So Reversion and I have been kicking around “rules” for our raid. They’re more of “guidelines for us to keep in mind as we wangle this thing”. I’m interested in feedback and suggestions from others who have raided in other situations. Do these seem optimist? Insane? Would you raid in a group with these policies?
Attendance
If you are going to miss, tell us, and as early as possible so we can fill the slot. Missing is ok – real life happens. Deciding you don’t really feel like raiding tonight and not telling us? Not ok.
If you miss without informing us then you are out and into the ‘backup raider’ tier. If you have a really good reason, and tell us later then you can stay in that tier. If not you probably will not get an invite.
‘The raid must go on’. We will try like crazy to keep the main players in but we might ask people to change alts. Sometimes we might ask them to sit one fight out. If we do either of those they will be swapped back at the earliest convenience. But the success of the raid is paramount. We will do whatever swapping is needed to make the run work.
If you miss Friday and we sub someone in then that person has dibs on your Saturday slot if they want it. You’ll be back next week (assuming you told us you were out)
Strategy
Player discretion is good at any time. Do what you think is best even if the plan was slightly different… BUT if you plan to ignore the plan, don’t. If you think there’s a problem with it, ask. If you have an idea, suggest it. We will always listen. We are VERY open to new ideas and suggestions… but…
Once we finish talking strats and have one, no more debate. Please save it for the next try. It is imperative that everyone knows what the plan is. Your ‘small tweak’ to the plan is more likely to leave someone confused at a critical time. Unless there is a severe unworkable FLAW in the current plan, buck it up and wait for the next round. It is more important for us to get a good clean try with the current plan than it is for chaotic or uncontrolled things to happen. With chaos we can’t even figure out what killed us. With a clean wipe on a bad plan we can update things and learn. A clearly articulated plan that everyone follows is better than a ‘better’ plan that leaves a few people confused.
We are open to bold and crazy ideas…. Somewhat. The rule is one per run. Per person. If your idea actually works we might allow you to have another crazy thought. If your crazy ideas always work we might stop thinking you are crazy… maybe. If you wipe us? No more crazy ideas.
This also goes for wipe ‘post mortems’. We need all the information we can get. If you think you saw something, speak up. If someone claims something was your fault, listen without taking it personally. Someone who is busy justifying a mistake is not listening to the solution.
Don’t be afraid to own up to something that may or may not have been a mistake. It is impossible for everyone to see everything that happens in a fight. There is a good chance you saw something we did not see. Speak up. Even if it seems like you are pointing a finger. It may be someone did something wrong they did not know was wrong. They will not know the next time unless someone points it out. However, once you have clearly pointed something out, then let it go. Once we have added that new piece of information into the mix for the next try’s strategy then it is no longer of any importance.
Everyone makes mistakes. We learn from them. We don’t dwell on them
Tasks
If we ask you to switch specs for a fight, or pull out a pet, or be on dispel duty, there’s a reason for it. If you’ve got a problem with that, talk to us after the raid and explain, but do not say in vent “The other guy should do it, my dps is better”. Or worse “I don’t want to”. Or “I don’t have Healbot”. I expect that you know your class well enough to know, for instance, that you can cure diseases. That means you may be asked to cure diseases, which means you should be prepared to cure diseases. Do you need Decursive? Have it ready to go.
Loot
This is a ten man. Right now, we’ll use the built in rolling system – roll need if you need it, if it’s for an off spec, ask first. When we get to Cataclysm we will have a loot master and use the prio/main/off system. One priority roll win per raid. Unlimited main – but we reserve the right to re-apportion loot if one person has won three drops and someone else hasn’t won any. Offspec rolls come after main spec, but you can have as many of them as you like. Again we reserve the right to quickly gear up an offspec someone is likely to use in the raid – say, the switch-hitting healer/dps who needs more gear for one set. Badges only if there’s a piece you currently own that you can upgrade. BoEs if you’re going to equip them right away, otherwise they go to the guild.
Raiding
Be ready to raid at raid time – flasks, repaired, online, ready to rock. Be in vent, don’t be in a heroic. We haven’t had any problems with this yet, let’s hope it continues.
Come as what you were invited as. If you want to change, talk to me. Please let me know what geared alts you have – you never know when we might really need you to bring in a particular ability to a fight. But generally, I’ve thought about the raid composition already and I need you to be who I invited you as.
