Maintaining Strong LS Leadership

[Despain]

Or you could make one of the dozen ls members who only have mnk, sam, drk, drg, war, rng, and thf at 75 level a useful job instead of constantly leveling melee jobs. 6 years later there is really no excuse for everyone not having at least one melee, one mage, one tank, and one support job that are reasonably equipped.

I have no problems with "DD onry" as long as they are the right DD, and have beyond exceptional equipment. But I do agree that people who only have melee jobs should at least level 1 support job, or at least a mage job. It helps not only them out, but the linkshell as a whole.

[Eldelphia]

I don't think the answer is leadership.
I think the answer is members. Members are what make or break the shell. Productivity depends on their behavior, success as well.

You can have an awesome leader, if your members suck, your ls won't work. It's all about figuring the ls objectives, potential, and to recruit players according to this potential and objectives.
I think there are two categories of members you want to avoid:
- members that only join (specific) scheduled event
- members that spend all their time levelling jobs

The productivity of a shell usually comes from unscheduled events. All the scheduled stuff is basically getting the benefits from the work that have been done before, when collecting pop sets or camping.
So basically, you're looking at people that can create the ls progression outside of scheduled events, plus some people with less availability to help reaping the fruits of that progression.

The only thing a leader can do is to give real encouragements to players to do things outside ls events.

Absolutely this!

[Vytiss]

And who is this guy here?

lol, longtime fan of BG... first time poster.
just noticed dramallama jam posting about "good leadership" and had to lol.
carry on.

[Eldelphia]

The worst thing as a female leader of a shell that has been around for 5 years (and now has a sister dyna/ein shell) is the guys who think a) they have you wrapped around their lil finger or b) the guys who think that flirting with you is the answer. Trust me, it isn't.

We work on variety. We're not an HNMLS, we're an endgame, event shell. We're very social and fairly but not exceptionally busy. We've run Limbus for 3 years and always get people applying because they're sick of shit Limbus shells.

We don't do Land. We do KSNM99, Salvage, Einherjar, Limbus, Dynamis, Ouryu, ZNMs, SCNM and similar. We do some sky/sea if someone needs it.

When we started running more events, I found the stress level got mental. So we have two sacks (NA, EU ) who run Limbus a lot a couple of others who help out with specific events. I have one absolutely fab chap who runs Einherjar for us whilst I focus on Dynamis with our admintarus

We bank sky drops but pay out towards abjuration gear. When the bank hits a couple of mil, we do something beneficial to the shell with it. Dynamis, we split profit every 4 weeks.

Most of the time, drops from things like Limbus are done on a /point system but I never decide that alone. Three of us sit down, compare notes and work it out. Dynamis and Einherjar involve members from outside the main shell, we have strict and public points systems for them. Dynamis is pure points, Ein is points/bidding.

Sky.. you farm for lesser gods, you get to prioritise a drop or 2... simple but Kirin drops are distributed by the leadership, with bias towards those who have contributed to farming.

We don't force anyone to participate but most people do. We do insist on people wearing our pearl 90% of the time. What usually happens though even if people had pre existing dyna or sky shells is they drift towards us and give up on the others in the end.

We're far too laidback for some but our membership is such that whilst they want to do big things, they can't always commit to them. We have a lot of shift workers and part time workers across 4-5 timezones. So whilst we've gotten Sandworm, actively scanning for that and DI for example might be possible one week, but not the next. We have a useful group of players who for one reason or another can't or won't dedicate themselves to an HNMLS. To cater to this membership, you have to give them a shot at a wide variety of things, which we do.

I decided a long time ago, that whilst I may not get to do some of the fights in the game (Vrtra, Fafhogg, Tiamat come to mind) I was happier running this sort of shell, than being part of an all singing, all botting HNMLS. With the friends I've made over the years, I've been lucky enough to fight Cerb, Hydra and be part of a group that fought and beat Pandemonium Warden.

[yotevol]

Hello All!
I've been leading my LS for going on 17 months now.
My LS started as a Sky LS and I'll be honest, one of the reasons was to get W. Legs.
We used the point system, where each hour farming in sky with an officer earned you 1 point. Also, donated pop items at time of need, also provided points.
We killed kirin enough times for 4 people to get W. Legs, before I got my own pair. People were worried I would leave the shell, and I didn't
We have gotten 4 more W. Legs since then.
Not ony that, we expanded to Sea and have gotten a good amount of Torques.
The next step, is Jailer of Love.

