Can you have a guild with casual and harcore raiders? - Page 2

◊ Praetorian · 08/25/07, 11:02 AM

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.

---

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?

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.

Siddown · 08/25/07, 11:18 AM

Gurg, if I may ask, how'd the 'On an individual level: Being "ok" is not enough' paragraph go over in your post? To me that is the biggest individual roadblock to a guilds success (assuming you can fill out the numbers to every raid). It's always easy to blame things on gear, or that you didn't know the fight, etc. but the amount of people who don't understand their class and how to play it are just staggering.

Seeing someone get out DPS'd by 700 (yes, 700) on Gruul by another guildie of the same class then say "but I'm doing exactly the same thing!" is simply staggering. That, more than time spent raiding, will hold a guild back more than anything else, at least in my eyes.

EDIT: Spelling, it's too early on a Saturday over here on the west coast.

mercedes · 08/25/07, 11:32 AM

Originally Posted by Digo

I'm completely sympathetic for the guilds that aren't able or willing to abandon friends who may not be quite up to par. However, that's not to say you can't make progress -- it will just be slower.

I don't know if that's necessarily true. I think the fear of the OP, as well as others in this situation, is that progress might not be attainable. Basically, will burnout and frustration consume the guild before that progress is manifested unless certain changes are made?

Cottonface · 08/25/07, 11:45 AM

To the question: "Can you have a guild with casual and hardcore raiders?", the answer is yes. However, it is a yes with several restrictions upon it, mainly, that casual players are placed outside any influence of actual raiding and progression, as you cannot rely on casual players to be neither active nor dedicated enough to provide solid progressive play. That being said, a guild is more than just progression raiding from 18 till 24, it is also a social community, and within one such, a mere casual player both should and can have a place.

In TBC, raiding requires 25 players, hence each class is more or less restricted by the raid setup, if the guild wants to scale gearing up raiders alongside progressing. This became very visible early in TBC, as guilds began raiding Karazhan, which only requires 10 players, and for many guilds this caused drama and the usual jalousy. While I don't like the term hardcore raider as such, it requires players who are 110% commited to progress. That means they always have pots, flasks, consumables ready, always are willing to go the extra distance, always have enchants / gems on gear; and more important, are willing to wipe endlessly on a boss, while going thru the learning curve. In my experience, a HC raider is driven by progress, not by epics. It is the achivement of downing a boss, of being part of 25 players who's coordinated efforts come together, which is the glory; gear is secondary and will come eventually.

You cannot, nor should, expect such an attitude from a casual player. In accordance with Valjean, players who cannot play every day - or at least most of the raiding days - nor will above average when they play, shouldn't be considered a raiding player, and a raiding guild should not rely on such players at all. They are casual players, and are - in lack of a different word - second class players. However if a player only can play 2-3 days a week, but when he does is truly dedicated and good, he of course should be part of the raiding players.

In the end, what matterts is (1) A functional number of players within a class to maintain continous raiding in terms of progression, and (2) that these players are above average or better.

Fugazor · 08/25/07, 12:15 PM

Originally Posted by Valjean

A) Raids 3 days a week, and are exceptional on those days.
B) Raids 7 days a week, and are exceptional every day.
C) Raids 3 days a week, and will never be above average.
D) Raids 7 days a week, and will never be above average.

Question is for you:
Is hardcore for you A+B or B+D?

I think:
A+B - hardcore, progress
C+D - casual, social
A/B+C/D - problems and drama

You are at A/B+C/D like most guilds before Kael I think. Keeping it this way will not work at all. You cannot have cookie and eat cookie. If you keep it that way you will start loosing A+B players that make effort and are fucked by C+D. If you step up and make "hardcore" rules then C+D will probably need to leave which will cause problems with canceled raids.

So you would probably need to have 25+ A+B players already that will be able to sustain high attendance until you get more A+B from recruitment to relieve them.

Dangerous path?
Yes.

Is it worth it?
If you see Praetorian post and look that they "finished" game I would say yes it is worth to take a risk. I mean you will burn out anyway if you don't.

kaib · 08/25/07, 1:12 PM

Originally Posted by Yilona

Regardless, the point is that people need to know before going into the raid who has priority on spots in the raid. Give your high performer/low attendance people a mid-high rank so they get into the raids, etc. If people aren't surprised by being asked to sit, then they won't get upset/hurt over it, and a lot of drama goes away.

