Officers' Quarters: Pitchforks and torches
by Scott Andrews 
Aug 16th 2010 at 2:00PM
Wipes are a fact of life. Everyone wipes. How you deal with these situations can be crucial to your guild's success. Some guilds cultivate an environment based on blame, where everyone's first thought after a wipe is, "Who messed up?" Sometimes, it's easy to figure out who is at fault: Someone with a spore goes the wrong way, or someone gets mind-controlled by the Blood Queen after failing to bite his assignment. When it's not easy to figure out, some guilds use a different strategy for assigning blame. Here is one such case:
I have a real dilemma.
I'm an officer, one of six, in a semi-serious raiding guild. We have 30 core raiders who raid with us, and one of them until recently was one of our druid healers, and the issue surrounding him is my dilemma. A little background information on the guild, since it is relevant, is that we have a strict rule involving loot due to some people in the past who have abused our requirement for Vent in that they wouldn't use it, or they'd log in but leave their headsets off. This caused a lot of problems with wipes and caused the officers, GM and co-GM to agree that a rule would be made that was you must be in Vent and actively listening at all times during a raid in order to be eligible for loot. This is what caused the initial problem.
The player of this druid healer I mentioned before applied to our guild and told us on the application that he is deaf.
The officers discussed it, and after looking over some World of Logs reports, we decided to give him a trial run. He outhealed our druid class officer and seemed more on spot with raid awareness. He wasn't in Vent, so we know he didn't hear us calling out for a battle rez or heavy heals on an individual, but he was always right on top of those things. He seemed to watch other healers' mana and would innervate them. After the trial run we agreed to let him into the guild. He has since raided with us now for around two months. He was there when we got our first Lich King kill on 25 and has been there consistently.
The first issue came up about two weeks after he was invited. Some of the members started to protest that he was not abiding by the rules of using Vent. After talking it over amidst ourselves, we decided to ask him to at least log into Vent. We knew it wasn't going to do him any good, and he agreed. He said it was what another guild he was in had him do and he was fine with that. Things seemed fine. Until two weeks ago.
It started with just a few complaints that soon turned into more and more complaints to various officers. We'd had a meeting about it a few nights ago and asked the guild for input on our various rules and any they felt needed to be changed, and a few other things. We used this as a quiet way to find out how people felt about the Vent rule. As it turns out, of the 24 raiding members, 15 of them felt that this healer's inability to hear us calling out for heals or battle rezzes had caused a number of wipes and the fact he was able to get gear was just an abuse of the system.
We officers had a meeting about it and with mixed decisions called the healer into the officer channel, promoting him so that he could use officer chat temporarily. Of the six officers, GM and co-GM, four officers and the GM supported kicking the druid. One officer and the co-GM felt that we should discuss this with the guild and not judge the healer for a disability he has but rather for the performance he has shown us over the past two months. I did not vote, preferring to not cause a split. I now regret that decision.
The GM stated that many of the complaints received were that he (the druid) single-handedly caused the wipes because of his inability to hear. After about 20 minutes of talking to the druid, things got a little heated and he gquit [. . .] I tried to talk to him, ask him to stay on the server, seriously thinking of quitting the guild myself over this, but he was offline. He has since transferred servers[.]
How could we have handled this differently? [. . .] I'm not sure what to do or what could have been done better. Help?
Disheartened
This is one of the most blatant cases of bandwagon scapegoating I've ever heard. It's a sad story.
Here is how I imagine it went down: Your guild was having trouble progressing. People got frustrated and started to look around for what could be holding them back. An obvious target presented itself: The person who can't hear Vent. Someone suggested that the druid could be the problem. Someone else, who probably felt bad about causing a few wipes, but didn't want anyone to know about his or her mistakes, saw an opportunity to pass the buck and echoed the original finger-pointer's sentiments. A few accusing raiders became a mob of angry guild members, they took up their pitchforks and torches, and your officers folded to the pressure. They gave the druid over to the mob.