It should go without saying but please have DBM or the equivalent. We’re not perfect at calling things out in Vent. Vent can go down, or lag, at the worst possible time. Having DBM will help you be aware of what’s going on. Understand what’s going to happen – we can explain fights, that’s fine, but if you don’t understand the explanation please ask. If you get through a fight and have no idea what just happened, please go watch a video or read a guide and find out.
General
Have fun – seriously, raiding takes work, and we have to be diligent, but if you’re not having fun please stop, figure out what would make it more fun, and do that. Maybe that means you stop raiding. Maybe it means you change your role. We’re willing to work with you but you have to let us know
Treat each other with respect. My number one rule. We’re supposed to be friends. We’re supposed to cooperate. Don’t be rude in vent. Saying “paying 5g for a misdirect to Mage X” is probably funny. Actually paying, and then gloating about it? Not funny, plus you’re wasting all our time.
We appreciate that you’re here, and contributing your time. There are nine other people also here contributing their time. No one’s time or fun is more important than anyone else’s. Don’t waste each other’s time.
Don’t curse in vent. A slip of the tongue is one thing, a constant string of foul-mouthed profanities is not ok. “Retard” jokes are not ok. Anything that is designed to hurt or offend someone else is not ok – we’re here for a common goal, and that goal is never furthered by making someone else feel bad.
Again, have fun. Reversion’s and my raiding goals right now is to see excellent new content, before it is obsolete, with a group of friends, while having fun. None of those are merely optional. You will have fun, or else! (er… wait….)
Those seem pretty normal. One comment is that the attendance seems pretty draconican. One unexplained miss looks like a total loss of raid spot. That can be fine if people have more than one way to get in touch with the RL but if not and someone has internet go down and can’t get word out then…..no more raid spot?
Totally agree on the strategy thing. As I told a player on Sindragosa on Saturday. “Yes that can be a better strat, but what puts bosses on the ground is everyone doing the same thing which does not have to be the best possible.”
Hmm, good point – while we are still forming up I am willing to be more harsh than later on once people have proved themselves. Say if Karius didn’t show Friday – well she’s been there before enough that we know it’s probably something weird like the internet goes down, no way we’d want her gone permanently. But if we invited someone for the first time and there was no sign of them them, I’d want a good explanation.
But you have a very valid point there.
See, the problem with giving people “freebies” before they are demoted is that if you think you have a freebie you use it. “Oops I’m gonna miss the raid. Eh, I have a freebie pass this month, so I won’t try to load up the forums on my phone.”
How about a general “you will be demoted until you speak to XYZ (officer, gm whoever)” At that point, the person demoted will come to you the next day and say “zomg my interwebs went down” and you repromote, no problem. Or the person says “well I was kinda a dick, lulz” and you decide what to do – like a week at demoted level, a stern lecture, etc.
See, all my perfect little raid plans work great as long as everyone always comes. As soon as we get into “but Y can be here this week” territory I get angst. I have to sub someone in, but then that person isn’t a full member of the team and doesn’t get to come next week – but what if Z fits in the group better than Y?
Ack.
That is a good point Zel. Someone is more likely to think, ‘Yeah they know me well they will be fine with it.’ But it is not fine. If you give us warning we can line someone else up. if you don’t you waste a few minutes or a lot of minutes of peoples time. It might cause us to run with a sub optimal group because we are running so late. That could cause the rest of us to spend the evening wiping and miserable.
But, yeah, sometimes the internet explodes right before the raid. Sometimes your computer blows up. We reserve the right to bend the rules if you have an outstanding reason… Maybe. Even someone we like if they have a flaky setup making them unreliable as a raider can’t be counted on every week.
Let’s say some emergency comes up like you get called in to work. Not your fault. But it is not fair to the other people that rearranged their life to make a raiding size hole in that time slot. If some one’s life style does not support regular raiding very well then they are probably going to get dropped. It is NOTHING personal. We just can’t foster frustration and delays on 9 other people for that. Better to drop the person and let them find some activity or a run that fits their schedule better.
Now obviously the raid can’t go on if we are swapping new people in every week. So we are going to be flexible. The overriding rule is the success of the raid. Which really means everyone having fun. For the purposes of this raid we are defining the following is NO FUN: ‘delays’, ‘wipe-fests’, and ‘no progess week after week’.
