[Cobrawastaken]

I know I'm not the only one to say this, but I will be the one to post it I guess. The speed of raids is very slow. A few ideas to speed things up... 1. Always meet outside instance to first target.

2. We have squad leaders for a reason, we need to start using them to comunicate better and quicker (the strats are nice and all but if someone hasn't done the raid before, a LONG strat will just really be confusing) Better to give the jist of the raid, then call things as we go. Obviously things like audio triggers need to be given before we start and should be relayed through squad leaders to ensure everyone in group understands what they are and how to set them up. And follow up and make sure people get them straight.

3. On a wipe, we need to work on being quicker to getting everyone back up and buffed. 30-45 mins in between a wipe and hitting a target again is a deterent and makes people want to leave the raid early.

In general quicker raids will make more people stay and hopefully make it more enjoyable. Feel free to chime in with other ideas for speeding raids up, or to just let me know I'm crazy and I should shut up.

[Mariu]

I would only add that when 30 minutes is called after 30 minutes raid dump should be taken and we should be moving to target.

I realize its hard sometimes because we can be short classes and waiting on 1 or 2 late comers, but in my view if your not there at the start of the raid you deserve to be on the bench till the next target.

It slows everything down a lot waiting.

[elric]

I agree with your frustration on raids being slow, but that said...

The leadership tries HARD to keep things going.

On start, one thing that slows us down a LOT is when folks show up at the last minute, lfg. Show up early, get an invite, then grab drink/food/smoke would speed things up.

As for not meeting in front of the nights' target, sadly most folks don't check the calender to see what the targets are. So we meet in FM for SoF and in front of old BB for SoD. Want that to change? get folks to check the calender.

As for going again after a wipe, we're typing our damn fingers off in the SL channel, trying to figure out the right strat. Remember, the strat for guild A doesn't work with AH, as we never know class make up on a raid.
Then you have the cures for each class to set, the MT/OT lineup for named and adds, possible mezzers/rooters to set, etc. There's a LOT that doesn't make it into /rsy or ahraid going on. Enough that I end up with a migraine on the nights I RL.

I"m not trying to be mean, but the leadership is doing the best we can.

Oh, and if you want to try, you are MORE than welcome to try your hand at leading an encounter. I"m not joking, just ask in ahraid one night.

[Didokova]

I think the leaders are doing a good job i think that some targets could go faster on targets we have hit and won a few times i understand it going a little slower on targets we are new with and for someone like me who 1st langwage is not english it is a little better. Once we are familure with targets we have done a bunch of times most of us dont need long draged out starts and instuctions. I can see wating if we dont have the right classes in zone yet and stuff like that. or if someone hat not put on the Pink hat yet lol. I think the leaders are doing a great job
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[Cobrawastaken]

Maybe its time to start giving tasks out to some of the others so the Raid Leader isn't swamped. I've noticed the rebuff team is starting to do things pro-actively which is awesome. Again, I'm not trying to knock the leaders at all. I just think things could go faster and I would like to see more people around for more targets. On the members not checking calendar, maybe its time to hold AH to higher standards (no more asking where to meet or what target is - Go check calendar). We have a website for a reason and people should be using it. As for things not working the same for AH as guild A, I don't believe this is true. Maybe 3 months ago that was true, however now we have plenty of members and full raids on every night. I love AH and want it to keep going strong so I'm trying to come up with ways to speed things along. It shouldn't take 3 hours of raiding to kill/loot 3 targets that we have killed many times before. I'm just trying to get some peoples opinions on how we can speed things up to make raiding more enjoyable for everyone.

[Zacatac]

[Kreavan]

I think the leadership and officers do a hell of a job for the amount of stress that follows that position. Being able to hit 3 targets in 1 night is good IMO for what we are doing. If we drop below that due to time, then I think we fall below the bar, but not if it is because of wipes.

