Officers' Quarters: A scheduling headache
by Scott Andrews 
May 25th 2009 at 1:00PM
Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.One of the big annoyances of raiding is finding the right schedule. This time of year is particularly bad for many guilds, as last week's Officers' Quarters column proved. Students of all ages have finals. Working adults are traveling more often or spending more time away from the PC. When you have a small crew, the loss of even one person for a few weeks can mean all your raids are put on hold. This week, one officer wants to know how to figure out a raiding schedule despite some uncooperative individuals.
Dear Scott,
I am the co-leader of a casual 10-man raiding guild on Lightning Hoof. Despite only raiding once a week, we've managed to down ten of the bosses in Ulduar and we're proud of that accomplishment. Lately though, it has been almost impossible to get everyone together on the same night to work on progression. Quite a few of our raiders have school or work requirements, and it is very difficult to time every one's lives around raiding. We try our hardest, and for a good while it was working out perfectly. Lately though, I feel that our raiders are beginning to demand the raid schedule be built around them, rather than trying to make time in their own week to come. Since we are such a small guild, it happens quite often that when one person can't/doesn't show, we are not able to raid. This then wastes the entire night, and it becomes almost impossible to re-schedule.
It seems that while our members want to raid, many of them are making it difficult to do so. A few guildies have stepped up with ideas of how we could fix it, but many are ideas that benefit/make things easier for them personally rather than the entire guild and therefore do not work. I understand the logical thing to do right now would be to recruit more people, which is an idea that both myself and my co-leader have thought about. However, since most of our members are good friends rather than just raiders, it is a difficult decision for us to make. We don't want to threaten raid spots, since when people do show up, they do their job. It's just becoming exhaustive to deal with all the whining and we're not sure if we have any other choice.
We fully understand that real life comes first and we don't penalize people when something comes up they can't help. We try hard to make it fair for everyone, but it feels like we're the only ones. Granted, I admit we're not perfect either. But I'm tired of being treated like we owe them Ulduar on a silver platter when they often refuse to make the time themselves to show up because they "don't want to," not because they can't.
Is there any way to remind everyone that raiding is a team effort? Or are we doomed as long as people think that since their raid spot isn't challenged, that they have the right to dictate when we go or not?
Sincerely,
Has a headache . . .
You said it yourself, HAH: "Raiding is a team effort." Rather than having individuals pose self-serving solutions, you need to figure out the schedule with input from everyone.
Allow me to suggest a statistical solution. Ask everyone who wants to raid to post on your Web site. Have them rank each day of the week from 1-10 in terms of their availability. 10 would be a day they can always make barring a personal emergency. 9 would be a day they can almost always make, and so on. 1 would be a day they could never make no matter what.
Set a deadline for this post so you don't waste a whole week gathering the data. You want to get your raiding back on track ASAP. Set your request to be the message of the day. Talk to people about it when you see them online. Make sure they know how important it is. It's in their best interest, after all. If they aren't accounted for, the result will be far less favorable to their personal schedule.
Once everyone has posted, it's a matter of some simple math. First, eliminate all the days that were rated with a 1, 2, 3, or 4 by anyone. You'll consider those last, and only if necessary. Hopefully there won't be more than a couple of days that people rated so low. If various people rated all 7 days of the week that low, then you'll have to eliminate only the days that were rated 1 or 2.
Next, take the total rating for each day and divide it by the number of respondents. For example, say the ratings from 10 raiders for Monday were 10, 10, 10, 10, 9, 8, 8, 7, 5, 5. The total is 82. Divided by 10 people, that's a rating of 8.2.
Say you threw out Friday and Sunday, and the remaining days were
- Monday, 8.2
- Tuesday, 9.5
- Wednesday, 6.1
- Thursday, 5.8
- Saturday, 9.1
If they don't want to, that's another story. What else can you do at that point but recruit someone to replace them? Just because you're all good friends doesn't give any one person the right to veto a raid night based on nothing but laziness or selfishness -- in fact, I'd say they have even less right to do so.
Some will of course try to argue for other days. Point to the numbers and say there's nothing you can do about it. You have to raid on the days that are the best for the most.