I’m presently in the process of writing similar rules for my own guild atm. Regarding the punishment for not letting you know they can’t raid I think you need a more nuanced system the one we are considering using is a layered system of punishments
Strikes: This is the lightest sign of our disapproval, for us its going to be the result of relatively minor things such as not using a flask or being mildly offensive in trade/guild but obviously the reasons will vary from guild to guild
Loot Punishment: This is the next tier of punishment and for us is not allowing that person to roll on any loot for 6 bosses/2 raids whichever comes first. This will be given for getting 3 strikes, not signing on/off for raids and maybe some other things to be decided
Removal from raider rank: This is the ultimate punishment and may well mean removal from the guild aswell. This is the ultimate consequence for failing to live up to the expectations of the guild
Other than that id say your rules sound all right the only other thing I would say is try to make them as succinct as possible. Put a wall of text on the forums and people won’t read it. Whilst it’s nice to fill your rules post with language to try to disguise the fact that this is a rule post ultimately people like to know were they stand and they would probably prefer a simple set of rules and consequences.
IMO loot punishment only hurts your team overall. And at least in a 10-man the loot often defaults to the only one who can use it anyway. You gonna shard it to make a point?
That’s my feeling too. And makes me feel too much like a mom: “No, you can’t have dessert tonight, you didn’t make your bed this morning, remember?”
I’d rather treat my raid partners like adults. As an adult, if I can’t rely on someone, I don’t punish him; I just stop inviting him to roles where I need someone dependable.
Not for us. Our ‘nuances’ will stay in our heads. Either you are in, and a full member of the team, or you are out. Since our run is just that, our run, there is no guild consequence of losing a standing invite. We don’t have that many rules and they are not hard and fast. The only one that will get your ‘punished’ is failure to show up. Anything else we might have to figure out as we go. If someone is being disrespectful to others in the raid, or doing things that wipe us deliberately then it is all ‘played by ear’. If we think someone can shape up we will let them stay. If not, they are out. Since it has not larger ‘guild’ repercussions then there is no reason to deliberate too much about letting someone ‘pursue other opportunities.’
Outrageous!
And I mean outrageous in the sense of “outrageously awesome.”
Good show. Figuring out the “allowed to be excused system is good” and I like your sort of loot council approach too. Though I really don’t see much issue with it for anyone. It’s a good group, heck even in the last weeks I know people have won things, then said, whoa, that’s way better of an upgrade for you, you take it.
The group is good like that. We’ve actually booted people out of the guild before for being loot dorks.
I have no idea what I’m typing, please ignore my first sentence and replace with…”Figuring out the ‘allowed to be miss’ situation will be a little tricky, but good to have it defined as best as possible.”
I like that… booted for loot dorkiness, that works. As long as it’s not me what gets booted! Ack! Maybe I will have to write an addon that “fairly” “distributes” loot and definitely doesn’t favor me over anyone else, come on, would I do that?
Glad you clarified the “outrageous” bit ;-p
A few things you may want to consider:
1. Does your guild allow raids to have their own charter?
2. Are the rules for your raids significantly different from the rules of the guild’s primary raid?
3. Are your raiders main characters or alts of guild members who run with the guild’s primary raid?
You rules are reasonable, if somewhat draconian, if you are the guild’s official run (whatever that means in the contect of the guild), or your guild allows raids to have their own charter.
Your rules may lead to guild drama if you are not an official guild raid and for whatever reason, one of the raiders who attend the guild’s official raid is removed from your raid. Or for any other perceived slight.
Unless you are doing hard mode and you are stuck on a boss, I am not in favor in substituting raiders in and out fo specific encounters. My experience is it leads to resentment and morale issues.
You may want to have more than 10 raiders in your group has 100% attendance for all is not likely, especially if some of your raiders also raid with the guild’s primary raid. Something like 2 to 4 extra raiders deepending on the attendance expectations may be worth consideration.
You may want to publish clear rules as the order you fill the raid spots when you do not have enough raiders online.
But first and foremost, talk to your guild leadership and make sure they are OK with your rules.
Good luck!