We use a www based signup system to avoid some of that. I really do not want people hurry back home from work, looking forward to a raid and then sit out. We put up signups 2-5 days before a raid happens, close the signup at some point of the raid day and then post a final list with the 25 raiding players between 3 and 4 pm (raid starts at 7).
It's still a kinda short notice, but not nearly as bad. It also allows us to sign with need/help, so people that are up for raiding if they are needed but would rather do something else can sign help.
I think this helps a lot to keep people from getting pissed off about not getting raid slots. If you are not on the list but are online and ready to jump in if needed, we award the same dkp that people in the raid get as well.
And if you are on that final list and do not show up, it's slapping time.

davewolfgang · 08/25/07, 1:18 PM

Being from what is more known as a more Casual Guild who's just getting into Gruul, we have even had this problem. When TBC first came out we had a core of 10-15 players that did all the quest, ran all the instances up to 70, did all the key chain quests, and got their key to Kara rather quickly. Once we had enough keyed, and felt they were ready to really get into Kara we started setting up runs. The one thing that helped this along was getting everyone on the same page and that's a good guild web site, and keeping a scheduling calender and pushing everyone in the guild to use it.

At first we started only scheduling 2 nights a week and weekends, so that the core could learn the fights and get all the strategies down. Once this was done, we moved into Kara nicely. For the others still on their way up due to playing times and RL, we learned that just because you are "keyed" or "attuned", that doesn't mean you are ready for Kara. (This was less of an issue with 20 and 40 man's on OC because one mediocre player didn't always hold the raid back) But with Kara being on 10, you really WERE only as strong as your weakest player. After many long threads and discussions in the officer forums, we came up with minimum requirements for each class before you would be able to raid. This was not only with just gear stats, but also playing time with an officer and/or the class lead. This really cleaned up the teams, and people that weren't up to snuff knew that they would have to get there before they would get a chance.

What was noticed is that the "usually" the type A and B players were the ones gearing up and getting all the requirements done first and usually on their own. And through some "tough love" this was made known as to WHY this was. We lost a few, but really only the ones that were really on the way out anyway, because for the ones that really wanted to raid, they realized WHY we were having these requirements. Now that we are getting into Gruul's, we are setting up minimum requirements for that instance and probably will for everything above that. One of the things that's kept us from getting further is that we finally have enough A and B players to set up two Kara teams, and when we schedule Gruul's we are still having to bring outside players. But we all know we ARE a mainly causal guild with 95% of the players with family and kids and 40+ hour a week jobs.

During this time we did lose a few who thought the guild wasn't progressing "fast enough" and did want to raid more often and moved on. We wished them well, and some even came back because the grass wasn't always greener on the other side.

The reason I bring all this up is the one thing that kept most all of the drama and jumping ship to a minimum is Communication! We encourage all our members to be active on the web site and the forums, where we have team, class, professions and all sorts of other forums where anyone can ask questions and good discussions can occur (I actually was first directed here by our rogues in their forum discussing all the Theorycrafting here and have been browsing and found this post). Scheduling is done at least a week in advance, if not two, so that everyone knows what's going on and we can resolve scheduling conflicts or fill spots BEFORE the night of the raid. I have actually seen some C and D type players BECOME A and B type players because of the input and communication of the guild as a whole. We have several players running and posting WWS on every raid and even some 5-man Heroics to help everyone see how they are doing.

We aren't going to be getting any world or server first kills, but we will get there as a good, strong guild of good friends.

constantius · 08/25/07, 1:29 PM

We're what I consider to be casually hardcore (go go semantics). Basically, we raid almost identical hours to Gurg above (16-17 per week; optional crap on top for those who play more), but unlike Gurg, we don't have the history of excellence and the deep(er) community to draw on.

Shadowsong is a bit of a backwater, despite being one of the original 16 (odd?) servers. I've been playing on the server since it was formed, and the group that I'm with now includes a tremendous amount of old friends and contacts. Despite this, we've somehow managed to insist that people be competent, aside from a couple of individuals.

We are currently second in progression on our server. Does this make us hardcore? No. We're working on Kael. Does this make us hardcore? No. Not by the standards of many on these boards.

But given the environment on our server, and the total number of raiding guilds actually *accomplishing* anything, we're hardcore by Shadowsong standards. Yet we don't raid any more than some of the guilds that are struggling with Hydross right now. We just have a community of raiders who aren't retards.

