Post by lightpenguin on May 11, 2014 21:58:34 GMT
Hey folks. I like to keep everyone up to day with concerns and decisions being made, so here's what's up:
In my mind, VV is and will always be a guild about community. We RP, but we are not an RP guild. We raid, but we are not a raiding guild. First and foremost we are about community, folks that are looking to focus on one aspect of the game without any social aspects whatsoever, are likely not a fit for us. In the past, we've seen folks of this type join and leave. We will miss those folks, but in the end we're all playing a video game- we should all be having fun!
VV's progression raid team is doing amazing. We are 13/14 on current-tier normal modes. For a "casual" guild, we have some darn good, and darn dedicated raiders. We can and WILL take down Garrosh. Heck, we will likely take on a chunk of Heroics with this group.
That said, given that we are a social guild, we have and will *always* have players of different skill levels. This is expected, and accepted. We will always strive to help people gear up. We will always strive to offer advice and workshops for players looking to improve their game. All that noted, we will still always have folks that are weaker than others. Up until this point, it hasn't been a problem simply because our high skill raiders tend to also heavily out-gear the content. Some might call this "carrying." I call it teamwork; our social guild gets the job done with the folks it has, and does what's necessary to keep moving forward in any content.
We've started to hit the point where our top-end players aren't able to go out on their own and gear up to the point of over-gearing. Heck, most of our team is in normal mode gear, we might have side-grades here and there, and there are certainly a few pieces on my set that need some love, but generally speaking gearing up for most of us now requires the raid team to farm normal mode, and maybe someday a few of the easier heroic bosses.
That doesn't sound too bad- just keep resetting and farming, right? Well sure, the first 8-9 bosses are a pretty easy clear for us, but bosses 10+ are still tough. Just this week we found clearing Thok and Blackfuse to be a challenge. And if we can't clear the bosses, we can't get the gear. All the while, Garry is just sitting there taunting us.
So that's all one issue: Progression raiding is hitting a wall, gearing will solve this, practice will solve this, but it's all moving slow. Another "issue" is that the number of folks interested in raiding that are geared and ready to rock has grown. This was an non-issue in Flex, and it will be a non-issue in WoD, but with a 10-man requirement, it's an issue right now.
My policy has generally been: Those that were with from the start are the "core" raid team. If they make it for the week, they get their spot, and anyone else warms the bench unless a core member misses or needs to leave early. This has been a really important policy for me, as I don't want this social guild to feel like raiding will be reserved for the best, and that their slot will be at risk of being lost if someone better comes along. I don't want this raid team to feel like something that's exclusive. However, blocking up-and-comers from raiding 99% of the time makes the team exclusive in its own way. I don't want new members to feel like they're unlikely to ever raid.
I would like a chance to change your perspective on raiding. Simply put: we're a GUILD, and we should treat raiding as a GUILD activity. What does that mean? If we have 13 folks looking to kill a boss, we should look at which of those 13 people would be best taking on that particular fight. Does that mean always take the best of the best? Not necessarily. If a boss is on farm, we should bring the folks that need the gear the most. At the same time, we need to ensure that we're stacking our team for a fight to ensure that we can actually kill the boss. If we have someone struggling with a mechanic, or undergeared for the fight, we shouldn't sit there wiping when the bench has folks ready to rock that will bring us victory. It's better for the whole guild if we treat ourselves as a dynamic team.
So what does this all boil down to? TLDR:
-We are going to start treating progression night as an activity for ALL guild members that want to go, provided they hit the minimum gear level, and have proven themselves on the flex team.
-We will attempt to more actively use the bench. If you didn't make it into SoO when the raid started, it shouldn't mean you're not getting in that night.
-When we have a boss on farm, we will prefer members that need gear off the boss so long as the final make up has a shot at taking the boss down.
-When a boss is hard for us, we will take full advantage of the members in attendance that evening, favoring the players that are most capable against that boss.
This introduces two pieces of data the guild needs to keep track of. We need to know what gear you need off of each boss. We also need to know how well each member is doing against a certain boss. For the gear: we expect that *you* will know what you need. Side grade, upgrade, BIS or otherwise, if we're about to take on a boss and you don't know know how many items it has for you, we're going to take that to mean 0. Come knowledgeable. As for how well you're doing in fights, most of the time this is pretty obvious. However, there is some nuance to these things (is the dps dead because they stood in the fire, or did the healer miss a heal? Is your dps low because this fight isn't great for melee, or were you spinning in circles?). To handle this nuance, I've asked Ten to keep track of these statistics. Ten runs World of Logs against our fights, runs our workshops for skill improvement, and is one of the most knowledgeable players when it comes to game theory. I trust his opinion here, and if you have an issue with this, please message me directly so we can discuss.
I hope these changes come across as a step in the right direction. If not, I encourage you to be vocal about it. Let's discuss what it'll take to make VV the best guild experience for everyone.
