Guild Cohesion

Unless your guild is excessively massive, it is impossible to really operate numerous raid teams.  

I would speculate that for each raid team you add to a guild you multiply the complexity of difficulties and coordination exponentially.    My guild runs two raids as many guilds do.  We have a primary team and a casual / alts weekend raid.

I had a long-standing player in the guild wanting to create another leader-team because the leader-team is full and he failed to sign-up and the causal team wasn't advanced enough for his wants.

While, in practice, this sounds like a quite reasonable request.   Here are the problems another leading team can cause, if you cannot coordinate properly.

1. If the teams are on different schedules, you have doubled the competition within the guild for people wanting the schedule that is more to their liking.
2. If the teams are on the same schedules, you have decide how important it is to the guild that both teams advance equally.  If it's important you'll have to balance participants and people want to raid with friends.   It can't be about just numbers.
3. You have the potential that teams can compete for the "better players".

I'm not saying it can't be done.   I know there are more hard-core guilds that make this happen.  

I'm just saying that it has drawbacks, issues and more "work" to make it happen.

If your guild does this... what approach do you use?

Keeping Raid Attendance

Keep Raiding Attendance Helps Lead

Any guild trying to build a raid team, I think, should try and keep an attendance record.  Mine looks like the screen clip here.

For my guild, I try to track the following kinds of information:

• Did they stay the whole raid period (leave early, join late)?
• Did they tell me they wouldn't make it or just not show up?
• Did they post it as away vacation?

This information can help you in many ways. 

• Recruiting - If I know what my attendance looks like, I can do a good job of knowing how many people I need and how hard I should be recruiting.   You should never stop recruiting, but I am talking about how much effort you expend as a result of where you are and your guild's need.
• Learning Player Dedication - With a good statistic you can start to know what the probability a certain player will attend (whether they tell you or not).   You can use this to decide if they are a good candidate for your Progression Mythic team or should stay more as a backup.   You start to see signs and patterns in behavior.  These are the kinds of things that people won't tell you. This information doesn't have to be used to judge players, but it does help you plan and planning will ensure the show goes on.
  
  Here are some samples of what I mean:
• Joe - Never signs up for raid, but has excellent attendance and if he's going to be away lets you know.
• Mary - Always signs up.  Always shows up.
• Fred - Will tell you he'll make it and won't.
• John - Only shows up on farm nights.  Claims excuses for other nights.
• Dealing with issues - Occasionally, an issue comes up where someone that has lackluster raid attendance argues that they deserve some thing (raid slot for certain boss, item that drops, etc.) based on being a consistent raider.   You can just point and say," really?"

Side Story: I like to jokingly compare this to my desk office at work.  I sit right across the hall from the men's bathroom.  No matter how hard I try not to pay attention, indirectly, you learn the bathroom habits of all the people that use it: who doesn't wash, who won't go in if someone else has a stall, who wants a particular stall, etc.   It isn't something I want to know, but I just can't help it.   Watching your attendance is the same kind of thing.  You will start to see patterns.

My Attendance Sheets

The system I use has evolved over time because if some aspect of it isn't working or if I am not using information in the way I originally intended, then it's time to redefine it make the information useful.

First, I created a Google Sheets on the web.  It works great because I can publish it as a fixed web page that the guild can see as well as a motivator and it just updates automatically.   Google also offers an only publish when you want option as well so you can work and then publish.   But, I prefer to just keep it out there.   People won't be staring at it as much as you will.

Down, I have names and across the dates.  In the cells, I put:

• 1 = Full attendance.
• fraction = partial attendance, present about 1/2 the raid, they get 0.5, etc.
• purple fill = they told me they'd be missing.
• orange fill = they told me they are away on vacation.
• N = they just joined the team and these previous dates were before their joining so don't use it to assess them.

With a little bit of Spreadsheet magic, I can tell you that of my 29 raiders, I have 10 that attend 85-90% of the time and I have 5 that are about 70% of the time and another 10 that are 50% of the time, etc.   I can predict the odds that I'll be short raiders.

The crudest check for odds of attendance is just sum the % attendance on people.  If they add up to a full team, you have good odds.  I have thought about creating a more definitive equation for determining odds of being short, but this has done well enough for me without getting to complex.

If you have a cool way of keeping attendance and how you use it, let me know!

Calling out mistakes

When raiding, mistakes happen.   You'll find that the basic sequence is:

1. Here is the strategy - and perhaps your task assignment.
2. Pull
3. Mistakes happen
4. Most learn from their mistakes
5. Go to Step 1

However, occasionally, someone is truly struggling with a mechanic and you are faced with how to handle this.