I wasn't there, obviously, but if what you tell me is true about this player's awareness and skill, then your guild just ran a good player out of town because it's easier to blame the guy who can't hear than for everyone to look at his own mistakes and what he could have done better.
I expect that sort of behavior from normal members, but when your officers agree with them, when they surrender to the mob, what can you do? I'd say it's a failure of leadership that more officers weren't willing to stick up for this person as a solid team member. Yes, he probably did cause a couple of wipes. Who among us hasn't? But were his wipes disproportionately more frequent? I doubt it. It sounds to me like he went above and beyond to compensate for his disability.
What did your guild do to compensate? It sounds like no one went out of the way for this guy. All it would have taken is a few simple macros to whisper him a specific instruction. I'm not saying that he deserved special treatment or that you should have changed the way you raid to accommodate him. I'm just saying that your raid leaders or your healing leads could have helped the guy out if they wanted to. It doesn't sound like anyone was really interested in doing so.
There's no undoing what happened at this point. He's not coming back. Chalk it up to a personal lesson learned, and if a similar situation arises in the future, use that experience to guide your actions.
You can, however, take steps to prevent the situation from being repeated. Your guild and its officers need to take a long, hard look at how your guild handles raiding. Clearly there are other problems at work here if people feel the need to scapegoat a player right out of the guild.
What happens after you wipe? Do raid leaders react with anger, or are they understanding? Are those to blame shunned and embarrassed, or are they forgiven? Is personal accountability encouraged, or do people remain silent about their own mistakes out of fear?
Figuring out how a wipe occurred is absolutely vital. Ideally, the person who caused it or who made a mistake that contributed to the failure will speak up. That way, no one needs to point the finger and everyone can learn from that error. Adjustments can be made and your raid can do better next time. For that to happen, however, your leadership needs to create an environment where people feel comfortable doing so. Right now, you don't have that environment.
One final point: The fact that people thought the druid didn't deserve loot due to a rule that he couldn't possibly meet is ridiculous. I mean, seriously.
Seriously.
As for the Vent rule itself, it makes sense if you have to bring in PUG players, since it can be difficult sometimes to get random people into your Vent channel. Denying them loot is an effective way to make sure they're logged in. However, if you have actual guild members who are too lazy to log in or -- even worse -- who can't be bothered to listen to Vent when they do log in, then they have no business raiding with the guild.
Are those players still raiding with you? If so, that speaks volumes about the lackluster level of effort that members are putting into your raids. If people care so little, why do they even bother showing up? And why do you invite them? Find players who care. Replace the ones who so obviously don't. Then, hopefully, your guild won't need to find any more scapegoats.
Vent is an important communication tool, and communication is a huge part of raiding success. If people are willfully ignoring that, then they're just disabling themselves.
/salute
Send Scott your guild-related questions, conundrums, ideas, and suggestions at scott@wow.com. You may find your question the subject of next week's Officers' Quarters!Filed under: Officers' Quarters (Guild Leadership)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 8)
Ruthar Aug 16th 2010 2:12PM
Scapegoating always seems like a big issue - everything always seems to be blamed on a certain individual when really its a cooperative and collective game.
"He outhealed our druid class officer and seemed more on spot with raid awareness."
/salute to the Druid for being awesome!
BruinGray Aug 16th 2010 3:03PM
I grew increasingly deaf over the years since WoW launched, and stopped raiding and most grouping with my guild when it became near total. THEY would have gladly kept me, but I honestly felt that with all the study and visual cue watching in the world, my reactions (I was almost always DPS) were just a second or half-second slower than with Vent. And I did feel responsible for a couple of wipes due to early deaths and a significant resulting loss in DPS for the raid. I think a guild needs to be very understanding and flexible to handle deaf players. I have stayed in my guild, still group on occasion with close guildmates who know my playstyle and can adapt to it, but mostly do solo or BG stuff now. I keep looking for an actual "deaf guild," but have not found one. I would join if there were one, since we would all be on the same page and Vent would not be an issue. My point: I really sympathize both with deaf players and with guilds with normal hearing folks in the great majority. It is not easy.
