Raid organisation/guild relations advice (long)

[needalittleinfo]

OK, I'll try to keep this as brief as possible, but bear with me because I could *really* do with some help and advice.

Basically I'm in a guild which was formed several months ago to explore end-game content in a friendly/casual environment - smaller raids, lots of instancing. We've kind of grown organically, with minimal recruitment (in fact hardly any) and most members are level 70s (about 30 of us, about 90% of the guild).

Until a point it has worked well. When we felt we were getting nearer to 10-man raids we recruited from long-term friends on our friends lists, plus perhaps a buddy or two (or a brother of trusted members), etc. to fill out the ranks a little. We're now raiding 3 nights a week. But we still have many instances going on, an active forum, a commercial Vent server, nice event management system where anyone can (and does) post events/quests they'd like to do. When someone leaves for a week on holiday, members ask how the trip to France was. When someone isn't feeling great and logs off for an early night, people ask how the headache is next time they log in. If someone writes in the guild chat that they are 2 motes short of being able to craft Spellfire piece, within 5 minutes there's a "it's in the post" written on the chat. We're all on first name terms. And this is pretty much the whole guild, not a "core" of friends. There's only 2 kids there, kids of long-term members; avg age is about late 20s in the guild, many couples, many relations, from many different countries.

When we have a new member, an Officer chats to the potential candidate for up to an hour, getting info on what they've done, what they like to do, what sort of things they want from a guild (i.e. we are not hardcore raiders, we're all real friendly, if they PVP or want guaranteed progression we're not best suited etc). And their name is given out to the guild for "yays" or "nays" (only had 1 or 2 nays, when overwhelmingly there was an uproar about having 5 o 6 members which said they'd had terrible PUG behaviour from potential member).

However.

We've been dipping our toes into raiding since November last year and almost have Kara cleared, and in the last month it's ONLY been the raiding that has caused ANY friction within the guild.

We had a member who was very well geared (mostly his own work before he joined us 2 months ago) leave for a raiding guild because he wanted more raids. We then had another member leave because he also wanted more raids and didn't think the current system of who gets to go into the raid on the 3 nights was fair. We then had to kick a buddy of leaver number 2 (only 1 week off week-long trial status) because he began causing arguments in the guild and asking why raiding couldn't happen 7 nights a week, and why couldn't anyone just organise the groups for that day, but being extremely rude about it. Last night, I stumbled across a member who has been with us for 2 weeks (who came from a raiding guild and is the brother of one of our 3-month long members)'s application on a raiding guild's websites, dated last week (despite having a particularly strong emphasis during the recruitment chat with him that what we were about) - there was a Vent meet of all Officers last night about this and we will Vent chat with him to ask him what's going on in a non-confrontational manner tonight (since it's not a case of a change of priority in 2 weeks since recruitment, and we hav an issue with him OT'ing and potentially Needing on items whilst waiting to hear if this other guild will accept him - basically I have a dislike of him staying here whilst waiting to move on "until something better comes along" yet pretending to be happy here I guess you could say).

Now, this is where I need your perspective. Re: raiding. (Still with me?)

Currently we have 2 Raid Organisers who post runs 3 nights a week on our events system (the nights were decided by a couple of weeks voting system on our forums, and had most participants). This is to ensure that raid IDs are all safe, that we have some sort of "organisation" and point of contact to speak to if you have an issue, and the invites go out at 10min to the start time reliably, and MOST IMPORTANTLY, that invites are fair. Currently, people who want to raid sign up on our events system.

Invites go out 10mins before start time based on several things:
1) Who's singed up. If your name's not in the hat you're not getting in.
2) Who is geared and skilled for how far in the encounters we are (i.e. new to raiding priority on first few bosses, better geared/knowledge on later runs of the week).
3) Who has been lately (so if you're a newbie wanting Attumen but tanked it last week, chances are the newbie warrior in the guild will go this week).
4) Who still needs gear from the bosses being attempted (so the healer on Prince will maybe appear on the Maiden fight since he never did get that healer drop).

Loot is done on a "whoever needs, needs" basis. No DKP, and no MT gearing up and no healer gearup as when we started raiding DKP was voted as being unfair and discriminatory and probably not neccesary based on how small we are.
5mins after start time, there is a guild-wide announcement saying "Invites are out - GL kara group" from an officer.