Fortunately I stacked our deck by including the guild leader in my raid! Now I can get away with anything – I mean, he will make sure we are reasonable and keep feelings from getting hurt. Yeah. That’s the ticket.
And also fortunately we’re a social guild with a competent-raider side dish, not a hardcore guild with a slightly-social garnish.
Mostly so far we’ve been swapping people’s alts in and out: ie, “Oh I want my shammy on this encounter” or “Hmm we need one more ranged for this, can you grab your hunter”. I do think that’s better than bringing someone entirely different in for one fight if at all possible.
You did stack the odds in your favor!
I do second Zelmaru’s recommendations (“you will be demoted until you speak to XYZ)” as I would never want to be in a position to demote the guild leader to backup raider as per your rules without him being able to explain himself. Having a set of very strict and precise rules can tie your hands.
I agree about swapping toons, not players, for specific encounters.
Well the demotion would more so be a mental demotion, an internal raid demotion. As we don’t have ranks for raiders in our guild.
We’re almost socialistic that way. All players in the guild are created equal…until you prove otherwise, either positively or negatively. So I think when she’s talking about demoting to back-up raider, it’s more of an internal raid thing, not at the guild level.
You mean you aren’t going to make a special rank just for me to use as a threat? BAH! What good is bribing you anyway?
Yeah, I meant internally we will not consider someone who says they’ll come and then not show to be the same level as someone who is there every time.
Yeah, it is not a demotion so much as…. when Analogue starts setting up the invite she stacks up the raiders we need. Mentally or somewhere jotted down she has a list of who are the ‘primary’ ones we invite based on attendance, reliability, their own interest levels, their availability, etc. So she sends out an invite. Then, if we are a couple short or get some ‘declines’ she pulls up her mental list of people that know their stuff but for whatever reason did not get invited at first. This might be people that simply can’t commit to a regular raid but might be free that night. Or it could be people we ran with before but, by virtue of unannounced attendance issues we hesitate to put them in that ‘first tier’ of invites.
You could almost say that people don’t even have designated slots and it is all up to Analogues tyranny that week. But, to clarify for people what gets them a lesser chance of an invite, there are these rules. Or guidelines, or whatever.
It is sort of like being a freelance raid leader and we are using the guild as our pool. Actually that is totally what it is.
You are right in that this might be a very poor system if it was the only raid in the guild and people had applied to join or something like that. But it is a more casual guild and there are at least a couple more standing raids or semi-regular raids. That and the guild is VERY alt heavy so all the raids have a lot of the ‘usual suspects’.
In this sort of environment I think we can pretty well pick and chose our raid without annoying anyone overly much.
What also make this raid different is that we started it off with a set of ringers and then added more ringers until we got to people that were good but not consistent enough to be ringers.
For example we have Me, Anlogue, her brother, the guild leader (trout), and a great blogging friend (Repgrind). That is half the raid right there. And, depending on what alts are used that could be all of the tanking and healing. So that gives us a ton of flexibility.
So, no, those are not rule so much as guidelines. Or you could way they are ‘fair warning’.
It is not 100% attendance we require. It is just demonstrated reliability. That ‘value’ is a mixture of ‘do they rarely miss’ and ‘do they warn us when the miss’.
Because we are alt heavy in this guild we also have the option of deemphasizing role performance. If we are not happy with someone in one role, or it is just not the optimal mix, we can as them to change to something else.
This flexibility has given us a great group. I think the fact that we got to the LK on our first week of raiding and down him on our second says a lot. And we are 6/12 on heroics. All that with a group that included several people that had not gotten past PP and at least one that had not downed Saurfang.
Another for having the ‘low tolerance’ rules is we are trying to rapidly for a group that is going to be very well positioned for cata raiding. This requires us to shift things pretty mercilessly.
You have to get raiders to commit but you don’t want to be a male appendage about it.
You could try a “commit to all raids for the next 4 weeks no exceptions”. That way you weed out the people who are flakes. But you allow for flexibility AFTER the initial period.
I think everyone likes to be treated as an adult. If you set time limited absolute unbreakable rules. People either understand what you are doing and comply or show their true unprofessional behavior. AND you find out behavior sooner rather than later.
Nothing worse than having someone you count on like a tank healer not be reliable.
