Cracks starting to show?

[Paelos]

I had a 10 man that got together in Wrath. We cleared everything but the Lich King raiding one day a week on Sundays for about 2-3 hours and extending as we wanted. It was too late by the time we got to LK in the dev cycle so motivation was pretty low, but we did get about 3 weeks of tries on him.

We were slow. We were bad. But the thing was, we could make progress one day a week in that formula. We didn't need more than that.

Then Cata hit and people didn't even want to do the heroics, myself included. We tried to raid, and we couldn't make it past the first set of bugs on Magmaw. Group blew up after 3 weeks of that and wiping on Toxitron.

[Fabricated]

Once Cata released we hit heroics fairly hard, there were wipes on couple particularly tough bosses but as a guild we cleared them all within a month of Cata release. Then we hit raids... 3 weeks of 10 seconds into the fight wtfwiping and guild folded.  We faced decision of benching all but our best players and enforcing attendance to even attempt kills and decided it wasn't worth it and to cancel subscription instead.

This is what happened to my release-day guild. Instead of talking about benching everyone but our best, we just realized we couldn't recruit in the cata environment since people only want to join the most progressed guilds. One of my best friends and 2 of our better raiders ditched for another guild and then the rest of us scattered to a couple different guilds who then proved incapable of getting content done. I unsubbed when I realized there was no content for me and that I couldn't do it with the people I wanted to play with even if there was.

Cata is encouraging the phenomenon that happened in BC where uber-guilds fucking despised eachother because they were constantly trying to poach members from eachother. And if you weren't uber-guild capable...welp.

To give an idea of how much of a step up in difficulty cata content is, the guild my best friend went to completed hardmode Ulduar while it was current, completed Trial of the Grand Crusader while it was current, went 12/12 in ICC before the buff, then 5/12 heroic before the buff, then was 12/12 heroic a while before WotLK ended.

...they just got their first Nef kill like a month or so ago. They've got like 2 heroic kills to their name.

[Paelos]

Most of the problems that caused the issues with our breakup was about the difficulty. The rest of it can be laid at the feet of the dumbass guild level system that made everyone completely isolationist and selfish.

[Malakili]

What about the guilds that  *are* alive and kicking.   What defines them and what makes them different?

[Fabricated]

What about the guilds that  *are* alive and kicking.   What defines them and what makes them different?

Well, the guild my friend is in is still alive and kicking, they just got enough people to raid because my guild broke up. For every 1 person another guild got however like 2-3 quit playing.

[Paelos]

What about the guilds that  *are* alive and kicking.   What defines them and what makes them different?

I think you have friends and family guilds that were never involved in any of the raiding content, so they could care less about the guild system or difficulty. Then, you have progression guilds which collect the like-minded good players and kick out the dregs.

I think the middle you have players trying to get things done but slowly realizing the game isn't set up for them anymore. As it goes on, they are quitting quietly or loudly at their own pace.

[Amaron]

I think the middle you have players trying to get things done but slowly realizing the game isn't set up for them anymore. As it goes on, they are quitting quietly or loudly at their own pace.

My experience was basically this.  At the end of Wrath we had a group of like 6 people who were fairly hardcore and could do hard mode difficulty stuff.   The other 10~15 people were so half assed that they could drag the first 6 down completely.  All of these people were actually from a serious 40 man progression vanilla guild.   None of us wanted to actually join a new progression guild and play the social flutes anymore though.  So we knocked out 10 man LK every week and pugged 25 man stuff.

When we got to cata none of us actually wanted to drag the crappy people through the stupid heroics.   Increased healing difficulty made the half asses even more of a problem.   Healer mana was heavily dependent on people not being stupid.  The writing was on the wall so we just quit.   Like 2 went to a serious raid guild and literally all the others canceled.

WoW's raiders are old now and they don't have time for that kind of shit anymore.

[Rokal]

Speaking of about 'most' once-a-week raid guilds or the 'average' casual raid guild is silly when we don't have good statistics backing up those claims, and it would be hard to even agree on what they mean.

We actually have some very useful statistics.   Go to wow progress.   They keep track of info for something like 60,000 guilds.    By quick perusing you can see 75% of those guilds have not finished the previous tier.   That info uses in game achievements so it's actually quite accurate.   

This does not mean that most of those raiders are PuGers. It's not a reason for Blizzard to design current-tier raid content around being beatable by PuGs, which was the entire point of the discussion.

"If you must try to label raiders, you’d be closer to the Blizzard model if you said normal mode is for organized raids, heroic mode is for more hardcore organized raids, and the previous tier of content (and Baradin Hold) is targeted for pick-up groups."

