Post by Myre on Aug 1, 2015 0:35:09 GMT -6
Hi everyone,
Glad to be part of the team! As part of my commitment to the guild, I agreed with Wargasmic to help come up with ways of growing the guild and increasing raiding participation. Per our last conversation on vent, which most of the officers were included in the later half, we discussed such topics as loot systems, recruitment, and management positions and responsibilities for key individuals. I’d like to go into each in a little more detail, and put everything down in writing before we make any changes to existing systems.
What follows is my suggestions put to paper, but I don’t want this to be a one way street. This is the beginning of a conversation, which should continue both through writing and vocally by all the officers. I'd also like to point out that none of this is meant to be in any way derogatory: at worst, any criticism of current systems is made with the intent of identifying areas for improvement.
Brace yourself. This, like a fine wine, is best consumed slowly over time.
Loot:
At the end of our discussion, we were more or less in agreement that the current DKP system had room for improvement. There were several alternatives discussed, with the main three being: 1) Official Loot Council, 2) A Rank-Based Roll System and, 3) A Simplified DKP System.
I think we were also in agreement that there were parts of each of these already in place in the current loot structure. Some examples of this was “loot-counciling” certain items based on how good items are for classes, or using a mix of DKP and roll mechanics for Idols and the end bosses of 20-mans.
After discussing, it became clear that option 1) and 2) were unlikely to work, for a variety of reasons. The biggest concerns however with the current system was the discouragement of new players trying to bid against people with large amounts of DKP and that often times raiders were not actively bidding on items, even if they were upgrades. With that in mind, the following a few suggestions designed to combat these issues:
I. Capping DKP
The idea here is that players with a certain amount of DKP will stop earning it. The initial value tossed around was 2,000. Capping also encourages people who are nearing the cap to spend their DKP on upgrades, or otherwise risk not-accruing. This will cause DKP to be more fluid, and not to consolidate in the hands of a few individuals.
II. Increasing DKP for Attunement Completion
When new players enter the raiding scene, it’s often disheartening going up against established members with medium to large amounts of DKP. This will allow players who have completed their “pre-raid checks” (more on that below) to actually get gear.
This change does two things. On one hand, players will be able to compete on upgrades without having to raid for extended periods of time (or be put at the bottom of class item-coalition lists). On the other hand, it will increase the price established players are paying for items. This will help deflate DKP totals across the board, and make the difference between “haves” and “have-nots” a lot less stark. I view this as a good thing given Reigns goal of community-building.
I recommend the following:
- Onyxia Attunement: 50 DKP
- Molten Core Attunement: 100 DKP
- BWL Attunement: 100 DKP
This assumes removing all other sources of initial DKP (like signing up for the Website). If you’d rather those are included, I would adjust the totals to make the sum equal to 250. This could also be something like 50x per attune, and an additional 100 for completing 90% pre-raid BiS gear or better.
III. Revaluating DKP Allotment
The current DKP reward system is a bit messy. While there are standard costs for items based on progression or farmed content, this is often skewed based on who is leading, what the content is, and the current moon cycle (I joke…only just…). There should be clear and consistent guidelines for awarding DKP that way people don’t feel left out by “random” chunks of DKP being awarded arbitrarily (which further contributes to the “haves” versus “have-nots” dilemma).
If DKP is awarded for a special circumstance, it should only be done so RARELY (no more than once every 5 raids) and the amount should not be excessive (no more than 1/5 the total DKP awarded that night. Consider it an amount equal to one more boss kill). In this way, I would highly discourage “Double DKP Nights” where players can show up to one raid, and effectively skip another and end up with the same totals. There are other ways of incentivizing attendance.
My suggestion for the system would be as follows. Raise the minimum DKP awarded / required for progression content, and reduce the minimum required for farm content. This would also help balance DKP totals (exact values will need further research). Here’s what I would propose:
-ZG: Awards 10 DKP Per Boss, 10 Min Bid
-AQ20: Awards 20 DKP Per Boss, 10 Min Bid
-MC: Awards 20 DKP Per Boss, 20 Min Bid
-Onyxia / Worldbosses: Awards 20 DKP Per Boss, 20 Min Bid
-BWL: Awards 30 DKP Per Boss, 50 Min Bid
-AQ40: Awards 50 DKP Per Boss, 50 Min Bid
There are other avenues to take as well, but these are the three I’d begin with. Please take everything with a grain of salt: nothing is set in stone, and if you have suggestions regarding the premise or the specifics, please don’t hesitate to make recommendations.
