Raiding in EQ2, guilds, drama and stupidness
So I meant to post this months ago, so here it is, my bitching about raiding, guilds and other EQ2 related nonsense…
Raiding, well let’s see…the actual playing the game and doing the stuff that a very small percentage of the population does is awesome, the stupid crap that happens with the people in your guild sux.
I’ve was a raid leader for about 10 months. Initially we hadn’t conquered anything in tier 8 in EQ2, so I just stuck with the T7 content while our other raid leader beat his head against the wall in T8. I for one knew I wasn’t geared well enough to tank any of T8, and we didn’t really know what we were doing yet. I ran KoS stuff we knew already, and some EoF stuff we hadn’t really done yet. After a while we started making progress in tier 8, but it was quite painful from a guild standpoint to get there.
Initially, we were pretty much running stuff as “come as you are, whoever’s on join up and kill stuff.” That worked ok for T7 stuff, especially after most of the people in the guild leveled past 70. We were finding that Protector’s Realm was just decimating us because the lack of “real” setup, and planning on our part. We would have raids with like 5 or 6 plate tanks or 8 summoners etc. Not really very efficient, and definitely not very doable for level appropriate content. So, after some collaboration amongst a few of the officers we implemented a good class distribution on our raid calendar. We focused mainly on not having an over abundance of certain classes that would render us ineffective. This stirred up a whole mess of stuff. People were starting to get mad because they couldn’t be tank number 7 or summoner number 8 anymore. Eventually people started getting used to not coming for every single raid. Some of them started playing alts so they could raid, some just didn’t come…and yet even more just bitched about not getting a spot. We tried our best to rotate out people as much as possible. After a while we even had a guild leader quit in a huff because he wanted to raid with his paladin, but honestly…what the hell are you going to do with someone who can’t even break 200dps on a single mob? I’ll just say that the initial drama lasted for quite a few months.
Things started to settle down eventually, then came the “so and so doesn’t do anything” or whatnot. There were plenty of complaints about people and their DPS. The atmosphere previous to our attempt to conquer T8 was pretty much, you had some people that were really into what we were doing, then you had the people that kinda just tagged along for loot or something to do. There was a lot of “I’m not coming anymore b/c so and so doesn’t do anything” and stuff. So, our other raid leader started cherry picking people for their performance as much as he could without hand picking an entire raid, which of course started ruffling feathers. People bitching about not getting in on the “Sunday night extravaganza” etc b/c I was still running T7 at the time mostly. After a few months we finally beat Protector’s Realm and moved on to Kor’Sha (leaving Thuuga and Pawbuster in my lap). After more T8 raids opened up for people to do, things quieted down a bit, but that left me with all the “underperformers” LOL. I muddled through and eventually took down The Widow Mistress with a bit of advice from one of our rangers who went with one of the top raid guilds on the server. Eventually we got Pawbuster after one of our officers raided it with someone else to see how they did it and had pretty much completed T1 in the end. We were at the point where we could just farm the crap out of the T1 zones, a lot of the time without a wipe
Around this time Shard of Hate came out and that’s where the loot problems started. All the shiny new loot from Shard of Hate was really kewl, but we would end up with people that rarely came, looting all the really good stuff. Hell I even lost out on the Paladin shield from there to a Guardian who never logged in after that. It took about 7 months for me to get it after that. Well, after a bit Shard of Hate became a “let’s farm trash” thing because we couldn’t take down Master P’Tasa after they fixed him. Loot issues still came up though due to our /random policy. we started to get a really good core of people for raids and it was starting to rub a lot of them the wrong way that “fair weather” raiders were coming out of the woodwork and getting the T2 loot that we had just started getting from Kor’Sha. Our other raid leader tried to implement some form of DKP for extra rolls but that got shot down. So people just carried on till it blew up one more time.