We are a friendly group.   We strive to not call out specific players unless they are among a list of players struggling.   That is "John, Joe, Mary, watch out for fire".   But never, "John you were in fire". 

Most likely, instead, you hear, "Several people were in fire, here is how to handle that mechanic, please try to do better".

The key here is that some people are overly sensitive to hear their name called out.   And even especially sensitive when they are called out more than once.

Unfortunately, the more times the same mistakes happen, eventually something needs to be privately handled on the issue or someone else, in the group's frustration will cause them to handle it for you and not necessarily the way you'd prefer.   Drama will ensue.

It happened to us this week in raid.  Someone made the same mistake several times.  After having their name in the list 3 times, they quit the raid and quit the guild and insisted we were being disrespectful to (a) his age (b) his limitations as a player.

The problem is, this player never spoke up.  They never said, I can't do this.  They never said what other things can I try since I struggle with this mechanic.   Instead, they waited until they were past their limit and then up and quit.

If this happens to you, here is how I handled it.

I let them know, the mistake was not ours.  The rudeness was not ours.   All the mistakes  were on them.  Here was their failure.

1. They failed mechanic - not the biggest problem.
2. They failed to speak up on their difficulty with the mechanic. - BIG PROBLEM
3. They quit instead of speaking up - THEIR PROBLEM.

Raiding is a team sport and team players have to participate more than just causing fails over and over.

If they speak up, and have difficulty, you then have options.   You can work around the issue if you know.   But if you work-around the issue without knowing, then it looks equally insensitive.   Don't let your raiders get away with being shy.

All-in-all, I'm saying.  Don't accept a criticism from someone when you know you are making all reasonable accommodations given a known circumstance.

Yes, eventually, it may come to sitting them out for a fight they can't do.  That doesn't mean they can't come back for later content.  Or eventually figure a new strategy.

25 vs 10, 25 = 10 man, Oh Happy Day!

Okay, let the debate begin.  I know there are many 25-man players out there that will just QQ until the cows come home.

Sure a 25-man raid feels more epic when you have 25 people.  But from a balancing perspective, it isn't hard to imagine that raids can be balanced such that the difficulty is about equal.  From my experience, the hardest part of a 25-man vs. a 10-man had absolutely nothing to do with the raid content and everything to do with coordinating, shepherding and lots and lots of waiting for 24 other people.  It was not about how much better they are, but just how much more patient and how much time they have to play.

From a 10-man's perspective, 25-man guilds had their cake, our cake and all the cake.  They got better gear, equal and sometimes less difficult content and they could do 10-mans as well so they could farm both and gear twice as fast.  What specifically makes them worthy of that much advantage?  Harder content?  It isn't that much harder and in some cases is easier.   It's only about putting up with more people and more people's problems.  Sorry, but that just makes you a masochist not worthy of blessings.

Now, I do ponder if this will hurt 25-man guilds to harshly.  That, I can't know.  However, it will end the constant flow of 10-man players abandoning their guilds for 25-man loot because they thought of the epic wait and nausea of a 25-man is pretty hard to take.

I love this change.  I can't wait to see how it works out for 25-man guilds.  Blizzard will have to toss them a bone, but it is my hope they do so only in such a way that 10-man players will say... that's nice, but not nice enough.

Epic Raid "Fail" Leadership

So, I "fell" into a 25-man raid with another guild last Saturday.  As a raid leader, it's hard not to back-seat raid lead.   I tried my best to not be "that guy" giving instructions.  You know "that guy" that is always making commentary on the voice server while everyone else is silent or chatting away in "raid" chat.

The problem we had, however, was that the raid leader didn't raid lead.  Essentially, he just gathered people into a group and said, "go".  Unfortunately, it's hard to spot this early on because people have farmed the early part of ICC so much now it's second-hand, so you wouldn't expect instruction until Marrowgar, minimally.   This is barely functional at best unless you have a group that is blowing through the content without effort as ToC-10/25 is becoming.

So, here I was, up to Marrowgar and the raid leader was essentially silent, didn't say anything, didn't give any instructions.  The most we got was, "everybody knows the fight?".  That's like the old joke about foreplay where they guy considers saying "brace yourself", as enough.

Marrowgar doesn't present too much difficulty since it is almost the same as 10-man.  However, Lady Deathwhisperer is not the same.  Obviously, wipes ensue.  But with most PuGs it doesn't take many until finger-pointing and bailing occur.   PuG-25's are a crap shoot like this.

