Suggested raid changes

[requiemdreamer]

I hope people don't take this the wrong way as being too radical but these are a few ideas I've been tossing around with fellow guildies concerning the way we handle our ZG and AQ raids.

Also, I have created this poll because I am hoping to see how many people are enjoying ZG and whether or not AQ is more of what we want. It seems so far that the loot in ZG hasn't been very worthwhile (just my opinion). If there is a split, we could work around doing one instance each night on the weekends.

Taken from http://www.shatteredstar.org/ssx/forums ... php?t=3561

Great post, Mag . The more we expect to do end-game PVE, the more serious people will need to be.

I have a couple suggestions to make the weekend raids a little more serious. I didn't make another topic as I feel this relates to the above comments about taking end-game PVE and UIs seriously.
When invites start for the raid, keep them exclusive to only those that subscribe using Guild Event Manager. This will help to be sure that those wanting to join up have the appropriate UIs. (If in the event that someone logs on just in time and was not able to subscribe for whatever reason, it is easy for the group to see whether or not they have the UI installed, and subscribing won't be required).

When invites start, only allow them for a set ammount of time. If the raid is not ready to head out within the set time (i.e. 45 minutes), break the raid to allow people to move on and do something else instead of waiting a long time for a raid that might not happen. If more people are online later, and everyone wants to start the raid back up, then invites will start up again.

As soon as the raid gets going summons should not be given, simply to keep things moving and not hold everyone up for those who were late. It's not a problem with us warlocks (we toss summons out gladly), it's just a problem when we have to say "hold up, guys. I need a few people to come outside of the instance to help me 'summon."
Of course, this wouldn't be concrete rule. If we are doing MC, we are close to the portal, and someone needs a summon it's not a problem, due to the size of the raid, if a couple people leave for a second to summon.

-Req

Thinking about the progress our guild is making and our desire to keep this momentum, I had a couple of ideas. A problem seems to be that on our weekend raids, we aren't getting enough people to sign on when raid invites start. It is often taking quite a while to actually fill up our raid group and get going. It gets to be pretty tiring waiting for over an hour hoping that more people will sign on.

At this point in our venture, we have enough people that we can at least get 15 people on time for our raids, on average. Until we start getting more members, we need to figure out a way to solve this problem. I would like to suggest opening up spots for non-SSX players on the server. There are two reasons behind this:

1. If we are looking to expand the guild, and make ourselves well-known on the server, this would be a great way of doing that. People would start seeing that we offer open spots on weekends, they would get to know us through the raid, through ventrilo, etc. People who like raiding with us will probably come back to join us again, they tell their friends, their friends join up with us, and the chain reaction starts. If people get to know our group and enjoy the raids, it is likely that they will remember us if they ever think about leaving their current guild. It's good advertisement...
Preference would be given to guild members for invites, of course, but we would have to consider the loot. It would have to be fair for all of us and new-comers. (Something that might be another poll)

2. Finding other people on the server would shorten the ammount of time we all have to wait before starting the raid. Let's face it... It's not very fun for those of us who are on at 7:00 who have to wait for the raid to get going at 9:00 and sometimes later.

Below is a mock schedule of how I feel we could handle the forming of our raids:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Note: Raid begins as soon as all spots are filled)
7:00 - 7:15: Invites go out to those online and registered on GEM
7:15 - 7:30: Invites begin for people on waiting list and for late-comers
7:30 - 8:00: Any remaining spots are filled by PUGs of the desired classes(late guild members still welcome at this point)
8:00: Break up raid if there still aren't enough people

Cliff Notes:
- You have 15 minutes before you lose your registered spot to the next person
- You have 30 minutes before you start losing spots to non-guildies
- After 1 hour, the raid the disbands
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

To expound the idea:
Situation 1)
Billy has registered for the ZG raid and was one of the first 20 people to sign up. After those first 20 spots were filled, 5 more people signed up for the waiting list. Raid invites start at 7:00pm and Billy is not online. Billy has until 7:15 before his spot is lost to the first person in line on the waiting list. He doesn't make it... Billy logs on at 7:20 and his spot has been filled by someone on the waiting list. Billy signs up for the next spot on the waiting list.