I'd like to think that my awesome leadership kept us together, but I won't be like that- lol.
To be honest, it was things like:

- Keeping events important, but not mandatory: People DO get burned out. They also want to level new things, farm gil, do other things to break the monotony.

- Keeping ALL points recorded on the website: This helped a lot. We have 2-3 people that keep track of points, but we're only human. The players find mistakes, bring them to us and we fix them.

- Keep track of gil and publicize it to the LS: People want to know where the gil they helped earn goes and what it does. If you make it for uncursed items, stick with it. If you use it to buy pop items for next time, do it.


And on the topic of Leadership:

Anyone can be made a leader or an officer, everyone has potential. There are several types of leaders that are VERY useful. In my LS, I have 5 sack holders and considering to make 1-2 more.

I have an Officer that is VERY meticulous on keeping track of points, gear, who-wins-what, and a lot of other details. This Officer isn't the best leader, but a very valuable assistant to any of my other officers.

I have another Officer that loves challenges. You tell him what we need from Sky or Sea, and he tries to figure out how to low-man it and get it done in 1-2 sessions. He challenges those that he leads and rewards them with additional points if they succeed. Also, he is BIG into new strategies and loves to test things out. Dangerous, but very rewarding at times.

I also have a lazy Officer. This guy is the most flexible in jobs (16/20 jobs), has some of the most elite gear, damn good at all the jobs... but is just lazy at leading. He value is in regulation, if anyone needs to be put into check because they are starting shit, he brings them down a notch. Trust me, you need this type of Officer. He also helps me to realize when someone needs to be kicked.

My last Officer is best at Strategy. He has about 5-6 ways to kill every mob in Sky and Sea, and can do it with 3-4 people. Unfortunately, due to work constraints, he is unable to attend as often as I'd like. Still he's a good guy and just as valuable as any other Officer- when he's there.

As for myself, I like to think that I'm just another Officer, but at times I can't. If I do, people might think I play favorites. I have to keep myself semi-distanced from my members.

The hardest part of being a Leader or an Officer isn't just the game-time. I can't count the amount of hours I spend researching NMs, HNMs, Jailers, Gods or w/e.... it's almost like a 2nd job. But, it's for the members, friends and other officers. It's just a real kick in the teeth when you work so hard to prepare for an event, and you don't have enough people because of RL situations that are out of control.

The other difficult thing to do as a Leader is keeping a good attitude in the face of failure. I.e., you try and 6-man Seiryu and fail. It's my job to keep people's hopes up to not leave the LS and get mad. It doesn't matter if I'm upset, the members and officers look to me for encouragement. You can't challenge your LS without the possibility of failure, so be prepared for that.

I hope this didn't take too much of anyones time and effort and thank you for reading.

[Falisa]

So the fuck what if you have to come BRD to every event? You leveled the job, you have no right to complain.

I really do not agree with this. As a leader, you should be open to listen to the people in your linkshell and not drive them to hate showing up to events because they're going to always be stuck on a certain job. If you don't have enough of that job, recruit more people then or as the other person before me has said, tell people in your linkshell to level it. In my personal experience, one my linkshells had me going bard so much (even more than the relic bard in the LS), that I absolutely hate the job now and if I go back to FFXI I will probably delevel the job.

[Iremire]

For the ls I lead we try ad be as fair as possible with Item distribution without the point system playing a huge role in lotting.

All lists are Public as is the bank. The initial list is made based off of the time members have spent in linkshell and the work they put in (New Members on the bottom). As members attain gear they are moved down on other lists depending on the weight of the item. The only way my members move up on lists is if the person above them either falls from their consistent play time putting them at a lower standing then the people below them, or receive another item.

Gil splits are done according to % of attended events in the past 30 days. the 30 days we select from can either be the Relic bank 30 days or the Pay out bank 30 days, seeing as we have seen playtime fall down during relic bank so we like to keep it random.

Trying to not befriend members is probably the hardest thing I have dealt with with being a leader. So to counter that I try and get to know everyone and have them all be on an equal playing field.

I feel like we're doing an ok job cause we have a fairly low turn over rate due to things like item distribution. Only time people leave is if their friends get kicked, but that has so far only happened once.

Meh.

[jammalamma]

haha, easily said now that you've got all your shit....
hope your LS realizes that you're gonna jet soon after you get whatever you're currently after now.

