Officers' Quarters: When raiders hold your guild hostage
by Scott Andrews 
May 9th 2011 at 2:00PM
In these lean times, guilds need to put up with quite a bit in order to keep a viable raiding roster. Sometimes officers will overlook repeated absences and put aside some of their policies because benching a player means canceling a raid. This situation tends to spiral, as players figure out that they can flaunt the rules without consequence.
Sometimes it even reaches the point that players make demands. I've heard of many such situations, but none as ridiculous as this one.
Hi,
I raid lead a progression 10 man team, raiding nine hours a week since Cataclysm has been released. So far we are doing quite well for progression, but due to two weeks last month where we had one dps team member quit the game without notice we were left trying to find PuGs.
We got so many whispers and in game mail complaining about PuGing that we recruited two dps, a pair of friends. One has become the guild's best dps. Since one of them had only seen the first few bosses, we asked one of our dps if he could sit out for two weeks as a favor to us to let her get some gear and experience. Where we started having problems was when we asked her to sit, with 24 hour notice, out Heroic Halfus and Cho'gall in the second week so the other player could get a chance at his Tier shoulders and chest upgrade since he was the only one who could use them if they dropped. Her friend was not happy that she was sitting out and argued she could use the loot from those two bosses, too.
Hi, Raid Leader. You are right to be both floored and hurt by these players' behavior. What they are asking you to do is not only completely unfair to the player in question, but also a terrible way to run a raiding guild.I was floored. Those two recruits were new to our team and we warned them when we invited them that we were going to be subbing out players to keep eleven people active. Now three players, the two friends included, refuse to be subbed out and want to have only ten people on our team. So essentially they are demanding we drop the player we initially subbed out (who is very raid aware and an awesome player in his own right). Several of the officers were hurt by their response.
We even held a group meeting to further clarify why we need more than ten players, but the three continually shot down our suggestions and they said they would rather not raid one week if someone didn't show than be subbed out. Are we in the wrong here? Is it asking too much to have people sit a raid every few months or so? I really am confused on how to proceed as I know either way there will be further objections and perhaps we may lose a few players, but I refuse to drop my player in favor of those three DPS.
Sincerely,
Raid Leader
The advantages of surplus
Most raiding guilds maintain a surplus of players whenever they can, for some very excellent reasons. With a surplus, you can still raid when one or more players are absent. You can allow people to take breaks to prevent burnout. You can optimize raid comps and loot drops by subbing in and out. And the officers can rest easy knowing that if someone quits the game or the guild, they won't have to scramble to replace that player or, as you did, bring in PUG players to fill the gap.
What these players are demanding runs counter to all of that. It would be one thing if they were asking you not to recruit when you had exactly 10 players. That alone would be bad enough. But the fact that they're asking you to dump someone you believe in is completely over the top.
Stand your ground
Do not give in to these prima donnas. They're trying to hold your guild hostage because they know you'll be in trouble again if all three of them quit. Even so, it's not worth it to appease them.
They may not care if a raid gets canceled, but others in the guild will. If they are so selfish and immature that they can't grasp that -- or all the other advantages I just listed -- then they literally do not belong in a guild, any guild.
There's probably a very good reason these two players were looking for a new guild to join. It's likely that they acted the same way with another guild and eventually left (or were kicked). They aren't going to change their tune. You've done your due diligence to explain the situation to them. Now they can either get on board with it or leave. For me, personally, I'd rather let a guild die than essentially hand it over to players with that kind of attitude.
Plan for the fallout
The two friends and maybe even the third player involved will probably gquit if you give them a flat no. You'll have to deal with that. Hopefully, the remaining members will appreciate your loyalty to the player the others wanted to kick, and they'll stick around while you go back to the drawing board with the recruiting process.
If I were you, I'd actually start recruiting now, because this situation is going to come to a head very soon. And even 11 players isn't really enough in the long term. Plan as if you're going to lose all three troublemakers, and then you'll be prepared when you do.
Whatever happens, you should put an official policy in writing about how many active players the guild should ideally have and how you will sub players in and out. It was a good idea to warn the incoming players ahead of time, even though in this case they didn't seem to heed that warning. However, these sorts of policies tend to have more impact when they are elaborated on a website or a document. Be sure to check out the Officers' Quarters column I wrote two weeks ago about how to manage extra players.
