You don't have to start this way, but it's a long hard road to build it in to the culture and the longer you're chilling out any other way- the harder the conversion is. We started off a lot more casual than we are now, and we still have to squash more casual tendancies from cropping up unexpectedly even from members recruited after we phased out the 3 days/3hours a day raiding we had in MC. (It's been over a year now that we've been at 5+ raid days a week and months since we aded the 6th day that people still can't seem to think of as a "normal" raid day). Bad habits have a tendancy to settle in the roots of the guild and not let go. The old members who were taught bad habits by REALLY old members (now long since gone) teach them to the new members, who become the old members remembering something and teaching it to the new members.... and on and on.
Believe me, bad habits are the ones I am trying hard to miss out on. We're inheriting some people that are coming from the "purples are progression" type guild and some people from more relaxed environments. When tBC comes out, I plan on using the 5 man instances and leveling as much as possible to build the community of the guild and enforce the four days a week (starting small) attendance policy.
I hope we don't break too many eggs, but omelets have always been a favorite way to start the day... Thanks for the feedback :)
We track people's attendance to wipe nights, multiple times during the raids. Each of these logs makes up their attendance. We have separate attendance tracking for raids where loot is distributed, and raids where we are working on a new boss.
If a person's attendance to wipe nights is below a certain threshold, they cannot earn points.
What you are proposing seems like an unneeded complexity. I think you should first use your resources to reevaluate your loot credit system and make adjustments to it so that credit can be given for time spent wiping to new content. It is quite possible to award credit for leaning content while retaining a zero sum system.
Uroloki asks questions for which I have no simple answers. The first answers come to mind are somewhat anecdotal and may not apply to your situation.
Originally Posted by uruloki
Did you, as an earlier poster explained how to do, make the raid this way as a change or was it part of your culture from the beginning? I'm starting a new guild...
Reborn has really strict recruiting requirements, as well as a raiding schedule that some may consider demanding. It is entirely possible that our guild's atmosphere caters to players who have a more intense passion to face new challenges and overcome them as quickly as possible. This attitude is at the core of the guild's culture. If your players prefer the loot pinatas, they may take a slightly more casual attitude towards progress, which may require some patience.
Originally Posted by uruloki
I really want to see everything rather than get the loots from them, and I want my raid to have that same attitude. The other part of that is that zero-sum is the way to go, and I feel very strongly that any kind of bonus points (for wipe nights, farming mats, etc.) skew the system too much.
Perhaps you could call a meeting and discuss your expectations. We have a guild meeting on vent at least once per week, to discuss expectations, projects, goals, and to make sure everyone is on the same page. Neglecting to give your raid a reward for wipe nights can serve to discourage the inner voice that asks, "What's in it for me?" When in fact me does not exist any more than a single droplet of water exists seperately from the vast collective that is water. We are all water. We all benefit.
Originally Posted by uruloki
I'm researching the IRPP and some of the other systems with points for wipe nights, but I'd rather get those people who want to push it for the sake of being in at the kill rather than grabbing the goodies when we have the encounter on farm.
We don't use zero-sum yet. Our guild-leaders are people very much like you who for whatever reasons decided to form their own guild. We have faced all sorts of obstacles in the last month or so, but MC has been cleared, our infrastructure is in place, and recruitment and retention are no longer issues we face.
If our loot system causes problems to arise, I'm sure we'll handle those too. In our guild, loot is a minor concern. Progress is first and foremost and loot will inevitably follow.
The last thing you want to do if you're using your dkp system to incentivize attendance is blame your dkp system for bad attendance. You don't want people thinking they only raid for dkp. You want them thinking they raid because it's fun, productive, and dragons have got to die. It is a moral imperative. So keep all the changes on the "This change is mostly so you don't have to make a hard decision if you have to miss a night" side, and less on the "We know you only wants the phat loots you selfish monkey slave, come wipe with us you unbecoming haggerbatter."
There's a lot in your post I agree with Anias, and out of our raid roster, I have about 50 guys that will come to every wipe night, burn every pot they have, and stay up two hours longer than they should if we are closing in on a kill. They're basically the reason I enjoy raiding.