One way I think we can speed things up is to be OTM right at 10p CST. There are too many times that we sit at the gathering spot for 30min to almost an hour getting late comers and such. We should already be heading towards the target or buffing within the first 10min. People know when we start and therefore should be there on time. If they're late, then I agree that they deserve to sit on the bench.
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[Cobrawastaken]

If we left right on time, most of the time we wouldn't have 54. Seems like we usually have 48-50 at raid time and then we fill up afterwards w/ people showing up late. However, if we leave right on time maybe people will join on time and be ready. I think I've seen/heard people coming late (last minute) because they know we will no leave for target on time.

[Zacatac]

[laenyani]

I know one reason we dont move on time is for example on Friday night. The calendar had us doing Krond first. Ok so only 38 ppl are in raid at 10pm. Kronds off for now what do we do. So the Management Channel is desperately going through ideas of what we can do with 38 ppl. So we switch targets and as we are running to new target ppl keep showing up. This means more group shuffling. We have some new folks so we need to do good strats to make sure everyone knows there job. By the time we finish first target the raid is full. That means we have gotten 16 more ppl than when we went OTM. So again more group shuffling. Oh and there are ppl waiting on the bench now so we have to drop boxes (which we needed because of lack of on time attendance) and shuffle in more ppl. SO we otm to Krond. Oh someon has a train. 3-5 ppl die on the way to new target. Someone has to go get them and rez them. Then we move in. 3-5 ppl cant get in because they havent finished the quest and we are maxed on piggys. So we pull in ppl who are waiting on the bench. Again more shuffling to make sure groups are balanced and everyone gets a chance to live longer. Then we start pulls and we had 2 new pullers on that fight. Pulls on MMM are not quick but they have managed to make them quicker than the first few times we did it. We pull and get to Kronds room. We know we have at least 10 ppl who havent done this raid and it has some very specific reactions that have to be done to specific triggers. More shuffling to make sure every group has at least 1 player who can dispell the charm and folks arent killed because of that. Long strats to make sure everyone knows what their job is. And then and easy win.

I do know sometimes it gets frustrating because there does seem to be alot of down time, but TBH most of the down town could be cured by:

1 ppl showing up before OTM is called.
2 ppl reading the boards and knowing the strats.
3 ppl haveing all their quest steps done before the raid time.

In jist if you want ah to be faster then you do these things that will make it faster guys.
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Laenyani
Muse of Bristlebane
"I remember when patchwork was uber"

[Aleax]

Having led raids in the past myself, I can wholeheartedly say one thing. Until you lead a successful raid yourself, you have _NFC_ how much work/stress it is. If you need an explanation of NFC, send me a PM. I am trying to limit my profanity in public places...
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[laenyani]

I think we all need to take this as constructive and not get defensive. I know its easy to say no one knows what we go thru but on the other hand we have been on the other end also wondering what was taking so long. Lets just remember to look at it from both sides everyone.

This is going to be one of the great debates of AH history I believe and everyone needs to take it as that. Lets all try to be proactive in solving it and not reactive.
_________________
Laenyani
Muse of Bristlebane
"I remember when patchwork was uber"

[Aergon]

I am agree than if the speed of raid is adequate we can do more targets and more fun, loot, etc. We need improve it, and good idea Cobra for post it and try with new ideas.

Elric have right too, AH is not a guild and managament is a little different, Leaders are trying hard, proof of that is than AH Family is bigger from 1 year to today, if dont no one of us keep here. Keep on mind than we dont have the same 54 ppl or 60 raiding every day, our roster have aprox 600 membership and ppl than raid 1 week maybe not raid the next, or maybe not raid in a month, maybe the WED, but no the SAT and a lot more stuff like that, then strats need to be explain deeper every week, is hard get the correct group configuration too for some events because our raiders are not the same from 1 event to the other, etc.

Kreavan have a point too, we need set a standard for our raid nights, 3 targets are pretty good, but sometimes like MMM is imposible, too much trash and stuff to do before engage, SF, wirlem, deepscar,bigbynn are easy to reach and do 3 of them in 3 hours, but do 3 MMM events in 3 hours is not the same.