However, issues are:
1) Despite being asked to read the stickies in our forums before people raid, there have been cases with new folks appearing at the summon stone before start time asking "where is my invite" - then ensues a lengthy whisper about how signing up is not a guarantee of attendance (i.e. one week we had 5 hunters sign up! and a tank who was barely geared for Attumen, nevermind Curator who we were killing that night)
2) The more harcore people are complaining (see leaver 2 above) that they "never get to raid". An historical log of who went on which run is posted on our forums, to make it very clear to all who was chosen. The leaver 2 has been on 6 of 12 runs, and never replied when an Officer explain to him these stats - he left the next day.

Basically I would like advice and comment on any of the above.

How do normal guilds arrange raiding runs?
Is this normal, that the more hardcore players push for more and more, and the casuals resist, and it causes friction?
Do you consider who gets invited to raids as above a fair system, and if yes, why, and if not, why not? How could this be improved?

Personally I consider that we are quite well evenly distributed in terms of class: i.e. we have 2 prot wars, 2 bear tanks, and 2 pallies for the entire guild. We have a good balance of mostly 3 or 4 mage, ok maybe 6 hunters, and no boomkins, but overall I feel we are balanced (i.e. not 14 hunters and 1 mage ;p). We have 5 well geared healers (pally, druid, priest, priest, shaman) plus druid, priest, shaman, priest on reserves if easy mode boss or as an alt. Note that we also don't have enough "wanting to raid 3 nights a week" for 2 raid groups, and have closed recruitment right now unless an exceptional player presents itself (i.e. no more website applications if someone posts one, as might have been considered before).

Hmm.

[Aerath]

How do normal guilds arrange raiding runs?
Is this normal, that the more hardcore players push for more and more, and the casuals resist, and it causes friction?
Do you consider who gets invited to raids as above a fair system, and if yes, why, and if not, why not? How could this be improved?

Personally I consider that we are quite well evenly distributed in terms of class: i.e. we have 2 prot wars, 2 bear tanks, and 2 pallies for the entire guild. We have a good balance of mostly 3 or 4 mage, ok maybe 6 hunters, and no boomkins, but overall I feel we are balanced (i.e. not 14 hunters and 1 mage ;p). We have 5 well geared healers (pally, druid, priest, priest, shaman) plus druid, priest, shaman, priest on reserves if easy mode boss or as an alt. Note that we also don't have enough "wanting to raid 3 nights a week" for 2 raid groups, and have closed recruitment right now unless an exceptional player presents itself (i.e. no more website applications if someone posts one, as might have been considered before).

Hmm.

1) Varies per guild. In general, it's done roughly the way you did it, though one might try to keep a raid group intact so they can progress through the instance as a whole.

If you have enough 70s, you might try to start a second Karazhan group. Possibly one that runs at hours/days that some others might find more convenient. My guild has had up to 4 karazhan teams running in the end.

2) Yes. It's a struggle every casual guild will go through. You will lose members who want to go more hardcore. If you have defined your guild's goals well enough (and it definitely seems like you have), then there is no reason to panic. Simply put - you can't be there for everyone. If people want a friendly atmosphere of people that just happen to go to Karazhan everyonce in a while, they'll be fine in your guild. If you get a burned out raider that feels like a slacking abit, he might be fine there. If you get someone who wants to kill Illidan before the expansion hits, he's better off elsewhere, no matter how nice of a guy he might be.

3) As stated above, I personally prefer keeping a group together. Whilst your way is 'more fair', it's also much more of a hassle.
And, group synergy (as players, not classes) is as much an issue as a matter of picking 2 tanks, 2-3 healers and 5-6 DPS.
If I run with another tank I've done countless runs with, or a healer that's covered my back in tons of heroics, I'll play much more easily than when having to wonder if that other tank is going to spot the patrol in time and if the healers can handle it when I drag it in before it wanders off again.

[Twoflower]

you are in the old conflict between the serious raiders and the casual raiders.

I can guarantee you that there will always be people who leave the guild for "better" guilds. Dont take this too seriously. I can read from your post that you dont, which is good :) the only way around this is to make the new people absolutely clear that they will raid maybe once or twice a week during the "interview". You can only hope that they understand it from the beginning...

that being said, yes it is very normal and happens in EVERY guild that the hardcore players push and the casual players feel pushed. there is always this friction.