Gendou Aug 16th 2010 3:18PM
Our guild uses Vent for strategy and shooting the bull. We rarely use it during the actual fights.
I think the only exceptions are Valithria, where one of our officers (usually our GM) calls out which adds are spawning where; and Festergut, where I'll call out tanking switches so the healers can focus during a transition. Sometimes we tanks might call taunts on certain fights, or yell at someone for standing in the fire, but for the most part Vent is a convenience for communication. It's not a 'requirement' in order to down the bosses - we all know the fights well enough by now that it's just not needed.
Three things I do want to note:
1.) If you have to call out for heals instead of trusting your healers, you're doing it wrong.
2.) If a single healer can wipe your 25-Man ICC raid, you're doing it wrong.
3.) If you deny loot to a contributing player due to circumstances outside their control, you are definitely doing it wrong.
Kunikenwad! Aug 16th 2010 4:17PM
@ Gendou
Your three points are absolutely correct. If you're blaming one healer for a 25man wipe, I can almost guarantee it's not his fault. Also, if you're blaming the deaf healer who outheals your CLASS OFFICER ... well ...
Sounds like the class officer got pissed that he was outperformed by another player, a player with a disability at that. Sounds like wounded pride to me.
Kudos to the druid for /gquitting and moving on to greener pastures!
jwinsatt Aug 16th 2010 6:01PM
Noone should limit themselves based on something like this. Don't short yourself on something your going to enjoy. I consider myself a good concious raider, in a guild towards the serious edge of semi-serious (10 of us left our guild and switched factions for the express purpose of downing LK asap).
I'd also consider myself pretty above-average amongst good raiders out there.
Despite full sensory facaulties I can't tell you how many times I've caused a wipe or significant loss of DPS as tank heals and deeps from just doing something dumb. -= Fat fingering, going left instead of right, getting lost, *Intentionally killing warlocks when fight mechanics alow* (i mage, srry Rabbat!)
I've been lazy while eating, been overconfident in my abilities and didn't pay enough attention cuz we're 1337raiderzlol blah blah blah etc...
My point being you and the player in this article can't even begin to blame yourself if your doing all you can to help out the team. Take it from a raider who's not doubted his *abilities* in a long time, just maybe his determination to pay attention and not be retarded sometimes... *If your making it a point to bring your A game pretty much every time then your doing more than many who take certain things for granted.*
- Sinderion/Shadow Council
Schmitticus Aug 16th 2010 5:48PM
In my guild(well, before the core group, including myself, got pissed with the lack of attendance from the rest of the guild and switched to a better one) we(the core group) would usually see who's fault it was and whisper them in game. we NEVER called them out or let anyone else call them out, and when we whispered them, it was how they could improve in a constructive way. some of those people we whispered are great players now and the ones who didn't take our advice or ignored it completely are currently guildless(it's a small servre so everyone knows who's an ignorant prick) However, we also like to have fun and half the time(most of the time) many of us were drunk(and that made the healers better, go figure) so we always picked a random person(even gm, co-gm, and officers) and blamed them for every wipe just...because.
GI_Prophet Aug 16th 2010 2:12PM
Wow. Just wow. I've raided with a deaf guildie in the past and he performed great. We explained boss fights in raid chat as well as vent and occasionally we would have to whisper him for specific instructions but it was never a big problem.
If I was in this guild, I would be mortified about their behavior and I can't help but feel bad for the poor guy whose disability was used as the scapegoat for the entire guild's mistakes.
wutsconflag Aug 16th 2010 4:08PM
I completely agree. This particular situation is horrifying. Blaming someone with a disability on the performance of an entire guild group is reprehensible in the extreme.
I'm hoping that, wherever that druid ended up, the people there appreciate them more than this bigoted guild.
