Raider Punishment Advice

[vindicatorx]

We had a guy that would do the same and after being asked not to do it several times we benched him and pugged his slot. The problem for your group is he probably feels that you won't do anything and that you guys need him and since you implied he thinks he is better than most of you if you do bench him he may split and head to another guild. If I were in your place I would bench him for the 2 weeks and maintain that he needs to be on in case you need him since he wasted all your time he deserves to have his wasted

[superdooper]

The answer is simple. This raider believes he is better than the rest of you...if you keep him, you are admitting to this...if you gkick him, you are suggesting that a replacement will be found.

Punishing him will only piss him off...leading to a gquit...and leading to the player taking control of the situation.

If he is a problem, get rid of him....it's as simple as that. The only way I'd try to resolve the issue is if I knew the guy in RL .... in which case I'd call him up and tell him to shut his mouth during raids.

I've raid led & GM'd for 5+ years.....pre-madonnas will continue to be pre-madonnas. You either promote him to Raid Leader or you gkick him.

Best of luck!

[TEHPALLYTANK]

You went wrong by suggesting he not contradict the RL during the fight, you should have TOLD him that if he has an observation then he needs to make it known when the fight is over(be it a kill or a wipe). If he has Asperger's or some autism spectrum disorder then you need to be clear, do not make suggestions when you are actually making an order. If he does have some autsim spectrum disorder you should be logical and clear when speaking to him, being vague is a very bad thing to do when talking to people who have asperger's or are on the austim spectrum because it only will confuse them.

[Sole-Warrior]

replace him.

[Omertocracy]

Having been That Mouthy Tank Who Thinks He's Better Than Everyone who had close to this situation, the solution is a private conversation explaining to him that not only is he disrupting the raid and guild, but he is doing it in one of the most insulting ways possible. Explain that logging shows a distinct lack of respect, and mutual respect among all raid members is what make the raid go 'round.

... And if he does it again all his rolls on loot will be treated as Off-Spec and that he rolled a 1.

[Darkfrosty]

TBH it sounds like your guild is full of a bunch of girls (including the leadership). Punishments seriously its a video game. Tell him to listen to the selected raid leader or to find a new guild plain a simple. "Punishing" him by making him sit out for 2 weeks is the dumbest thing I have ever heard and if he were to actually sit out of raid for 2 weeks that would be even more ridiculous to me.

If it was me this wouldn't have even been an issue seeing as if I have a raider ninja log out of anger in the middle of a raid night I would have kicked him right there. And if he is a real life friend by chance then you need better friends.

[clevin]

...
I'm liking the idea of just a warning for now, as it is looking like we really do need him for the next few weeks.

I'm going to be blunt - you're not being a good RL. You're avoiding decisions and letting him control the situation. If you want to raid lead, then LEAD. Make it clear what the rules are and enforce those on everyone. Don't avoid doing the right thing just because it's easy.

The fact is, you're in denial about your need to recruit. You should sit or boot this guy, but you can't because you need him. Why do you need him? Because others can't make it for the next few weeks. Core issue here? You havent recruited enough to have backups.

[Mazar]

IMO if someone logs off during raid for anything other than a family emergency or for reasons that leave them no option then its inexcusable. I'd remove him from the group and look for a replacement. I don't care if he's the best raider and carries everyone. My time in wow is limited so if someone wants to waste my time then there is no room for em.

I would demote him to a "back up", if he sticks around and earns his way back into raid fine, but he sounds like a little kid that needs a spanking.

[Deleted]

This is a problem i had while raid leading a year or so ago, My reaction to this is simple let him know what he did was wrong and explain to him how his actions effect the other raid members(all of this should be done privately ofc)
If this doesnt work start recruiting people who can replace him, give them spots in the raid instead of him untill you find someone capable of replacing him full time. Either he will learn his place in the raid team and learn to shut up or your have a nice replacement who isnt a ass

And as someone else said it looks like the real issue you have here is not having enough backups anyway, not giving him any punishment just so you can raid is basically like telling him his behavour is fine and he will end up doing it again.

[Paloro]

Having a punishment for someone who pays to play a game in their own free time isn't going to set well with anyone.

A conversation needs to be held privately with him about what he did and how it is affecting the raid. If he wants a chance to raid lead, I would give him that chance. He might not seem like a good raid leader, but you never know. He might be able to step up into the position and take on a different approach from the game.

In general, tanks make pretty darn good raid leaders because they have less to look at as far as rotations/mechanics go.

Him logging off sucks, but it pretty much proved his point and gave him the upper hand in the situation. You never want to have your raid canceled because of one person. This can be solved by people gearing up OS or having a slightly larger bench (instead of 1-2, go to 2-3 maybe even 4).

[anaxie]

Hey guys

I'm looking for a bit of advice from guild leaders about how they go about dealing with raiders who act out, when punishment may cause problems for the guild as a whole.

Background - Our guild is a guild of mostly "friends" that have been together for a few years. So we're not just gonna be guild kicking people that get annoying. We also have a pretty decent roster right now, so aren't looking to recruit. Anyway, on to the problem.