The problem of course is that real life makes it impossible to have all 50 of those guys online at raid start for every wipe night. Then there's the 20 or so guys that somehow, amazingly enough, don't turn up for any wipe nights at all. But when we're clearing Spider Wing/Noth/Raz/etc? Oh they're the first ones there.
What I realised though, is that I want to reward the guys that do come to these nights, not punish those that don't. The guys that come to the wipe nights don't ask or need any sort of reward, but in my mind they deserve it. While it might not bother them (and this is what makes them great members), it pisses me off to see some player that subs three nights a week stroll in and get his tier 3 over the guy that's been busting his ass and farming consumables for two complete wipe nights. Aside from it being put to less use on the guy whose gran dies every tuesday, you just cannot shake the feeling that he just doesn't deserve it as much.
We use a modified zero sum system where you earn a set amount of RP/hour, and at the end of the week standings are adjusted globally to compensate for any inflation. So at times we've been able to, say, up the fixed rate of RP to double, which means bigger adjustments at the end of the week but does give added incentive to attend wipe nights. And more than that, it may allow your system to more accurate reflect effort/loot, which is the point of any system.
Nevertheless, fostering a raid culture where people come regardless is of course the best option. It is also the most difficult and takes the most time. If you are looking for a structural solution, I'd just advise not to toss around extra RP if your system isn't set up as zero-sum to handle it, or you'll end up with some serious inflation down the road. Don't break the system you have; look at the examples here and pick one that fits yours best.
When designing a DKP system for the guild I used to be in, we wanted to give bonus DKP for learning new content. To keep it zero sum, obviously the DKP came from somewhere. So we would basically split the cost amongst everyone on the DKP system. E.g. 20 people earn 10 bonus DKP, 200 total DKP comes from the people on the system, so with 100 people on the system everyone in the guild would lose 2 DKP and the 20 people earning the bonus would get 20 DKP added (net gain above zero of 18, but relative gain of 20 above those people not there). No big loss for those not present (since it was a zero sum system) though it did mean new recruits might get a headstart on those who skipped new content.
That's a very simple yet intriguing approach. What pitfalls or exceptions have you encountered with this approach? Also, what web-based DKP package do you use to manage this system?
First a caveat: this was a very casual raiding guild on a RP server that had only recently started and cleared Molten Core, and was working on Blackwing Lair (where raids were underattended). It had a core of 25 or so people who gave their all, and a lot of free-loaders. The system was designed to encourage people into Blackwing Lair. We never got to see it fully in practice, because we first tried to remove all inflation from our system (it was meant to be zero sum but we had given out bonus DKP to start ourselves off. When the officers/guildleader decided to remove the bonus DKP, one of the guildleader's friends complained because he would "lose" DKP he had "earned" which meant he had been "pissing away his time" (this was a guild that had previously prided itself on not being item focused). The guildleader backed down, a vocal minority of his friends and family (non-officers) wanted to keep inflated DKP, and in the end, myself and all but one other officer (of 5) and a handful of less hardcore types simply left. So, I can't say exactly how this would have worked out for us, nor were we a proper raiding guild (that advertised itself as pure raid, and had a majority of people there just to raid, who had joined with raiding in mind). I would imagine the system would work better for a raid-dedicated guild - the goal (progression) would/should be held by virtually everyone in such a guild, so you'd get less resentment and opposition from those who wanted to do minimal turnouts and keep their DKP.