As i said, the ONLY way around it is to have very clear definitions of the goals and methods of the guild. And to kick anyone who does not fit in. It is hard, but it is the only way to avoid these frictions. My guild leader has alot of work in that direction. But anyone who does not fit in at least 99% gets asked to look elsewhere.

As for how "normal" guilds raid : there is no normal guild :) do what works best for you. every guild handles things different. Back when we did Karazhan, we had class leaders for every class which decided for every boss who can join the raid. It was mostly based on item needs. There was ALOT of switching around though. It got better when we had enugh people to make 2 karazhan groups. You will have to recruit anyway if you want to get into 25 man raids, in which case you naturaly will get enugh people for 2 Kara groups.

about loot distribution : consider DKP when you move into 25 man raids, but not before. ou may not need it even in 25 raids, but that realy depends on how matured your raiders are. Me personaly, i think dkp is fair, but that s just me.

Overall i think you make yourself alot of work. You have to make decision after decision. Who gets invited, who gets loot etc, you always have to think about who got the last item, who deserves it most, who did get how many invited related to his stage of preparation and gear etc etc. ALOT of decision making from your side. Class leaders, dkp, a second karazhan group take alot of work off your shoulders. Bu if you are that commiteted and are not afraid of burning out then enjoy it the way you are doing it :)

[dwarfenhelm]

i know exactly where you are coming from my old guild was just like that or tried our best to be. it can be very stressful trying to keep everyone happy and i doubt you will ever find a truly happy balance once you start inviting over a small guild made up of friends.
a lot of players first get into raiding and after they start gearing up they want to do more raids when other players are happy grinding rep and running heroics or doing bg's and arena
also a sad fact of friendly low level raid guilds is you will be used as a stepping stone to larger more "hard core" raid guilds. i never had a problem with those that applied to join the guilds doing ssc and tk when we were still working on clearing kara, the only players i took exception to where the ones who would guild hop just to get loot form a boss then look for a guild doing the boss his next loot has to come from. we had a lot of the 2nd group of members leaving us and it often left a bad smell in the air for a day or so after.
the reason i ended up leaving the guild was they wanted to farm kara every week, and very few players who wanted kara all the time in the 2 groups running every week and had pretty good gear would turn up for gruuls. i tried to organize a ssc run to try for trash drops and maybe have a go at lurker. the ssc run had 15 of the raid members come along so we took lots of social members form the guild and nearly wiped every trash pull. though i was mates with lots in the guild and had been playing with some for over a year now i wanted a lot more out of the game than a lot of my mates

[swaldman]

Mostly, what Twoflower said. No guild can be everything for everyone - unfortunately those who play more will always want to push ahead faster than those who don't play as often.

Picking up on one point, and it may not be a problem if it hasn't become an issue in your guild:

It sounds as though your members don't know whether they will be raiding until 10 minutes before start time. For me, this would be totally unacceptable (and I have caused major waves in a couple of guilds before for this reason). It's effectively asking your raiders to plan their lives around raids that they may not be going on. Some people probably have to leave work slightly early, or rush home, or not go to the cinema that night, or have unhealthy fast food, or something, to make a raid. It's very frustrating to do that and then be told you don't have a spot.

Signups are good, but ultimately a bit pointless if you select at invite time.
You need to decide who is going from the signups *at least* 24 hours in advance (a few days is better), and then be very firm (harsh even) with people who sign up, get approved to go, and then don't turn up. Of course there will always be some no-shows occasionally (whether or not for good reasons), and you'll find that some players will be online anyway in order to take advantage of this - but it shouldn't be expected.

IME only, all usual disclaimers apply, YMMV, etc., etc :-)

[moopy]

How do normal guilds arrange raiding runs?


There are as many answers as there are guilds. I've been in guilds where it's web-based signup. In my current guild you sign out if you're *not* coming, and people are rotated in specfic roles. It really varies.


Is this normal, that the more hardcore players push for more and more, and the casuals resist, and it causes friction?


Yes.