By using a statistical method, you're removing the subjectivity from scheduling. No one's needs are more (or less) favored than anyone else. It's not an ideal solution. (The ideal solution would be to get everyone to agree to a schedule and show up without having to go to this length.) But it's a solution that works when people are being uncooperative.
Some people's schedules will change once school is over or some other life event occurs. You can always go back and reevaluate the ratings for each day if someone has to change a day to a 1-4 rating. However, keep the original numbers and ask people to provide a reason for a change when they make a drastic one. Otherwise, you may not have stability.
It's important to choose days and then stick to them. When family and friends know in advance that the guild raids on certain days, they can do their part to leave those days free of other commitments when possible.
I know some people will scoff at the idea of a wife or husband planning their life around their spouse's guild's raiding schedule. But it's no different than asking them to plan around a weekly poker night or softball game. It won't always be possible for them to leave those days free. Family obviously has to come first. But families can try to accommodate someone's needs when it's something they enjoy doing. (If a parent is raiding five nights a week instead of spending time with the family, that's a whole other story.)
So that's my suggestion, Has a Headache. I'm curious how other guilds figure out their raiding schedules. Tell us about it below!
/salute
Send Scott your guild-related questions, conundrums, ideas, and suggestions at scott.andrews@weblogsinc.com. You may find your question the subject of next week's Officers' Quarters! For more WoW Insider gameplay columns, click here.Filed under: Officers' Quarters (Guild Leadership)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Brian May 25th 2009 1:29PM
While the problem would appear to be schedules, it sounds to me like the real issue is how seriously the guildies are taking raiding. Just like with anything else in life, you need to make time to play WoW if you're raiding with a regular group. You should certainly not put it ahead of real life things, but you can usually find a way to make your schedule work with WoW and RL if you try. But it sounds to me like the players in question are probably treating WoW like a last resort activity if they don't have anything better going on. Which is fine if you're playing by yourself or just doing PUG runs...but if you're trying to raid with a regular group, that's not going to work.
The problem in this case is that as friends, the raiders KNOW that the raid will always be there for them if they feel like running, no matter how low of a priority they make it. This provides very little incentive for players to actually try to compromise. If you can't replace them, I'd say a better alternative is to simply suggest the raids be canceled, since it's too much of a pain to organize them. I'm willing to bet that people will become much more reasonable when it comes to scheduling if the alternative is no raiding.
For all the talk of raiding being made more accessible, it still requires some level of commitment. There's nothing wrong with players who are too casual for that, but you can't have your cake and eat it too...it's unfair to the other 24/9 people who want to raid for you just to run whenever it's super convenient for YOU.
alcapawn May 25th 2009 1:47PM
An addition to this statistical approach would be to have rolling threads in the forum for the coming weeks where members well ahead of time can communicate if they are for some reason unable to make the raid. This would be the proper place to reschedule to one of the other highly scored nights.
epsilon343 May 25th 2009 1:48PM
For the guilds that I've been, it was a simple choice:
These are the times we raid. If you're not on by the time we enter the instance then you lose your spot for the week.
For a strictly casual guild that might be a little too rough, but it works. You'll quickly see who actually has the desire to raid and who goes only on the nights they feel like it so that they can get geared up without putting the effort back into their peers.
danawhitaker May 25th 2009 2:11PM
I have great desire to raid, and no one to watch my child and put her to bed when everyone else is raiding at 7 p.m. central. Is that an offer to come babysit? Everyone who could babysit for me doesn't understand the concept of why I'd want to have a night off to play a "stupid game". It's not stupid to me, but it's stupid to them, and every time I've asked I've gotten a flat-out no (or worse, the one time someone did agree, they kept leaving my daughter in the computer room with me so they could go do other things and I had to bail on the group I was going to go instance with at the last second). So I've resigned myself to the fact that I'm not able to raid or instance until she's asleep for the night, at least until she's older and can entertain herself better.
So yeah, I don't think it's unreasonable that maybe instead of a guild saying "come at x time or don't come at all" you try to work around everyone's schedules and find a convenient night or two. I'm not the only one in this boat. There are plenty of people who don't work regular 9-5 jobs or who have evening classes that they attend who also can't make the standard raid times. This is especially the case in a smaller guild where people know each other better. In a larger guild, you can maybe even get enough people to run different raids on different times/days.