Prances in Underpantss Aug 16th 2010 7:55PM
Everyone in that guild should be ashamed of themselves. The people that blamed him, the people that did nothing, and the ones that were on his side but made minimal effort to stick up for him. If I was in that guild I would have /gquit right along side him.
Making him log into vent was the first sign that there was something wrong with that guild. That seems very childish to me, making someone log into vent even though he can't hear. And for what? Just to get a chance at some loot? Is loot that important that you have to treat someone that way?
Mink Aug 16th 2010 2:13PM
Great article. Spot on advice. Good luck to that awesome deaf player. I know it will be hard to find a guild worthy of you!
Boogalo Aug 16th 2010 2:16PM
when i host a run, we /roll for blame whenever something goes wrong.
Blacksword Aug 16th 2010 2:49PM
Ive always liked that solution. it makes the wipes more light-hearted and you don't need to worry about scapegoating.
Gendou Aug 16th 2010 3:11PM
We always blame our mage, whether he's there or not.
In fact, our guild motto is "DAMN IT, ZYFER."
danawhitaker Aug 16th 2010 3:11PM
http://www.wowinterface.com/downloads/info15380-Scapegoat.html
We always do this before the beginning of each 5-man or raid. The scapegoat stays the same until the end of that particular instance or raid. It really does help lighten the mood. Instead of focusing on who did something wrong, we can focus on the what of went wrong without assigning blame and making people feel bad, and come up with constructive solutions to solving the problem.
Jorges Aug 16th 2010 3:37PM
This is exactly what we do. We take the wipe with a light heart and just try again. Calling a "blame roll" can be very funny.
Looking for someone to blame on a wipe is childish and useless. Use a wipe to analize what happened and to avoid the same mistake. There are a lot of tools like recount (yes, recount is not only to boost your DPS/HPS ego), that can help you do this. But don't start pointing fingers, that won't help at all.
About Vent, it's very simple: If you are in a raiding guild, be it casual or hardcore, and you don't have a problem to hear or are completely deaf, YOU HAVE TO LOG IN VENT. At least to hear the instructions. No exceptions.
Of course, technical problems that don't let you log on vent could arise too, but that's beyond the scope of this topic.
brian Aug 16th 2010 3:56PM
We like to call it the blame bucket. Sometimes, during more lighthearted runs, we fight over ownership of the blame bucket.
(It's a bucket because it's full of tears)
ThunderMonkey Aug 16th 2010 3:58PM
We always blame the person that isn't there.
As a partially deaf guy (60 percent loss in both ears), it becomes rather difficult to follow Vent at times. (which is why I tend to be a DPS, but that's a personal preference.) That guild that forced out the druid is comprised of a few asshats that can't seem to pull their own weight so they blame the guy with a disability. Real classy.
Pyromelter Aug 16th 2010 4:34PM
Cutatia, I kind of agree, but I kind of go along with what Scott was saying. If you have a guild full of people that won't get on vent, to the point where you have to make loot rules to force them on vent, that means that you probably have some issues going on in your guild. The letter says it was a big issue, so I have to take that at face value.
In the face of that fact, inviting someone who is hearing-impaired into that situation, you can see that it just looks like a recipe for disaster.
Recipe for Disaster
http://askaninja.com/node/4396
1 Cup of the Idea of chaos
1/2 pound of sliced trouble
1/2 pound of sliced miscommunication
Any Bearded Man (of any size)
1 Tablespoon of truth
3 Buckets of uncontrollable force
"If you just go ahead and throw the trouble in there, somebody with a good idea is gonna solve that trouble, and then disaster's been averted... You have to have the miscommunication going on with the trouble."
Just to lighten the mood on the topic :)
Sleutel Aug 16th 2010 7:06PM
We did that in a previous guild, and it was a nice way to break the tension.
If it was particularly obvious that one person was at fault, they had to roll to 1,000. If they STILL managed to roll lower than another person, they were off the hook. :D
Wraithanne Aug 16th 2010 7:39PM
We always blame the Hunter and kick a Gnome. Seems to have worked so far.