About a week ago my co-raid leader made a call during a boss encounter, and this particular raider called out over Teamspeak to do the direct opposite. This caused confusion for some of the other raiders as they didn't know what to do (let's not get into trying to get people to only ever listen to the RL). That confusion caused a wipe, and people were not too happy.

This is not the first time that people have had an issue with this guy doing this kind of thing, so a couple of people, myself included (co-RL), suggested to the raider in question that maybe it'd be nice if he didn't directly contradict a RL when a fight is in progress. We have no problem with talking on TS, or raiders giving opinions, but I think most people would be in agreement that you don't contradict your RL mid-fight, regardless of whether the call is correct or not.

Our raider didn't take too kindly to that suggestion, and logged off, causing us to have to cancel the raid 2 hours early.

The guild officers are in agreement that we can't let that kind of behavior go unpunished - you don't just log off and ruin 9 other peoples plans because you didn't get your way. This guy already thinks he's better than most of the other people playing, so we think it might be time for a reality check. We've pretty much agreed that we need to bench him for a while, and 2 weeks is sounding about right based on other factors.

The problem though is that while our roster is pretty decent, a surprising number of other raiders are unfortunately unavailable quite a bit in these coming weeks. So the reality check we have planned for this guy is backfiring: if we bench this guy now then we're probably going to be cancelling a bunch of raids due to not having enough people. Teach this guy a lesson and ruin our raid progress, or let his actions go mostly unpunished (apart from a stern "stop being a dick" talk) and we raid as normal?

Any thoughts or insights, or ideas we've not thought of, would be greatly appreciated.

What exactly was he contradicting? just checking to see if hes right and you should of listened to him in the first place. Logging off early is a bitch move tho, that is readily worthy of a Gkick or giving his prized weapon away as offspec.

[jifjosh]

What exactly was he contradicting? just checking to see if hes right and you should of listened to him in the first place. Logging off early is a bitch move tho, that is readily worthy of a Gkick or giving his prized weapon away as offspec.

Giving loot away makes the ML look corrupt and capricious and will generate far far more bad blood in the future, moreso than benching for a period or outright refusing to let him raid. Him being right in the first place but acting like a spoiled brat is acting like a brat and has no place in a social group where they intend to be taken seriously.

---------- Post added 2012-10-29 at 06:25 PM ----------

What are you punishing him for? You said he talks too much in raid, he gets annoyed at wrong calls and then logs off to cool off so what's he actually done to warrant punishment?

Harmed the progression of 9 other people because one person decided to regress emotionally. Emologging is something that should be punished.

[Oogly]

As someone else has already stated you have problems when you say you dont because of the situation you are currently in. Friend or no that tank who screwed up your raid needs to understand its a team effort and that his lil loggin off tantrum has caused the rest of the raid to suffer as a result.

You also stated you are fine but having to potentially cancel raids because this one player cannot make it is not a "fine roster". You simply need to bench him for a few weeks so that he gets the message that 1 person is not above the guild and cannot hold the rest of you to ransom because of your lack of depth in backups for the team. You need to start recruiting. No proper progression raid guild can get by without at least an extra 20-50% of the raids size as backups within the guild. Its a simple fact of raiding you cannot rely on the same people to be there for 100% attendance.

Talk to the guy, make him understand that when raiding the raid leader decision is FINAL. They have the responsibility for the raid and also shoulder the burden when mistake are made on their part. Comes with the jobrole of being a RL. Gotta have a thick skin and broad shoulders.

As for your current predicament you have a few options.

* You bench the guy and get replacements in. (IE get recruiting as no one should be irreplacable as that leads to laziness and complacency on their part. Competition for raiding spots galvanises them to play better)
* You bench the guy and if you cannot get enough peeps for a raid, cancel it, so the rest of the team knows his behaviour is costing them their raiding fun.
* You keep him in team and fine him priority on X amount of loot that may drop, so that it goes to other members ahead of him unless it would otherwise be disenchanted.
* You keep him in with a warning that any more undue outbursts will see him being removed from the raid team for X amount of time.

Whatever you decide to do you need to have conviction and if you decide on a punishment then stick to it. If you let things slide then you show weakness in your leadership and they will never again take you seriously.

Being a GM/Officer/RL is never easy and just like in real life you sometimes have to distance yourself from your friends when it comes to business time or "raid time" in this case. You can have a joke and a laugh but they need to understand the heirarchy that is there for a reason and respect it. When you are RL you are like a dictator and can be open to suggestions or feedback but the ultimate decision and responsibility is yours and dont let anyone question your authority during the raid.

[Deleted]

I had a similar problem back in WoTLK where I raidlead a 25man team and I had this one guy trying to take over raidleading and eventhough I said something, he might say something else.
My raidinggroup did only listen to my calls, but it still caused some distraction.