Situation 2)
Billy is late again and there is no waiting list. If Billy isn't online by 7:30, his spot is offered to non-SSX players. If Billy finally logs on before the raid leaves and there is still a spot, he gets an invite.

So, if you know you can be on time, you can register on GEM to reserve a spot. If you are a little late, you can still get in if there isn't a waiting list. If you are really late, your spots go out to non-SSX players. This gives preference to those who are able to show up on time and be ready for the raids when it's time to go. Honestly, I think that it's only fair.

Feel free to flame away if you have any comments or your own two cents to add. I would just like as much feedback on this as possible.

[Brandonheat]

1.Can we trust non-guild members to come raid with us?
2.ZG in its current state is not worth it, however it is good experience for us, AND in the next patch 1.11 (which should be out next week) there should be more worthwhile epic drops.

[requiemdreamer]

1.Can we trust non-guild members to come raid with us?

The looting would deffinitely be changed for those situations. I suggested FFA with a designated looter, as usual, but setting it to Master Looter prior to boss fights. When the boss is killed we handle rolls and such as we normally do. However, if we are including non-SSX players, we cannot use a percentage system so they would have equal chance to get the item as any of the other qualifying classes. If people joining decide to poke around while FFA looting is going on, they get kicked, simple as that. It would be up to the Officers to make sure that they know this policy prior to the raid.

[Padishar]

Either is fine with me as I just like rolling with everyone, location doesn't matter to me ATM

[Magdalena]

Think if we're rolling with pugs FFA wouldn't work anywhere. First thing is collecting the extras at that point for them to only go to our guild wouldn't be fair to the non guild raiders. Second, while we could trust guildies to not loot its unlikely every stranger invited in is going to be as trustworthy.

Suggestion for this, turn on group loot while clearing trash, everybody rolls need on all boe items... if it truely is something you need, speak up... if it went to a non guildie, there's no guarantee you'll get it however it lets us know the selfishness of that person if they do later ask to join our guild. If it went to a guildie, chances are they'll hand it over unless it was something the character they're on needed too.
At boss battles, turn on master loot to avoid chance of ninjas or people rolling on items that aren't really for their class. Set up a table of all items known in the instance and what classes are able to roll on them and post it on our website. We can then point non-guildies to that site in the beginning so they can be assured we're not trying to cheat them and that is the same designation we use every time on that item.
If there's an item that say should go first to healers or first to casters, we can start with the page showing that and expand later to other groups it might also benefit, however those healers or casters may still lose out on the item to a non guildie of the same class and this may cause arguments from non guildies if they see it later expanded so probably not the best idea.

As for which instance, I voted for AQ20 for now as it currently has items that make the work more worthwhile for everybody. If when the next patch comes out it is said that ZG loot is actually better items that are dropping, I'd reconsider very easily. However, from what I've heard it's only that they're improving the system to get the blue items, I haven't heard anything about improvement on items themselves.


PS - Officers can't control people outside of our own guild... we can put in safe guards however there's no action aside from kicking them from the raid that can be taken. All we can do is try to prevent them from having the ability to steal by giving little to no trust or by kicking if they somehow do something anyway. Very important to point this out before a problem occurs... However, the rewards will likely outweigh the risks involved if we use the above system.

[undrin]

I think opening the raid to pugs is a great idea. I recently went a run with Tattered Virtue to Onixya and they picked up half a raid of opugs. The run went great.

PS AQ sounds better to me.

[requiemdreamer]

Just started a separate poll concerning the issue of bringing along non-guild players.
http://www.shatteredstar.org/ssx/forums ... php?t=3590

[Kayoss]

Perhaps you could consider alternating ZG and AQ to satisfy everyone.

[Gutka]

Simple solution... if we have 20, just down the 1st boss of AQ, then move to the bosses we can down in ZG... and explore other bosses after those..