This is the kind of attitude that pretty much frustrates people in leadership so much that they get burned out and leave. Since I'm pretty open about myself, my past, and my relationship, I don't really have problems going into detail to call you an idiot.

Your opinions of your previous leader are baseless and simply the result of you being upset because he eventually left. But let's look at it. You think he gave me everything I got? He was with Syng when I got everything but a single piece of gear. But ignore the time line if you wish.

Can you fault somebody for giving up and leaving a group when the group constantly mocks and insults him? So he was in a relationship with someone you didn't really like. After he asked people to stop the comments and let things be, you kept on going. You didn't respect him enough to do as he asked, all you cared about was "we just lost our pixels baaaaw".

But that is very insulting and it's a real burden on a leader for his members to expect the world of him, to expect him to do everything on his own to uphold the shell, yet at the same time they refuse to give him any dignity or at least have some faith that he may be able to separate his personal affairs from business affairs. And with talking to Brice about it, that's the most frustrating things about it. People don't see the arguing behind closed doors and his effort to say no and keep things fair, and the stress that comes with it. It's really like the whole thing where married couples shouldn't work together. But the fact that you constantly spit in his face and degrade his ability to be a responsible leader, a man, is what causes him to break down and eventually exit.

A leader should not be expected to give up his own needs to find somebody he wants to be in a relationship with. If he can't handle keeping business and private relationships separate, then he needs to step down as leader. If he refuses to step down, then either make him or leave. When Jerm threatened to leave over Max, and I threatened to do the same, the LS fixed the problem with Max. I don't see you complaining about Max running off with gear. I also don't see you complaining about Liger and Mahoo's relationship, which was by far even worse than Me and Syng combined. But maybe you just pity the lost baby. =(

I play the antagonist role.

[Onorgul]

I have no problems with "DD onry" as long as they are the right DD, and have beyond exceptional equipment. But I do agree that people who only have melee jobs should at least level 1 support job, or at least a mage job. It helps not only them out, but the linkshell as a whole.

This attitude would be nice if I didn't keep running into mages who cannot perform basic functions of their job. For that matter, I know a lot of players who cannot be trusted to play several of the jobs they have leveled because they're simply not good at them. Career mages seem to make the worst melee players imaginable. But, really, the attitude that everyone should have Bard or Red Mage leveled is sort of confusing because, well, who will actually be killing the mobs? Oh, right, the linkshell leaders and their best friends, regardless of how effective or well-geared they actually are.

[jammalamma]

who will actually be killing the mobs?

Members of the Botter's Union are usually first pick.

[NervosaEternal]

I really do not agree with this. As a leader, you should be open to listen to the people in your linkshell and not drive them to hate showing up to events because they're going to always be stuck on a certain job. If you don't have enough of that job, recruit more people then or as the other person before me has said, tell people in your linkshell to level it. In my personal experience, one my linkshells had me going bard so much (even more than the relic bard in the LS), that I absolutely hate the job now and if I go back to FFXI I will probably delevel the job.

I missed the memo that stated linkshell leaders actually cared about their members or if they have fun. The environment im used to is a business only environment where getting shit done is the only thing that makes people happy, most preferably the leadership.

On the being same job always issue, its bullshit and it does make someone want to quit the linkshell they are currently in due to burning out on the same thing always as the same job. But sometimes man, these fully meritted GHORN brds that complain about being brd always... come on man are you serious? You cap merits, get marduk and all that happy shit and a relic, what was you thinking lmao? its the same thing as someone lvling whm and then joining a linkshell that lacks healers, but somehow they will still complain even though they put themselves in that exact spot, they lvld the job to 75 and joined the linkshell with a minimal amount. lol lets get real.

[Falisa]

I would say that you are not being a good leader when you're driving your own members to hate being in the LS/showing up to events.

[NervosaEternal]

I agree, but sometimes ppl ask for it when they join particular linkshells. especially HNMLS

[NervosaEternal]

On an unrelated side note... SE gimped modus Veritas ;-;

[Cymmina]

This attitude would be nice if I didn't keep running into mages who cannot perform basic functions of their job. For that matter, I know a lot of players who cannot be trusted to play several of the jobs they have leveled because they're simply not good at them. Career mages seem to make the worst melee players imaginable. But, really, the attitude that everyone should have Bard or Red Mage leveled is sort of confusing because, well, who will actually be killing the mobs? Oh, right, the linkshell leaders and their best friends, regardless of how effective or well-geared they actually are.

