Inflation rate

[RosalynSable]

I'm going to borrow something a coworker said today. "Keep it simple, stupid."

Point system: Bidding. You want that item, you fight for it.
Points awarded: 1 point per run. You leave early, you get your point. If you are forcibly removed (D2 due to being AFK for extended period of time), you don't.
Attendance: If you are absent for a month in a row, your points are forfeit.

[monkeynutz]

Bidding systems are the best way to deal with inflation, particularly if some of your vets are vying for the same items. For instance if you have 2 RDMs with several hundred points, with a bidding system you can all but guarantee that one of them will cash out in a fruitful dnyamis-Xarcabard. This still means that new recruits have almost no buying power initially, and they really shouldn't, but cashed out veterans drop to the buying power of recruits or thereabouts after bidding wars, not that they have to. It's entirely dictated by how much a player is willing to spend.

You could even amend the basic bidding system a bit by selling lots (rolls actually, to determine who can lot) for a set amount. This gives new players a chance to win the opportunity to lot at a reduced price while still giving security to veterans who can surely afford to purchase more lots (rolls). This has the potential to hurt a lot of feelings though, since it's entirely plausible that a new recruit could buy a single roll and hit in the high 900's while a vet purchases 10 rolls that don't beat the recruit's 1. You could still use a flat point system in conjunction with this though. That is have different tiers of lotting. Using arbitrary numbers say you can purchase the right to roll for 5 points, while you can purchase the right to lot for 50 points. This basically eliminates the freak statistical instances where a single good lot trumps 10 mediocre ones, but at a high cost. That would be the maximum expenditure of points and of course whoever wins the lot gets the item. In this system points are spent by anyone who is rolling or lotting so they don't build up so much, rather than only spending points if you actually obtained an item. Obviously anyone willing to purchase a lot automatically beats those only willing to purchase rolls, also granting the concession that if someone has purchased multiple rolls and lost and then decides to buy a lot that the cost of the rolls goes toward the lot (in this example you cannot spend more than 50 points even if you bought 5 rolls and then decided to buy a lot, however, the contender(s) that bought rolls and didn't upgrade to a lot don't recover points), though you could do it differently, particularly if your goal is to reduce banked points.

I'd imagine that veteran players might be a bit outraged at this system since it requires increased point spending from what they're used to (on average) and potentially gives new players good items at low cost, but I think it would consolidate points quickly without granting too much advantage to veterans. Buying lots to be assured they get an item over a recruit is the kind of spending that could only go on for so long before their points are diminished.

Using more realistic numbers it should look something like this:
rolls: 2 point
lots: 15 points
points gained for attendance: 3 points

I think higher numbers work a little better for your situation since you have veterans with so many points, but it's not sustainable. At least here you'll have players easily expending more points than they're gaining if they're overzealous, while conservative players can save up a bit.

Additionally or alternatively you could devise a system to buy back points from veterans to try to balance things out a bit. For instance they could purchase VIP status for 200 points [arbitrary number] that would grant them an extra point for every event that they attend, or work out some sort of point to gil conversion if your LS has substantial enough treasury coffers. Perhaps the ability to reserve a day for a particular event or something that is normally not covered by the LS at a points cost (for which they do not earn points for attending while others do), or allow the 'purchase' in points for BS/KS orbs from other players (though this a bit less flexible since the seller necessarily attends the fight since orbs can't be directly sold) wherein the buyer has lotting rights (or whatever scheme you devise). In any case there are innumerable 'benefits' you could introduce to deal with large discrepancies of points.

[kenki]

Fairest system in all of the point system is the silent bidding system. Just /t the leader the amount you 'want' to lot for the item and the highest wins. This means an item is only worth so much as you can afford for it or you 'price' it. No need for complex numbers and you will never have to worry about someone having too many points since he'll just spend them all in a run or two that have the items he really want.

The bidding system automatically produce a scale that will increase the point costs for the vets and reduce wastes on 'free lot' by giving the new comers a winning chance. The rarer an item is, the higher the points that require to lot since everyone will try to bid for it. If an item is pretty much 'trash', some people will still want to bid for a very small price (say 1-5 points) for completion purposes or they actually have a job that can make use of it (Ex: Bst or Pup). This eliminates more 'wastes' since people with a lv7 Bst isn't going to pay 1 point for Bst AF (but they'll lot on the free lot cause they like to hoard anyway) and people who wants to level Bst to lv75 will pay 1-2 points for it (but they wouldn't want to pay higher since their Bst is not lv75 yet).

