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Mike Tyson
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This is a post from our internal forums that I made roughly 4.5 months ago, in response to the dawning realization that things simply weren't working any longer in the face of the (pre-nerf) 25-man raid game. I think some of the things I said bear some relevance here, and rather than repeat them all, here you go:
Right now, in order to continue to function as a raiding guild, much less one of the caliber that many of us have come to expect, and to which we are entitled, we need to formalize our structure somewhat. That means having expectations, standards, and commitments, figuring out who among us is willing to participate in that structure, and then looking outside to fill the remaining slots until we have an adequate core of players.
Fear not, I have no interest in a Nihilum-style "7 days a week, 6 hours a day, farm consumables for another 4 hours every day, and be available until 5am if I say so" regime. I work too many hours for that shit, and so do most of us. I think most guilds raid more than they need to. We've always been about a reasonable raiding volume, but using that time efficiently. Recently we've lost both of those attributes, but that is going to change.
My vision of our raid week is 4 days a week, 4 hour sessions. Four days out of the following five: Tues/Weds/Thurs/Sat/Mon, using all five when needed. For the time being, one of those (probably Thurs) is likely to remain a Kara day, but we're not far off from Kara not being relevant to most of our core raiding force.
Here are my expectations:
1) A minimum of 75% attendance long-term (i.e., 3+ days a week). Ideally 90%+, and higher attendance will mean a guaranteed raid slot unless you actively would rather sit out. Attendance will be taken for every boss kill and progress night, including Maulgar/Gruul/Mag, and will include a waitlist of participating Raiders. I'm not talking about awarding "DKP" or the like, but raw attendance will be tracked. When I say long-term I obviously understand that people will go on a trip somewhere, or have a brutal week at work, or have unavoidable obligations crop up, and miss raids. I probably will too. But on average, 75% attendance is not too much to ask for. I expect people to plan around our raid times to the extent possible. They will be fixed timeslots, and they really are not severe. All of you played more than 16 hours a week leveling to 70 (much, much more, in many cases). You can give me 16 hours a week now. People who fail to meet attendance requirements in the long-term will be rotated out of the raiding roster.
2) Preparedness for every raid. This means knowing the fights, knowing your role in the fights, and yes, having the consumables needed to perform your role to the fullest. I do not intend to turn into a flask-chugging guild and throw thousands of gold at every boss, but if it would be fruitful, the option always needs to be there. "Oops, sorry, I don't have any pots" isn't acceptable if we decide that we need some DPS buffs in order to secure a kill or more meaningful learning attempts. People who are not prepared will be replaced by those who are. People who are chronically unprepared will be permanently replaced.
3) Competitiveness and achievement.
On a guild level: Being "ok" is not enough. The point to the raid game is to see the content while it is fresh, to challenge ourselves, and to prepare ourselves for the next tier of difficulty as efficiently as possible once the prior tier has been learned. Waiting around for everything to get nerfed before we can do it, or watching dozens of videos for every boss we fight before we pull it for the first time is not what I have in mind. Right now, we have a window in which to catch up. We have 5 bosses to kill in SSC, and 1 to kill in TK. We can do that in 2-3 weeks easily. Let's. And then let's be up there with the others entering Hyjal once SSC/TK are retuned in 2.1.
On an individual level: Being "ok" is not enough. I am not a DPS class, but I can't understand how someone who is can just shrug their shoulders and accept that they are 20%-30% behind other members of their class, or 20-30% behind people in other guilds. I can't understand how people can watch others consistently outheal them, without actively seeking to change that. And so forth. For DPS classes in particular, you are more important now than you ever have been before in WoW. Before, it used to just be a matter of needing good tanks and good healers to keep those tanks alive, and you couldn't possibly lose. DPS just meant fights ended a minute faster. Not anymore. I am not a blind damagemeter-whore, of course, and there is much more to skill than that. I take all the rest as a given, whether it's CC, kiting mobs, performing encounter-specific functions like clicking cubes, buffing the raid, and so forth. I take all of that as a given. All of that must be done. But what distinguishes you is the damage you do in between taking care of all that other stuff. At the end of the day, small differences in gear may account for a couple dozen DPS here or there. Or maybe someone had a shaman in their group and someone else didn't. No problem. But we all have access to roughly the same gear at this stage of the game, and ideally our DPS classes should all be vying with each other on any fight. There shouldn't be a "#1 DPS mage" or a "#1 DPS hunter" because everyone should be capable of being #1 on any given night, depending on how your crit streaks and other random factors play out. If there are things people can do to improve their performance, whether it's gear or spec or less tangible factors, I expect people to do them. We all need to be on the same page in that regard, or this won't work.
In terms of skill otherwise, this can be difficult to quantify, but for those of you with whom I've been playing for a long time, I have a pretty good sense of where everyone stands. So do most of our veteran players, really, even if it's not often discussed openly. Speaking of...
Criticism: Don't be an insecure and delicate flower. We have gotten far too complacent about this over the past couple of years, and the amount of snide commentary that goes on in tells, class channels, and so forth, is just embarrassing, and detrimental to the guild. If you screw up, figure out why, and fix it. If you keep screwing up, understand that it's in everyone's best interest for you to be replaced. Don't get defensive. We all make mistakes. Just don't make the same mistakes twice. Every one of the 25 people in our group should be an asset.
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People who are willing to accept, and continue to honor, the above guidelines, will be Raiders. The same way a 5v5 arena team might have a 7-man or 8-man roster for flexibility, I see our raid group as a 25-man team, and I envision a roster of an appropriate size, in the same general vein. I would like us to maintain a balanced roster of ~35-40 Raiders at any given time, figuring that we will have 40 people with 75% attendance for a core of no fewer than 30 on any given night. We will recruit, starting immediately, to flesh out that roster. Other guild members outside that roster will be "Casuals" or "Non-raiders" or whatever you like to call yourselves. If needed due to holes in our progression raid groups, or on easy farm content that we've otherwise outgeared, you can raid. When we're looking for new Raiders to fill any holes that form in the roster due to attrition, we will look first to interested and proven members of the guild, and if none exist to fill the immediate need, we will recruit from outside. But actively trying to rotate dozens of people through every bit of content the moment we've beaten it will end in nothing but tears.
If you are willing to commit to the above, and you think this interests you, post below. Please include some comments regarding your raid availability (remember, Tues/Weds/Thurs/Mon evenings, and Sat afternoon, are the potential raid slots, and I expect 4 in any given week), and any other comments you think are relevant.
Be warned that I'm not rubber-stamping everyone who posts. Some people will be disappointed by this process, and I'll speak with them privately, and I'd encourage them to speak with me. Selectivity and high standards are necessary if this is going to be anything other than a meaningless exercise.
If you want to discuss these changes in general, discuss in the other thread. Recognize, however, that solution is not really particularly flexible. It's not necessarily a joyous occasion, but it's a crucial one. This will leave some people feeling shut out, but let's be honest here -- right now, we're barely raiding at all to begin with, so what is there to be shut out from? The alternative is watching the sad conclusion of the inexorable path to burnout down which many of our best players, as well as myself, have been walking. And then there won't be any raiding guild left to save.
So, who's in?
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I think some of the principles above more or less pinpoint the distinction you have in mind (as loaded a term as "casual" or "hardcore" can otherwise be). As it turned out for us, we had about 26-28 people as of that point who were fully onboard (and a lot of non-hardcore who admitted they couldn't meet the requirements but supported the change anyway). We recruited another 7-8 in our major recruitment push back in April, and never looked back. |