Celtic Heroes

I've seen a lot of people criticizing Epona's rolling system. Here's some food for thought.

I think Epona has the best overall system across all servers. And by system, I don't mean loot distribution alone. I mean overall environment, atmosphere, culture, whatever you want to call it.

Sure, rolling isn't the best way to distribute loot. Neither is it the worst; I'd argue that rolling is still better than "loot counciling" i.e. subjective decisions. The point that "a void/godly could land on a casual player" is fair, that's definitely a possibility. But one only needs to visit Epona's castle to realize that there is no level 194 warrior walking around with a Void mordy tank helm. Yes, there is a level 200 ranger holding a Void Blood Rage bow, but that ranger is active, leveling, and the alt of an active 220+ warrior main who, to my knowledge, has attended a lot of necros. The overwhelming majority, if not all, voids/godlys are in the hands of high level folks. This is because of math. Also when lightning strikes and a good drop ends up on a so-called "casual," the free market sorts that out. There are no restrictions on what can or can't be sold on Epona, no classifications of anything as "clan gear," and casual players tend to cave to big offers more easily then your hardcore, active loot-seeking players.

Some of you will still think that rolling is the worst method of loot distribution ever. That's ok, because there's a second argument.

Rolling is the only way for Epona to preserve its unique culture of server-wide cooperation, peace, and free market trading. That's something Eponanians are proud of--to my knowledge, no other server, Android or iOS, can boast these three aspects.
1. Cooperation. Clans are OK with mixing groups
2. Peace. Drop distribution is generally simple, fast, and handled without starting full out clan wars. No such thing as a lock battle
3. Free market trading. No clan setting restrictions on trades or monopolizing what drops can be bought/sold. No concept of clan property (reminiscent of state-owned socialist/authoritarian regimes), everything is individually owned (true capitalism, and yes like any capitalist system, money = power, plat buyers/wealthy players can use gold to buy gear and DL/EDL drops, etc)

There's drama on Epona, sure. People have beef with each other. But at the end of the day, all of Clan A is ok with grouping with Clan B, and allowing everyone participating on time and within level to roll, regardless of what blue name is above their heads. That's a pretty beautiful thing to witness, especially if you come from a world with competition, and sometimes competition is putting it lightly because things can get nasty (lix ksing, extreme trash talk, griefing, spamming, etc).

Here's an analogy. Epona is a developed, modern world where clans ("countries") have formed a common agreement with each other to preserve a global peace. Those few who defy the agreed upon rules can be likened to insurgents/terrorists, and for the most part Epona no longer has those (they were banned from rolls, and then left after being banned). Other servers have either one hegemonic country who uses its strength (military) to occupy all resources, thus preventing smaller underdog countries from growing; or multiple countries in perpetual conflict, fighting it out for resources. You get the idea.

A DKP/point-based distribution system would 1) never take off from the runway or 2) require too much work to sustain or 3) break the "free server" dynamic Epona currently has.

DKP would never work on Epona, not with the current cooperative, peaceful, free market culture in place. In order for so many clans (pretty much the whole server) to get together and agree on which drops go to whom, the rules need to be simple and fair. Dice is simple and fair, although random. DKP however, involves assigning point values to bosses (e.g. Hrung 100 points, Mord 150 points). Right now there is controversy on whether or not high level players must stick with one class forever when rolling on Doch Gul pieces. Compromise can be difficult, but it has its benefits. So trying to get a whole server to settle on point values for bosses would be nearly impossible. Those who camp DL will want more points for that. Those who only log for raid bosses will disagree. The downside of democracy is inefficiency.

Suppose a miracle happened and all major clans/players across the whole server agreed upon a point system. A simple point system, by the way. The advanced Aileron/Avalon point system with decay, separate pools, activity locks, etc would never be sustainable. And that goes into my second point, that no one would want to be in charge of managing points for the whole server. If you manage DKP for your own clan, think about how difficult it would be for an entire server. Tracking inventory would be a nightmare. No, unless OTM releases some official point system that extends beyond one clan, the logistics of DKP would never work server-wide.

TL;DR

Rolling may not be the best, but it's the best for Epona, since Epona is a special server.

So stop bashing the rolling system because you don't understand Epona's server dynamic. There literally isn't an alternative, unless you want to fundamentally change Epona's entire culture back to the "Dark Ages" of non-cooperation and lock fights.

It's not worth it to sacrifice the only "free server" just to prevent some level 194 warrior from rolling something awesome once in a blue Void Moon.

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.

Not gonna read that lol

From what I've read it's not really fair, though any system will have flaws.

An example is someone who tri-logs and contributed greatly playing actively and effectively at the kill gets the same reward as a player to logs one toon and half asses it. This seems to lead to fewer multi loggers (possibly making raids harder for everyone) and I can only assume a significant amount of lying to get ahead. Main/alt sharing and multimains/secret alts would get much more loot at almost zero risk of being caught and therefore it's basically asking for it.

Not going to say the system is bad, it appears to be overall working quite well. This is just my observation as an outside observer of a drawback that was not mentioned above.

Well said

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.

Voting for each other is wide open to people just voting for their best friends each time.

Picture if you will George W Bush getting into the white house.

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

From what I've read it's not really fair, though any system will have flaws.

An example is someone who tri-logs and contributed greatly playing actively and effectively at the kill gets the same reward as a player to logs one toon and half asses it. This seems to lead to fewer multi loggers (possibly making raids harder for everyone) and I can only assume a significant amount of lying to get ahead. Main/alt sharing and multimains/secret alts would get much more loot at almost zero risk of being caught and therefore it's basically asking for it.

Not going to say the system is bad, it appears to be overall working quite well. This is just my observation as an outside observer of a drawback that was not mentioned above.

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.

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.