[monkeynutz]

I think a silent bidding system could be problematic in that it requires everyone to completely trust whoever is recording the bids without any bias, you'd run into a lot of 'tie' situations, particularly on weaker items where lots of people bid 1 and that has to be resolved in some manner, and lastly people are really unsure what to bid because they have no idea what others are bidding or even if someone else is bidding. That's nice in some ways, particularly in that you don't get items going for next to nothing if there's only one person bidding (unless he or she somehow knows it), but you could also come across situations where people blow huge numbers of points out of paranoia because it's the only way they know for sure that they'll win.

[kaht]

and lastly people are really unsure what to bid because they have no idea what others are bidding or even if someone else is bidding

Our linkshell makes you /seacom what you want to bid on, so you can check all the /seacom to see who you're bidding against.

but you could also come across situations where people blow huge numbers of points out of paranoia because it's the only way they know for sure that they'll win.

I don't particularly find this to be a bad thing. The draw of the bidding system is that it removes lots of points from the pool. Less points in the pool gives new recruits and members with low points hope that they won't have to wait forever to start getting gear.

[Miraun]

Private bids remove bidding against eachother. Bidding against eachother increases the cost. If you do not increase the cost sufficiently, then you will have inflation.

[monkeynutz]

Private bids remove bidding against eachother. Bidding against eachother increases the cost. If you do not increase the cost sufficiently, then you will have inflation.

This is sort of what I was trying to say, but more that bids would be erratic in a silent bid system. Someone might lose repeatedly because they think a bid of 10 is sufficient not knowing whether they lost by 5 points or 50 points. You'd also have people overbidding, and I can see why that would be useful, but it's not great for longevity. Also you have to deal with people bidding the same amount for an item, more or less requiring you to inform everyone of the situation so that only one person wins. You can resolve this without saying who bid what, but it becomes more of a headache than I think it's worth (that's just me though). A typical bidding system deals with inflation, remains simple and clean, and levels out once the inflation has been taken care of (unless you have senior players going after such a small number of items that they can never really use their points, in which case I don't think there's anything to do about that or that necessarily needs to be done about that).

[RosalynSable]

I've hit the point in my dynamis shell that I've got enough points to beat out the next scholar for an item (whether it be hat or belt) and still have enough points to beat them for the other. It's kind of nice but it also sucks really bad because we've yet to get either and they're all I really need still. (Pup hands and cape aside)

[kewitt]

Well I will be glad is other learn of this thread.

The best thing I can add, Is pick a system that will not piss of vets if you change it.
LS that almost always had 30+ people coming is now down to 24.. and has cancelled 4 of there last 10 runs. Do to people not showing up.

My husband and I jumpped ship to a 5 point per run hidden bid system. Along with 2 other people from the LS.
My trial run I got xarcbard BST Relic free lot! So I jumped ship. 4/5 BST relic now.
Most I have bid on any relic was 1 point just so it didn't go freelot but SAVING all my point for THF hands and a few points for my last BST item..
I like this system because even someone with 100 point IE someone bid 97 to win PLD item.. really reset there points but they also get an item they really want!

Also. My next best idea. At this point in the game. There is no good reason to join a dynamis LS that doesn't have a Main THF with TH4. My new LS as 4 people with TH4. my last had none. The leader had 700+ points but wouldn't go do Xarcbard. I don't know how many times they went and did bassy.

[kaht]

My trial run I got xarcbard BST Relic free lot! So I jumped ship. 4/5 BST relic now.

I think S/E has it hardcoded into the game that BST must drop in every Xarcabard run...

Yet, my linkshell STILL hasn't seen BLM or THF drop... But at least we get BST every run.

[Khundes]

A system I saw used ONCE in a ls that truly impressed me, yet was never really brought up anywhere works as follows:

Attendance: 1 point
Getting Lot rights on an item: ALL YOUR POINTS. (You actually lose your points only if you have more points then everyone else who want the item)
Freelots: no points deducted if won.

And that's it. If you really want something, stack points until the item drops, and you don't gear hog. People who show up more often not only get more points but more chances at stuff they want. The only downside is that someone who wants nothing else from your event(s) will probably jump ship instead to try to spend a huge point buffer on whims, but that might actually be a good thing for newer people.

Of course, every time I mention this system, I get hit with a huge wall of resistance, because people feel it doesn't reward their sustained participation, when in fact it does, it just prevents them from getting EVERYTHING with priority, and it doesn't alienate newer people because they still get a shot at what they want.

(Also OP: I've been in a dynashell in such a predicament before myself. I quit after doing 6 runs with them, when I saw 5 guys not all even actively playing THF lot on THF pants (most with 100+ points ahead of me).