In the end, what decides whether or not you are "hardcore" is your attitude to the raiding world. It's how seriously you take what some people consider "just a game". I've had people tell me that I take raiding way too seriously, that it's "like a job", and other random crap from people who usually end up not sticking around.

My answer? It's not a job. It's a competitive sports team. And what most people would consider normal in a bowling, or softball, or basketball, or rugby team ... they somehow consider not normal when it comes to a "game", just because it's virtual.

It's the expectations of performance, attitude, and attendance. It's letting your team know when you can't make it. It's showing up with the right frame of mind. It's showing up mentally and physically (consumables, ho!) prepared. It's treating your teammates with respect, not derision and mockery. It's knowing that you are part of a group that is *choosing* to spend 4 hours of your evening *together* doing something you all find interesting and fun. And if you screw with that, you're screwing with your entire team ... and if you do that too much, you don't have a team anymore.

That's the difference between someone who is "hardcore" and someone who is "casual". Is it "just a game" ... or is it something more? If the words "but it's just a game" ever come out of your mouth, you're casual. If you never even think that anymore ... you're hardcore.

IMO.

Kazanir · 08/25/07, 1:36 PM

Gurg's post is pretty much exactly what I posted in our forums 4 weeks ago when I took over as the branch leader for Virakar's WoW branch. Thus far, those guidelines (and recruiting competent players to fill the vacant slots) have given us new Al'ar and Karathress kills in the past two weeks, with Leotheras to follow Monday (we hope.) Our results have been nothing but positive, despite the whining, angst, emoness, bitching, and other crap from some older members of the guild who weren't willing to commit, or couldn't make the cut, and feel displaced because of it.

• Bazazu · 08/25/07, 9:25 PM

Originally Posted by Kazanir

Gurg's post is pretty much exactly what I posted in our forums 4 weeks ago when I took over as the branch leader for Virakar's WoW branch. Thus far, those guidelines (and recruiting competent players to fill the vacant slots) have given us new Al'ar and Karathress kills in the past two weeks, with Leotheras to follow Monday (we hope.) Our results have been nothing but positive, despite the whining, angst, emoness, bitching, and other crap from some older members of the guild who weren't willing to commit, or couldn't make the cut, and feel displaced because of it.

The fact is, something like this will happen at some point, or you will always be miserable.

Either the guild trudges on, carrying the weight of a bunch of players where it can, and you will slowly make progress, at the cost of your mental health.

Or you lay down the gauntlet and say enough is enough. You are not here to baby sit others. You are here to enjoy this game, and having to pick up the slack of 3, 5 or 10 raiders is not your idea of fun. Either jump ship, or start an evolution/revolution of your guild to cut down on the people who *think* they are hardcore, but are self dillusional.

You need to find a "bad cop" basically.

I'll give you a little example.

Fusion recruited a hunter about 5 months ago. He showed great potential. Had some good skill. But he got complacent very quickly. We thought he might be going through an adjustment period to get used to tank threat, and how others played, but he never got better. He talked big game, but just did not pull the numbers of our other resident hunter. No one wanted to do it, but I laid down the law and gkicked him. There was no reason to say anything. Week after week after week of him being extremely sub par on WWS reports, SWStats etc, whatever. It meant he wasn't puting in the effort. (FYI, yes we took gear discrepencies into account - he actually out geared our other hunter, and still performed like shit compared to him).

It wasn't easy, I'll admit. We had some small rumblings from the guild wondering why he was kicked. He wasn't an asshole, but the fact was that he was running at about 70% of what we knew was possible.

EDIT: Just to clarify, in some cases like this we have simply demoted people to a friend status in the guild, however there was one other factor that led to the gkick, which is drama and doesn't need to be spelled out.

I'm not trying to champion a scenario where you are kicking people left and right because they fuck up, or don't bring there A game. But you need to start trending people over time, and see how they stack up against others in their class or role. Give them 1 fair warning. If you don't see improvement, crack the whip.

Opioid · 08/25/07, 9:58 PM

Type As and Ds together are always gonna cause drama unless you state you have some kind of broad officer discretion set in stone (which will piss a lot of people off in itself.)