This isn't the same as saying "casual players should do the last tier of content", because they expect casual guilds to be able to have success in current-tier raids. Why were so many casual guilds unsuccessful? I don't want to drag the conversation back down that ally since we've already argued about it a bunch earlier in this thread, but there were a bunch of other factors that contributed to guilds being unsuccessful in raids. I think if you'd seen slightly easier intro bosses, and a more definitive boss order, many more of those guilds tracked on WoW progress would have gotten much further (despite the fact that, again, as we discussed earlier, WoWprogress numbers have serious issues).

[Amaron]

This does not mean that most of those raiders are PuGers. It's not a reason for Blizzard to design current-tier raid content around being beatable by PuGs, which was the entire point of the discussion.

What on earth are you talking about?  Nobody here is advocating pugs.   Nobody is saying most raiders are puggers.

This isn't the same as saying "casual players should do the last tier of content", because they expect casual guilds to be able to have success in current-tier raids.

Their actions say "casual raiders should piss off and do the last tier" is what I was getting at.

[Rokal]

o_O

That was the entire point of the thread that was quoted and started this discussion

[Rendakor]

What about the guilds that  *are* alive and kicking.   What defines them and what makes them different?

Well my guild is still around and enjoying the raid content. In early WotLK we had maybe 5 80s and pugged the rest, clearing Naxx and ToC this way. When ICC came out we started to recruit for real, ending up with 2 10m groups and a 25m group. By the expansion's end, 10m G1 was 8/12 H, 10m G2 was 12/12 Regular, and our 25m was 10/12; each raid had its own night, so we raided 1-3 nights a week (some people had alts in both 10ms, some only came to 25, etc.). In the last few months of WotLK we lost a lot of people to burnout/drama since Cata was coming soon.

When Cata hit, a lot of those who had unsubbed came back. The difficulty of heroics did scare a lot of people off, but raid difficulty wasn't a complaint I heard until we got to the end-wing bosses. We went down to 10m exclusively due to shared lockouts and a history of better performance there, so now most of us raid 3 nights a week. Half of our crew has been together since LK, while the other five has been a rotating set of new recruits and RL friends new to WoW. We killed Cho'gall and Al'akir about a month ago, and got our first Nef kill the week before 4.2 hit. We're now 2/7 in Firelands.

[amiable]

What about the guilds that  *are* alive and kicking.   What defines them and what makes them different?

I think you have friends and family guilds that were never involved in any of the raiding content, so they could care less about the guild system or difficulty.

Not true, my friends and family guiild split up because we couldn't even do heroics as a team 9at least pre-nerf).  None of these folks were great but they certainly weren't terrible.  Everything in the new expansion was an enormous cockblock so we just found other things to do.

[sinij]

WoW's raiders are old now and they don't have time for that kind of shit anymore.

This. Plus I don't think Blizzard is attracting next generation of gamers.

[Amaron]

That was the entire point of the thread that was quoted and started this discussion

No I didn't quote a thread.  I quoted Lakov saying that the fucking stupid blue text was reasonable.   Then you got in a huff and attacked me for several posts always assuming I was supporting pug raids for some reason.

[Merusk]

What about the guilds that  *are* alive and kicking.   What defines them and what makes them different?

I think you have friends and family guilds that were never involved in any of the raiding content, so they could care less about the guild system or difficulty.

Not true, my friends and family guiild split up because we couldn't even do heroics as a team 9at least pre-nerf).  None of these folks were great but they certainly weren't terrible.  Everything in the new expansion was an enormous cockblock so we just found other things to do.

My Horde guild is a F&F guild that dates back to EQ.  They're all mildly competent but never have been "raider" level, (which is why I only bang around with them when I don't want to raid.)    They've only just begun to finish out heroics without several wipes and have filled the last few months with leveling alts and tradeskills instead.*

On the other hand, in WOTLK they were clearing content a level behind, when they had the numbers to actually get online and raid. (There's only ever about 6-8 of them on at any given time out of 15 members.)

*They'd leave for another game but 3 of them were already in LOTRO and were pissed about the whole F2P change so they won't go back as they prefer being separated from the worst of the worst by a pay wall.  I think I can talk all of them into jumping ship to SWTOR later this year, because hell, they're not doing anything in WoW.

What about the guilds that  *are* alive and kicking.   What defines them and what makes them different?