Except there are times when the strategy calls for a manaburn, then what is Mr. DDonry going to do? BRD is cheap and fast to level, and even a drunk monkey can handle hitting a ballad1 and ballad2 macro.

I was in a shell where one guy had SAM and DRG as their only 75s. Despite the not-so-subtle hints from everyone in the shell that he needs to level BRD or some other job the shell was short on, he made up lame excuses like "but it will take me a year to level it!" because that's how long it took to level his other jobs. In the mean time, we had guys stuck on BRD and desperately needing a break from having to use it for *every* event. I could only wonder at why the leader chose to keep dead weight like him around because everyone else could manage having both DD and support classes leveled.

[Wulfgang]

A) Linkshell members need to know that the shell is an oligarchy, not a democracy. I keep things fair, but in the end, if you don't like something, you can vote with your feet.

B) Absolute transparency on the LS bank is essential. I do two payouts a month that take the bank down to ~750k. The accounting shows exactly how we got from the beginning balance to the ending one, on an item by item basis that goes down to AH tax. Payouts are determined by total DKP points multiplied by your attendance % over the last 30 days. This rewards the most active members the best imo.

C) Competent officers that command respect.

D) Perhaps the most important, good recruiting procedures. I feel like half the major issues with my shell in the past have been with people who never should have been admitted in the first place.

Just some thoughts from my experience. I get burnt out occasionally but can pass the reigns to the officers for a while.

[Onorgul]

In the mean time, we had guys stuck on BRD and desperately needing a break from having to use it for *every* event.

You already had Bards, why would you force someone else to level it up? I have Bard and White Mage leveled. When I join a given group or linkshell, I basically expect to be asked to come as one or the other. Ironically, I almost never touch Bard and I'm occasionally bummed by that because I like the job. If you don't want someone to show up as Dragoon to every event because that's the only job they have leveled up (pretending this is 2006 and people are still one-job-only types), don't let them into the linkshell.

I spent three solid months bitching that I was recruited to a Salvage 'shell for my Monk and was forever forced to play Bard. I went in with stated expectations and they were not met. That's where tension arises. I'd have the same attitude if I'd been recruited to an Einherjar 'shell to play Bard and was then asked to show up forever as Ranger. This is one of those basic things that group leadership requires: clarity and follow-through. Suppose I got a job here in the real world as an IT guy but, once the boss realized I had a culinary degree, I was thrown into the staff kitchen for 6 hours a day? Sure, I've got the degree, but I applied to fix servers and write scripts. You'd have to offer me serious incentives to keep me churning out salad nicoise instead of mailing out resumes to other companies.

[Spider-Dan]

Or you could make one of the dozen ls members who only have mnk, sam, drk, drg, war, rng, and thf at 75 level a useful job instead of constantly leveling melee jobs. 6 years later there is really no excuse for everyone not having at least one melee, one mage, one tank, and one support job that are reasonably equipped.

Surely you jest.

I have three 75s (RNG/THF/COR) which share a lot of gear and merits, and it's taken me 6 years to get my jobs geared and merited fully. I could have leveled PLD and WHM instead, but I'd just have four half-ass jobs instead of three good ones.

Personally, I'd say that the problem is not so much Johnny-has-5-DD-jobs-and-nothing-else but rather that people can't f*cking focus on getting one job fully done. Do you know how many THFs are out there without capped Feint, or WARs without Tomahawk?

Multiple half-ass jobs pisses me off far more than lack of job selection; proper recruiting will solve the latter problem, but not the former.

[Cymmina]

You already had Bards, why would you force someone else to level it up?

No one ever said he *had* to level BRD. It just seemed like the only support type job a guy like him could handle doing.

There were times we really could have used a NIN, but he is stuck on BRD because the SAM/DRG guy has no other useful jobs to offer. We had plenty of people who had BRD leveled, yes, but they also had exceptional gear for their other jobs (Morrigan's BLMs, Ebody WARs, DChapeu RDMs, etc) or they were also the guys who had WHM or other key jobs we were short on.

I have yet to meet anyone with 75 BRD who has any other 75 job to offer that is happy to be stuck on BRD more than half the time. BRD is a boring, thankless job. A good leader understands they need to spread the boring job around.