Shitty players with constant attendance (D) that see DKP as "payment" for their roles will suck up loot from the infrequent skilled players (A) and will bitch to high heaven every time it doesn't work out like that.

Just my observation, I haven't ever really found a solution to it that works, so I stick with long term friends that know when one of them is shitty/infrequent and will be modest about loot.

mek · 08/26/07, 4:32 AM

Ultimately you need a core 25, essentially: the assurance that 25 people that know what they are doing will log in for any given night. As an example, I was the only enh shaman for a guild and my att was about 66-75%; this didn't work well, as there was no other enh shaman, and so the raid makeup would have to alter based on my attendance. This is where things go awry. If you have 4 paladins with 75% attendance, and roll the dice badly and only 1 paladin shows up, that can ruin your entire night.

You can definitely have 20 people with 98% attendance and then 20 people with 25% attendance. It's not a big deal, encounters aren't tuned so tightly that a few undergeared players will break you these days. But those "casuals" have to be special people; the kind that know exactly what to do, the kind that watch videos and memorize strats. "Casuals" in a hardcore guild should know that they are expected to work outside of their logged-in time, to keep up with the rest of the team.

Kazanir · 08/26/07, 2:58 PM

I recently kicked a warlock from the guild who had just joined 3 days prior. He had done poorly with assignments on Magtheridon, been deceptive about his knowledge of fights, pulled agro on Hydross transitions twice (this was a clue to the fact that he really didn't know what he was doing) and did less damage on Lurker than any of our other ranged classes by a wide margin. I removed him from the raid and told him his trial with Virakar was over.

Reactions were varied: A couple people wondered why we hadn't attempted to coach him, and a couple friends of his offered some (in my opinion, very weak) arguments in his defense. However, several of our new recruits (who we got as a group from a different guild that wasn't performing and was having the same issues noted in this thread) let me know in no uncertain terms how happy they were to see me removing people who didn't make the grade.

Incidentally, this group of recruits are also the best group we've seen in a long time, regularly topping our meters and generally being awesome players.

Trouble · 08/26/07, 5:31 PM

If it's a new thing people will take time to get used to it, and some people may ultimately leave. But you'll be better off if you take a hardline stance because the amount of people you will lose to frustration and retard induced burn out will be much higher.

Zifna · 08/26/07, 6:15 PM

Originally Posted by Valjean

A) Raids 3 days a week, and are exceptional on those days.
B) Raids 7 days a week, and are exceptional every day.
C) Raids 3 days a week, and will never be above average.
D) Raids 7 days a week, and will never be above average.

I'd like to say something here in addition to Fuz's comments on Page 2, specifically as it relates to the "and will never be above average," portion.

How do you know they will never be above average? And by that, I think you mean that they are just barely worth their raid slot, or are a placeholder... better than inviting nobody, but not someone you're actually happy about having in the raid.

A few months back, we really started taking steps about this issue. I'd imagine that in addition to these people, you may have 2 or 3 that are only marginally in the "average" category... that in fact, these people are often far below your expectations for their class. We started talking to the people in our guild that fell into this category and pointed out that the differences between them and others in gear should not account for such a large difference in DPS, HPS, or mob control. We challenged them to look into what they could do differently to improve themselves and become a real asset to the raid. And, when a few of them failed to show any improvement, we let them know that if they didn't show improvement they would no longer be Raider-ranked. A few couldn't seem to improve, and some left, angered by our suggestions that they were inferior players. We demoted one.

But others improved, and, in some cases, excelled. Other members, maybe not so marginal, got serious about improving their own performance when they saw that we were also serious about it.

I won't say it was fun or easy, but I will say it was worth it. Talk to some of your "never above average" players. Talk to your excellent players. Find out what they're doing differently and suggest changes. Post WWS and encourage discussion of mistakes that have been made.

Siddown · 08/26/07, 7:57 PM

Originally Posted by Zifna

How do you know they will never be above average? And by that, I think you mean that they are just barely worth their raid slot, or are a placeholder... better than inviting nobody, but not someone you're actually happy about having in the raid.

Unfortunately there are just some people who don't get this game, and will never "get" this game. Just like there are some people who can't learn how to Ice Skate, understand basic math, or remember the first 10 elements in the Periodic table.