While the content has gotten more accessible, clearly the arrogant attitude about what people who cannot come on some raid leader's perfect schedule has not.
epsilon343 May 25th 2009 2:52PM
I didn't say this was something for everyone to use. We decided early on when we would raid based off of when most people were available and made that our established raid times until evidence suggested we needed to modify our times, which we did due to school schedules.
The guild I'm in right now raids from 1130-3am every day except for Friday and Saturday. If you can't be on when the raid begins you don't get a spot for that night, you'll be put on the wait list for when someone does leave. There is a certain give or take between the raid and the raiders and that means that some people need to be left out in the cold.
You can try and make me seem like some arrogant asshole who's yelling on vent about more DPS and all that but it couldn't be further from the truth. I just feel that raids are like a sports team and if you can't show up for practices you don't get to start.
Eisengel May 25th 2009 3:06PM
this.agree += 1
Clevins May 25th 2009 5:12PM
Sorry Dana, but I think you're offbase here. If a guild is setting up raid times and you're one of the people who will start raiding with them they should try take into account thing like "Hey Dana can't make it before 8pm server" but if you join a guild with an established raid time you need to bend to their times. Same thing if 24 other people can all make the one night you can't, and any other night loses several other people. Take this out of the realm of WoW - if you signed up for a softball league and then found out the games were too early for you would you expect the team to reschedule all of the games? Of course not. If you were on a team though, and next season's schedule was being decided on with two options, then sure, they should consider your constraints when deciding when to play.
Of course things change... a raid time what was good for someone might no longer be due to a new kid, job, etc. If that's happening to a few people you can either all say "Hey, let's revisit the hours" or you can say "Gee, I'm sorry Dana, but this is the best time for the other 9 folks." What's unreasonable is for individual raiders to expect the raid team to revolve around their schedule while being unwilling to shift days or hours themselves.
@1 has it precisely right in this case - do the people want to raid? Or is it something they don't really care about? If they want to raid, I'd do something simpler that the post suggests - I'd ask them
1) When CAN'T you raid? (job, kid duties, etc)
2) When WON'T you raid ("I can raid Friday or Saturday, but I won't raid both - I go out once each weekend.")
Find the days that aren't blocked out by either of these for any of the raid team. If every day is blocked by someone's CAN'T take the least blocked day and recruit as needed. If there's a day that's not blocked by any CAN'Ts but is blocked by someone's WON'T talk to that person about what's up with the won't.
At some point though, the raiders need to actually want to raid and if they don't really care or have so much going on in their lives that they can't make and keep schedules committments, you need to replace them.
Sinthar May 26th 2009 8:35AM
@ Diana,
I understand your problem (lets face it - most ppl here know somewhat of that problem). My suggestion would be, are there no babysitters, friends, relatives, etc who can have your little one for a few hours, at THEIR house? That is unusual not to have ANYONE in my experience. But no matter, you could be the only one in your guild with that problem, or one of many.
In my guild we have people with similar problems, i personally have played 'placeholder' a few times (ie started the raid on time, as soon as the late member logs, i leave and surrender my place to them, it does sorta suck from my point of view, always saved, but few badges/loot to show for it, but im geared enough so makes sense). If theres many people with the same problem, the raid wont start cos they wont have enough people, thats when the authors points system should be used.
Another thing not mentioned is HOW LONG people can play for. A 10:30 start time is great for night owls, but a 2:30 finish time is not recommended if you work at 7:30
OFC building this into the points system means you would have to rate each hour or two, and get averages, building up a hour by hour raiding profile is long and not easy, rerating is long, but the results mean you should get a full raid with everyone there for as long as possible. It also means people should fall asleep at the keyboard, and keep their jobs longer too :)
Hope something there helps. GL and hope your daughters well and happy :)
Marveen May 26th 2009 5:41AM
It's now 4+ years since WoW launched, meeting parents of young children in WoW is no longer a rarity, and I'm sure there's plenty of nightowl raidgroups for people with busy lives in the early evening. If you can't raid during "prime time" (early evening to midnight), then find a raidgroup that suits your schedule better.
Sometimes you simply cannot compromise, and time is one of those things. You can only be in one place at a time, so you have to make a choice - as an officer you must set the raid dates that suit most people best, and those who cannot make it have to either deal with only raiding once in a blue moon (when they can make that schedule) or find another group to raid with. If it means recruiting new people, so be it.