This points directly at one of the tips I mentioned about raid leading.   Raid leaders, please, stay on top.  Even if you don't know the boss fight be clear and honest.  TALK!

"I don't know this fight, but here is how I want to set it up and try it because that is what I read.  I will take comments for 3-5 minutes before we proceed if anyone here has more experience."

The last thing to do is be silent, not give instructions.  AND, during the battles, it is YOUR JOB to keep people on target.  I know when I DPS my mind wanders.  Give instructions and presume that there are people out there not on the same page of the script as you are thinking.

In this raid, I saw it coming.  He was going to just say, "have at it" on Deathwhisperer until I spoke up.  YES, I ended up being "that guy" after all.  I said, "whoa, wait! we can't just say go on this fight."  Then, I proceeded to explain at least how I have been in raids that did it and how.   It didn't help, but at least it wasn't total chaos.

Sadly, it devolved into finger pointing and crap and the raid leader didn't nip it!  He let people bitch and then HE bailed.   Please don't be that guy.   If you raid-lead a 25-man, please LEAD.

/end rant.

Raid Buff Status Add-on

If you raid lead, get this add-on.  It takes a bit to gather in all the info provided, but you'll be glad you got it.

You can bring a horse to water....

Sunday's raid was a bust.  Only 4 people signed up to go.  We had one guy get his account hacked and it is going to be probably a week before he will be fit to raid again, presuming he gets the majority of his gear back -- authenticators people!

If you ever join a raiding guild, please, please, please, accept / decline your raid invites.  And if you don't accept or decline, don't show up expecting a spot.

Edits:  3/30 - Luckily, Blizzard had him fixed in a couple days and I got the guild bank junk back.

Wrinkles

You have to be part lunatic to be a raid leader / guild manager.  That is, or extremely easy going.  I am probably more of the former than the latter.   I added people to the guild with a specific raid schedule and now one of the key roles (tank) decides he won't raid on Sundays (the last day in the raid cycle).   So, that means I am missing a key tank at the hardest part of progress. 

The right thing to do, is move him down from "frequent raider" status and he becomes a player that gets a spot when one is available.  But that is logic.   Unfortunately, that's not how things always work out.  Why?  Because a lead healer is his friend.  If I treat him in an "unfair" way, I lose a healer.   I suppose that also wouldn't be the end of the world, but it's not a pleasant experience and it sets me back.

I'm gonna have to think on this one before I make a move.   If you find yourself in such a situation, you can know that I, at least, am gonna have to think it through.

I wish my logic and emotions were not connected together, but, they are.  I hate being unfriendly which is, unfortunately, part of the job.   You don't get to be the person people like.  You are the person that makes it happen, I suppose I am telling myself.... (I am laughing at this point).

Guild Size

This was one of the ultimate dilemma's for me.  When I first started being the GM, I didn't sign up for the job.  We were just guys playing WoW and none of us were max level so it didn't really matter.   For the most part, we weren't on at the same time enough or played the same amount of hours to really ever do anything together.  But, that's history.

Once we were leveled to 80 and actually had a chance to even consider raiding it was making sure no one ever had to sit out.  How many people does it take to just raid 10-man.  I knew it was more than 10 because we'd have absences, but then, you face the reality that sometimes you have more than 10 and you can't take everyone.

After time, I realize you have several class of players.

Frequent Attendees - Come to everything they can

Less Frequent - Come about half the time.

Infrequent - Come sometimes

With some stupid made-up math, I figure frequent is about 80-90% attendance, less is 40-50%, and infrequent is 10-20%.

So, our player count is 10 = 0.85 * Frequent + 0.45 * Less + 0.15 * Infrequent.

But, how many of each class of players do you have.  You can't really control this and people move from one group to another.  Without a large enough sampling you can't statistically have a good answer.  I am sure Blizzard has data that could help answer the question, but we have to go on guesses or at least on observance of our guildies.

In my group, about 50% are Frequent, 30% are Less and 20% are Infrequent.

So, if P = total player count...

10 = P * 0.85 * 0.5 + P * 0.3 * 0.45 + P * 0.2 * 0.15
10 = 0.425 * P +  0.135 * P + 0.03 * P
10 = 0.59 P
P = 10 / 0.59 = 17 players guarantees you never have to pug!

Now, if you want, you can argue that this post is a load of crap.  Well, IT IS!

However, as guild manager, it's my job to provide numbers for raids and it's the best I could come up with.  But in the end the reality of it is observation of your guildies.  Yes, it's spying.  But you have to watch when they play.