Well, the pitfalls ...
a) people who couldn't raid regularly (Americans in our European guild) complained because they could only turn up for farming raids scheduled for Saturday. Because we were recruiting still, this meant that they would fall behind new recruits (we used zero sum, so that was inevitably anyway, but the vocal opponent thought their time was more valuable since they had less of it they could spend with the guild). So rewarding for new content will only work if your guild isn't recruiting heavily, or markets itself as a hardcore raid guild and sees no reason to placate those who don't contribute.
b) you do need to monitor how many people are in your system at any one time. If you use different DKP stats for different instances (e.g. MC and BWL are separate), this can get hectic. You need to make sure people on the system for your farm content are also on the system for your new content, so they don't "dodge" getting other people's bonus DKP taken from them.
c) if you only award bonus DKP for downing bosses, someone can wait until you're reliably getting the boss to below 10% then turn up and hope for the kill. So I recommend using small, incremental bonuses, with not much extra for the first kill than the wipe (if anything for the first kill - zero-summed items should provide all they need)
The advantages ...
a) means those who are lazy and have a chance to contribute, but don't, risk falling below 0 DKP and so below new recruits (who can then overtake them and be more active, or suffer the same fate)
b) allows bonus DKP to be given for whatever reason whilst maintaining integrity of a zero sum system
c) unlike temporary bonus systems that briefly give priority, this system requires i) less monitoring (in EQDKP, do "group adjustments" which affect everyone for zero summing), ii) less tracking of variables (who attended what and when and how much, or who earned what bonus DKP and when it should be taken away). It also ensures that those who turn up to wipe nights get a tangible reward that they can 'keep' - for example, if you are unlucky enough to get skewed drops (no items for X class, virtually all items for Y class) then the people of X class don't lose out on their hard-earned bonus DKP due to the vagaries of a loot system.
The system ...
we used EQDKP and CT_RaidTracker to monitor raids. With EQDKP, you have to make sure you do "show all" to see just how many people are on your system.
a) people who couldn't raid regularly (Americans in our European guild) complained because they could only turn up for farming raids scheduled for Saturday. Because we were recruiting still, this meant that they would fall behind new recruits (we used zero sum, so that was inevitably anyway, but the vocal opponent thought their time was more valuable since they had less of it they could spend with the guild). So rewarding for new content will only work if your guild isn't recruiting heavily, or markets itself as a hardcore raid guild and sees no reason to placate those who don't contribute.
Their time is no more valuable than anyone else in the guild's. If they wanted to have more time available to raid they should have played on an American server. It is unreasonable to expect 39 other people to cater to your needs just because you picked the wrong time-zone.
Their time is no more valuable than anyone else in the guild's. If they wanted to have more time available to raid they should have played on an American server. It is unreasonable to expect 39 other people to cater to your needs just because you picked the wrong time-zone.
Quite. However, this is less likely to be a problem in guilds where the guild leader is strong enough to deny his friends/family and stand by his officers and his own decisions: I assume this is the case in most guilds, especially those who are looking for a fair way to incentivise people to learn encounters whilst not incentivising them to keep wiping.
/ingore: Some would argue a weak guild leader would be a fatal flaw of a guild in the first place
*edit* mm 6am reading makes for misinterpretations: stay tuned for more
Id use Propoganda. Strong Morale = Strong desire. Make the guild message something nice like your best attempt percentage, or how many eggs were left on razor, ect. Instill a feeling that if everyone contributes the boss will definately be down this week(end) and the freeloaders will be like zomg lewts! Also put in the guild message what kinds of things are needed for consumables to help with attempts. Even if the free loaders arent there for the same reasons try to pull them in and make them as excited as the core players. Afterall what good is a horde of DKP if you never down the boss?
Personally I have always felt DKP systems lessen the raiding experience, and I would only use one as a last resort. But Im a hopeless romantic who believes that everyone should be there for the same reason I am (ie the comradery and achievement) and the loot is simply a tool to be used by that same group the next week to do even better. I guess thats why I have two undergeared 60's compared to the amount of time Ive spent in raids ><
My guild has a zero point system, but with "weekly points".
We raid on 4 days, while 1-2 days are used to clear farmed areas. Once a raid took place we put in a place holder of xx DKPS until the next maintenance, when we calculate the weeks points.
If using simple math and zero sum the raids could look like this.
Week totals: 120 DKP for 4 raids. So now we divide and make the raids average earning of 30 DKP.
This is simplified as we do have the option to reward farm nights less, boss first kills more, etc. But basically this worked a treat for us. We wiped more on Razorgore than on Ragnaros and Nefarian together and still we never had problems filling our raids when we started doing BWL. To the day the only difference in attendance figures are people's work routines.