It sounds mean, but people move on and it has been 4 years, there are many new parents out there (many of which met through WoW), so there is an emergence of raidgroups with off-hours. I mean, if you got a new job that had you work weekends, you would find a raidgroup with better times!
artifex May 26th 2009 6:45AM
Dana, a lot of people who can't raid in their local prime time join servers where the prime time is different.
Quite a lot.
jurandr May 25th 2009 1:50PM
Get an idea of when your raiders are actually available. Log into your google account, and open up a Calendar. Set it up to be editable by anybody and post it in yout gmotd or on your forums. Instruct your raiders to fill in the times they are not available, and then schedule your raid in the spaces when enough people aren't busy.
Remember that nobody, including you, is absolutely required to be there for a raid to happen. Just because they aren't with some guild administration doesn't mean a bunch of guys can get together and down a few bosses. You are just like them, but with some moderation powers. Expect that everybody agrees to the guild rules when it comes to looting and behaving in vent. Not just rules you as a leader set down, but rules they actually believe in.
Keep in mind that WoW is just a video game. Most people play this game in their leisure time, not as a second job. If you pressure your guild to reorganize their entire lives around your raids, then they'll probably leave for a more user-friendly group.
Don't seek to bend 24 people around your finger. As a leader you are providing a service, and make sure that service is worth their time.
Bananacup May 25th 2009 2:09PM
You have to draw the line between "not wanting a second job" and "being lazy and selfish" though. Expecting everyone else to accommodate to your needs is wrong, and no guild that gets anywhere will do it.
It sounds like their guild is being as "user-friendly" as possible, but there's a big difference between "omg work just called i can't make it sorry guys" and "no i don't feel like going i'm just not going to log on". A BIG, HUMONGOUS difference. And noone who was really a "friend" would do that to you.
Brian May 25th 2009 2:10PM
I really hate "it's just a game" as an argument for bad behavior in WoW. Sure, it's a game, but it's a game you play with real people. And even if killing Kel'Thuzad isn't serious business, inconveniencing 24 or 9 other people you made a commitment to IS being a jerk.
The comparison to a 2nd job is wrong...there's plenty of stuff outside of WoW that people do just for fun that still requires some level of commitment from them. Whether it's playing in a work softball league or whatever, if you are doing something with other people but only when it's convenient for YOU...they're rightly going to be a little bit bent out of shape about it.
You don't like that? Don't raid, or just PUG raids...there is plenty of stuff to do in WoW that you can do whenever you feel like it. But don't say you want to regularly raid with a group, then refuse to try to actually schedule a time...that's just rude, even if you're just being rude in the game.
Bananacup May 25th 2009 2:16PM
Exactly Brian. Think about it, if these people don't want a serious scheduling attitude to their guild raids then the door is right there for them, and raids are more PUGable than any other point in WoW, even Ulduar PUGs are getting into a few bosses now.
It's all well and good to want to play WoW whenever you feel like it, with no obligations to log on so you don't have to treat it like a "second job", but then you shouldn't be in a guild, because all you're doing then is pretty much saying "screw you" to 9 or 24 of your closest friends.
Nollind Whachell May 25th 2009 2:02PM
"But it sounds to me like the players in question are probably treating WoW like a last resort activity if they don't have anything better going on."
Exactly! I've seen this happen quite a bit. Actually those that seem to have the most amount of free time (i.e. on 6+ hours/day) are often the ones who don't show up to a scheduled event. Those with the least amount of time, however, treat their time seriously though, so they usually do always show up on time.
"I know some people will scoff at the idea of a wife or husband planning their life around their spouse's guild's raiding schedule. But it's no different than asking them to plan around a weekly poker night or softball game."
Again totally agree. My wife is totally cool with me "meeting the guys" a couple of times a week for gaming night. These are RealLife friends that are across North America, so it's the only way we can virtually meet up on a weekly basis on socialize.
Stages May 25th 2009 2:19PM
I like the idea of assigning values to days and sticking to them.