As far as insane demands go, this one pretty much takes the cake for me. Has anyone heard of anything worse than this? If so, tell us about it below!
/salute
Recently, Officers' Quarters has examined how strong new leadership can create a guild turnaround, the pitfalls of promising more than you can deliver, and lessons learned from Scott's own guild demise. Send your own guild-related questions and suggestions to scott@wowinsider.com.
Filed under: Officers' Quarters (Guild Leadership)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
Khoonda May 9th 2011 2:09PM
There's plenty of Good DPS that aren't jerks out there just waiting for a raid slot don't give these people any more power if they leave yea it'll hurt the raid for a bit but it'll remove some fatal poison from your guild. Give them an inch they'll take a mile.
Larka May 9th 2011 2:51PM
I'm a legit casual player, the reason why i say legit is because i'm not one of those casuals that cry about content being to hard, that being said i do understand that i do not have as much time to raid as my guild needs. So i became a backup for when i can come on, it has helped my guild out a lot, though i normally get swapped out during the week when the org player comes back. Which is fine, the important thing is my guild is advancing and i get to raid at all. If it wasn't for the guild i'm in now i wouldn't get to raid at all. People just need to grow up and understand that the group is not their to cater to your needs. You can't just come on and say "alright i'm here, lets raid and give me loot" it doesn't work that way.
thedoctor2031 May 9th 2011 6:30PM
@Larka exactly, something like that is a beautiful way to handle situations when you need more than a full raid group. Personally what my guild has done is establish a 14 man raid team with an additional 3 casual subs who aren't very big about raiding but are available if necessary. The way we manage it is having each player raid 3 weeks a month with one off week. If we have a player missing on their scheduled week we let anyone of the subs or off raid group sub in without having to take another off week. This gives everyone a break yet still lets us raid every week and gives us some protection in case of absentee players.
Torg May 11th 2011 4:40AM
yeah like Scott said, I would already start recruiting. when people make demands like that, they probably don't fit in your guild. I am a guild master, and I would rather cancel a raid than beg idiots to come to the raid.
Knob May 9th 2011 2:11PM
Entitled brats, those recruits. To be honest, just dump them and try and find some other players to fill their spots. Let's see how many guilds they'll find where their tantrums are tolerated. What I find most hilarious though is that they're both DPS classes, and they're making demands while being a trial in a new guild....as if there aren't enough DPS classes out there that could potentially replace them.
Herman May 9th 2011 3:50PM
You see, you'd think finding new recruits would be easy, but my raid guild fell apart because our server is drying up. everyone has a 10 man guild these days, and so we were one of 5 (horde and alliance) 25 man guilds, and there just weren't enough skilled players left over that were looking for a guild. wrath was a great time for raiding, since there was a great learning curve, it may have made certain raids too easy, but you could get new players in without a problem. Now, we have everyone on hard modes, and it seems a bit of a back peddle to go back to raiding normals so we can gear up 5 new dps, because people are getting burned out.
the new hard modes are just so stupid, boring and not really challenging in a fun way.
Jestin May 9th 2011 5:16PM
@ Herman -
You're absolutely right, and that's the same challenge my server is going through right now. Guilds (and players) that *could* have done normal modes of all existing raids have done so already, and can't (or won't, or don't want to) do heroics.
It's safe to say that guilds and players that haven't downed normal Cho, Nef or Al'Akir likely won't until the next tier of raiding comes out. My guild managed to do Cho and Nef but heroic modes don't really interest me (and it feels like someone ALWAYS needs gear), so I'm taking a break until then.
oneraindrop May 9th 2011 7:34PM
@Jestin
Elitist much? Plenty of guilds are still working through normal stuff, and will doubtless kill end bosses before 4.2. Some of us take our time.
Jestin May 9th 2011 7:56PM
@oneraindrop
As I said, that applies to my server (and my experience). Everyone clears content at their own pace.
May I suggest reading more carefully before self-righteous accusations?
oneraindrop May 10th 2011 2:14AM
@Jestin
"It's safe to say that guilds and players that haven't downed normal Cho, Nef or Al'Akir likely won't until the next tier of raiding comes out. "
You're so right, no sweeping generalizations here! How self righteous of me not to read more carefully! *roll eyes*
Angus May 10th 2011 7:02AM
Jestin: My guild hasn't gotten through the normals.
We also have the attendence boss kicking our butts. One day 14 people show, the 4 that don't get in don't show the next day, and neither do 3 that were in the raid... things like that.
