Forged Alliance

There have been many posts (lots of them authored by me) about time management and moving faster in raids. One thing I've never thought of though was where we're going in those raids. Most all guilds that I know of do VoA and the raid weekly together as part of the main raid but maybe that isn't the best choice of time management for us. At the very least lets move VoA25 and the Raid weekly to Thursday and underman them. I think we should leave the puggable content puggable and get into ICC earlier so that we can get Tuesday night attempts on Festergut.

Happy Happy Happy

I think you hit the nail on the head with this post Jim. If we were using Tuesdays to do ICC we may have enough time to get to content and attempt content we are not currently able to do. We only have so much time each week lets get the most bang for the buck!

This is a nice idea and all. Assuming we have 25 *raiders* ready to go at raid start, which we did not on Tuesday @ 8. It also assumes that we can predict when we'll have VOA.

Not surprised Anchor was agreeing with you since he was crying to me half the night about doing VOA first and "wasting" his time. I put it in the Guild MOTD the night before that we'd be doing VOA if we had it during raid time. Why? Because we can never predict when we'll have VOA so we should take advantage of it. Because starting ICC with 20 people and not being sure if more or coming or not isn't fun. And people still saved themselves. We do the raid weekly in 25 and later in 10 format every week. Every week. And people still save themselves. Is it so much to ask to wait 2 or 3 days?

Sure, we could've probably downed the trash and maybe (maybe) even Marrowgar. What then?

And about the raid weekly, we always do that after we've concluded the main raid. We downed Saurfang with what 10-20 minutes to spare before people started dropping like flies? That's not enough time to push for Festergut.

If we start on Tuesday with 25 raiders ready to go at 8pm and manage to get Saurfang down before 10 or shortly after and people are going to stay, then yea. We should and will push to Festergut. IF.

I'm not pointing directly at this Tuesday but more in terms of a general policy change. Most guilds do VoA25/Raid Weekly as part of the raid, everyone would consider that the norm. For us though, maybe it would be a better idea to jump right into ICC. We could clear trash short handed and that would speed us up by a good 20-30mins. We have to grab time where we can, that 20mins at the start coupled with a few less AFK breaks and before you know it we're into the Upper Spire before 10.

Undermanning a VOA instead of ICC trash is definitely the way to start. If it's wasting your time, then don't go, but if they start the night off by clearing trash while waiting for people to sign on, people are going to start showing up later so they don't have to sit through trash. The more innocent ones may not feel the need to sign on in any timely fashion since they know trash will still be going on and it's not a crucial "WE NEED PEOPLE OMG" thing. Undermanning VOA is some guaranteed loot for some people.

A downside of doing guild VoA besides the time wasted is that we might be actually hurting ourselves in that we bring 7 mages. They would be better off finding pugs where there were only a few to compete against.

I'm not sure if its emotion or what but something always seems to get lost when I'm communicating. Dustin, I think you've twisted my words about as much as they could be twisted... "Wasting my time" Um... I'm logged on regardless so its not that. Crazy as it may sound I actually care about the guild and I actually want the guild to do good, it may just be me but I don't always get that same feeling from the officers. Yep the old argument well Forged Alliance is a casual guild if you don't like it leave... It blows my mind every time I hear that because theres nothing more obvious in the world than the fact that this guild is casual. Currently there is only 1 truely active raid night, and as you all have pointed out so very clear we have a hard time getting a full 25 for that. So the real truth is what do the members of Forged Alliance want to do. Because if you raid 1 night a week realistically from say 8:30-8:45 by the time your done with VOA and people actually show that means at our current rate at best we finish Saurfang a little after 10:00pm. Lately regardless of the time people mainly directed by the officers end up saying "O well we'll get to fester on thrusday whose down for raid weekly." Honestly maybe we have no choice because people legitimately have to bounce... O well thats life. But it seems to me like we are living under some kind of impression that people actually show for thursday which as we've seen its not exactly somethign we can count on. So going back to my point ICC 25 takes time and it honestly wouldn't matter how great we were we are never going to clear the whole place in 1:30 hrs. So if the members of Forged Alliance are satisfied with doing the first 4 bosses every week and calling it good, then actually i'm completely fine with doing VOA 25 and the raid weekly all on tuesday. I guess we might as well be doing something. But honestly no matter how casual everyone is I'd find it really hard to believe that people would actually just not care about getting to some of the new bosses. Right now there are 4 guild groups running ICC 10, with others pugging ICC 10. Are you going to tell me that you guys stop after 4 bosses there? No everyone wants to progress, and the truth is if we work at it even a little bit as we get more and more geared we will be able too but it is going to require time. Knowing that we really have only one true raid night if we actually used that time 8:00pm-11:00pm in its entirety to the best of our ability I bet we might all surprise ourselves and actually get somewhere. As it stands right now we aren't even given ourselves a real chance... So if you all are content with 4 bosses by all means don't let me slow you down. If as I know many of you are not overally stoked on our current ICC 25 progress I suggest as Jim mentioned to use the raid day/times that people actually show up to get through as much of ICC as we realistically can.

