Saturday, March 1, 2008

Seeking Raid Invite Advice

I am look for some feedback on my system for inviting healers to raids.

I was originally trying to cycle healers in as fair as I could, just going off my memory. Then one particularly good healer asked me one night if he could get in for more farmed content, since he tended to get brought in for progression content but not farm content. I was surprised by this, because I ALWAYS want to bring him because he is good, so I assumed I DID bring him a lot. So I went and I looked at our DKP stuff and low and behold - he had really good raid attendance, which can mean hours spent on trash, farmed bosses, progression bosses, or sitting outside on standby; but he had really low boss kill attendance, which means he has not been brought in for a lot of our farm content.

Our DKP page makes it very difficult to compare guild members attendance. It does, however, track the % of events people have been on since they have joined the guild: % of Lurker Kills, % of Hydross Kills, etc, % Raid Attendance (Which, again, lumps together new and old boss time, trash, and stand by, but NOT early bonus DKP.) So I thought to myself, hypothetically, a person who has high raid attendance should have a high boss kill attendance and people who have low raid attendance should have proportionally low boss kill attendance.

I set up a spreadsheet, so I could be as un-bias as possible. It divides each players Boss Kill % by their Attendance % to give them a Total %. I low % would mean they have invested many hours in the guild, either on new content or sitting on stand-by, but have not come to many boss kills and I should try to get them into more farm content raid nights. A high % would mean they have not spent much raid time NOT downing bosses, like maybe they never sit on stand by or don't show up for progression night (for whatever reason) and they need to "do some time" on the bench or come die to some new bosses.

Here are are some examples for SSC:
Myself: Raid Attendance: 100% (Yes, really truly.) Boss Kills: 81% (I've sat on standby some.) Total: 81%
A New Guildie: Attendance: 40% (Okay, lowish.) Boss Kills: 17% (But has missed a lot of farm nights.) Total: 42%
An Old Guildie: Attendance: 76% (Good.) Boss Kills: 83% (Hmm... They get in a lot for farm.) Total: 110%

So the other night I needed to sit out 2 healers for some farmed content and I sat out the above old guildie for the new guildie. I got tells from multiple people (not officers) saying I was was being unfair and playing favorites. When I tried to explain how I made the decision I was told I should bring in the old guildie because they have to miss some raids because of their work schedule. I truly believe and understand this, but I also didn't think it was my responsibility to keep track of and cater to everyones' real life schedules when I make up the raid. I feel like my job, when it comes to raid makeup, is to bring in our best people on progression nights and try to fairly distribute the Boss Kill DKP and chances at loot on farm nights.

So here are my questions:
1. Do you think my system of comparing time spent in raids to boss kills is fair to individuals?
2. Is my system fair for the guild as a whole?
3. To what extent am I obligated as an officer to cater to people's real life schedules?
4. Is having people /roll for raid slots each farm content night a better system?

In the end, I switched myself out at the next boss to bring this player in, simply to stop the complaints before I started /gkicking. However, based on my system, I "deserved" the DKP and chance at loot more.

Thanks for any input!

2 comments:

  1. Nothing's more frustrating that putting in a lot of effort and worry trying to be fair and just when making these kinds of decisions and then being told you aren't being fair.

    So here are my opinions on your answers:
    1. It does look extremely fair to me. But not all people will necessarily understand/believe the math. :)

    2. Again, I think so but then fair or not is all about perception. If someone hadn't bought in on the system and understand it and feels it's unfair, that feeling will fester with them and may lead to people leaving. I think maybe if you took your delima to your healers and laid it out (or made them read your blog) with the system and the why it's fair would be better. Try to get their buy in or this and solicit their opinions on it and their suggestions. If you come up with something better - blog it! ;)

    3. Well, as frustrating as this may be... I think taking people's RL schedules into account is a necessity. It's a balancing act to raid and commit to a schedule and also maintain RL responsibilities. Basically, management sucks!

    4. Again, I would put this to a vote but I personally wouldn't like it. I mean if you have someone who feels (maybe rightly so) that they also roll low, will they always lose the spots? It's frustrating enough rolling and losing loot but for spots as well...?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi, I've been reading your posts for a while and were very useful sources of information for a resto druid.

    I usually don't comment blogs but since you explicitly asked for it here it is:

    Question 1 (being fair to the individual) and question 2 (beeing good for the quild) are mutually exclusive. Think of the following example: a squad of soldiers are attacked by huge enemy forces. A helicopter coming to a nearby clearing to extract them. The fair thing would be for everyone to run for the helicopter, risking that the enemy reach them killing them all plus the helicopter crew. The other fair thing would be to not call for the helicopter and fight until last man standing. The best for the unit as a whole would be to leave 1 or 2 soldiers behind to slow down the enemy, while the rest get away. This optimal solution would be definately unfair to the mentioned soldiers. This is why several frustrated ex-officier reiterates the quote "The job of the officier is to get his soldiers killed for the homeland"

    Theoretically: the individuals are merely resources for any orgainzation and their problems are only considered if they would make the individuals leave. The worst thing that can happen to any organization is being left by the individuals. So the No1 "skill" of any individual from the point of view of the organization is "loyalty". The loyalty is measured by their sacrifices for the organization and the time spent inside the organization (the longer he stayed, the longer he will stay).

    In your example the old guildie sacrificed 76-83 = -7 (he gained more then he deserved) but he stayed for 76, therefore his overall loyalty is 76-7 = 69. The new guildie on the other hand is 40-17+40 = 53, so he proved less loyalty yet, therefore your guildmembers were right (but unfair) to ask you for change.

    Your options:
    1: you insist being fair, making several old guildmembers claming you have favorites. It also make your situation very bad if any of your "favorites" leaves the guild or the game.
    2: you do what's best for the guild which will make you feel like a slave-driver
    3: you leave the officier position

    PS: I'm sorry for bringing bad news to a nice person.

    ReplyDelete

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About Amy

I've been playing WoW since Easter Sunday 2005, coincidentally the same day I became engaged to my forever husband and tank Chad, aka Yakra. I have held the roles of druid class officer, healing role officer, and general secretarial type officer in two guilds. Currently, I am not playing WoW. When I'm playing, my blog, like my life, is casualcore PvE healing focused. (I love gear math!) When I'm not playing WoW... well, I can't quite tell you what this blog will be about since I have never blogged while not playing WoW! Expect to see reflections on being a married WoW player and on just being married, stories from my other RP adventures (LARPing and table top), and accounts of my life's most meaningful activity: teaching chemistry.





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