Guild Challenge

[Timotei]

Here I am facing the most difficult challenge in all my years of wow and I'd like to ask you for some help to overcome this.
My guild is mainly composed of adult people who have a job and/or go to college and/or have children, therefore most of us have a tight schedule and only raid on specific times over the weekend.
I used to be a hardcore raider back in TBC in a guild so strict and full or rules that it felt like a job.
So now here I am trying to lead a casual guild for the first time and I have absolutely no experience in leading guilds and no idea about how a casual guild work.
I want to set the minimum number of rules so we can have sucessful raids and it doesn't feel like a 2nd job. I also want the guild members to feel confortable about not being able to attend a Raid because they have IRL priorities or they just don't feel like it.

So far I got this:

1- Loot:/roll MAIN SPEC > OFF SPEC.
2- Equipament: Repaired, Enchanted Gemmed gear obligatory, food buffs and flasks desirable.
3- AddOns: DBM/alikes obligatory. PallyPower obligatory for paladins.
4- Ventrilo: Obligatory.

I got stuck at the loot part. When we usually pug your main spec it the spec you're in the raid unless you tell before it starts you want to roll on another spec. To avoid having to write down everyone's spec for that raid every single raid I thought of having every member of the guild choosing a main spec and putting it on their notes and they could never change that.
I didn't wanted they to change their main spec as they like becaus it would feel like you're equipping 2 characters while people who keep only 1 main spec at all times get to equip one character but the "never chenge that" part felt a bit extreme.
So I'm trying to set rules for changing your "main spec" but I'm kinda stuck here.

Tips and help with this or other aspects are also apreciated. If you have a raiding casual guild I'd be glad if you could tell me how it works.

Thx.

[Jÿnks]

My guild does Master Looter, /roll for main spec. You can do things however you want (/roll, DKP, Loot Council, etc.), but keep it fair or you won't have a raid group for very long.

For raid members, if you do an application type deal, whichever classes you bring in to the guild/raid group, the spec they applied with should be their main spec and should be gearing as such. Any other spec is an off-spec unless otherwise noted by the Raid Leader (say a dps role needs to be filled and you have too many healers).

[Timotei]

We recruit at the trade channel at the weekend so we can get people who play at weekends like us.

[General Vezax]

My guild, along with most of my server, does this when using ML:

Main spec (usually a limit, 1-3)
Off spec (no limit)
Main spec if you have reached your limit
DE
Vendor

Before we start the run, anyone who is asked to change specs to benefit the raid get to choose ONE spec to roll as Main. If i came as dps, and was asked to heal instead to get the run going, i would get the option to roll on dps gear OR healing gear as Main.

The more lenient people will let anyone pick one spec to use as "Main" for rolling before the run starts.

[xSwiftshiftx]

My first piece of advice would be to set a high standard and stick by said standard.
-Letting players slack on food buffs and flasks will not sit well with those who do not when they start losing loot in a random roll situation.

Second, you might want to set up a loot system that rewards attendance instead of penalizing people who do not raid with high frequency.
-Example: You could track attendance and allow players to roll 1-100 + their attendance %. Members with 100% attendance roll 1-200, rewarding those with high attendance while allowing those without to still have a chance.
-Imposing limits on number of loots per raid (one tier, one non) is usually met with limited resistance and tends to spread the wealth.

Last piece of advice would be to understand that the environment you are now raiding with (leading) is that of a casual one. You will have slower raid clears, more AFKs, players who have less experience on particular bosses due to attendance. These and many more issues need to have some sort of response pre-determined by you, the leader. Also, touching back on my first bit of advice. Set the expectations high, do not make exceptions to any rules or standards (yourself included), and above all, be willing to listen to counter points of view... It is not the end of the world if you need to tweak a policy to keep your guild happy.

With regard to "changing main specs," the current rules my guild runs is that a main change can only occur if the guild A) requires/needs your new spec and B) the raid composition is not hurt by your changing said spec. We also impose a 1 week 'no loot what-so-ever' rule followed by a 1 week 'applicant loot status' rule; this prevents multiple guild members from changing specs by limiting their loot for 1/2 a month and keeps your recruitment needs consistent by not allowing a flood of similar class changes by the guild at large.

Good Luck!

[zemerrock]

well the way my guild does it is we set a raid time and who ever shows up gets to raid. we normaly have to pugg maybe 1-2 depending on what we're doing, but thats fine for a casual guild. note that my guild is a 10man only guild, so that takes a lot of stress out of specific class requirements.

as for loot rules, we use loot council. we have 5 members who decide who gets what. the decissions are mostly based on who needs what more. we only look at their main spec (which is what their in that raid as, guildy or not.) and compair them to everyone else. we normaly pass out loot after we down a string of boss's, and we always make sure everyone gets something as we keep tallys as to who got what last time. i'm actualy the one in charge of loot data for out guild, XD a nice 4 months worth of raid loot lists sitting here..*sigh* i have no life..

[Douwe]

hello, imo the best loot system for a progressing guild, is loot officers
loot officers will decide who deserves the item more/ for who it is the biggest upgrade

[Ushra]

Regarding loot systems:

Why have Master Looter at all? Just put on Group Loot
-> Need = Main spec
-> Greed = Off spec
-> Pass = Need nothing.

If people ninja, kick them from Guild. You have 2 hours to Trade the items nowadays anyway.

[Gobber]

Unfortunately if your going to try and lead a raiding guild alone, it probably will feel like a second job at times, but stick at it.

The best thing I think you can do is try and pick out a couple of people who seem like they would be up for helping you out, give them a role in leading/chasing people for gems/enchants etc.

As for loot, until you establish some sort of system, rolling with some mind to attendance/rewarding good players will work fine. In the long run I'd look to use dkp as it generally gives the fairest results, but you need to be consistent and fair in running it, which itself is quite a challenge.

Stick to 10 mans until you get a solid run going weekly then try to expand to 2 10s, then a 25. Good luck

[Itsdarkandcoldoutside]

Get a couple good friends to help you out in the leading. We used a dkp system so people could get whatever they like. We often had a 50% attendance minimum (unless something important came up) and people usually stuck to it. If you just use a rolling system then I would guess you want to have a limit of items that others need. If no one else needs it then suppose that one person could have a really lucky night and get a ton of gear. Seems a bit of a waste to me for gear to go to offspec before mainspec but also seems bad to have 1 guy walk away with everything if you know what I mean.

[Gigajot]

Just make stricit rules so that everyone knows what they are up to, there shouldn't be 'gaps' in the rules, incase someone will 'use' them in their favour