On another note Jim seriously has a point about VOA the mages are getting straight hosed they are all much better off alternating weeks to run with the guild and run with pugs that don't have many mages. Do I say that because i'm a mage... Nope. I already have my 264 gloves and crafted legs so i'm really saying it for the other 8 mages in the raid.

Honestly everyone has this fear of pugs but the truth is they aren't that bad. Infact I've ran with multiple pugs for VOA and ICC 25, and honestly the ICC 25 groups are clearing 2-3 bosses further than our guild ICC 25. So for all of you out there thinking oooo stay away, Raid Weekly's and VOA can easily be accomplished throughout the week saving tuesdays so our Guild can actually make some progress. That being said Dustin you even pointed out yourself that the Raid Weekly can be accomplished in a 10m of which we run multiple groups per week. So why in the world is there a need to cut our raid short in ICC to do the raid weekly? You may say its only after our raid collapses but I've definitely seen weeks where we have a solid 45-50 mins and just straight call it.

Anyways... For whatever reason my posts and words always get taken out of context. If you actually read them for what they are I liked Forged Alliance and all i'm trying to do is help us be the best we can be.

You just don't get it about the Raid Weekly. We never have ever cut a 25 short "just so we can do the raid weekly". Never. We cut it short for other reasons (not sufficient time, people having to leave, sloppy progress to that point). Since the ICC run is ended at that point, we do the raid weekly.

We're not skipping potential time on Festergut just so we can knockout the weekly.

If there's nothing more obvious in the world to you than FA being a casual guild, why are you so determined to change it? If you honestly believe the officers don't have everyone's best interests at heart, then you really don't know what's going on. You couldn't possibly have better guys making the calls and looking out for everyone. It's great that you do care and want us to succeed more, but leave it to the masses. If they want to progress and do better, they'll show up and try harder, etc. etc. If they're content, it'll be the status quo. And there's not too many threads complaining about it.

There are a million threads complaining about it and they are all by FRIENDS who have had to leave the guild because of a VERY FEW people that seem to think they are the majority. Can we please get Ofie his own 10man thread so he can stfu and stay out of 25man discussions. You don't come to them so wtf do you pretend to care. gtfo.

*loud sigh*

WarmApplePie wrote:There are a million threads complaining about it and they are all by FRIENDS who have had to leave the guild because of a VERY FEW people that seem to think they are the majority. Can we please get Ofie his own 10man thread so he can stfu and stay out of 25man discussions. You don't come to them so wtf do you pretend to care. gtfo.

So many things I want to respond with but I'm going to try and take the high road since I'm an officer now. >< But you have no right to tell people who can and can't comment on something. Esp when their not being a jerk about it, unlike you. Please keep your rude attitude in check.