Wipe and learn is part of proccess of raids, i know sometimes is exasperating, but is necessary, i hate see people leaving raid because of wipes, if anyone think than have a good idea for win the event said in channel or in the forum, if dont then try and dye like the rest in the proccess, dont disband!, is not good looking ppl than do that. we all enjoy win raids and win loot, but for that the leaders and some raiders had to dye, study and learn a lot of things, dont be selfish!.

About give diferent task to the SLs is a nice idea, and we already do a lot of it, but we can do more, i think in the same way than you, keep the Raid leader the most free of dutys for be more efficient, like when Elric do the strats for events, or loot, or Rebuff team, or taskadds, or raid invites, check status on members, dkp, and a big etc.

Use the Calendar for do smooths begins

read the forums, participate.

Agree with Elric, we need more RLs, if you think you can be 1 of it, said in channel or post on forums, maybe we can test you.

Against you can think if we wait for someone before 1 raid is because we need that class for have better chance to success, and no wipe. Of course we can try start raid without wait for anyone and see what happen, but then not complain when we wipe!.

Long Strats Cobra maybe you right about confuse a little, but i am witness than without a good explain on strats we are willing to wipe a lot more, and good examples are BMK3, Queen or Rottrued seems to be easy but if we dont follow the strats then the wipe is sure, i prefer waste 10 min doing strats than 1 hour doing the event again.

Wipes and recover are slow, agree with it, we need improve it, we need search for fast ways to do the things, but sometimes is not the wipe and recover what takes time, is the learning from the wipe and try different things, like Elric said leaders burn the fingers figure out how do it again.

ok i hit submit button now or never

[Hasseo75]

Couple things:

1. The ppl showing up every night is NOT the same, so we cant just:

/rsay Ok guys, same strat as last time
/rsay GOing now !

Strats need to be explained every time.

2. We are raiding CURRENT content thats mean ALOT of wipes and learning events, having current raid gear have one price: learn events and wipe in the process.
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[Kreavan]

I wonder if there is a way for raid leaders to already have the instructions to an encounter pre-typed to distribute to the raid in-game?

I know that using the custom macros only allows for 4 lines of data and one event can easily fill those up.

Maybe using the in-game email system? Have it typed up and send to everyone and tell them to check their inbox for the strategy before the encounter. That way the leader only has to type it up once. Keep it in inbox to resend each time we go after a target.

Any thoughts if this would be a viable option?
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[Wwein]

Very good debate, I love it!

There's a few elements to this discussion which I think is why we're seeing such a mixed bag of opinions. Firstly from the point of view of a raider things Do take too long. Raids start at 10pm so that's when we should be heading to the event, we should then immediately start clearing, and then we should get buffs and mention any essential raid info (such as audio triggers) and then begin. Makes sense, nice and tidy. The management would love this too, so why isn't the theory matching the reality?

As many have mentioned above, there's a lot that goes on that people aren't aware of. There is almost never a moment on raids you're waiting on just 1 thing. Here's a typical time line to explain what I mean:

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7:30-8:00: Wirlem/Octa scouted, estimating targets based on numbers, dealing with various tells/arguments/dkp issues
8:00-8:10: One of us does OTB lottery while another shuffles, and the rest debate what targets we can hit with the numbers/classes we have. If piggies are involved add 10 minutes to get them all in channel, have them respond what they need, shuffle in/out boxes to get all piggies in
8:10-8:20: Call OTM. While people are running we continue to shuffle and handle piggies, shuffle in late comers, discuss strats for event
8:20-8:30: Some raiders died/Lded/got lost OTM and rezzes/directions are being arranged for them. Meanwhile one of us starts giving strats while we continue to shuffle, begin setting up the rebuff team, brief the healers and tank channels, and overlap this with MGBs.
8:30-9:00: Depending on the event, we can either now beat it as we are, or shuffle in those last minute healers we desperately need and wait for the AFKers. Also during this time we're debating next targets, apps, new ideas for the event, new ideas for policies to make raids/AH better.
9:00-9:10: Rez the dead, distribute loot, debate next target, shuffle some more.
9:10- etc...
Wipe: 9:00-9:30: if there's a wipe things get frantic. Find our closest rezzer and coordinate to get them safely to corpses. Start rezzing. Lots and lots of information being passed through tells/channels/group/management about why we wiped, what to change etc. Large turnover in people leaving, and some coming in requiring lots of shuffling. Typically we lose about a group's worth of raiders, and we're now too few to win so we call for boxes to come. Rebrief everyone on the changes.
---------------------------------------

