Josmo Conversation

Babylonius — Today at 1:59 PM
So like I mentioned in the midweek channel, I’m reaching out to everyone to get their thoughts and opinions on a variety of things.  Before I get to the more targeted questions, is there anything you want to get off your chest about your own play, the team, the raid, the people, the game, anything?


Josmo — Today at 2:37 PM
Hey Babs, I’ll get back to you ASAP. Wrapping up my work day. Is it okay if we go at this piece-wise?

Babylonius — Today at 2:42 PM
Of course, I'm free all today and tomorrow, just going through my list

Josmo — Today at 2:47 PM
Understand. You more or less are up to speed on my play. This’ll end up a wall of text, I’m sure. I’m not as verbose as a Jake, but I tend to get into verbal diarrhea situations. I’ll try to break it down in a semi-organized fashion.
I'll go in the order that you put in the original message

Babylonius — Today at 2:49 PM
sounds good, whatever you got

Josmo — Today at 2:51 PM
note: some things I don't have a specific mind on, but will give a little input/insight, in the interest of you having an opinion from a raider perspective
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My Play See my discord channel. I've been keeping it somewhat up to date. Officers are busy, so I'm not sure what has been read/reviewed, but I'm generally positive about my trends, but frustrated at the rate of progress as well as the creeping in of occasional slip-ups in mechanical performance(Gross negligence on significant mechanics like wicked blades)
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The Team: I think the Team is solid. There are some absolutely stellar players, and I did somewhat overestimate the team overall in my self-assessment private channel. We have significant pumpers in DPS, but suffer from greater issues that I think mostly stem from a personal accountability stand point.
There are too many to count instances of (silent)missed kicks, failure to notice/acknowledge assignments and backup assignments(weakauras & ERT)
So it's like there's an autopilot like you guys mentioned, but then a certain degree of just flat out failure to notice.
But I think it comes down to an accountability aspect. We are very quick to move on from mistakes, and I think leadership does an excellent job of not singling people out---because it absolutely sucks to be on the receiving end----but I think it has swayed a little bit too far
Example: You have a dog. Just one dog. You come home from work and there is a huge pile of shit on the carpet---"GOSH DARNIT! SOMEBODY SHIT ON THE CARPET."
At first the dog might feel bad about it, but after so many times he might be thinking, "heh, they have no idea it was really me who shit on the carpet---I think there's a little bit of that going around.
I think the raid's ability to selfcheck mechanical performance has stagnated
I think we have a number of players who are prioritizing numbers over kills and it is causing a large increase in catastrophic failures.
I've been working hard to prioritize damage optimization on individual fight bases and it has largely negatively impacted my mechanical performance and it is taking constant attention for me to fine tune it to an acceptable level of risk.
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Nathria The raid itself has some really cool mechanical concepts and interesting encounters. It is largely unsatisfying as a rogue player. Playing a rogue(poor play a large contributor as well) has led to the bench on a few fights as well as just multiple fights not optimized for rogue---at least to stand out in a way that is satisfying on a raid-relative basis. Parses,  of course, measure performance relative one's class, but within the raid itself, it leads to a large disconnect as to what level of contribution an individual is making. Example: on our second Denathrius kill, I was 3rd in overall priority target damage, but without actually digging in logs, there's no way for the raid to know that I was actually an important piece in our 3-pull kill. Swapping between Sub and Outlaw and Assassination was also frustrating. Outlaws cleave identity is really only suited for Darkvein, and Assassin's big shining moment could be on Sludgefist. Rogue spec is largely irrelevant for most other encounters. It is very unsung. I'm mostly okay with that, but I fear it puts a perception out there that I am an absolute fucking clown who doesn't know how to play this game. Playing next to a premier rogue like Koji motivates me to do better, since he is able to perform much more consistently, but it doesn't change the feeling I get personally.
It is frustrating that many, if not most of the fights have DPS checks at lower gear levels(good design), but punish the raid for high output. I think this format is poor design, but also highlights a lack of discipline as people are burning CDs through DPS slows/stoppages The raid hard-punishes tunnel vision with not-so-simple mechanics, and DPS walls that need to be negotiated for good push timings.
I'm happy to hold CDs, turn my back to the boss and stop my DPS most of the time. I like when bosses die and all my homies get loot. I think that by and large the average OEM would rather ook ook.
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The People I don't have any issues with any individual on the raid team. I think there are a couple few folks who could use a minor ego-check here and there and could benefit from some personal growth in the accountability department, but I think OEM's raiders are all mostly good people who sometimes have bad days.
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The Game I'm enjoying SL, maybe more than I thought. I am raiding on one toon and have been dipping my toes in with windwalker monk(reading on offspec). I have enjoyed playing windwalker monk immensely in M+(mostly 14-15 type keys). I am not playing it at a high content level, but it's very satisfying to play and more fulfilling than Rogue right now. Accessability to alts has been a huge plus and while they are slow on the uptake on some things, Blizz has been coming around and making some overall positive changes for people who want to play multiple toons. I hope new content rolls out relatively soon, because I think there are a lot of people out there who will lose patience relatively soon.
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That's about what I've got right now. I'm in the break room at work and my shift ended about 20 minutes ago, so I'm gonna head home. If I think of anything else---I'll let you know. Thanks for your patience sifting through this novella.

