Posts Tagged retention

Arouse in the Other Person an Eager Want

This article is part of the series “How To Win /friends and Influence /guildies”.  See the introduction for more.

If you’re reading the original book alongside, this corresponds to Part 1, Chapter 3: “He Who Can Do This Has the Whole World with Him.  He Who Cannot Walks a Lonely Way”

If there is any one secret of success, it lies in the ability to get the other person’s point of view and see things from that person’s angle as well as from your own.

Henry Ford

The principle behind this rather long-named chapter is really quite simple, and eloquently summed up in the above quote.  There is only one way to get someone to do something, and that is to make them want to do it.

To do that, you have to talk about what they want, and not about what you want.   For a raid or guild leader, these should nominally be the same thing, at least at a high level.  Whatever your guild’s purpose is, that’s what everyone is showing up for – PvE progression, PvP dominance, or clean hard mode execution for example.

I won’t go into the examples that Carnegie uses in this chapter, as they’re all very business-oriented and somewhat dated.  Instead, let’s look at some situations in which you might be trying to win your members or an individual member to your side.

In a Raid

An impassioned plea for people to focus on the next boss attempt usually come after the basic “here’s how the fight goes, let’s give it a try” approach has failed.  You’re pretty sure that everyone understands the mechanics, but the execution is just going awry at some point.  You may even understand who’s going off the rails first, but know that calling them out won’t make things any better.

In this context, you probably are going to be talking to your raid as a whole or to roles within the raid.  What wants can you appeal to?  The most obvious are the material rewards from the boss, but this only works if the boss has intrinsic value to the raid.  Sometimes you get unexpectedly blocked by a boss that you’ve had on farm for a while.  The loot is no longer appealing, at least not to most of the raid.  You can appeal to everyone’s desire to just be done with the fight – perhaps asking certain roles to double-up and keep an eye out for people who you suspect are not focusing closely enough.

If the boss is linked to trash that is particularly annoying to clear, you can appeal to everyone’s desire to not repeat that the next night.  This is effective when people are requesting to move to another boss in a non-linear dungeon.  Do you remember pushing extra hard for a Shade of Aran kill in the early days of TBC just because of how painful it was to clear the trash after Curator?

If none of these seem appropriate or are having effect, you can drop one level lower and appeal to people’s desire for loot in the future (assuming you have a loot system that can offer bonuses).  It may seem cheap or compromising to have to offer bonus DKP or EP to get people to do what they should have been doing all through the raid.  Ideally, this is a last resort offered to encourage people to stay beyond a posted raid end or to go all-out on consumables in order to push progression.  Offering strictly material bonuses regularly dilutes their value.

I know we’re all fed up of this boss, especially since he went down so easily the last few weeks.  It’s late, and we all want to wrap up.  But I’m sure nobody wants to spend an extra 20 minutes slogging through that trash again tomorrow night.

I know we can do this, and I’m sure you all do too.  Let’s take five minutes to clear our heads, then come back and take him down.  1000 bonus EP if we do it without anyone dying in phase 2.

(more) One-on-One...

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Trying to Solve the World’s Problems

sbPuzzled Trying to Solve the Worlds Problems

One of the things that has dogged me whenever I’ve been a guild leader is a desire to solve every problem that I am made aware of.  Even outside of a leadership position, I tend to internalize every little thing that goes wrong.

I have high standards for myself, and when I find myself playing with people who don’t share those standards, I get frustrated.  That’s bad enough in itself, but taking it a step further and trying to “fix” those people is completely futile.  I’m rarely going to be successful, and when my attempts fail, I’ll just get more frustrated.

Of course, I can’t take a completely laid back position – even if my personality would allow for it, there are some problems that guild leadership should address.  There are valid performance and behavioural issues that leaders should raise and address when the see them.  The skill lies in knowing what the scope of leadership covers, and what is not your problem to solve, even if you think you can help.

The core problem is a theme that’s come up before – trying to assert control over others.  Too little leads to chaos, while too much leads to a guild nobody wants to be a part of.  If you’ve ever felt that your guild was “slipping out of control”, you may be facing a mismatch between how much you want to control and how much you can.

