When both sides of the story are right

There are so many things in game - in LIFE, even - where both sides of a story seem to be right but they are opposing in nature.

My current dilemma is about having 2 raid teams.  I miss the days of 25 mans that we used to do - but it seems like those days are long gone.  But we definitely have too many people for just one 10 man team.  We routinely sit out 4 people for a raid.  So there has been talk of 2 raid teams again.

How do you decide who sits out?  What if everyone has the same attendance?  What Fue did was start with volunteers and then people were selected out by whose turn it was.  But is it fair to sit out someone who has 100% attendance who has turned up for every raid?  On the flipside, if you sit out the person who has 80% attendance all the time, they will not turn up anymore to fill in if they're never given the opportunity - which makes the raiding roster even smaller when there are no reserves.

As I said, it's a hard question, and you can see both sides of the story.

I did enjoy having two teams.  I thought maybe there could be one more progressive team and one more relaxed one - doing older content and chasing achievements. Fun stuff!  Of course progress is fun too, but sometimes I do like to just sit back and relax, but with a group of like-minded people.

There are so many things in the past that were similar.

Think of someone who was raiding and knew they were leaving the guild and upon killing a boss for the first time, an item dropped that they wanted and they won it.  They had put in the hard work for the kill, so they should have received a reward for their hard work.  Which is fair, right?  However, if you look at the other side of the story, 2 people were sat out constantly for that person to raid, not knowing that person was leaving soon.  They were of equal skill as the other, so had it been known the person was planning to leave, then a person more dedicated to the guild could have come in and the item stayed in the guild to help the guild progress on other boss kills.  You can see - both are correct!

There was something the opposite of that happened as well - a raider was planning on leaving the guild but continued to turn up to raid to help out.  An item dropped and they didn't want to take it.  We couldn't understand why, because clearly that person needed it.  It was only after some whispers exchanged that the person told me they were planning on leaving the guild and felt guilty for taking stuff and leaving - they didn't want to look like some kind of loot ninja.  I could see their point, but the item would have been DE'd anyway, so the player was forced to take the item anyway.  It didn't matter - the bad thing was that the guild was happy to see them go.  

I wonder what other things people have to deal with where both sides of the story are correct.  It seems somehow such an oxymoron to me when opposing thoughts are both correct!




Comments

  1. Need more people on dath, thats the problem. The place is empty. I wish we could do 25 man raids but cant see that happening, to be honest i think 2 10 mans will be hard to put together :(

    Falln

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    1. I think so to. But an alt run is tempting...

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  2. With regard to deciding who sits out, I've suggested a roster in the past. I think it's the fairest system. In an ideal situation, volunteering would be the best way to go provided everyone has the same willingness to give up their spot for their fellow raider and relies on everyone being mindful of who has sat out before and whether it's time they themselves should sit out. With a group of eager and passionate raiders, someone volunteering to sit out becomes less likely as everyone understandably wants to contribute to the raid and have fun.

    A roster would help in this situation. It removes the need for a decision for who sits out to be made and keeps things fair. I also think that if a player can't raid on a particular night and they are rostered on, then they would have to accept that they have forfeited their spot for a reserve. They shouldn't presume that they would take the reserve's rostered spot later in the week. It also rewards attendance because the person with a 100% attendance rate who turns up as a reserve is more likely to fill in the gap when someone who's rostered on can't make it.

    Anyway... just my 2 cents.

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  3. I started a response to this... but it sort of got out of hand so I've moved it over to my blog as a post so as not to post a novel in your comments which will be online later this evening :) and to make a long story short I think Shab has a really good idea, I've always wanted the raid groups I've been involved to have a rotation schedule like that.

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  4. Great stuff as usual Navi: one thing that is tantamount is good, clear expectations and communication. Without that all else has potential to fail, no matter how honorable the players.

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  5. In theory, we always go by what make up is best suited to the encounter we are working on. Fight is particularly nasty on melee? Take an extra ranged instead. Need something specific dispelled? Choose the right healer for the job. This plan *would* have been great if our players were also given the chance to come in for the easy kills, the farm content. But they weren't given that chance and eventually most of them wondered off and when we were down players we suddenly had no options at all.

    I myself did the whole, "Let's do two raid groups because we have extras!" in Concur. It worked great for the first few weeks, and then one by one DPS stopped showing up. If two players on each team were unavailable, we had to pull four subs out of thin air, instead of two.

    In the end we lost an entire team's worth of DPS and couldn't find replacements so early in the expansion; our progress was terrible because we had watered down our talent into two weaker teams instead of one strong team, and the more casual people weren't ready to raid yet. We eventually merged teams, but then of course we lost people who were unhappy about losing a core spot.

    TL;DR version: Two teams can work if you have a large pool of players to pull from. From my personal experience, the more hard core people will be unhappy with missing out if they are great performers and the more casual people can be keen one week and gone the next. A second team is a great way to keep those who haven't earned a core spot interested, but either way, someone is always going to be unhappy with what you come up with no matter how fair it is.

    (As an anecdotal thing, my best "relaxed raider" has just been taken on board by our progression team because his performance is outstanding. The casual/progression teams has worked great for us in a sense of my raid acting like a training ground, but when you get the odd person who is more hardcore orientated, it can be trying on you as a raid leader trying to manage expectations)

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    1. I an glad two teams worked for you. I am still puzzling it out but it appears that we are sticking with one team for now. I think I would just like more healer backups so I could take a break more!

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  6. My guild has been putting together a second raid group, since we had more than 20 people interested in raiding when the expansion came out. Since it took us so long to start raiding, a lot of those people moved on. And the second raid group is mostly the people who weren't geared in time to go with the first group, and some awesome people who are new additions to the guild. A lot of them are very casual, and don't show up. It's been hard to put together, even though it appears we have plenty of people interested in raiding. I'm a healer, most of my alts are healers, so I've offered up an alt to that group to help out, and have been 1 of about 3 people who regularly shows up and accepts their invite.
    On another note, it irks me when people decline invites, then pop on at raid time and ask about the raid.

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    1. It is hard when people don't show the commitment you do when you go to all the effort to organise! Though I admit I am a very bad acceptor of calendar invites myself...

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I hope these comments work! Not sure why people can't comment lately, it makes me sad :(