Recruitment:
Some background. I mentioned in our last conversation that I built a guild to 1000 members in about two months, and then was leading progression three months later. My experience, and opinion, is that the order of recruitment should be 1) Obtain Volume -> 2) Identify and Train Talent -> 3) Establish Core Raiders. This does not mean starting with people who are already pre-raid BiS and recruiting from there. While those people are great to have, they shouldn’t be the core of your recruitment strategy. My recommendation is starting earlier: with pre-60s.
The larger you can make the guild, the more impact it will have on the server. Each character is a piece of advertising for other future players, and if you do it right, you’re level 30- and 40- casual players can be just as effective recruitment tools as an officers soliciting players. How those players conduct themselves (how you teach them to) will help shape Reign’s reputation, which will help make Reign more legitimate. This will also help to overcome efforts by others to undermine Reign’s reputation.
Ok, so that’s a lot of nice words, but what do I mean? Start by recruiting as many people as you can. Type /who 1-40 and search by all the people who aren’t in guilds. Approach each of them, asking if they’re looking for a guild, and engage them in a conversation about what Reign can offer. If they want a casual place to hang, Reign will be that for them, but if they ever want to start raiding, we can help there too. If they’re a serious player looking for progression, highlight the advantages.
Management Positions and Responsibilities:
After that, start to identify people who are interested in raiding. Train them (this is where class leaders step in) and show them where the bar for achievement is. For DPS, this might mean you need to be doing X DPS, or you need to show me you can effectively maintain 90% of your optimum rotation. Whatever the metric is, we should all agree on it.
People who are not ready to raid should not step into raids.
This doesn’t just mean gear, but means being able to perform their class appropriately and understand the attitudes of raiding environment. This means knowing to bring pots, understanding VG idiosyncrasies, and general raid awareness. It should be the class leader’s responsibility for anyone who isn’t performing these duties.
Let me make that clear. If someone isn’t performing, that’s not the player’s responsibility, that’s the class leaders.
Except in the case of willful negligence, the buck should stop with the officers. With that in mind, I would encourage each of the officers to help flesh out their class sections on the guild website with guides for things like BiS gear, enchanting and consumable guides (including where to farm them), and a list of known bugs and tricks for each class. Not only what, but where and how to obtain everything is helpful. Some classes currently do this better than others, but we should standardize.
Ultimately, the chain of command should flow from one or two individuals (Wargasmic and maybe one other in this case), to a group of officers under them, who are in turn responsible for the majority of players. That responsibility is only relevant if expectations are clear and maintained.
As far as promotions are concerned, I would recommend making them more clear-cut. If you have 80% attendance, you are promotion to X rank. If you have 100% attendance, you are promoted to Y. You can also pair this with things like consumables (which are mandatory in all cases, but could be offered at a discount for consistent raiders. Just a thought). Make it seem less about currying favor and more-clearly delineated.
I. The Otrofer Effect
Players need a home. For people who are casual, they want somewhere they can hang out. For raiders, they want consistent raids and pushing content. For high-powered sometimes-annoying players, they need an outlet.
In the case of Otrofer, I recommend giving him a position that will fit his skills and attitudes. He is very, very well versed in this game and knows it better than just about anyone. Use that. That is something you don’t want to lose. As I mentioned, he is a catalyst because he knows what he’s talking about, even if he’s delivering it in the wrong way. By shutting down or marginalizing his opinions, you’re telling players who agree with him “we don’t value your opinions,” and are labeling yourself as casual. That is how you lose progressive raiders. You want to be just serious enough to not jeopardize the fun aspect, but being too casual will cause key talent to start looking elsewhere.
My recommendation: make him a raid leader. He likes giving orders, and explaining tactics. Make him responsible for forming groups, for keeping the pace of the raid, for checking if everyone has buffs and consumables. Give him all that responsibility, enforce it, and don’t overstep to take that on yourselves, or he’ll rightly feel you’re undercutting him. In the long term, this could also be an avenue back to a class-leader, if that’s what he wants. However, he’d be very good at being the person who can “push the ball forward.”
Conclusion:
That is my initial summary / thoughts of our previous meeting. As I stated at the start, this is a beginning, a starting point. We should talk through all of these points and more before we make any changes, and make sure everyone is on the same page.
