We don't punish people. Punishments don't work for people enjoying their suppossed "lesiure" time for the vast majority of people. Sure, some guilds are fine with that and power to them, but most people won't be in the long run.

We speak with people who are repeatedly making mistakes, and if they don't fix them, they don't come to that fight next time round until they can demonstrate some sort of improvement.

I'd also recommend that you don't stick to a religious sign up rote - as all it does is emphasies the people who visit your forums a lot for raid places, rather than the individual's skills that your raid leader is in a better position to judge than anyone else.

You motivate people with success and couragement. PUnishing peopel doesn't motivate them, it just pisses them off in the long run for the majority of people.

A little note to the gold for spout thingie: It's not so much a punishment as a psychological thingie. People laughed when it was introduced. People pay it laughingly. The point is: It works extremely well to get people stay focused on not-dieing-to-spout. Probably in the same way than Northerner's be there on time or someone else gets all the good stuff.

We're a raid group that was quite casual and we're currently semi-casual wanna-be hardcore. And thus we struggle with getting peoples attutitude to the right mind-set. There shouldn't be punishments, I fully agree. We don't want to, actually. We didn't ever do stuff like that before. But we did so, this week after there was just too much dieing due to spout: and it was extremely effective. As I wrote, after this was announced, people actually concenctrated fully on that. It worked, it worked brutally effective. We did say before to concentrate on that - with mediocre results.

So really, if constructive critique does not work ( we do that ! ) or does not show immediate results. What do you do ?


As for:

I've heard that before but it seems random clockwise or counter-clockwise for us. Not fixed direction.

I'm pushing for a change in the way we put together a running raid. Though that is an entirely different discussion/topic (not an unintersting one, either).

Problem is, we demotivate people who are actively giving their best all the time by allowing or letting people get away with lack of concentration at this point. I rather have no punishments at all, true. We're working on that as well, but in the mean time, it has shown to work, if only to get people to focus more / better on stuff they wouldn't even if it is said explicitly before. Somewhat sad, I know, but there you are. It's not the main raid style by which we want to raid. But maybe there are situations where punishment doled out is warranted ? That I want to find out.

Basically it comes down to this- you cannot force compliance or competence. If your members choose to behave badly or stupidly you can't reach through their monitor and strangle them, no matter how much you'd like to. Understanding that is the first step to really getting behind the brain of your raid and figuring out what *will* work... it's usually going to be some combination of threats, voluntary punishment, actioned punishment, cajoling, positive reenforcement, and logic.

Voluntary punishment (like the pay 10g to the bank) requires players who agree with the punishment and comply. You can't force the players to send in 10g if they die by reaching into thier accounts and debiting it from them. Players usually have to agree that the punishment is fair. See this a lot in raising kids- this is time out in an open room, additional chores, and other unenforceable restrictions of freedom. If the figure of authority is strong enough or the sense of punishment is fair enough to the punished, everything usually goes along swimmingly. On the down side- leaders can be wrong, and people can be irresponsible or unwilling to submit to punishment even if the leadership has deemed it necessary. Since it's voluntary- it will only work for as long as the guild is willing to allow it to work.

Actioned punishments are usually enforceable. 50dkp minus. You have absolute control over something and are withdrawing it (or adding it, but that's pretty darn rare in punishments... the only example I can think of is blasting people with terrible music when they screw up). Usually they'll be related to the only things leaders in an online setting can control. Participation and rewards. There's no question of wrong or right, and in real life- there's usually no alternative. Locking a kid in their room. Denying supper. Spanking. Once a kid reaches a certain age though- those punishments usually stop cold. Usually around 17-20 the person being punished suddenly has realistic alternatives and the ability to walk out if they feel it's unfair- suddenly making most punishments voluntary. After a certain age most people simply won't allow themselves to be in a position so lacking in control that they can be unfairly (involuntarily) punished. They rebel. They get pissed. They walk away. Sadly, most people new to pure leadership positions try to fall back on this as default if they don't have other training. It can work.... as long as you choose people willing to allow themselves to be punished and who react well to that kind of environment. 50dkp minus guy still managed to run a guild with enough people to kill Onyxia. In my experience most guilds that use punishment as the only motivator tend to crumble once people look around and say "hey why the hell am I letting this guy beat me up over A GAME?"

Logic is basic. You lay out the facts and you let the people you're trying to lead make decisions. We can wipe 15 more times- or we can focus and kill him. Works great with adults and tends to give predictable results. Sadly it's not likely to give dramatic results- which is usually what you're looking for... but it's a great place to start. It can also go a little haywire when the herd suddenly chooses the choice you didn't intend them to choose. We can go left and spend 15 min clearing to easy boss, or we can go right and spend 2 hours clearing to hard boss. When raids detour....

Cajoling is basic too. It's begging. Pleading to the raid to do what you want them to do without reward or punishment. It's also pretty worthless in the scheme of things and only really works if you've managed to brainwash your guild into a cult that acts entirely on your whims with no regards to game theory. Cults are bad mmkay?