Tenacity of the leadership core.  My Alliance guild is still raiding 25-mans of all things.  One of the last 3-4 guilds on Alleria to do so but they do it because the Guild Leader has made WoW raiding pretty much all he focuses on.  Recruitment, strategy, whatever it takes to get on and do a 25-man 4-5 days a week. At worst they fall back to 10-man using the best mix of players & roles they can get that day.   That kind of focus and zealous pursuit of a gol is what it takes to get it done these days and I'll wager you'll find that behind every guild still alive and downing bosses regularly.

[Rokal]

That was the entire point of the thread that was quoted and started this discussion

No I didn't quote a thread.  I quoted Lakov saying that the fucking stupid blue text was reasonable.   Then you got in a huff and attacked me for several posts always assuming I was supporting pug raids for some reason.

Going back to your original response to the quote, you were arguing that the quote wasn't actually reasonable. If you didn't know the quote was about PuG raids (which it seems you did since you said "The reality though is that there is no difference in quality between pugs and casual once-a-week raid guilds"), that's your mistake. There is a big difference between any raid guild and a PuG, so saying the raids ought to be balanced around PuGs is not the same as saying "Normal mode raids should be balanced around the average raider". Blizzard's design philosophy is to make raid content that any guild feels like they can succeed in. Whether they met that design goal is another question.

Moving on...

What about the guilds that  *are* alive and kicking.   What defines them and what makes them different?

My current guild is simply friends and family. They've never had problems recruiting since they've never tried actively recruiting.

[Amaron]

Going back to your original response to the quote, you were arguing that the quote wasn't actually reasonable.

Exactly.  That's ALL.  All I said is the people they want to call "casual once a week guilds" suck just like puggers suck.   So far you've done nothing but exhibit your inability to even attempt to get on this topic.   Stop making up other arguments in your head.

Casual raid guilds suck.   Puggers suck.   You try to hit one with the hammer and you'll hit the other.  Blizzdev is a retard because he doesn't know this.  FULL STOP.

[Ingmar]

That was the entire point of the thread that was quoted and started this discussion

No I didn't quote a thread.  I quoted Lakov saying that the fucking stupid blue text was reasonable.   Then you got in a huff and attacked me for several posts always assuming I was supporting pug raids for some reason.

The blue text was about PUG raids.

And I have done plenty of raids with my group of OK players in my guild, and I've done plenty of PUG raids. PUG raids really are much worse. Rokal is not wrong about that.

EDIT: Cata's difficulty was a simply a failure of implementation, the actual theory is not bad.

[Lakov_Sanite]

Going back to your original response to the quote, you were arguing that the quote wasn't actually reasonable.

Exactly.  That's ALL.  All I said is the people they want to call "casual once a week guilds" suck just like puggers suck.   So far you've done nothing but exhibit your inability to even attempt to get on this topic.   Stop making up other arguments in your head.

Casual raid guilds suck.   Puggers suck.   You try to hit one with the hammer and you'll hit the other.  Blizzdev is a retard because he doesn't know this.  FULL STOP.

I've been in casual one or two night a week raid guilds and I've been in pug raids, there's a BIG fucking difference.

[Sjofn]

Just chiming in to say "yep" to both posts above mine.

[Amaron]

I'm specifically talking about raid guilds that have to take baddies which I personally think is a number greater than 50%.   Maybe I'm wrong about how many of them there are.   I'm not wrong that a group taking a shitty player on purpose is no better than a pug.

[Sheepherder]

Given that the first tier of Cataclysm raiding was such a cockblock, I'd imagine that a lot of people are stuck looking for guild, pugging, or quitting.  So at this point it's sort of moot: Blizzard has to build raid content for guilds experiencing heavy player turnover and PuGs formed by people in disintegrat(ed/ing) guilds.  Else they're just going to be exacerbating the situation.

[sinij]

I'd say it is too late to turn around this expansion, possibly whole game. To get players back they have to come back and explicitly denounce their current stance.

[Amaron]

I'd say it is too late to turn around this expansion, possibly whole game. To get players back they have to come back and explicitly denounce their current stance.

To be fair a lot of their success has been from denouncing shitty stances over the years.   Perhaps they think doing that is a bullet point feature to be reserved for expansions though.

[Ratman_tf]

Going back to your original response to the quote, you were arguing that the quote wasn't actually reasonable.

Exactly.  That's ALL.  All I said is the people they want to call "casual once a week guilds" suck just like puggers suck.   So far you've done nothing but exhibit your inability to even attempt to get on this topic.   Stop making up other arguments in your head.

Casual raid guilds suck.   Puggers suck.   You try to hit one with the hammer and you'll hit the other.  Blizzdev is a retard because he doesn't know this.  FULL STOP.