Eventually some of our “core” raiders started clamoring for “more, more, more!” and well I just knew this was not going to work out so well. We weren’t a raid guild, and people started to forget that. The reason they joined (least supposed to be) was not solely for raiding. We went ahead and started adding raids, and well, it was turning into 4 raids a week at one point. This was really, really not good for the health of the guild. People were getting obsessed with raiding. It was all about getting the uber loots, not about figuring out the encounters anymore. We just weren’t getting the same loot at the same rate as some of the other guilds out there, and it just wasn’t good enough for a lot of people. A lot of people just didn’t understand that yes, they wanted to raid more, but it’s kind of hard when you don’t have enough people interested in raiding 4 times a week to fill all those raids. It got to the point where it was getting too stressful to have to try to fill raids that were only getting half the signups, there just wasn’t enough interest to raid almost full time. Of course with more raids, came more bitching. More of the same complaints just amplified…”so and so didn’t deserve to get xxx item”, “so and so isn’t doing good enough” etc. Then there’s the people that had to just constantly complain about our other raid leader to me. The whole “he said such and such and I didn’t like it” or “he’s doing this that or the other thing” or whatever getting dumped on me on almost a daily basis. Looking back at it, it wasn’t even really worth bitching about, but some people just have to have SOMETHING to complain about all the time, or someone to talk shit about all the time. Eventually I started giving the other raid leader shit for no good reason. The stress on both of us was just mounting to monumental proportions…which is quite silly because we were trying to just do something we liked doing. Eventually, the combination of the heightened level of drama, and the fact that Kodux and Zarda in Kor’Sha is probably the worst designed encounter (that I’ve seen thus far) in EQ2 made our other raid leader leave.
Our primary raid leader and strongest tank leaves for World of Warcraft. I got stuck holding the bag and people start leaving left and right for “uber” raid guilds. A lot of it was silliness on their parts thinking that the only class that should tank a raid is a Guardian. Some of them just didn’t have the faith in me to progress any further than we’d already come. Some of them left because all of that plus they were constantly losing out on gear. Finally I had enough of the bitching about loot problems and decided it was time for DKP. I personally was a bit torn over it. /random is simple, but the people that have come and died and spent endless hours trying to figure out encounters were getting screwed by random chance. Hell even I lost out on some gear I really needed to tank because of stupid /random. Well, we finally pushed DKP, which in itself was a trial. In the initial phases of planning people started telling me “you either do DKP all the time or I just won’t come anymore” etc. And of course this was coming from the very people that were responsible for hashing out the DKP system for the guild. It just amazes me that they couldn’t even discuss anything rationally, they had to make their “threats” to try to get their point across, and then of all things, do it in public before anything had even been decided. Way to go to show support for your raid leader.
Here’s the best part…being in the MT group…I have no idea why this seems to cause so much drama, but there was so much stupidness generated over this that it was beyond silly. I don’t know how many people got pissed off because they weren’t in the MT group on a regular basis, or at all. I’ve seen people make their threats “I’m not going to come if I’m not in the MT group.” I had enough of that crap at one point and basically just said “OK, don’t care…” I mean seriously…I don’t know what the whole badge of honor thing is all about…you end up with the shit end of the stick, because you’re most likely going to be getting the majority of the repair bills. If you think the only way you can be uber is to be in the MT group, then you probably don’t know what you’re doing since you’re not performing well outside the MT group, hence why you’re not in the MT group. Why on earth would I put someone who’s not doing what they should be outside the MT group, into the MT group? Honestly, I had so many dps complain about not getting the coveted paladin amends target spot, or so many healers complain that they couldn’t get in that I just about had it. The main reason I had the people I had in the MT group was because I worked well with them. I had experience with them, they knew how to keep me up, knew how to help me keep aggro, and basically knew what I was going to do. When you have a synergy with people that works…why mess it up? I had a coercer who was so mad that I wouldn’t put him in place of the swashy I always used that he pitched a fit constantly to half the guild. Honestly, there is no holding aggro on that swash if I don’t have amends on her. I’ve done plenty of groups, plenty of raids, where I didn’t have amends on her and no matter who was feeding me hate, she was going to take the aggro. She generally parsed between 3 and 4k, a good 1k over most of the guild…why would I give up the steady aggro to a coercer with a measly 16% hate transfer and less DPS? 19% hate transfer + swash steady hate generation + AE blocker + dirge = win. I tried it a few times, hell I even tried out a ranger that parsed higher than she did and I still couldn’t keep aggro off her. Believe me, she would use deaggro poisons, abilities, cut back her DPS, and there was just no hope. In addition to that, whoever I would use for hate would end up not providing enough steady dps for me to keep hate 100% of the time. I much prefer rogues (particularly swashies) for amends over any other class.
