Guild Structure Improvements for the Struggling Raiding Guild
One of the things I learned from conversations from people at Blizzcon and a few other talks I’ve had in my time is that a lot of raiding guilds who swear up and down they have the calibre of game to play in the big leagues falls apart from various forces of entropy and other factors. Sadder still for these unfortunate players is that some of these problems can be helped with a bit of change to guild policy and structure.
Unless you have found one of the few raiding conglomerates that work (and most of which just begin to acts like guilds without guild tags) you need a guild that raids in order to do any of the content beyond the bunny hills of raiding (Malygos, Ulduar and beyond). A guild is a social structure, but also services a lot of pre-agreed upon rules and methods for handling situations for the success of its members. I always think of guilds as a sort of hybrid between a sports team and a business. And like it or lump it, but in today’s current endgame structure, gear is becoming less and less of an excuse for slow or halted progression. Gear is maybe 15% of what makes a guild succeed in raids. I argue the rest relies on teamwork, coordination, tenacity, and guild structure. That being said, I have come up with some of the more common mistakes made by both hardcore and casual guilds alike and what they can change to get a stronger, tighter, more focused raiding guild.
1. Sign-ups:
You can argue that I’m wrong, but nearly all guilds I’ve heard about with signups for raids suffer from serious issues with filling up raids. I know this sounds like a great option for the casual guild, but in the end this takes out a lot of the structure of a raiding group and always seems to end up causing attendance or composition issues.
Casual guilds can set up and maintain a raiding schedule. To accommodate as many people as possible, and when you can’t make it, a simple message on guild forums or an in-game mail should suffice to excuse yourself if you can’t make a raid night. When taking new members, make sure they know the raid times, so they can choose whether or not your guild is right for them. This will over time generate a core of members who all want to raid on the nights that the guild puts forward.
Signups tend to make members put raiding in a sort of backburner, and putting effort in the path to say you will come to a raid will in the end have less people sign up, and when they aren’t signed up, the motivation to log on for those times isn’t there. Signups for stuff like alt runs, or premades and such works a lot better, and a set scheduled raid time that members make known if something bars them from making a date is more structured, and less wishy-washy.
2. Screen your Apps:
A good thing for raiding guilds to do, even with low requirements, is have a real application process for everyone who wants to join in the raiding core of the guild. This way you can determine what you want from applicants as a minimum bar for getting in. You also can work out bugs in schedules, specs, and their knowledge of content before they get the invite. This also opens the door to transfer applicants, a real huge well of incoming applications. You can also keep the record of someone’s joining so you know for sure that their playtimes, gear, spec and expertise will fit in well with your guild. Even casual raiding guilds will want to screen their applicants in this manor, if only to get the best possible raiders for the limited time they have for maximum success.
3. Consumable Rule:
Really, any progression raid should not be without a requirement for flasking and feasting and potting. The bosses are scaled around these and to really keep up you’ll need this. If you say that gear is the only thing holding you back, and people aren’t potting, flasking, or feasting, you don’t really have a leg to stand on here.
4. Loot Council:
EP/GP, DKP, One drop per person per run, free rolls; all of these are just begging to cause drama. There really needs to be a paradigm shift in the way most guilds think when it comes to loot. Systems like DKP cause a lot of drama because they encourage people to play the system, not roll on upgrades in hopes of better drops, and scheming against others for the war of numbers. It also has no way of attributing loot for the triage you need to be progression focused. Let me explain that.
Every drop is basically a small bit of additive healing, tanking or damage to your guild’s total force. To progress you need to allocate these drops in a way that is the most forward thinking. A good start is to focus on gearing tanks as quickly as possible. Many raiders can survive without gear, but a tank’s gear is the key for success especially when going into new territory. Healers also are important, but dps needs to gear up along with them. As far as other smaller things as well, you should focus on gearing the pure dps a little over the hybrids for most dps output, or make sure that the biggest upgrade is going to the raider who will bring that item into the raid the most. If people are not gemming or enchanting gear then that is a sign that allocating gear to that player is not as wise as giving it to another player as they will provide more to overall progression by maximizing what they get out of that drop. All in all this is a system that no real number-based system can ever work out as there is just too many variables. Therefore, a loot council designed to distribute loot in this fashion is the best way to do it. Don’t treat loot like it is a doggy treat for your raid members; it’s a small upgrade to the overall cogs of your raiding machine and you need to know where that part will get the most effect and help the raid group overall the most. Loot always drops so don’t fret, it gets to everyone eventually.
5. Community:
I cannot stress to anyone more how important a good strong community of raiders is for overall progression in raids. Algalon is not a fight you bang against until he dies. That fight is fought in forums, on combat logs, and in discussion threads on guild forums. When working on a boss, a thread should be open about that boss, with discussion and new ideas flowing. Every wipe has something you can learn from. Every progression night is progress if you make it, but you need to work it out. Let people know what needs to be fixed and what is working. A screwup should not be a blow to anyone’s ego when you point it out. We all need to improve when working on a new encounter. I cannot count how many guilds who suffer from lack of progression have been due to their forums being a complete ghost town. A healthy progression discussion is a good way to make sure that you are not just raiding, but raiding smart. This is also a huge boon for casual players as it lets you make more use out of limited raid time by taking the figuring it out part to outside of raid times.