Personally I believe alt/main raids are a BAD idea. Nothing worse than having someone critique a fellow raider with the statement “on my xxxx I could do that better than thou”. DRAMASIGN THE LIKES OF WHICH GOD HAS NOT SEEN!!!
Gevlon over at greedy goblin blog has a “no alt” policy and I think it’s the right way to go. With “no alts” you have no loot drama over gee this guy gets loot for his main and alt comments. With “no alts” you don’t get the “I’ll jump on x but I sux at it” bad raid effects.
But… But…. how do you MAKE a raid happen? what happens if you don’t have tanks?
Ah then you need to go to a DSPP raid! see next post
I think a ‘no alts’ rule is pointless. The things I want in a member of the raid are knowing their class, being able to follow the plan, getting along well with the rest of the team and generally being someone I don’t want to kill if I spend several hours a week with them. Finding the last 4 items is harder than finding the first one. And if we get people that are good they are generally good at several classes. If someone is bragging about being able to do better than someone else the fact that they know more than one class is NOT the problem. The problem is that they are a jerk. I frequently run into people that I can play better than. I don’t point it out!. I also run into people better than me and they don’t mention that either. Instead we compare notes on how the lower performing person might improve. For that discussion it is very useful to have people that know many classes. We have people in the raid that with between two and EIGHT 80s! Some with more I think. I only have two on this particular server. Between those two I have 3 specs/roles for which I am geared good enough to down the LK and know how to play. Which is my ‘main’? Who cares! I would rather have people that can adapt. Some people are not as good on a particular character. I would MUCH rather take someone who fits will in our group and ask them to bring a different alt than to have to boot them and find someone else.
We are going into CATA where there will be new fights and stuff. If we are working on something and decide we need a little more CC or a little more decurse I don’t want to have to boot someone and then find someone completely different. Far better to swap a couple roles and stick with people who work well together and know each other’s skills.
Again, if someone in the raid is insulting or bragging that is a completely different issue unrelated to how many are ‘alts’.
A DSPP raid is simply a raid group made up of Hybrids ONLY
Druid
Shaman
Paladin
Priest
EVERY raider is required to have either a healing of tank spec with a viable dps spec. AND BE ABLE TO RAID IN EITHER AT ANY TIME. Raiders who have Healing AND Tank specs are afforded extra status (raid leader-assist, loot council spot, strategy vote)
In short:
“These are the rules. Everybody fights, nobody quits. If you don’t do your job I’ll kill you myself. Welcome to the Roughnecks”
bonus points to those that guess the movie- without google 😉
Oh, that’s gotta be Starship Troopers though I never watched the movie version – insult to Heinlein’s venerated memory, that.
That is more or less what we have, except some people have those spread across different alts. Bringing hybrid’s only is pointless and too limiting.
Besides, there is no extra status. Analogue manages the raid and I call the strats. Anyone that wants to have stat input can speak up. Analogue and I are the loot council (within the guidelines) and anyone that wants to have input on a drop can speak up.
All this input on these comments has given me a lot of insight on just how unique our raiding style is. We started off making pugs with just a couple good friends and then some puggers to pad things out. I think that had a big influence on how we do things now.
It just ends up being a lot diffent than managing a bunch of semi-professional raider strangers.
If a friend is not working well in a role you help them or move them to another role. If a friend can’t make your standing raid times often enough they understand that you can’t give them priority on the invites.
*borrows these rules for his own guild*
Very nice ruleset, loving it 🙂
[…] Rules for Raiding – Analogue from Looking For More has posted her guild’s prospective raid rules and is looking for your thoughts on them. They’re covering things like attendence, strategy, tasks – and how raid members should behave in regards to these things. She’s asking us readers if we think they’re reasonable or whether we’d raid under them; an interesting question… […]
I wouldn’t call it tough, or draconian. It all looks pretty good to me. I’ve come to realize how lucky I’ve been with my horde guild… We have a RL rank structure and set of rules that translates beautifully to the game and the guild. No arguments, talk is mostly clean, and it’s a remarkably relaxed and laid back atmosphere. While they all want to get each raid done, there’s no need to do it now. Everyone’s content to get it done when it gets done. So what I’ve seen here, looks pretty good.
It sucks for me a bit, cause friday and saturday nights are our horde nights, and I don’t really know if that can be changed, but oh well. If you can ever use the services of one of the Grom family, let me know 🙂