[Whaleporn]

Before I go on: I'm a former semi-casual LS leader/stand in for the real leader who left. I was, at the time I left, the longest standing active council member and was close to being the most active overall, due to our linkshell driving out Amentis, lord of KI trolls and the leader who made my job actually manageable. I quit FFXI because of reasons that should be clear from the post but moreso because everyone reading this knows why this game sucks. If you can't think of something right off the top of your head you are not an LS leader and should close the page and get back to leveling your support jobs.

Reading BG is funner then FFXI ever was so that's why I'm hanging around like a bad rash.

Ahem.

Being a 'selfless leader' sucks dick. Especially if you have a job with terrible gear progression (Red mage and corsair) or with low endgame use (Monk). Sooner or later cliches form, and soon or later you're out of favor because they are formed from dicks and whiners who quickly forget everything you've done the moment you stop showing up to every event... (Sorry about CTB Patroklis, I still <3 you)

You need to have some benifit from doing leadership in the first place to really be leading at all. If there's 0 gear compensation and *especially* if the hard working people are doing it for almost nothing you get mass burnout and sudden council flight. Leading can be fun in terms of watching well laid plans fall together, but most groups can't handle simple plans or paying attention to the game for more then 5 minutes at a time.

Some of my personal FFXI ending burnout came from being stuck on one drop (duelist chappeu, Funny how 7 people would comment but only 3 were regularly on RDM...) and most of the people who seemed to care about shell advancement quitting. A lack of co-ordination or help from other leaders is a problem too. Shells work or don't depending on the number of players who take responsibility and how well they support each other.

If you don't have a clear decision making body or process, sooner or later you will collapse your LS for stupid reasons or lose members because instead of ACTING and changing policies that don't work, you push it around on your plate. This happened to my shell.

In addition, leaders need a large enough core player base that wants gear and events. Make point systems that are horribly biased to give players who show up to everything the best gear all the time and penalize cherry pickers. Weigh events on numbers needed and how awful they are. Dynamis should be a billion points because it sucks dick when your on hour 4 and wipe 10. Sadly, we didn't use points because of pussy footing around (some of it my fault admittedly).

The lack of a coherent point system meant we had 5 or so one-trick ponies log in when there was an event that had X piece of gear they needed, and otherwise were never seen. We actually had people co-ordinating lots so that we wouldn't send gear to people who just logged on to lot Xarc gear. I'd rather we just look at the weighted attendance and actually sit down and figure out what each item was worth or have bidding go on, but nope.

The biggest issue is that people take what you do and the time you set aside for granted when you don't obviously do it for the gear. When another council member signed me up to lead every dynamis for a month WITHOUT asking me if I actually could or wanted to, I gave away all my pops, typed up my resignation, and logged out for the last time.

If FFXI was a better built game for endgame, you wouldn't have as many problems with one job/one gimmick members (forget those other jobs you leveled, you're on bard baby!) (Oh cool, all you can bring is dark knight... when are you going to finish a support job or a tank?) or that events take too long for too little rewards. I've been playing OTHERGAME by SNOWSTORM-COMPANY and just about every boss has drop tables for each type of armor user... instead of running the entire course of sea for one earring and a fuck-you party wipe from the development team.




Here comes the bitching about FFXI so skip this if you've heard it all before.



The dynamis rewards boost was huge, but more so the game will always be losing endgame members because more then half the time you are doing events that, due to randomized drops, lead to nothing for you. The game at the moment has stagnated: level 75 and the gear that comes with it is old. Sky is still the easiest place to get endgame gear. People still bot-claim the first expansion's HNMs. Relics and Salvage gear are minor improvements for massive amounts of time and money. All the stupid backwards ass game design tends to bog down the few fun/difficult things left in FFXI. I mean, look at these patch notes comared to ICEWEATHER-SOFTWAREDEVELOPER's 3.3 patch for DEADGUY-RULER-ANGER-EXPANSION. How hard would it be to look at decreasing server populations and dwinding LS numbers and say 'hmm, perhaps we should scale events for groups of 6 up' or 'hmm, perhaps we should start buffing the drop rates from old content so people can move past it quicker then work on flat out better gear from newer things, ramp up the difficulty there, and let the players progress through content instead of thumbing their assholes in sky and behemoth's domain?'

Whatever, time to work on my MINOTAUR-GUY CLASS-THAT-HAS-WINDFURY-BONERS.