The way I handled it was to chat with him after a raid, where he behaved like that, and told him that it was plain out annoying when he said the opposite of what I just called out, and when he was trying to raidlead.
Every time we faced a new bossencounter or one we didn't farm, I went through the tacs quickly(not farm yet), and quite detailed( New encounters), so I told him to speak up AFTER I explained tactics if I was completely wrong in my tacs or something like that. If it was little things, then he kept quite.

And that worked really nice!
He stopped talking in raids, and he came to me pre raid and asked for specific encounters (How I had planned to do so etc.) and explained his version, if he felt it was better. That gave me some other insight now and then, and it did help us kill bosses we had problems with before.

So my answer would be:
Tell him to say if he thinks tacs are wrong, but BEFORE you pull.
Tell him to stay quite and let you and the CO-RL raidlead, eventhough you might call out something he doesn't agree on. Then you can discuss after the wipe/kill.
Tell him you appreciate other views on an encounter, and ways to do it.

[Jaxsz]

Yeah, sorry, you guys handled this wrong. Even if you were polite about it and even if you're all real life friends, don't do this. You need to talk him in privately and you need to do it outside of raid time.

You should have told the guy who complained that you would handle it later, and not to call people out on it. That's not his job, that is the raid leader's job.

Then you needed to talk to that guy privately after the raid. During raid is a bad time to start that kind of discussion because it holds up the team and because people are focused on other things. Unless it is a serious issue that will prevent you from continuing, always after. This is actually MORE true in a casual raid like yours; hardcore raiders will be used to that kind of constructive criticsm, as it is normal in that environment.

Second, you matter how cool you think you all are with each other, the fact he overreacted shows that you are overestimating how chill everyone is with semi-public criticism. Maybe some people are fine with it, but obviously not everyone is. Don't put people on the spot, don't embarrass them in front of their friends. In private, just him and the raid leader.

You can't go back and change the past, but in the future, you need to squash drama during raid by shutting down any comments from the peanut gallery, then ask to speak to the offending person after that raid to talk about the issue.

Is this serious? Are you describing how to deal with 12 year old girls?

If a random raider starts making contradicting calls and fucking shit up you tell him to stop right then and there on voice chat and he says "sorry about that, my bad" and proceeds to stop screwing shit up.

If he cries about it and rage logs? Get a new raider, period, as teenagers are unreliable and way too prone to this sort of autistic bullshit.

Just reading the OPs post and the responses is mind blowing. How can anyone actually put up with this sort of juvenile nonsense?

[brirrspliff]

Is the real question: will you continue to make progress with a team member who is acting in such a way as to cause wipes and have you cancel a raid for nine other people? How big of a problem is that for your team?

this makes me sad. the OP did not say anything about the raidsize, yet everyone assumes it's 10m.

[Lolkaysea]

pre-madonnas will continue to be pre-madonnas.

it's a doggy dog world, and pre-madonna raiders are a diamond dozen for all intensive purposes

[Jaed]

Okay as I see it you have 2 problems. 1. Raid Lead logging mid raid, 2. Raider making calls. The raider making calls, you need to tell him if it happens again you will have to mute him or deprioritize him from loot if it happens again. I see the Raid Lead ninja logging as the major problem. He should be more mature and better able to handle things than he is being. This is the time to stop it, take him aside, with all officers, and speak to him in private. Let him know if it happens again he is benched. Don't just bench him and mess up everyone else. Give a warning just like you would a child doing something wrong. Let him know the consequences to his actions, ie: benched for 2 weeks, deprioritized on loot drops, Dropped from Raid Leading. Whatever the punishment will be. The first time it happened sucks but it happening again is unacceptable.

[jifjosh]

it's a doggy dog world, and pre-madonna raiders are a diamond dozen for all intensive purposes

"dog eat dog" "dime a dozen" and "intents and purposes"

Not trying to be an ass, just heading off future trolls from your malapropisms.

[Tziva]

Is this serious? Are you describing how to deal with 12 year old girls?

If a random raider starts making contradicting calls and fucking shit up you tell him to stop right then and there on voice chat and he says "sorry about that, my bad" and proceeds to stop screwing shit up.

People of any age do not like to be singled out. They do not like to be called out in front of other people on their mistakes. They do not like to be blamed for wipes in front of their peers. There is absolutely no reason to do any of those things publically if you don't have to. The fact that their raider got pissed about being called out is evidence to this fact.

It's a casual raiding environment where a bunch of them are real life friends. This obviously isn't a super serious raiding environment where that kind of criticism is normal and expected. Being diplomatic about the situation has no downsides. It doesn't matter whether your raiders are a bunch of young teenagers or older adults, if you make people feel insulted or defensive, they may react dramatically and drama is bad for the raid.

The OP is talking about one wipe, and mentioned the guy has made similar bad call outs in the past. We're not talking about someone who is constantly wiping the raid. We're talking about an occasional situation that is super irritating but probably not really interfering with progress on a regular basis. It's an issue that can wait until after raid. It's certainly an issue that can be handled in whispers or a private TS channel.

this makes me sad. the OP did not say anything about the raidsize, yet everyone assumes it's 10m.

It's inferred. A 25man would be able to easily run down one person.