As far as the topic at hand, there are not a million threads complaining about running VoA before ICC. People left the guild because we weren't raiding 25mans period, and there were threads about that. But you're over exaggerating to try and make a point and it's getting lost. If we don't have the people to start ICC, then VoA ftw if we have it. It's demoralizing to spend time on trash only to have a raid get called. I've never liked it when previous guilds did that crap. Lets start a raid when we know we can at least kill one boss in there. And I haven't seen much complaints about that, except from you and thermal.


The reason people keep bringing up the casual guild thing, is the problem is it's a casual guild. This guild has always had a hard time fielding two nights of 25man. And we've rarely been able to just start up a 25man on time. You just gotta do what you can with what you have. Because leading people into intentional brick walls is discouraging. I was in a guild that pushed raids when it was obvious to everyone it wasn't going to happen. And people stopped signing up for raids. I would love to do T-TH every week and push through ICC, and I'm going to keep signing on for them. And hopefully more people are. But if we're just going to push people away buy making them do stuff we know we don't have the people to do, then we'll just see what happened with Ulduar where people even stopped signing on for Tuesdays.

This thread has moved from a civil discussion about time management in raids to personal attacks. Please keep this thread civil, and lets talk about ways that we can make the guild better/more fun for everyone. If you can't control yourself to do so, we might as well just lock this thread.

On topic: Time management in our 25 man raids has always been a challenge for a number of reasons. It goes back as long as I have been in the guild, and casual guilds all over share the same struggles. When there is such a wide range of personalities and expectations in our raids, not everyone will be happy all the time. I agree that it is a pain in the butt when we can not start on time, but the officers and raid leaders do their best to keep idle time to a minimum. Sometimes there is not much we can do when we don't have the numbers, and we make a choice so that we aren't just sitting around.

I think the best thing we can do for our 25 mans is remember why we raid 25 mans. It used to be to play with 24 of your friends and have some fun killing bosses. Thats what it was like in BC for me, and we did pretty damn good, almost cleared BT. Now there seems to be a disconnect between our raiders and the whole point of Forged Alliance 25 mans. If we worry less about our progression, and worry more about showing up on time to play together, the progression will come. People will want to play better so they don't let their friends down. They will make unselfish choices as to not hurt their friends. I think we all need to remember that you joined Forged Alliance to play with friends, and have some fun. Keep that in mind, and the progression will come.

Andy

I miss BT times. We had so much fun. I know we don't have the same people as we did then, but it could be fun like that again if everyone would just try to get along. I agree with Andy, if we raid to raid with our friends and have fun then the progression will come because there won't be so much tension. I was really excited when our 25 mans came back, but now they are falling apart again Lets just be civil and have some fun.

I'm convinced that noone actually looks at these forums other than the officers and the happy few who want to make a change.

I'm going to keep this simple and objective...

Yes people don't show up for raids on time making it hard to do much, but I think we have determined in previous posts that as long as the we have the requsite tanks and healers we could clear trash. Do people want to clear trash to just end up calling the raid? Nope, but I don't think we've had to call many tuesday raids since we've started, so regardless if people are on at 8pm there is a solid chance by the time we get to the 1st boss our raid will have filled up. Will people log on later if they think others will clear the trash for them? Maybe but for an adult guild that is pretty lame. With that being said the memebers that do show up early could maybe benefit from DKP from showing up on time or DKP for clearing trash. Is VOA guaranteed lewts? Yep, but you have the same chance getting those lewts whether you are with the guild or a pug 1/25 "and if your a mage or another class we have tons of then your chances are better elsewhere". And before those words get twisted in an ideal world I think we should do VOA as a guild because not only does that keep us together but it also allows us to gear up more efficiently because we know then that at least a few people within the raid will get either PVP or PVE gear each week. My point when I started commenting on this post and my point now is simply that we have 1 day per week with minimal time to raid. Lets use that time to do the stuff that we can't do easily with others.

Just a note i hadn't seen either of benvolo's or coree's posts before I wrote mine... I do 100% agree that the whole point of this is to hang with people and have fun. That being said what also makes this game fun is doing new things with the same people... successfully. If that wasn't the case you guys would all still be sitting around in vanilla wow holding hands and singing kum by ya. Love Yall

Tsuni wrote: So many things I want to respond with but I'm going to try and take the high road since I'm an officer now. >< But you have no right to tell people who can and can't comment on something. Esp when their not being a jerk about it, unlike you. Please keep your rude attitude in check.