What's more, it's normal for a lot of the casuals to wish they had the shiny gear from serious raiding without wanting to put the effort in to gem/enchant their gear, or finetune their playing technique. It's also normal for people to whine about wanting to do something more challenging, and then never actually be there to wipe on new stuff. It's also normal for the very best of your players, who are dying for progression to bite their lip, turn up week after week for boring stuff like Karazhan clears, until it drives them bonkers, and they just leave without warning- even though they'll miss people. Seen all of these time after time.

Some people start off casual because they are inexperienced- these people can sometimes suddenly have a lightbulb moment and discover how to breathe life into their character and want to push it further. It doesn't mean they lied initially, it's just that they know more now.


Do you consider who gets invited to raids as above a fair system, and if yes, why, and if not, why not? How could this be improved?

However fair the system you use is, you'll always have to ignore it, and substitute in some capable people from time to time. There's "fair", letting DJSatan in your raid, such a crummy LOLguard warlock, fair to him.. and there's "fair", taking a competant lock because you know you're going to need a decent lock tank for a certain encounter- fair to everyone else not spending the whole evening wiping on something you should one-shot.

Your fair system will never be fair. Someone will always be miffed. It's a cat herding job. The best advice that I can offer is to do your honest best, be open with people, and get them to help you too, rather than carrying the burden privately and setting yourself up as a target dummy for all the resentment that could otherwise build up.

Good luck, sounds like you're stressing because you want to give people an entertaining time in as even-handed a way as possible. I hope you succeed and manage to still have some fun yourself :)

[Pallas]

How do normal guilds arrange raiding runs?
Is this normal, that the more hardcore players push for more and more, and the casuals resist, and it causes friction?
Do you consider who gets invited to raids as above a fair system, and if yes, why, and if not, why not? How could this be improved?



As guild leader, I set up pretty much every run of the week. We raid on Mon/Wed/Thu and people must tell me in advance if they need a night off (of course RL sometimes happens last minute).

Every run for a week is posted in our forums at least 24hrs in advance and I usually try for 3-4 days. If someone doesn't get into a run one week, I do everything in my power to get them in the next.

When we were doing Karazhan on multiple night (we clear in one now), we would have three levels of raiders. One who were new to Kara and would get into the first few bosses. Another that would get into the second half and a third that had everything they needed from the place and would just go to fill out the raid and help where needed. This seemed to work well and we were upfront with ALL recruits that this is how raids were scheduled.


And yes, you will always get those people in your guild that are harder core than others. I've fought some major battles with keeping our raid nights limited to just three. When we tried to go to even 4, it almost tore apart the guild because people felt pressure to try to make all 4 nights.

Now that we are in 25mans and clear Kara in under 3.5 hrs, we do short notice 10man runs on off-nights. Anyone can set them up and there is no pressure to go.

One thing I would advise against is to have multiple raid times if you ever plan on doing 25man runs. Get your officer group together (and with the entire guild's input), select your raid nights and times and have EVERY raid go then. Not one group at 6pm another at 8pm, because when it comes time to merge the group into one raid time, you will find a lot of people than can't go early/late and you'll be hard pressed to do 25's.

[rgirty]

How do normal guilds arrange raiding runs?
Is this normal, that the more hardcore players push for more and more, and the casuals resist, and it causes friction?
Do you consider who gets invited to raids as above a fair system, and if yes, why, and if not, why not? How could this be improved?

I'm not going to write a novel like others. But i'm going to give you some advice, because my guild began just like yours and we've encountered all the problems you are.

1. stick with your rules about signups and raiding, eventually people will figure out the system.

2. You will lose people who are all about "ME ME ME" about what they want to do, and not wanting to be fair about who gets into what raids. This is normal, you don't want these people anyway.

3. Don't alienate your guild base by trying to raid more to please the 2-3 people that wan to raid.


There, that should take care of most of it. However here is the big thing you need to know.

When you invite someone, try to make sure they aren't selfish and have the same attitude that the 20-30 people who have been in the guild for months have. If they don't, there will be problems.

You need everyone on the same page.

Lastly, have a weekly guild meeting in vent and ask each person to express themselves and what they enjoy or don't enjoy out of the game.

THe game isn't about progression, or loot... fun is the objective.

[SirBazturd]

We are working through a bit of the same issue. In kara and gruul we were libral about raiding requirements because the rest of the raid would make up for a few of those people.