On the surface you'd think that if we, say, didn't have to give strats then we'd save 10 minutes. However we'd still have to wait the same 10 minutes because of the rebuff team / healers / shuffling / questions / assigning roles (for scripts, MAs etc) going on at the same time as strats. This is why it both seems very easy to quicken raids, but is actually very tricky. Our target is 3 raids per night, at a rate of 1 event per hour. 4 raids per night is possible and we have achieved it a few times, but will be Very hard to make the norm.


Ideas planned or being implemented
I think we can all agree that we'd love raids to be faster, and I hope we can all agree now that this is a much trickier problem than it seems. In which case, lets skip ahead straight to the ideas on how to fix it:
1. Delegating certain events to certain RLs. They then become ultra efficient at it, take pride in that 1 event and make the strat very tight etc.
2. Copy and pasting prewritten strats for fast announcement. As I mention, turning 10 minutes of strats into 1 minute will not give us 9 extra minutes, but in conjunction with speeding up the other tasks it could. Also some events like Rottrued have lots of strats and lots of shuffling but 0 time taken to set up channels/script people, so reducing the time for strats there and finding a way to speed up shuffling for it Would give us that 9 minute gain.
3. Having SLs invite specific classes only. Rather than SLs inviting anyone lfg, they instead have started to create their groups in the way they need to be for most events. This is caster groups with druid healer and enc for auras, melee group with shammy healer and a bard, tank group with 2 wars and 2 clerics and a mix of bard/monk/pally, OT groups with large numbers of knights and 1 cleric. This can potentially reduce the shuffle time a lot.
4. Dead announcing to rebuff leader. Those dead need to contact the rebuff leader to get themselves dragged and called/rezed. If someone dies during OTM then this allows them to organize their own drag and rez rather that relay it through the SLs or channel.
5. Fewer unnecessary tells. Despite nudging, I personally get about 80-100 tells per night, and I suspect the other SLs have it similar. While I love chatting with people and HATE ignoring people, it does make it very hard to filter to the important messages, and ultimately delays the raid and raises stress levels.


More Ideas:
My time line above is very approximate because every night is different and there's unexpected challenges each time. It should give a general idea of what we do at each stage of the raid night, and hopefully ideas for where/how we can make cutbacks. Here's a few ideas off the top of my head to get the ball rolling:
1. OTM at 8pm sharp. This is an old idea and seems obvious, but takes a little coordination. If just an SL did the OTB lottery as a /rand 1 54 then we could instantly award that. We'd have to shuffle more at the raid, and need a way to reduce or stack that up. With a lot of latecomers we'd have to take guesses of the attendance we'd have at fight time, which means occasionally we'd get everyone gathered at an event and have to change our plans after we're assembled. (Consider the sloooow nights when we assembled for MMM but didn't have enough flagged, or the recent Queen Mal raid where we lost all but 1 wizard during the OTM).
2. Strats via EQmail not RSay. We could have someone batch EQmail strats to everyone, and then just mention a few tidbits in rsay. I've toyed with this idea in the past but always ultimately rejected it because then we'd have people not knowing how to read it, or deciding not to read it.
3. Reduce new targets. The more we do a raid, the faster it gets to prepare for, faster to organize, and easier to win. But sadly the more we do an event, the less popular it becomes! From OTM we have been able to shuffle, organize, beat and distribute loot in under 30 minutes, but originally it took an hour. We used to fill an entire raid night on Rottrued OR Deepscar's Den, but we're now about to do Rottrued, Queen Mal and Deepscar all in the same night.
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http://www.spamhelp.org/harvesterkiller/

[Darby]

In my tenure with AH, I seen several leaders of AH, and even more Raid Leaders burn out and quit EQ altogether. We had the same problems trying to get people flagged for Time (back in the day) as it seems you are having now.