He is being a jerk about it. I didn't respond when he posted further up the thread but this time I had too. Listen I get your point Tuesday we didn't have people to start ICC at 8. IMO the raid wasn't full but we could have started trash. Either way, that doesn't matter. I'm looking at the larger picture here. Things have to be done to entice people to raid ICC25 because there are many people in the guild that DO WANT to progress and a few people are being disrespectful to the rest by only half commiting. Ofies 10man raided on Tuesdays before we made the switch to 25man so I know hes available to come. If he wasn't so selfish then he would come to the raid and put up with the people he didn't like (me) out of respect for the people he does (you, dustin, so on and so forth).

How many good raiders have we lost because this guild wasn't atleast semiserious about 25man progression? Aezelkvalae, Nagashi, Blastine, Handsomo, Kaittlynn, Jason, and Sxy (The last two came back). Blastine wasn't doing so hot and Dustin had to remove him from the raid, you lit a fire under his butt and after that he was doing a stellar job. The rest of them had atleast some issue with the way 25mans were handled.

Listen, I like everyone in this guild. Tsuni we obviously disagree but I still like you. Even Ofie I don't hate. He just seems to absolutely have to disagree with me on everything. My main is in Crisis like Ofie says to do. I'm here just because I like you guys. You are my e-friends. Even Ofie. I'll be in this guild (unless gkicked) all through cataclysm. But we are losing good people and good friends because we are not trying hard enough to progress. Recruit, fill our ranks so that we have 2 solid days of raiding. People will stay, others will come back.


If you build it they will come.

Benvolo wrote: When there is such a wide range of personalities and expectations in our raids, not everyone will be happy all the time.

I don't think anyone has different expectations. We all know that we'll never do Heroic mode, we may not even kill LK with the 30% buff. My expectation is to have a raid that is slightly better then a pug. Currently most pugs are doing front 4. We should be able to do 5-6 imho. When the buff goes up and pugs are doing 5-6 then we should be doing 7-8. I truly think that is a fair expectation and one that would be shared by many.

I think the best thing we can do for our 25 mans is remember why we raid 25 mans. It used to be to play with 24 of your friends and have some fun killing bosses. Thats what it was like in BC for me, and we did pretty damn good, almost cleared BT. Now there seems to be a disconnect between our raiders and the whole point of Forged Alliance 25 mans. If we worry less about our progression, and worry more about showing up on time to play together, the progression will come. People will want to play better so they don't let their friends down. They will make unselfish choices as to not hurt their friends. I think we all need to remember that you joined Forged Alliance to play with friends, and have some fun. Keep that in mind, and the progression will come.

I totally agree with all of this, see my last post. But being a casual guild we are going to have people that occasionally miss raids. When that happens we can't be left without a raid. We need to recruit more people so that we can still have a raid when people need time off. I'm all smiles and love for you peeps. Last night I posted crankily @ ofie at like 2am sick and full of drugs. Sorry to bite your head off but you haven't been online or even in vent for a 25man raid. You have no FIRST HAND knowledge of the problems we face.

WarmApplePie wrote: Ofies 10man raided on Tuesdays before we made the switch to 25man so I know hes available to come. If he wasn't so selfish then he would come to the raid and put up with the people he didn't like (me) out of respect for the people he does (you, dustin, so on and so forth).

That was a long time ago. Please don't make assumptions about people based on things that were going on 2 years ago. Everyone needs to stop direct attacks, stop adding to forum wars by individual assaults. There are things we can all do to improve our guild, this bitching is not one of them. This goes for everyone. If I could, this thread would be locked as of now.

Andy you know I love you but regardless of the assumptions that Jim makes about the times that Ofie can raid the fact that some of the officers 25m raid attendence is less than average or absent all together cannot be disputed.