Cataclysm also killed a lot of people's desire to raid via gear restrictions. They need to do heroics to survive the raids, but don't want to do heroics because the heroics are a huge time sink and far too annoying. Add in lag spikes that weren't there in wrath which WILL kill you in certain boss fights and the people just plain don't queue up.
I thought the new tier of heroics would help by giving more valor and nicer gear. They take too long. A heroic should be a half hour to an hour max. Sorry, but making me sit in one 2+ hours is A RAID. I don't that sort of free time and most people don't to be raiding every day of the week.
sharlatan May 9th 2011 2:21PM
@you are not happy being subbed out?
Yes I can totally understand that you think the possibility that you miss one or two bosses every now and then is more important the the rest of the guild raiding. Yes, I see your point entirely.
/gkick.
Right, lets get some new dps, and update the recruiting poilicy to specify no arseholes this time.
silentk May 9th 2011 3:49PM
It is for these reasons that we avoid recruiting pairs like THE PLAGUE. Anyone who applies as a friend of a current raider is reviewed with an especially large microscope in hope of avoiding future drama. That doesn't mean it can't happen, but you always gotta be careful with recruiting pairs.
I run with a roster of 12-13, and other guild leaders tell me that I'm taking a risk. We rotate almost every fight to ensure that a player only sits 1 or 2 fights a week, and that we can avoid wasted drops.
zoom May 9th 2011 6:19PM
Every pair we have recruited has caused problems. Without fail. We won't recruit them anymore.
Eirik May 9th 2011 7:03PM
Hate to bear the bad news: You can't say "no arseholes". Either they turn into them, or you discover that they were arseholes all along by tripping over their foibles. And there's always the possibility of redeeming some arsehole. Or dancing around the triggers. Ah, politics.
Luotian May 10th 2011 11:06AM
Just because I feel the need to defend pairs as, more often than not, I'm part of one. 6/10 of my characters on my main server comes as a pair with my sister. We enjoy playing together, and try and level as close together as possible.
Until max level, this is horribly limiting, I won't lie, but I enjoy spending time with her and it makes leveling far more bearable.
The good thing about recruiting the pair of us is that we have different interests within the guild. I LOVE to run dungeons and raid. It is my favorite part of the game. And the guild knows I'm happy to jump on any of my four available alts and run with them whenever asked. My sister will run a dungeon when asked, but she won't do current raids as she doesn't like the pressure. She's happier to socialize with the guild and help lowbies.
We each have a seperate niche, and it works for us.
Nina Katarina May 9th 2011 2:23PM
We had a dps who was a real problem child - he decided that the healers hated him when they wouldn't heal him when he stood in bad stuff. And he even asked once, "Are you not healing me because my dps is low?" He was also very abusive to folks who didn't do as much dps as he did. We mocked him until he left the guild. It left us slightly short-handed, exactly at 11, but if he'd stayed 3 other people would have quit.
Of course that's one of our catch phrases now. Someone dies early in the fight when they're putting up phenomenal numbers, we tell them, "Sorry, we're not healing you because your dps is too low".
Fun times.
Saeadame May 9th 2011 2:36PM
Rofl. I know that it won't be an "in joke" if I use it, but I'm totally gonna say that sometime if someone is standing in bad and dies. It's just plain funny all by itself.
Spark May 9th 2011 2:26PM
Brand new and they're creating drama. I'd say Raid Leader was fortunate to have found out so early what these two will do to the guild and been given the opportunity to cut their losses early before the attitudes erode away any more morale.
Drama is rust on the infrastructure of guilds. It's not fun to deal with but it is a needed part of maintaining a guild. It must be scoured out and repaired as best as possible. No matter what superficial damage doing so appears to cause, the real damage underneath is much worse. Ignore it and the guild weakens and eventually implodes.
nieboh May 9th 2011 2:27PM
I would not wait for the two friends to gquit. I would explain the situation to them one more time, state your reasons for wanting more than 10 raid members, and explain how you plan to sub them in and out.
If they again refuse this proposed set up, thank them for the time and effort they have put into your raids and ask if you can put them on your friends list to invite on a PuG basis should the need arise in the future, and wish them a fond fairwell. Make it clear that they are being removed from the guild but that the parting is very amicable, at least on your part.
They may get pissy over it, but you've done your part to remain professional and cordial.