Might add that we have a 75% attendance requirement to stay at Member rank (ie 3 raids a week). Consistenly sticking to the rules people never got to the point of being lazy and making their best picks.
We use a loot council so aside from saying "LC monitors attendance" there's no obvious incentive to show up on wipe nights. However, even loot whores should understand that killing new bosses means access to new loot, so if that is your problem then you just need to know how to motivate them.
We use a couple things to keep attendance high in our zero-sum system.
1- There's a Bank character that earns DKP with the raid. So on any kill, there's always one extra 'person'. Unlike normal characters that spend DKP on new loot, the Bank spends its points on attendance/wipe/learning.
2- Sit outs get DKP too. So, if we have 5 people sitting out, a boss kill will have the 40 there, plus 1 bank, plus the 5 sit outs for 46 total people in that 'raid'. Sit outs don't get DKP on trash drops because the people in the raid are the ones putting gear/cash on the line. Generally, an officer will double check that the sit-outs are available right after a boss kill. They have to be parked at the zone-in, although they can be on an alt.
Adding the bank character gives you a little less DKP on the front end, but it all evens out eventually, and it's spread equal among the raiders so it's fair.
We don't promise it, but if the guild has put forth an exceptional effort, we'll reward them with repair cost money from the guild bank. As an example, we were wiping on Skeram (haven't downed him yet) on Sunday night with 26-30 people. They stuck it out for over 3 hours (best attempt: 18%). It was amazing to watch and they stayed super motivated. About 2/3rds of the way through (after a promising attempt) I offered to cover complete repair bills IF we got a kill. Well, we didn't get a kill but I told folks who wanted something nice to send a note to the guild bank anyway. I covered roughly 50-75% of everyone's repair costs and it gave everyone a great feeling.
Hopefully incentivized more to show up to make it a full raid for next time as well.
We changed our system awhile ago to make wipe nights worth alot more dkp. I'm not at all worried that anyone wants to wipe in order to get more dkp. No one likes to wipe, everyone wants to move on to that next boss.
I have to say, i have been in a few guilds. When i was part of my first raiding guild on Kargath, we had attendance issues. We had the loot whores who only showed up for loot night, and were busy/sick/connection was broke/insert random excuse on die nights. Eventually, another end game guild on the server was going through the same issue, they merged and weeded out all of the bullshit, and now they are doing well today.
As far as the orignial comment i made, the raiding guild i'm in now, has dedicated people who listen and show up to do their jobs. They want to raid on raid nights, and want to be off to do what they want on off nights, so we get shit done. The guild was created about 2 1/2 months ago, and has cleared to Twin Emps, in that amount of time. Most of the people when the guild was created were people who had never seen past vael, minus a couple of people.
Now we will be killing twin emps this weekend, and that says alot for people just showing up to die and do what they need to do. People who want to actually raid and dont care to die. People Farming pots, nature gear, etc for fights, showing up and staying until the end of raids, etc.
But honestly, this is why blizzard is killing 40 man raids too, because people dont show up to raids and alot of guilds handle it wrong or just cant get the attendance they need. It will be interesting to see how it all works out in the long run.
The trend that I seem to see through experience in the game and anecdotes on these and other forums is that there is a considerable surplus of good players compared to the number of good leaders able to organize and motivate them. As this carries through to the expansion, I suspect we'll see a wider range of middling guilds, but the size of the upper tier won't appreciably change.
We throw out about a third/fourth of a full Naxx clear's worth of DKP for wipe nights currently.
In the future when we re-create our DKP system from the ground up we'll probably go with a true zero-sum DKP system(instead of the diluted one we have now.
I'll probably push to do something like spread out the DKP from farm nights over to wipe nights. If there's 4 days on an instances, I could just take the total sum of DKP to give over those four days, then divide it by 4 and award people that number for each day they come. That'd be the communism approach.