Sometimes, the frustration with that gap gets turned inwards.  Rather than the problem being unrealistic expectations, you see the problem as an inability to maintain order.  At that point, the thing you enjoy becomes a chore.

The solution is to get realistic about what is and what isn’t the responsibility of guild leadership.  From the pile of things that are the responsibility of the guild, figure out what you are capable of doing and what needs to be delegated.  Don’t get pulled into things that aren’t the guild’s problems.

Simple advice, but if it were so obvious and easy to follow, I’d have no reason to write this post.  So let’s take a look at some of the issues that you might encounter as a guild leader:

Retention

You can’t expect to keep every one of your members forever.  Guilds are by definition a collection of like-minded but not identically minded individuals.  Everyone sacrifices a few ideals when they join a guild in exchange for the benefits that the guild offers them.

Some people will, against their better judgement, give up more than they really want to, and allow this to fester over time.  Over time, subtle things in the guild may change, or a new policy may be introduced which push them past their breaking point – when the sacrifice seems too much.

So long as you aren’t actively making policies to antagonize specific people, or going out of your way to alienate members, this isn’t your fault.  Some people will be happier elsewhere, and the best thing to do is part company on a friendly note in case they come to regret their decision and you need their class/spec.

(more) Infighting...

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GDKP – Where Does It Fit For Guilds?

gdkp run GDKP   Where Does It Fit For Guilds?

A few weeks ago, an article was posted on Elitist Jerks detailing the GDKP loot system.  Since then a few other blogs (Pwnwear, Deathknight.info) have picked up on the idea and spread it around.

I was hoping to provide a bit of an overview and practical suggestions for organizing GDKP runs, but as that’s been done to death I’m going to look at where GDKP can fit into a guild’s loot strategy.

What is GDKP?

A quick refresher: GDKP is a loot system where every item is bid for openly using gold.  Highest bid wins, and at the end of the run everyone splits the pot.

The name is a bit a misnomer, as there are no “dragon kill points” involved.  DKP, EP/GP, Ni Karma – all of these loot systems are closed.  You earn points within the system that you then use in some fashion to receive loot.  No matter what you’ve done before, when you enter into a new DKP system, you’re starting from scratch.

GDKP runs on the other hand implicitly favour people who have a lot of gold, at least from the perspective of getting drops.  But interestingly, GDKP doesn’t solely attract people who are interested in loot.  You can be dressed to the nines with no need of any drop in a dungeon and come out the other side with a tidy sum of gold in your pocket.

Who Is It For?

GDKP attracts three distinct types of players: low-geared members who are willing to spend a reasonable amount on multiple pieces of gear during a run, high rollers who want just one item and are willing to spend large amounts to get it, and people who are just there for the gold.

For the right balance of performance and payout, you probably want no more than 40% low-geared members, 40% people looking for a payout and the rest high rollers.  Depending on just how under-geared the lowbies are, you may need to set more strict gear and experience limits on the rest of the players in order to avoid hitting enrage timers.  Similarly, you can’t go overboard on the people who are just there for the payout or the total gear purchased will be low (as will the payout).

Unlike forming a PUG run where warm bodies are your first concern, building a GDKP run is a balancing act.  Don’t try starting one up on a whim – you need to announce it, review people who are interested, and build a group that serves the needs of everyone attending.

Lowbies Buying Loot For Gold Is Wrong!

Perhaps.  But it’s been going on for a very long time.  Even before Zul’Aman bear runs (costing 15 to 25 thousand gold if I recall correctly) were popular on most servers, there were always guilds who were willing to carry people through higher-level content for a hefty amount of gold.  The difference was that they typically brought one or two people at a time as part of a regularly scheduled guild farm run.  The gold usually went back into the guild bank, and members saw the benefit in that the guild could afford to pay for more repairs or for gems / enchants / etc.

GDKP is just one variant of this.  It’s a framework for doing PUG loot runs that will hopefully become common knowledge.  All you need to do is announce that you’re doing a GDKP run and specify the tuneables: minimum bid amounts, rules for getting kicked, etc.

(more) GDKP as a primary loot system...

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