouraged, and the numbers are too low.

Ofc there is the herding cats issue of multi clan kills, and inequality with work/reward, but the math is simple and straightforward.

We also rolled on Lugh. Many problems arose that you didn't mention.
4. Highly diluted loot
Not 1 player had "epic gear". Maybe 1 godly thing but that was it. It made our players very underpowered compared to an organized dominant clan. Loot was just too widely dispersed to make anyone effective.

Gear dilution I agree makes a kill less effective. Some people argue 15 people with gloves is more effective then one person with a full set of dg but I dont.

I know epona doesn't have lock battles but they are actually really fun. I don't see anyone ever getting a full set on epona but as long as they are happy thats all that matters really.

In my experience OP gear condensed on a few toons does immensely more dps then diluted gear across the entire server. The best gear in morrigan is condensed into Avalon and it allows us to do things like down gelebron with only 32 toons under rage. Im sure this will improve with time as well. But we are happy doing things that way to each their own. since epona can use the whole server to kill a boss then numbers might outweigh the need for gear.

4. Highly diluted loot
Not 1 player had "epic gear". Maybe 1 godly thing but that was it. It made our players very underpowered compared to an organized dominant clan. Loot was just too widely dispersed to make anyone effective.

If you are lock battling then decked out toons are important. If you don't lock battle then distributed loot (dps) is actually highly effective if you have enough people/alts. Due to damage/skills being on a square root return it's pretty obvious the best dps overall would be to spread it out so everyone is moderately to decently geared. Direct add gear could go on anyone of level. This only really breaks down when there are few on, alts are heavily discouraged, and the numbers are too low.

Ofc there is the herding cats issue of multi clan kills, and inequality with work/reward, but the math is simple and straightforward.

Not really true when it takes 50+ people to kill a boss and even then has a realistic chance of failure. Alts were also discouraged.

Sadly Vulture we had a large group of people fitting fitting your points 1 and 3.
Once discovered they were made to feel fairly unwelcome and most left...to Lugh I believe, sorry about that.
Sadly most seem to be back but that doesn't mean we have forgotten.

I agree it's less effective for those and other reasons vulture, however the math shows beyond any doubt the dps is highest with all gear evenly spread out.