The problem is, what do you do if you know said person, especially if they've been in your guild for years. Because there are definitely some people out there that no matter what you do, no matter how many threads on Theorycraft they read and no matter how much coaching you give them, they will still be not only below average, but might possibly be detrimental to your raid (depending on the encounter obviously).

constantius · 08/26/07, 9:55 PM

Sometimes, you just have to put up with certain people and their quirks, so long as they aren't *totally* horrible.

We have a lot of great players in our guild. Some of them you just have to know how to inspire/ push. Our hunters are capable of amazing dps, but most days, slack as much as they can get away with just because that's what they're like. We recently recruited a new hunter, in worse gear than them, who is Marks spec (which *should* do less dps than BM). I told the hunters I wanted to see some real competition.

They pushed the dps all night, regularly coming top 5 (as in 2-3 hunters in the top 5, putting out 1300+ dps) ... and the recruit was on their tail the entire night, as Marks. It really made them realize how much they were capable of, and having the new guy around, who *doesn't* have the lazy attitude that some of the others affect, will probably result in a raid-wide dps improvement.

You need some people who constantly, always, every fight push the dps meters. Those people pull up the bar for everyone else. If you don't have this, and are satisfied with mediocrity, the attitude will pervade everything you do.

Zifna · 08/27/07, 12:30 AM

Originally Posted by Siddown

Unfortunately there are just some people who don't get this game, and will never "get" this game. Just like there are some people who can't learn how to Ice Skate, understand basic math, or remember the first 10 elements in the Periodic table.

The problem is, what do you do if you know said person, especially if they've been in your guild for years. Because there are definitely some people out there that no matter what you do, no matter how many threads on Theorycraft they read and no matter how much coaching you give them, they will still be not only below average, but might possibly be detrimental to your raid (depending on the encounter obviously).

This is true. However, I've also noticed that people tend to assume that people are like this without actually testing the theory, because it's a very uncomfortable thing to go to someone and tell them "You're bad." I was very startled when I actually started talking to some of the players in my guild. They'd heard the advice, but they'd actually thought that they were "doing well" and were surprised to hear that I--and the other leadership--found their performance to be poor. One of the players who was surprised was a DPS class who was occasionally beaten by tanks on the meters. And yet he truly was honestly surprised and shocked to hear that he was doing badly.

Seneku · 08/27/07, 3:59 AM

The start of TBC was great for us, pre-TBC we were a decent mix of casual and hardcore players progressed decently into Naxx up to around Thaddius/Gothik prior to the "pvp" patch which basically killed off most interest in raiding. This became pretty evident when we started raiding in TBC, we blitzed through Karazhan quite quickly snagging up a bunch of server firsts etc which made a nice change as we were always usually 3rd or so. Then the problems started when we started doing 25man raids, the mix of Casual/Hardcore really started to show problems pre-2.1 and progress ground to a halt after killing Maulgar.

2.1 came and we started going well again though we consistently had attendance problems particularly on busy times such as the exam period as ofc a lot of our players are students. Basically we had a mix of casual/hardcore players but we never really mass recruited, our guys were largely a mix of A+B with some C+D's thrown in there as well but the problem ofc was we were reliant on the C+D's for making up the numbers. In 40man raiding this was fine but with TBC there is a much greater reliance on individuals in TBC and you really cant afford to have members there "just to make up the numbers" any more, the Casual/Hardcore guild mix is such a pain in TBC and really not worth the drama.

So we had to take some drastic action and tighten up the way we did things, basically C's(and some of the D's) were demoted to social members meaning they can still do the regular guild stuff but wouldn't be invited to raids. We recruited more, mostly via a mini merge with another raiding guild that had just had 3 of its tanks quit the game leaving them in the lurch but we also recruited more key classes/players which meant we have a lot more available each night. However ofc more players meant Rotation, something we weren't used to up till this point to a degree but it was either that or keep having to cancel raids now and then whenever enough didn't show up etc.

The main thing we implemented though was an organised and personally developed sign up system which allowed us to select people in advance for raids but also to make the whole thing a lot more transparent because up till then we'd basically always had "just enough" on to raid each night so rotation really wasn't something people were used to. Basically it works threefold, firstly people fill out what days they are available/want to raid, they can also indicate if they are unsure if they are available or are available but would prefer to be a reserve unless needed. We then add the raids for the week to the list, people can then tweak their schedules etc but we generally take into account how many are available etc when scheduling the raids (i.e. if we're low on AoE classes we'd do VR/Al'Ar