I've been in casual one or two night a week raid guilds and I've been in pug raids, there's a BIG fucking difference.

My guild was a casual raid guild. They rocked on toast with cinnamon. Too bad ActiBlizz chased me off.

[Modern Angel]

http://skunkworksguild.com/?p=about

Those guys sure do suck.

[Amaron]

http://skunkworksguild.com/?p=about

Those guys sure do suck.

That's a pretty impressive example of how people can think they are playing casually when they aren't.   Two days a week with an expectation of near 100% attendance. 

[Numtini]

That's a pretty impressive example of how people can think they are playing casually when they aren't.   Two days a week with an expectation of near 100% attendance. 

You could drop it to one day a week, which is what my Rift raid group does. But if you're going to have any sort of organized group activity, you're going to have to have an expectation that people show up, scheduled events, and so on. This is no different a commitment than you'd make to a rec bowling or softball league and those events would require driving somewhere, changing clothes, and showering (hopefully) afterwards not just slipping into another room for a few hours.

[Modern Angel]

That's a pretty impressive example of how people can think they are playing casually when they aren't.   Two days a week with an expectation of near 100% attendance. 

Uh, eight hours a week on a game?

I'm going to repeat the secret here: the most hardcore thing you can do is suck. Don't mistake the bleeding edge guilds going for national/world top fives for what you think are hardcore guilds. Hardcore guilds don't raid a lot because they get done in one or two nights what it might take a "casual" guild two months. While you're concentrating on the attendance and performance requirements, you're overlooking actual man-hours put in. That's the real definition of casual. In no way is a "casual" guild with no required raids but they schedule them four or five nights a week casual.

[Merusk]

http://skunkworksguild.com/?p=about

Those guys sure do suck.

That's a pretty impressive example of how people can think they are playing casually when they aren't.   Two days a week with an expectation of near 100% attendance. 

That's less time than my co-workers dedicate just to softball games for their 'not taking this seriously' league, never mind the before and after stuff related to said games like the once-a-week practice and bar time.

[Amaron]

Uh, eight hours a week on a game?

It's funny I've seen people play 20~30 hours a week doing nothing but dailies and 5 man heroics/bg's.   If you even so much as say "scheduled raid twice a week" and "100% attendance" they will run for the hills.    Either that or they'll agree to show up and constantly not show up.   From the way they worded things I'd imagine they start yelling at "baddies" and such too.

Fine though they're casual under some meaning of a super vague word.   We all know they aren't average in the way that makes them part of the casual masses.

[Modern Angel]

Sure, okay. If you want to say that someone who stares at a screen 30 hours a week but doesn't raid is somehow more casual than someone who plays for 8 hours a week then you run for the endzone there. But under no circumstances is the person who plays 3 times more than the other the casual player in the real world.

[Sjofn]

Uh, eight hours a week on a game?

It's funny I've seen people play 20~30 hours a week doing nothing but dailies and 5 man heroics/bg's.   If you even so much as say "scheduled raid twice a week" and "100% attendance" they will run for the hills.    Either that or they'll agree to show up and constantly not show up.   From the way they worded things I'd imagine they start yelling at "baddies" and such too.

Fine though they're casual under some meaning of a super vague word.   We all know they aren't average in the way that makes them part of the casual masses.

Those people who will flee? They don't want to be beholden to other people. Yeah, I'd consider them casual too, 'cause they don't want to make any commitment at all to anyone or anything, even if in reality they play a lot.

However, that does not mean a group of people that's dimly aware that the best way to get raids done is to have a schedule and the same people every week aren't casual too. Asking for 8 hours a week (my guild did about six when we were raiding, if I remember right, two nights a week, and if you say my guild wasn't a casual one I will laugh right in your goddamn face) and expecting people to show up does not suddenly kick people into the "non-casual" zone.

[Fordel]

That's basically me, the player that can seemingly play 20+ hours a week in a game, but recoil in horror every time someone asks me to raid.

AV doesn't care what time I log in or for how long, but if I agree to be tonight's tank for a raid and don't show up, everyone else is fucked. If I don't want to go that night but do so anyways, then I just hate everyone as I run the instance. 


So I try to keep my in game activities as independent as possible, lets me play as much or little as I want, whenever I end up doing it. Which either means literally soloing, or large inclusive activities that don't require scheduling, BG's and RvR and etc.



Sometimes it ends up being "Jesus Fordel, have you slept yet?" and other times it goes "Did Fordel fall into a well? Where the shit did he go?"

[Merusk]

How about we start calling them "Social" and "Anti-social" players.  Because if you can't/ won't commit to a social contract like being on time you're not a social player.