Babylonius — Today at 3:22 PM
I appreciate all that

Josmo — Today at 3:54 PM
Of course. I know you have an army of very competent officers, but If you have any questions or want any follow up/clarification/interpretation or anything, just let me know and I’ll do my best to fill in any gaps

Babylonius — Today at 3:57 PM
I think you've done a great job of utilizing the conference channel and making the effort for the changes
One thing that I"m asking everyone is whether you think you, or the team, would benefit from a week or few off. We saw a lot of guilds take a break after progression this tier, and it's not something we normally do, but I wanted to get people's thoughts on it.

Josmo — Today at 4:03 PM
I’m ambivalent personally. I think it could possibly be a benefit, could even offer up those nights to OEW for alt mythic.
I will say I did take some personal offense the way Des was so cavalier about not wanting to play after first clear and blanket opting out of all the bosses except last 2.
Kind of a spit in the face of people who screamed at their monitors from the bench while bosses took too long to die and then says in not so many words ‘I got mine, call me if you need me I guess, but I’ll take 233 loot’
I think structured time off is good. I think taking time off is good. But I think being half in is pretty shitty and it may have had an effect on morale. I’m sure most people saw it as a meme or something, but for whatever reason I took it personally.

Babylonius — Today at 4:08 PM
It was something that many people took the same way and I talked to him about. Its one of the flaws of Deswind

Josmo — Today at 4:12 PM
Yeh. The interview did come with a disclaimer.
I think it’s just kind of symptom of greater issue. There’s a systemic something somewhere. Structural? Disciplinary(for lack of better word)
We’re missing a step somewhere.
We go from ‘C’mon guys, play better please’ straight to “YOURE HERE FOR FOUR HOURS AND WE NEED YOU TO NOT PLAY LIKE SHIT FOR FOUR HOURS WAKE UP”
Without a step in between

Babylonius — Today at 4:15 PM
I think you're probably correct there

Babylonius — Today at 4:23 PM
So beyond finding some kind of middle of how we handle that stuff, is there anything else that I, as the GM, or the rest of the officers could do better or differently to help the team?

Josmo — Today at 4:46 PM
I’ll have to think on it a little bit. I think shuffling comp during farm wipes would make people a little more thoughtful and introspective, but there’s definitely a pendulum that swings for our team
We’re tighter and more rigid, then it swings to overwhelming chumminess and benefit of the doubt
We’re polar in performance, attitude, and structure for sure.
I’m about to nap, but I’ll have more for you soon

Babylonius — Today at 4:49 PM
Ok, I appreciate it

Josmo — Today at 8:42 AM
As far as a little bit more input on the swaps thing. I don't think we've done any swaps this tier due to performance after we've done rotations. We've had a few 20-30+ pull nights on bosses like SLG and council.

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We generally have a pretty strong bench and sometimes our best players are sitting. As a player who has had a little extra bench time this tier, I am biased, but it's definitely deflating to watch from the bench while the raid experiences multiple failures due to poor mechanical play or bad decision making, but the comp remains unchanged. I do think that a shorter leash with swaps for rekills would benefit a more disciplined mentality.

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Of course, a potential negative side effect might be that folks who don't get swapped out (but have minor issues) may start to feel bulletproof. But I think just the greater effect of people seeing officers changing comp based on performance will have a very net positive boost to morale and discipline.
Hell, if you need a fall guy, I'll come in for a fight and play poorly for a couple pulls and you can just bench my ass so people can see it in action and start to adjust to higher expectations. I'd be happy to take one for the team to help create that shift.

Babylonius — Today at 9:24 AM
lol I dont think something like that is necessary, but I agree with the pont

Josmo — Today at 10:10 AM
We could totally do it. Just scream at me and I’ll openly weep into the mic. It’ll be great