The first three months of any guild’s inception are usually the toughest. If they can stick around and be cohesive for that long, then the guild’s odds of making it through for the rest of the expansion are usually in their favour.
Unfortunately, I am disappointed to say that Integrity stopped just two weeks shy of that benchmark.
Losing 1-2 players a week due to attrition is manageable. Losing 3-4 every so often is like losing 20% of your team and that’s usually much more difficult to recover from. Though the GM tried his best, he lacked the drive to keep going and had already burned out — Not necessarily due to the game, but due to the players.
The Post Mortem
If there’s a case study to be had here, the underlying lessons here would be to set and manage player expectations.
It definitely seemed that most players had their own idea of what direction the guild should go and how things should be handled. To a GM, that can be overwhelming to parse out what’s relevant and what isn’t. Here’s two of the most common opinions that I heard about:
- “We should be raiding Mythic on Tuesdays and not Heroics.”Mythic requires 20 players, period. If 20 isn’t an option, then Mythics isn’t an option. Second, players can still benefit from trinkets from select bosses. In the weeks leading up until now, it was only a 90 minute investment from first pull to finalizing loot distribution from Xavius (out of a 9 hour raid week). Granted, we disenchanted perhaps 3 out of 4 items that dropped but that didn’t mean there weren’t legitimate upgrades. Once one player was done with Heroic and no longer needed anything else, they seemed to possess a “Screw ’em, I got my loot” mentality which is dangerous and does not align with a guild first philosophy.Answer: My solution here would be to take a close look at what bosses players needed and target them exclusively. Ursoc and Illy trinkets were still in high demand. Going after Nythendra, Ursoc, and Illy and then backing out and switching to Mythics right away would have been an adequate compromise between those hellbent on progression and those who still needed upgrades. We did this too late though. Even then, when we did, it wasn’t enough. I would have banked Heroics for later in the week as an option if we didn’t have enough for Mythics.
- “That player sucks, kick them.”Vendettas appear to be a real thing in a virtual game. Personally, my belief is that a player needs to worry about their own performance first and foremost before examining someone else. If a player’s performance is lacking, it’s up to the leadership to try to address it. But at the same time, the raid is subject to the reality and logistics of Mythic raiding — If you have exactly 20 players, and one of them isn’t firing on all cylinders, dropping one of them means you’re not going to be able to do Mythic at full strength unless you want to pursue it short handed. It’s almost always better to try to address and identify player performance problems because the cost of finding a new player, training them up, and gearing them to the appropriate level can be just as costly.Answer: Removal from a guild should only be used for the most egregious of offences. However, I am of the opinion that if a player is having an off night, telling them to take a seat for maybe 2 or 3 pulls to get their stuff together is not a bad idea. Consistency is a huge part of the game. If you give the ball to Steph Curry, you expect him to make those 3 pointers on a night to night basis. If the same player is the first to die on every pull when they normally don’t, that’s a problem. Steps should be silently taken to continue recruiting but the guild can’t advance without fresh players coming into the organization. We didn’t do a good enough job of recognizing and addressing that. This lead to player frustration because of the perception that we didn’t see or want to do anything about it. The reality is that we did see it, but we were handcuffed due to the logistics and restrictions of Mythics. In most cases, it seems that of the three important attributes of a player, they only possess two of them: Attendance, game awareness, and high DPS.
Next Move
I’m officially a free agent. I’m heading out of town over the Thanksgiving weekend and will be back early December. I hear Chicago’s nice this time of year (and I’m really stoked to watch Hamilton). Once I’m back home, I can get back to guild hunting and pounding pavement. Faction changing is off the table so I’d rather stay Alliance. Weekday evenings strongly preferred. Realistically, I’m at the point in my raiding career where I’m okay with not having to be a starter. I find myself caring less and less about being one of the first to secure a progression kill. Obviously if I can help contribute, I’d be delighted to do that. I’m just as comfortable coming in later on a farm night or to help provide healing relief for a healer that needs to take a night. As long as I still get to participate and see the kill at all, right?
Anyone have a lead for an 878 Alliance Holy Priest?