Next, it's about adding people that fit the category you really want.  Aim for Frequents and you get about half Less Frequents whether you like it or not.

It's my burden

Last night, during raid.  I was training a new person or at least attempting to get someone else to raid lead.  I can't always be there and I was hoping to see some inspired ability and perhaps a new perspective on raid leading.  You never stop learning how to raid lead because it's all about the social dynamic of being pseudo-in-charge.

So, after a few minutes into the raid start we hadn't started yet.  There were numerous delays, which is one of the biggest banes of raids.  One of my guildies whispers me, "if this doesn't start soon, I'm leaving".

What reaction was this person expecting from me?  Sympathy?  Understanding?  Action?  I chose another route.  My thought was, he is a grown person and makes his own choices and the implications of those choices are his own, not mine.

I can't remember my exact response, but I think it was along the lines of... "that's up to you."

There was a time when I really carried this stuff like an albatross.  I wanted consensus.  I wanted happiness.  I wanted perfection and bliss.  Someone write me a reality check please.   So, call me a M&S (Moron and Slacker), but I learned that its a dream and move on.

Why ask?

So, I made the mistake again. As a learning raid leader, I didn't schedule precisely what was to happen -- I left it up in the air for the group decide. For some reason I live under the delusion that we are all going to work together as a team on everything we do and therefore coming up with the activity is equally a group responsibility. You can laugh at this point.

Can this work? Maybe in some situations.

Does it work for me? No.

I think the basic issue here is a matter of expectation. Personality comes into play here. Some want to lead and most want to follow. It is sort of the same scenario with DPS vs. Tank / Heals. DPS is the lowest stress position in the raid. That's what everyone wants to do is play and release stress so you will find fewer brave souls that will take the hot seat.

I digress.

If you ever ask the question, "so what do you want to do now?" you will likely get "/crickets". Most players will not tell you what they want. However, if you pick something they don't want, you'll will more than likely hear about it either out loud or in private tells. People want to choose upfront.

So, in summary, as raid-leader / raid-planner. The best thing you can do is plan the raid and schedule it so the expectation is pre-known. Members can then decide in advance if they are willing to buy into the objective. If they aren't they can bail or just not sign up.

Picking raid times

It has been an interesting few months as I learn to make things happen in a guild. Being raid leader has definitely been a stressful "job" and not to be taken lightly. I think I read on wow.com that if you are thinking of starting a guild... don't. I think that's pretty good advice for the most part if the raiding is your eventual goal. Well, that is, unless you are a "glutton for punishment" as the old saying goes.

The larger a guild gets the more "issues" you have as people are all unique. Player A can't come on early, player B can't stay up late, player C can only attend x days per week. As raid leader, it took me a while to learn that I cannot solve that equation. I can only provide the activity and see what happens. So, the basic plan is this.

Axiom 1: Schedule raids and schedule them consistently. That is, have them regularly scheduled and at the same times. What this does is setup an expectation from the members. They know when raid is, they know when raid will be even if they don't sign up to go.

Now, this does not mean you will get full attendence or full subscription. However that brings us to the next Axiom.

Axiom 2: The show must go on (or at least attempt to go on). If you don't get the numbers, fill in the gaps. It's a skill to know what you need and how to get it by trolling the "looking for group" channel or trade channel. I try to build up a list of acceptable fill-ins.

But why not just call it? I know I read Big Bear Butt once say his guild just calls a raid rather than PuG. This is completely dependent on the group, though. If you consistently are short, you won't be raiding much and there will be resentment. I sometimes get the feeling that even though my guildies are nice and like me and also wouldn't take a moment to help fill my shoes, they would politely just wisp away and find another leader that will satisfy their itch. So, you can wait until they leave, I suppose, or you can just give them what they silently want. Believe me, I much prefer the quiet players than those that nag.

So, I think a good college try goes a long way compared to benching.

Axiom 3: Don't wait for folks to be ready. Well, this one is kinda situational. However, if your guildies are all goofing off at raid time, it means you aren't laying down the law. They expect no raid or they are holding out on the good spirits of the other guildies. I am more frustrated by the person saying, "let me finish this daily" just before a raid than anything else. People are waiting and its difficult to make progress when 25 people all want to piddle about. If someone isn't ready, you give late comers 5 minute warning and then replace them. They will know. Now, I don't hold it against them... at least not in a hard way. They make their choices and I make mine. Ce la vie. But, if they know you want wait, if they REALLY wanted to go, they'd be ready.

I am sure I have more to response later.