6. Don’t fall back to 10-mans:
One thing I hear often is “Our 25-man sucks, but our 10-man group is awesome”. This is a sign that a guild has issues that need resolving, and instead of solving them, the group is defaulting to an easier format. And I know to the bane of 10-man raiders everywhere, but the coordination needed and the forgiveness of mechanics makes 10-man easier than 25-man almost every time. I’m sorry guys, but it’s true. Not to attack people who like the smaller format, but a 25-man raiding guild with people focused on their 10-man progression only is a guild that is in need of work. Don’t fall into the trap of false success that 10-mans can bring you. If you are a pure 10-man guild this doesn’t apply to you obviously.
That’s about all I can leave you with. All I can suggest outside of what I’ve said here is to make sure you’re in a guild right for you and that the people you raid with are in it to raid and not just for loot or whatever. Those people will always be a problem and you really don’t want them around. If someone flips out because they didn’t get a drop, let them go, you’ll be better off.
I know I’m going to get in a lot of shit from some people for the stuff I’ve written here, and if you are angry and have real reasons to say I am in the wrong I look forward to your comments, maybe we can make this post even better for people to make their guilds stronger and healthier.
-Tristan
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August 27th, 2009 at 1:50 am
Guild Structure Improvements for the Struggling Raiding Guild…
Some tips from a top 100 guild about how small changes to guild structure can bring a stronger, healthier raiding group….
August 27th, 2009 at 8:15 am
I don’t really understand your argument against signups and scheduled runs…
I would never join a casual guild without raid signups! I prefer to know whether I’m raiding before logging on, rather than logging on, waiting an hour to see who is going to show up, whether we have enough healers/tanks/dps and then maybe or maybe not raiding.
Instead, everyone is required to signup through the forums before Tuesday (we raid Tue/Wed/Thu). That way we can build a list of role assignments and count to see if we’ve got enough for a run, so when raid time starts, we are at the instance and ready to go within a few minutes.
Many of our raiders log on almost exclusively for raids on weeknights, so if we didn’t have a schedule for them we’d probably never have enough people on at once to get a successful raid going.
It takes only a couple minutes to sign up for a raid, and if people aren’t willing to put in that time, they also probably aren’t willing to put in the time to farm up their consumables and research their class. We don’t want someone like that in our casual raiding guild.
Also, requiring signups via the forums encourages players to get involved in the guild community. Most guilds I know that don’t use their forums for signups have a lot less guild community action through forums than we do, since everyone has to visit at least once a week anyway.
We also require an average of 75% attendance, so if you’re too lazy to sign up, you’re not going to stay in the guild.
August 27th, 2009 at 8:25 am
I guess I see that as an unnecessary measure when you can just as easily have set raid nights that you have to post when you aren’t going to be there as opposed to signing up to say you will be there. Then it will psychologically seem less like something one could just blow off.
Also this is improvements for struggling raiding guilds. I have found the raid signups tend to make the process messy, but if it works for you by all means use it.
August 27th, 2009 at 12:18 pm
On Brajana’s point, what if all members decide to take some random Tuesday off (Canadian holiday?) but still maintain the 75% requirement? It would be nice to know that that day is going to be canceled. (Hey… it could happen. lol). But yeah, I see both sides, and it really probably goes back to what works best for you… consistency being key.
Tristan said, “There really needs to be a paradigm shift in the way most guilds think when it comes to loot.” I think the difficult part may be trusting in your leaders to know who’s contributing and who needs the upgrade. Sometimes the squeaky wheel gets the grease. And sometimes the more vocal raiders get the gear. I’m not saying you’re wrong (’cause I think you actually have a very valid point), I’m simply saying that a lot of people are hesitant about trusting that they’ll eventually get gear.
Also, I think the direction that Blizzard is heading with guilds (making it actually mean something to be in a guild) will cause people to focus more on staying with a guild… not just using it to get to the next level of guild (as a lot of people do sometimes). Ultimately, if you have 25-30 people that really understand percent increases in tanking/healing/dps as opposed to “I want my loot”, then it’s much easier to have a successful raid. Too often people get into the pissing contest of damage meters or epeen rating to be selfless enough to pass on a piece of gear because it’s a better upgrade for somebody else.
August 27th, 2009 at 4:13 pm
Thanks for the post here I really appreciate the comment. For the loot thing I know it cant be a perfect system, but if the idea is in the heads of the loot council to treat loot more like a cog and less like a doggy treat I still think the guild would be better off.
September 2nd, 2009 at 7:29 pm
We’ve just started declaring our runs as specific instances, and also started using SK for loot. Reaction has been mixed on the loot, but positive on the declaration of runs. As a new raid leader I like both approaches.
We declare two runs per week, and then members are free to setup other runs of what ever they like. They are not to get saved to our declared runs, and encouraged to do runs at other times. A third and fourth non-official raid times are there too, so that folks know that most players will be on in those times.
Loot is always open to abuse, or the perception of abuse. Even something as see through as SK can be played to an advantage. It is however far more transparent that a Loot Council, and far harder to game than DKP.
I like the approach that gear is a subtle overall boost to the raids performance; that is a great way to look at it.
September 3rd, 2009 at 9:30 am
[...] 3 09 2009 Tristan, over at The Elitists’ Podcast, wrote something I found interesting (source): Algalon is not a fight you bang against until he dies. That fight is fought… on combat [...]