Another way I've thought about doing it is having the elligibility to roll based on CurrentDKP * 30DayAttendence. So if I have 1000 DKP and you have 800 DKP, but I had 80% attendence and you had 100%, we'd roll to the same amount (1000 * .80 = 800 * 1.00). This would cause someone going from 100% DKP to 96% DKP an immediate affect. The problem with this is that if someone didn't have any intention to roll on anything in the next month, they wouldn't care, however, this is rarely the case.
We recently made the switch from pure DKP earned per hour to ZeroSum, and worked out a way to avoid this issue (which we had problems with in the past Twin Emps mostly). We have a 'Tax' on the superfarm content (aq40/bwl) something like 35% of the dkp awarded, then give the 35% back on wipe nights where no loot drops. I'm not sure of the exact details, or how hard it is to do for our DKP officers, but it works and hopefully we'll avoid what you're having.
ps ZeroSum rocks compared to DKP.
Originally Posted by Sebudai
Addons aren't a crutch, they're tools to be abused by skilled players to increase performance. Like a carpenter using a hammer, a fisherman using a lure, or Xi using curse words.
The best method is to generate a culture where the loot is very much secondary, because then you don't have to use the loot as an incentive and your loot system can just be there to speed up the distribution process. Don't get excited about random item of extreme-badassness, unless it's the first time you've killed the boss and the only reason you're excited there is the boss is down. "Way to go team, now boulder won't miss and we won't wipe as much (MT picked up widow's remorse on first faerlina kill, upgrading from something awful) Get really excited about ANY progress on a boss. "That was amazing kiting, we'll push the DPS this next set of attempts to kill him while you all keep us safe, really well done Lorekk/Zyix/Kivor/Bayman". When the boss dies, be very upbeat. "Gluth dead, well done all. Grats on finding a way to kill yourself after the boss died Setyn, hey Turret says he farmed 200 fadeleaf while we were in here so shadow pots on him, awesome all around. Line up for a quick picture, bonus points if we make straight lines. We still have some time left, so if you want any of the drops, stay put, everyone else lets move up and see Thadius." *Random vent sounds of happy people at seeing thad, and minimal raid chat about loot, complaints about having to stand at the body instead of seeing thad right away*
and more words!
Of course, that's my opinion, you don't have to take my word for it. =p
That is exactly what I believe in too. Treat your people like real human beings, not cogs. Stay positive and balanced. The best guild leaders would also make the best teachers in a perfect world. You do not yell and scream at a class to achieve a result, you make it very 'good' to do what is required via incentives and a positive attitude.
We use a couple things to keep attendance high in our zero-sum system.
1- There's a Bank character that earns DKP with the raid. So on any kill, there's always one extra 'person'. Unlike normal characters that spend DKP on new loot, the Bank spends its points on attendance/wipe/learning.
2- Sit outs get DKP too. So, if we have 5 people sitting out, a boss kill will have the 40 there, plus 1 bank, plus the 5 sit outs for 46 total people in that 'raid'. Sit outs don't get DKP on trash drops because the people in the raid are the ones putting gear/cash on the line. Generally, an officer will double check that the sit-outs are available right after a boss kill. They have to be parked at the zone-in, although they can be on an alt.
Adding the bank character gives you a little less DKP on the front end, but it all evens out eventually, and it's spread equal among the raiders so it's fair.
That's a pretty interesting idea to really keep things at a true-zero-sum level.
We reward people on backup as well. IMO, this is absolutly necessary. Sitting on backup outside the zone is not fun. You can play an alt, but still, everyone would prefer being in the raid. After all, these are the players that will keep the raid going if someone has to leave. It's better to have 5-10 people on backup than having to call the raid because you can't fill a raid with proper balance.
Take down names. When the exansion roles out, you know exactly which people you need to kick out of your guild. 35 active raid members for a 25 man instance cap sounds about right. The people sitting out can do 5 or 10 mans while they wait.
Trust me on this, you DO NOT want to be wasting your time with fair-weather raiders. If they don't disappoint you now, they will later, when it will probably hurt more.
09/27/06, 5:24 AM
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