In the end I left…I got tired of it, people getting mad at me for no reason…people giving me shit for no reason…people trying to push my buttons with some passive aggressive bullshit because they had problems with me, simply because there was no other raid leader to focus their hatred on (and the fact that some people objected to me going to play World of Warcraft with our ex-raid leader). I pretty much blew my lid one last time about /drama.
My final days in the guild were pretty much log in, get ignored by most of the guild, or get a stream of /tells bitching about this, that or the other thing. Finally, I get this phone call from one of the guild leaders telling me they’re removing our ex-raid leader’s officer forum access. She figured since every other guy in the guild would do whatever she wanted, I’d just go along with whatever she had to say. Well, I didn’t and I wouldn’t just agree to whatever crap she did. She had a tendancy to sneak around behind people’s backs and get “retribution” on those whom she didn’t like. She didn’t like our ex-raid leader very much, I don’t really know why, other than the fact that he didn’t kiss her ass constantly. She had a tendancy to lead all the men in the guild around on their little leashes. Her reasoning behind removing his access was, “he causes strife.” WHAT?!? I the only thing he ever did was try to support me on the officer boards since I got left with the crapass job of raid leader. I guess she didn’t like the fact that he was trying to get his friends to come play WoW with him every once in a while. I defended him and didn’t think she’d go through with it and left it at that. Well, come that Monday, he asks me what’s up with his access. She talked the head honcho into removing his officer forum access anyways. After some discussion she denied the fact that she even brought it up with me on the phone on that Friday. Then I get a /tell from one of our officers about how he “causes strife”. A little light went off in my head and I realized that my friend (this officer person) was probably the person that talked our guild leader into removing his access. She would always bitch about him to me, so it only made sense considering she used the same words our guild leader used on the phone with me that Friday. My friends and I found this quite insulting considering our ex-raid leader donated around 100 plat to the guild when he left, and he got treated like this. There were plenty of other members of the guild who still had officer forum access that weren’t actually officers in any of the games our guild participated in. We basically had a knock down, drag out fight with our guild leader on the forums then just quit the guild. We stopped playing EQ2 and haven’t looked back. I have to say we’re much happier now that we’re away from all the stupidness generated by that guild. From what I’ve seen they still suck as raiders. It’s a shame that I had to leave though, I still have some friends there that I miss 
I’ve seen this kind of thing happen before. I’m on Antonia Bayle, and there have been a few guilds like this who ended up falling apart because people either expected too much, were never happy, were pissed at raidleaders or whatever else… and none of it is constructive. Every guild has its heights and some guilds just aren’t meant for all the high-end stuff – and it’s mostly to do with the people, rather than their abilities. I’ve learned that people who start out raiding often expect way too much – and seeing those guilds who see great success in raiding, they begin to wonder why they’re not in the same position. Patience has proven to be the most important aspect of successful raiding – and that’s not just with getting strats down, but also patience with the higher ups. People will scheme because they think they know best, and I’m sad to see that you became a victim to that. It’s the thing that makes MMO’s so great, but also so annoying – the fact that you must rely on other people to succeed. I count myself lucky to be in a guild which has both great people and success – very lucky. The average raid guild is full of idiots with ego’s who brag and make the game less enjoyable for others. The guild I am in is now fully mythed, stable, and full of nice, rational people. It’s a big “F*ck you!” to all the raiders who look down on others, and who say RPers don’t know how to play.
Looking through this post, I don’t think there is much that you could have done better. You obviously had the guild’s best interests in mind, and those who bickered and argued and filled the guild with nothing but negativity are to blame for things ending up how they did.
If you ever consider returning to EQ2 at some point, and play on the AB server, drop a comment on your post and I’ll be in touch. I could fix a solid group easily and help out where I can.
LeB