Take Care,
LP
In my mind, VV is and will always be a guild about community. We RP, but we are not an RP guild. We raid, but we are not a raiding guild. First and foremost we are about community, folks that are looking to focus on one aspect of the game without any social aspects whatsoever, are likely not a fit for us. In the past, we've seen folks of this type join and leave. We will miss those folks, but in the end we're all playing a video game- we should all be having fun!
VV's progression raid team is doing amazing. We are 13/14 on current-tier normal modes. For a "casual" guild, we have some darn good, and darn dedicated raiders. We can and WILL take down Garrosh. Heck, we will likely take on a chunk of Heroics with this group.
That said, given that we are a social guild, we have and will *always* have players of different skill levels. This is expected, and accepted. We will always strive to help people gear up. We will always strive to offer advice and workshops for players looking to improve their game. All that noted, we will still always have folks that are weaker than others. Up until this point, it hasn't been a problem simply because our high skill raiders tend to also heavily out-gear the content. Some might call this "carrying." I call it teamwork; our social guild gets the job done with the folks it has, and does what's necessary to keep moving forward in any content.
We've started to hit the point where our top-end players aren't able to go out on their own and gear up to the point of over-gearing. Heck, most of our team is in normal mode gear, we might have side-grades here and there, and there are certainly a few pieces on my set that need some love, but generally speaking gearing up for most of us now requires the raid team to farm normal mode, and maybe someday a few of the easier heroic bosses.
That doesn't sound too bad- just keep resetting and farming, right? Well sure, the first 8-9 bosses are a pretty easy clear for us, but bosses 10+ are still tough. Just this week we found clearing Thok and Blackfuse to be a challenge. And if we can't clear the bosses, we can't get the gear. All the while, Garry is just sitting there taunting us.
So that's all one issue: Progression raiding is hitting a wall, gearing will solve this, practice will solve this, but it's all moving slow. Another "issue" is that the number of folks interested in raiding that are geared and ready to rock has grown. This was an non-issue in Flex, and it will be a non-issue in WoD, but with a 10-man requirement, it's an issue right now.
My policy has generally been: Those that were with from the start are the "core" raid team. If they make it for the week, they get their spot, and anyone else warms the bench unless a core member misses or needs to leave early. This has been a really important policy for me, as I don't want this social guild to feel like raiding will be reserved for the best, and that their slot will be at risk of being lost if someone better comes along. I don't want this raid team to feel like something that's exclusive. However, blocking up-and-comers from raiding 99% of the time makes the team exclusive in its own way. I don't want new members to feel like they're unlikely to ever raid.
I would like a chance to change your perspective on raiding. Simply put: we're a GUILD, and we should treat raiding as a GUILD activity. What does that mean? If we have 13 folks looking to kill a boss, we should look at which of those 13 people would be best taking on that particular fight. Does that mean always take the best of the best? Not necessarily. If a boss is on farm, we should bring the folks that need the gear the most. At the same time, we need to ensure that we're stacking our team for a fight to ensure that we can actually kill the boss. If we have someone struggling with a mechanic, or undergeared for the fight, we shouldn't sit there wiping when the bench has folks ready to rock that will bring us victory. It's better for the whole guild if we treat ourselves as a dynamic team.
So what does this all boil down to? TLDR:
-We are going to start treating progression night as an activity for ALL guild members that want to go, provided they hit the minimum gear level, and have proven themselves on the flex team.
-We will attempt to more actively use the bench. If you didn't make it into SoO when the raid started, it shouldn't mean you're not getting in that night.
-When we have a boss on farm, we will prefer members that need gear off the boss so long as the final make up has a shot at taking the boss down.
-When a boss is hard for us, we will take full advantage of the members in attendance that evening, favoring the players that are most capable against that boss.
This introduces two pieces of data the guild needs to keep track of. We need to know what gear you need off of each boss. We also need to know how well each member is doing against a certain boss. For the gear: we expect that *you* will know what you need. Side grade, upgrade, BIS or otherwise, if we're about to take on a boss and you don't know know how many items it has for you, we're going to take that to mean 0. Come knowledgeable. As for how well you're doing in fights, most of the time this is pretty obvious. However, there is some nuance to these things (is the dps dead because they stood in the fire, or did the healer miss a heal? Is your dps low because this fight isn't great for melee, or were you spinning in circles?). To handle this nuance, I've asked Ten to keep track of these statistics. Ten runs World of Logs against our fights, runs our workshops for skill improvement, and is one of the most knowledgeable players when it comes to game theory. I trust his opinion here, and if you have an issue with this, please message me directly so we can discuss.
I hope these changes come across as a step in the right direction. If not, I encourage you to be vocal about it. Let's discuss what it'll take to make VV the best guild experience for everyone.
Take Care,
LP
