Guild Resources: From Art To Science
One area in which Thunderdome has deployed predictive analytics with great efficacy is Guild Resources (GR). For a long time, identifying talent gaps and choosing the most suitable candidate was more of an art than a science. Recruitment officers would review credentials, connect with references and put prospects through multiple (often redundant) rounds of interviews. In the end, though, many decisions would be made primarily on intuition and gut feelings. Today, guilds can draw from a much more sophisticated toolbox.
Recruitment officers are long accustomed to using analytics to spot deficiencies in their current raidforces — looking at the past to try to create a better future, which necessarily entails using possibly outdated and stale information. But solving problems after the fact keeps GR in reactive mode.
The new imperative for guilds is to use predictive software to make the most of real-time data to identify challenges before they even happen — mitigating the revolving-door effect and helping ensure that top performers stay on, for example. This is crucial because finding a replacement for an active raider who departs can cost a guild more than that person’s annual DKP — a fact with consequences for a guilds dkp system, given red's 2016 average turnover rate both with guild hopping and outright quitting the game.
Predicting how likely it is for player to depart is “critical given dropping unguilded numbers and growing demand for desirable or highly skilled raiders,” said Kilinitic. “In addition, onboarding processes for new guildmates can be costly, adding to the importance of retaining valued raiders.”
Say, for example, that analysis shows that raiders with advanced tactics in a certain field such as CH chains are prone to guild-hop, in response to strong market demand for their services. An GR department can then determine whether hiring people with those skillsets makes economic sense. Could recruiting candidates with no prior raid experience and subsequently training them deliver a better ROI than recruiting candidates who have the requisite experience but bring a long server history with them?
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