Now that we are trying to progress, some people get upset. Even though the minimum for progression runs are listed plainly on the website for each class. We had a couple of people rage /gquit on Friday b/c they had piss poor gear and wanted in the raid. These two were told on Monday to increase x, y, and z if they want to be in the raid on Friday, and they didn't get it done.

Like others have said, there will always be people complaining. Do what you think is best for the guild as a whole.

[Frank The Tank]

A few points.

1. If you're not a hard core guild, the hard core players will move on. Plain and simple, you can't offer them what they want.

2. Loot being awarded by a loot council system has a large amount of potential drama, especially when stuff starts dropping that a certain player would like for pvp or other. 'Need' is a very subjective term, and is usually sorted out by a dkp system. Attendance and dedication are rewarded using this, this ensures your core raiders get what they deserve.

I would also suggest the MT be getting first tank drops then go to open roll or whatever. MTs & healers are the core around which a guild can progress off of. DPS is relatively easy to replace, a good MT loss can destroy a guild.

3. We do a region-wide invite of the appropriate planned raid 1/2 before 1st pull and once again slightly before, once all players are in the raid, then the group make-ups are sorted out. On progression, we would stick with a very similar core and only fill in spots if someone was missing or having connection issues. Other players would be rotated in once it was on clear farm-status and certain gearing issues are filled.

If you have very undergeared players, they should be encouraged to be running heroics and pvp for gear replacement in between raids. If they are expecting hand-outs from raids only, I would question that.

[mudphud]

Invites go out 10mins before start time based on several things:
1) Who's singed up. If your name's not in the hat you're not getting in.
2) Who is geared and skilled for how far in the encounters we are (i.e. new to raiding priority on first few bosses, better geared/knowledge on later runs of the week).
3) Who has been lately (so if you're a newbie wanting Attumen but tanked it last week, chances are the newbie warrior in the guild will go this week).
4) Who still needs gear from the bosses being attempted (so the healer on Prince will maybe appear on the Maiden fight since he never did get that healer drop).


I have to say your invite mechanism does seem a bit odd compared to what I'm used to but as others have said it is up to the guild. Trying to hard to balance what might drop and basing it on who needs it and who has been lately gets kind of complicated and ambiguous. My focus would be creating a group that will clear well. So if you are geared and signed up first and show up on time and prepared then you get to go. If there is a lot of conflict about one or two people getting left out maybe set up a rotation and definately have them as back up in case someone drops.

Also it is nice to have a good idea or not if you are going to go ahead of time. Sometimes I might hurry something to sign on for raid time and then be annoyed if I don't get to run (I don't leave anything too important but sometimes I do move something around to be on at raid time).

To be honest only having one kara raid a week may be what is hurting you. I know you are casual but it sounds like people are wanting to run and not getting an invite. Of course you might need more members and that may not be good for you but at some point when you can clear kara faster you will probably want two groups so just keep that in mind.

[Geboran]

Aye that.

Gearing up on your own doesn't stop once you attain level 70. Really, it just begins.

I would not invite members to join the raids if they aren't working on procuring upgraded gear via Heroics, crafting, or (some) choice PvP gear pieces in between them, and would tell them that outright and in front of everyone else present if need be.

Your raiding force is only as strong as it's least-geared raiding member.

Also... some people need to learn how to actually "play" their class in a raiding environment. Proper PvE oriented spec/talents, proper gems/enchants, and just people that can actually play their class are all important.

My guild is very similar in function, though we use prioritization of gearing up our main Tanks & Healers and DKP. We are casual and friendly most of the time. However... when we are raiding, it is all business. Period.

EDIT: Oh.... yeah. Your scheduling is great! However the time of letting people know when they will be part of the raid or not is not.

A MINIMUM of 24 hours notice for your guild (because of how casual and friendly most of your members are) of who is confirmed for invitations is a "must". People do have lives outside of WoW too (I know it's hard to believe for some of you, but it's true).

[Justinledwards]

The only solution is really to keep recruiting until you find a stable set of people with the same goals as the guild.

- some folks will be with you for a while, progress past your guild and move to more hardcore. Be glad you have them for a while, they can be great players (however they complain about not being hardcore)
- Some folks want to raid, but really shouldnt be taken past Kara. The best line to this is to tell them 'We love you but....'
- The rest are the people that find your guild at the right level.

You can't change what people want - you can only find people that want the same as you.