Cheers,
Myre
Glad to be part of the team! As part of my commitment to the guild, I agreed with Wargasmic to help come up with ways of growing the guild and increasing raiding participation. Per our last conversation on vent, which most of the officers were included in the later half, we discussed such topics as loot systems, recruitment, and management positions and responsibilities for key individuals. I’d like to go into each in a little more detail, and put everything down in writing before we make any changes to existing systems.
What follows is my suggestions put to paper, but I don’t want this to be a one way street. This is the beginning of a conversation, which should continue both through writing and vocally by all the officers. I'd also like to point out that none of this is meant to be in any way derogatory: at worst, any criticism of current systems is made with the intent of identifying areas for improvement.
Brace yourself. This, like a fine wine, is best consumed slowly over time.
Loot:
At the end of our discussion, we were more or less in agreement that the current DKP system had room for improvement. There were several alternatives discussed, with the main three being: 1) Official Loot Council, 2) A Rank-Based Roll System and, 3) A Simplified DKP System.
I think we were also in agreement that there were parts of each of these already in place in the current loot structure. Some examples of this was “loot-counciling” certain items based on how good items are for classes, or using a mix of DKP and roll mechanics for Idols and the end bosses of 20-mans.
After discussing, it became clear that option 1) and 2) were unlikely to work, for a variety of reasons. The biggest concerns however with the current system was the discouragement of new players trying to bid against people with large amounts of DKP and that often times raiders were not actively bidding on items, even if they were upgrades. With that in mind, the following a few suggestions designed to combat these issues:
I. Capping DKP
The idea here is that players with a certain amount of DKP will stop earning it. The initial value tossed around was 2,000. Capping also encourages people who are nearing the cap to spend their DKP on upgrades, or otherwise risk not-accruing. This will cause DKP to be more fluid, and not to consolidate in the hands of a few individuals.
II. Increasing DKP for Attunement Completion
When new players enter the raiding scene, it’s often disheartening going up against established members with medium to large amounts of DKP. This will allow players who have completed their “pre-raid checks” (more on that below) to actually get gear.
This change does two things. On one hand, players will be able to compete on upgrades without having to raid for extended periods of time (or be put at the bottom of class item-coalition lists). On the other hand, it will increase the price established players are paying for items. This will help deflate DKP totals across the board, and make the difference between “haves” and “have-nots” a lot less stark. I view this as a good thing given Reigns goal of community-building.
I recommend the following:
- Onyxia Attunement: 50 DKP
- Molten Core Attunement: 100 DKP
- BWL Attunement: 100 DKP
This assumes removing all other sources of initial DKP (like signing up for the Website). If you’d rather those are included, I would adjust the totals to make the sum equal to 250. This could also be something like 50x per attune, and an additional 100 for completing 90% pre-raid BiS gear or better.
III. Revaluating DKP Allotment
The current DKP reward system is a bit messy. While there are standard costs for items based on progression or farmed content, this is often skewed based on who is leading, what the content is, and the current moon cycle (I joke…only just…). There should be clear and consistent guidelines for awarding DKP that way people don’t feel left out by “random” chunks of DKP being awarded arbitrarily (which further contributes to the “haves” versus “have-nots” dilemma).
If DKP is awarded for a special circumstance, it should only be done so RARELY (no more than once every 5 raids) and the amount should not be excessive (no more than 1/5 the total DKP awarded that night. Consider it an amount equal to one more boss kill). In this way, I would highly discourage “Double DKP Nights” where players can show up to one raid, and effectively skip another and end up with the same totals. There are other ways of incentivizing attendance.
My suggestion for the system would be as follows. Raise the minimum DKP awarded / required for progression content, and reduce the minimum required for farm content. This would also help balance DKP totals (exact values will need further research). Here’s what I would propose:
-ZG: Awards 10 DKP Per Boss, 10 Min Bid
-AQ20: Awards 20 DKP Per Boss, 10 Min Bid
-MC: Awards 20 DKP Per Boss, 20 Min Bid
-Onyxia / Worldbosses: Awards 20 DKP Per Boss, 20 Min Bid
-BWL: Awards 30 DKP Per Boss, 50 Min Bid
-AQ40: Awards 50 DKP Per Boss, 50 Min Bid
There are other avenues to take as well, but these are the three I’d begin with. Please take everything with a grain of salt: nothing is set in stone, and if you have suggestions regarding the premise or the specifics, please don’t hesitate to make recommendations.
