I've noticed that on the last couple of raid nights, people have been getting tired around 11pm, and people's attention have been dropping. (This includes myself, with teleporting directly into smash, and then rolling right off the bridge) With us hitting the more mechanically focused bosses, this is definitely not a good thing.
My thoughts on this would be to look at changing the raid time. Perhaps move raids up 30 minutes so we start at 8 and end at 11, with a break at 9:30? Even if some people can't make it right at 8, we could start clearing trash and maybe some of the easier bosses (depending on how long it takes some people)
My other idea would be to cut raids down by 30 minutes so it's 8:30-11. This would cut an hour each week of raids, and not my preferred choice. With the reduced time, we would want people to be totally ready to go at 8:30, and more focused during the raid (which ideal we already should be).
Eep. 8pm will be a bit hard for me to make. Boy Scouts meets on Thursdays and I need to be there at least one Thursday/month (unless I trade duties and get behind a desk instead of in the fray). For the other Thursdays, I'll need to negotiate with "The Boss" to bail out of kid duty early, and while she'd say yes, I'd be in the doghouse for decades to come. Of course, I'm already in the doghouse for decades to come so that's probably a no-op.
I'd be much more willing to supply a weekly supply of Red Bull to those who start fading out at 10:30pm.
Just my $0.02.
We can explore this. I'm not sure starting at 8:00 would be feasible, but ending at 11:00 is fine. If we are more punctual (myself included) about starting and break times, then we'd end up with a similar amount of actual raid time anyway.
I'm open to it.
For Science!
I'd be open to ending at 11:00 if we were shooting for first pull more at 8:30 instead of logging in at 8:30. If you can't login until 8:30 then you should pre-plan and logout somewhere that you can get to the instance quickly and without a summons if you want the first kill. I think we spend a lot of time getting organized for that first pull, if we could eliminate that I think cutting that 30 minutes at the end would be fine.
Dys
If we decided to reduce our raiding time to 11 PM, we should accept the fact that as much as we want to first pull at 8:30, after a month, everyone will be back to where we are now.
I, for one, can't really go earlier either. I'm comfortable reducing our raiding week by an hour however. We've been doing a great job of clearing content while it's relevant and I think 2.5 hrs a night would be fine. We'll just get those "last pull of the night" kills a little sooner!
I love the idea of ending at 11. I know the last 30 minutes is particularly challenging for me to be focused. I also love the idea of at least having a group on and pulling by 8:30 would be fantastic. I can start at 8 but don't mind the 8:30 start time.
Meh.
I'd actually prefer adding a third night into the week and raid more, but I know that won't be well received by others. :(
I rather actually people quit slacking and get on at 10-15 BEFORE raid times then we can actually start and make progress. This guild is like a ghost town until about 5 minutes before raid time and then everyone trickles in from there. I understand people being burnt or what not but still if you are in a raiding guild and want to raid then we should respect the time of everyone there by getting there and doing your part for the guild. That way we can progress on our couple of nights a week and still feel like we are accomplishing something.
Just my 2 cents...
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