Some things that I haven't seen mentioned yet but was a problem for us were the people joining AH not for the purpose of helping each other attain these high end game goals, but merely to gain the flags neccesary to get into Time, or COA. Once theywere flagged we'd never see them again.

At one point in AH's history the only 2 tanks showing up for raids was 1 SK and 1 Pally. At another time we had a million Druids, and only a few Clerics but raids could still be accomplished. Pretty soon we lost all of our Druids and didn't have nearly enough Clerics to be able to raid.

OTM's were a problem for us back then too because we didn't have enough porting classes to get everyone to the target. I know porting isn't really a problem any more with the Guild Hall, but OTM's will always be a problem with people unfamiliar with how to get from point A to point B.

We always had a saying in RL, 30 minutes early is on time. On time is 30 minutes late. We always had people in the raid channel who wanted to raid but were in the middle of an instanced zone. It was very frustrating then to make groups when not everyone was at the meeting spot, and it sounds like it's still a problem.

I'd be raiding with y'all still and would be very proud to still be a co-class lead with Ardy, but sadly real life has a way of sneaking up on you. I was there for many of AH's "Firsts" I was there when we pulled 2 events at the same time getting flagged for Time and we pulled off the win. I was there many times after a wipe and by the time we were ready to make the next attempt we had lost 25% of our raid force, but made the attempt anyways only to have it go flawlessly with fewer people and got the win.

Be grateful to the leadership and all the effort they put in behind the scenes durning raids, but also on the down times on days before raids. I met Korrine in RL, one of the things she remembered about me was one night the raid was going badly, it seemed like no one was listening to instructions and she was very frustrated. I made a single tell to her...I was the only person that night to thank her for making the effort to make us better and AH better.

A word of wisdom from an old Raider, former Paladin class leader and the one and only DarbyQ

[Cobrawastaken]

It is good to hear what you all go through written out. Gives us Lowbies an appreciation for what is going on behind the scenes and what is dealt with. I still think there are ways we can speed things up (especially raids we have done multiple times before). From simple things like following assist to getting information out quicker and reinforcing people understand through SL participation (worked great in a few groups I've been in). You would be surprised how many people are afraid to ask a question in rsay or raid channel but will ask in group. I harp plenty on the MA and following it because you would be surpised how quick and flawless raids would go if everyone did it. My guess is that some people still dont have a hotkey set up for it and also dont always wait for an assist message before attacking. I know this isn't a hardcore raid guild, but I still feel we should strive for perfection. Again, I love this coalition and what we have accomplished before and since I have joined. I want to see us succeed and also be able to confidently move to new raid targets through progression

[laenyani]

I agree with you Cobra and I for one really appreciate you opening the debate/discussion on how to accomplish these things. Its a good thing you brought it up and I am sure it took alot of courage. I know you arent the only one thinking this but were first to actually open a discussion about it. All the time during raids i see ppl comment about it taking to long. I usually just give a quick explanation on what we are waiting on.
I would love for ah to be better I myself again am constantly trying to come up with new ideas to implement to make this so. Such as the rebuff team, and taking the rebuff team into hotkey tells.
Ah is evolving each and every raid. We need new ideas from folks like you to keep us fresh and growing.
I just wanted to say thank you for bringing this up and thank you to everyone who has posted an idea to make it better. I think its also something we should continue to talk about here. It should be a subject thats never closed.

Maybe we can start a forum on weekly synopsis and anyone can post what went well and what we may need to work on a bit more.
People always work better when they know they will get a type of report card.
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Laenyani
Muse of Bristlebane
"I remember when patchwork was uber"

[Sorcier]

Like Ww said good debate! Let the fun begin lol ...

Darby and Aergon make some very good points so please make sure you read their posts for sure.