Recruitment:
Some background. I mentioned in our last conversation that I built a guild to 1000 members in about two months, and then was leading progression three months later. My experience, and opinion, is that the order of recruitment should be 1) Obtain Volume -> 2) Identify and Train Talent -> 3) Establish Core Raiders. This does not mean starting with people who are already pre-raid BiS and recruiting from there. While those people are great to have, they shouldn’t be the core of your recruitment strategy. My recommendation is starting earlier: with pre-60s.
The larger you can make the guild, the more impact it will have on the server. Each character is a piece of advertising for other future players, and if you do it right, you’re level 30- and 40- casual players can be just as effective recruitment tools as an officers soliciting players. How those players conduct themselves (how you teach them to) will help shape Reign’s reputation, which will help make Reign more legitimate. This will also help to overcome efforts by others to undermine Reign’s reputation.
Ok, so that’s a lot of nice words, but what do I mean? Start by recruiting as many people as you can. Type /who 1-40 and search by all the people who aren’t in guilds. Approach each of them, asking if they’re looking for a guild, and engage them in a conversation about what Reign can offer. If they want a casual place to hang, Reign will be that for them, but if they ever want to start raiding, we can help there too. If they’re a serious player looking for progression, highlight the advantages.
Management Positions and Responsibilities:
After that, start to identify people who are interested in raiding. Train them (this is where class leaders step in) and show them where the bar for achievement is. For DPS, this might mean you need to be doing X DPS, or you need to show me you can effectively maintain 90% of your optimum rotation. Whatever the metric is, we should all agree on it.
People who are not ready to raid should not step into raids.
This doesn’t just mean gear, but means being able to perform their class appropriately and understand the attitudes of raiding environment. This means knowing to bring pots, understanding VG idiosyncrasies, and general raid awareness. It should be the class leader’s responsibility for anyone who isn’t performing these duties.
Let me make that clear. If someone isn’t performing, that’s not the player’s responsibility, that’s the class leaders.
Except in the case of willful negligence, the buck should stop with the officers. With that in mind, I would encourage each of the officers to help flesh out their class sections on the guild website with guides for things like BiS gear, enchanting and consumable guides (including where to farm them), and a list of known bugs and tricks for each class. Not only what, but where and how to obtain everything is helpful. Some classes currently do this better than others, but we should standardize.
Ultimately, the chain of command should flow from one or two individuals (Wargasmic and maybe one other in this case), to a group of officers under them, who are in turn responsible for the majority of players. That responsibility is only relevant if expectations are clear and maintained.
As far as promotions are concerned, I would recommend making them more clear-cut. If you have 80% attendance, you are promotion to X rank. If you have 100% attendance, you are promoted to Y. You can also pair this with things like consumables (which are mandatory in all cases, but could be offered at a discount for consistent raiders. Just a thought). Make it seem less about currying favor and more-clearly delineated.
I. The Otrofer Effect
Players need a home. For people who are casual, they want somewhere they can hang out. For raiders, they want consistent raids and pushing content. For high-powered sometimes-annoying players, they need an outlet.
In the case of Otrofer, I recommend giving him a position that will fit his skills and attitudes. He is very, very well versed in this game and knows it better than just about anyone. Use that. That is something you don’t want to lose. As I mentioned, he is a catalyst because he knows what he’s talking about, even if he’s delivering it in the wrong way. By shutting down or marginalizing his opinions, you’re telling players who agree with him “we don’t value your opinions,” and are labeling yourself as casual. That is how you lose progressive raiders. You want to be just serious enough to not jeopardize the fun aspect, but being too casual will cause key talent to start looking elsewhere.
My recommendation: make him a raid leader. He likes giving orders, and explaining tactics. Make him responsible for forming groups, for keeping the pace of the raid, for checking if everyone has buffs and consumables. Give him all that responsibility, enforce it, and don’t overstep to take that on yourselves, or he’ll rightly feel you’re undercutting him. In the long term, this could also be an avenue back to a class-leader, if that’s what he wants. However, he’d be very good at being the person who can “push the ball forward.”
Conclusion:
That is my initial summary / thoughts of our previous meeting. As I stated at the start, this is a beginning, a starting point. We should talk through all of these points and more before we make any changes, and make sure everyone is on the same page.
Cheers,
Myre