Positive reenforcement. Raids do it all the time. It's what the entire game is based around. Kill a monster- get a prize! Anything dealing with loot is already set up around positive reenforcement. It's proven to be effective at all age levels with long lasting results- I mean seriously. Need to see it in action? How long have YOU been playing World of Warcrack? Set out the desired outcome, and when it's done, give the virtual cookie. Wave the cookie in people's faces if needed- but find a cookie that will motivate them. Some guild's are going to be loot cookies. Some use world/server/faction/guild firsts- achievements. Some it's good enough to have everyone happy together. Reward good behavior often and meaningfully and you'll see long term results. What you WON'T see is instant results, the majority of the time. Every positive reenforcement eventually wears out- killing Ragnaros was an awesome cookie 2 years ago, but it's not really rewarding now. Drugs are great for the first few hits- but the death and decay down the road sucks. Only so often you can dangle really great incentives out there before those incentives wear off. It's not an incentive for Rebirth to get a server first anymore- we've had them for years.

What do we do? A lot of logic, some positive reinforcement, and a small amount of punishment- usually coated nicely. If the raid simply can't get it's shit together- raid is given a short afk with strong advice for everyone to get the wiggles out and come back focused. It's not a reward because most of our people WANT to raid and WANT to get stuff accomplished- and 10 min of sitting around "focusing" doesn't kill bosses. Constant reminders of the evenings goal and how close we are- little reminders of what's changed and how this solution is better... those are things that tend to work for us.

Screaming at the raid- doesn't work for us. We have enough independent thinkers and strong personalities that pushing it beyond polite and semi-mannerly adult to adult directions tends to wind up with the raiders simply leaving in protest- first raids, and then the guild. Some guild have raid leaders who walk out in disgust- we have raid members who do. That said, we've had our hair raising screams in vent before when someone is simply pushed too far and in the extreme short term it can work wonders for the raid. I think people just go into shock. Once the shock wears off though- the screaming had better have died down or everything will go to hell with no one focused on the raid at all.

All that out there, however, and we have issues with people who abuse the lack of punishments to goof off or not pull their weight and there's not a great solution for that aside from dismantling parts of the guild to force compliance. It's not the best for people who are constantly motivated internally and who have to deal with sometimes sloppy play and who really want to scream at people for not being the same. There's a certain amount of tolerance necessary to deal with a system that's strongest punishment is removal from raid- and that's 99% of the time a voluntary punishment (Guys, I'm really sucking right now and can't focus- can you get SoandSo to take my place. Fuck, I wanted to be here too.).

Every guild is a little different and what you tolerate changes as well.

While I agree on a rudimentary level that there should be motivation over punishment, I think people mistake the grounds under which a raiding guild operates sometimes, and if they maintain that misconception for an extended period of time, it can lead to complacency.

Having been a GM and a raid leader for a considerable amount of time, I have found that the most worthwhile approach when attempting to keep people on their toes is to remind them about who they are and what they're doing. This is not an existential discussion, but rather a reminder that their position is a valuable one. On my realm, we have a fairly small raiding population, and I myself have always kept high standards when raiding. I have rarely gone and stated openly that a particular person or set of people was causing a problem with an encounter, but I think most people knew to whom I was referring. I have regularly stated, though, that I would be willing to replace anyone and everyone (including myself) who was causing an encounter to be incomplete. As many people know, Main Tanks can get egos, but when you find yourself willing to invoke this principle on them as well, their ego rapidly deflates. Some might argue that this just induces fear in individuals, and I have no doubt that it does on some level. I believe it also induces consciousness, though, and because I have always been very careful (or at least in my mind such) to limit the degree to which I would assail a specific person's efforts, the collective consciousness increased dramatically. Probably the first time this became clear was with Nefarian in BWL, as that was one of the first major raiding challenges for us. I also would regularly invoke a "last attempt" mentality, and the results became startling. In our early learning, every time I stated "last attempt" we would get a boss kill; we began to joke that I should start the evening with the same line to save us all time.

As it pertains to consequences, in the past we have had people voluntarily pay the guild bank money for wipes. For example, during the early days of learning Vael, anyone who failed to move when having Burning Adrenaline would, by accepting an invite to the raid, agree to pay the guild 40g. But it's important to note that this sort of punishment alone is not a worthwhile approach. When we had good nights with speed clears or we learned a new encounter rapidly, I would reward every member of the raid (and the bench, to a lesser degree) with cash for their focus. In pre-TBC, gold was a major influence in people's participation, and so I found this a worthwhile incentive. It was never guaranteed and was far from regular, but when people knew that their worthwhile productivity could net them more than an early raid night and a feeling of accomplishment, they tended to step their game up all the more. I suppose I started invoking this policy the most in late AQ40 and into Naxxramas.

I think more than anything you have to find people who are like minded as you, who admit to their mistakes and seek to avoid a reproduction of them. Sometimes this requires "tough love" in the sense of telling them quite plainly (albeit with an absence of vitriol) that they must improve in order to stay in the raid, but I don't think it's unreasonable given the amount of time and effort that raiding tends to require. (It dwarfs in comparison to other MMORPGs and is certainly not as bad now as it was pre-TBC, but for a guild like mine for which all its members have full-time jobs, it's an ample investment.) I think most people want to succeed, and I don't think there are too many "filler" roles remaining, but I don't think anyone should allow their ego to become so large as to forget that an entire other body of individuals are counting upon them to supplement their enjoyment. And because it's enjoyment that we seek principally after all, one must be ever mindful of that. Only when we choose to forget that enjoyment can still imply responsibility does it go south.

That's my take.