What worked for our guild is very similar- we have our set raid days, and we are *going* to raid those days no matter what. If we have to pug people, we will. Eventually our raiders became more reliable, or admitted that they will not be available on a regular basis (family obligations, etc.) When one raider drops out, there is likely a person we have pugged before who wants in.
Here May 25th 2009 3:07PM
The insane part seems to me to be scheduling it week to week. But may that's just me.
Either way it seems to me for any raid to work you need to set a time where 13 people can show up, and plan on 3 bailing or sitting. Set up a fair system for determining who sits. . . otherwise, you're probably just never going to get a raid :-p. . . as much as recruiting is a worry.
But then again, I help run 25 person raids, so we have a much higher level of acceptance of social friction . . . and we are not a guild, so we have 0 guild issues :-).
You could also rather than recruiting guildies, set up some kind of associate channel for people who would like to raid with your guild but for whatever reason don't feel a need to join it - like people in smaller non-raiding social or rp guilds. All they really need to be a fair and equal participant is access to our webpage. Webpage access need not be limited to guildies.
You just have to make sure all policy decisions are made on the webpage so everyone has a fair chance to participate.
You don't have to be in a guild to raid with people. Our raiding coalition has been going for 14 months now and we've cancelled weekend raids . . . once . . . for lack of attendance.
I think you do have to make sure to schedule these things in advance, maybe choose two raiding days/times, and rotate them every week - hopefully that's enough to let everyone raid at least every other week. So maybe raid Friday 9-12+ one week, and Saturday 7-11 the next week, and just rotate the two times, so at least it's predictable . . .
Unknown May 25th 2009 3:09PM
You guys need to start using http://doodle.ch
It's an appointment scheduling tool, you could even use it every week to figure out next week raids. It's Great at this stuff.
Don't do the ranking stuff, just use the website.
Rada May 25th 2009 3:57PM
One of the issues that seemed to come to the fore is the difference with people willing to put some commitment in the game and those who treat it as something to do in their spare time with no fixed schedule. My guild consists of a mixture of both, which makes regular raiding schedules a real headache. The real problem arises when we are missing healers, as finding a PUG healer (let alone two or three) is nigh impossible, at least on my server. This inevitably results in the raid being called off. The alternative is for individuals to join PUGs, but, at least on my server, most PUGs are an excruciating experience leading to four hours of constant wipes on bosses, long waits due to people dropping out, getting dc'ed, etc....
I hope the OP manages to solve his problem by recruiting more people...that would not be a viable solution on my server at least, due to the chronic lack of regular and available healers. And changing argument here...anyone else feels there is a lack of healers for raiding, or am I just in the wrong server?
Gimmlette May 25th 2009 4:12PM
I'm going through the same fits and starts as "Headache" but for another reason. I have a plethora of 80's who want to run stuff. It's not a guild leader's dream, however, because we are casual and I am NOT interested in having a raid every night. Plus, my goal as leader is to get everyone who wants to see Naxx into Naxx, even if they can only help down one boss. No loot guarantees, just the guarantee of actually being in the instance.
I had every 80 send me the days of the week that were best and worst for them and I put all the data on a spreadsheet. For a one week night raid and our every other Sunday Naxx raid, I can now see which day(s) are likely to attract the most people and who is more likely to be on when. Plus, I added a column where I check if they have downed a boss. We have one group that is progressing steadily through the instance. These people will, in turn, team up with those who haven't gone far and we should, in theory, get everyone something from Naxx at some point.
It's not the world's best system and I strongly emphasize real life over the game. I have a number of fathers who insist on putting children to bed and we make time in the raid for "Daddy duty".
I don't have a lot of patience for the "It's just a game" attitude of people who sign up and don't show up I have a couple of people who grouch about not going but then don't show. After a spate of aborted raids because people who signed up didn't show up and had no reason when they did log on, one of my officers wrote an article on the forum about how people make time for this and your lateness or not showing with no explanation inconveniences a lot of people. It's just like any other team activity.
Some people will never get it. Those are the people who also are not in the regular raids. I don't like being hard on people, but it's my time too. As GL, we often tolerate what the regular guild member won't because we think it's expected. It's not. Once I could accept that I could expect people to show up as much as I show up, it because easier to explain to the slackers why they weren't in the raids. It won't necessarily make the slackers any better, but it does make your headache go away.