Guilds Falling Apart a Lot This Patch

[Osmeric]

Back on the official DR&S forum, there was a thread that wandered into a discussion of guild poaching. A number of people said that poaching is not a problem now, because so many guilds are imploding that the better guilds that are recruiting can just pick and choose from the refugees. In the perception of these people, guild implosions were occurring now at an unprecedented rate.

To my mind, there is no doubt that (1) tough normal mode difficulty, and (2) LFR as a fallback if you want to "see the content", spells big trouble for the majority of guilds that attempted normal mode raiding this tier. I expect normal mode raid participation to be way, way down in T15.

[glowpipe]

we have been looking for a healer and a ranged dps for 3 weeks now. I spammed recruitment macro's and used forums. I use my macro atleast 2 hours a day. This far ive got one dude interrested. A 443 pala healer -.-

Not a single person whispered me. There simply isnt enough raiders anymore.

Blizz really need to merge servers asap. They are slowly killing the game with no merges to get their petty dimes from char transfers

[Sam the Wiser]

Some people are saying this is normal,but this raid cycle seems a little bit different than others. People are dropping like flies. Raid participation really is down across the board for normals. LFR is booming tho...

[Otimus]

we have been looking for a healer and a ranged dps for 3 weeks now. I spammed recruitment macro's and used forums. I use my macro atleast 2 hours a day. This far ive got one dude interrested. A 443 pala healer -.-

Not a single person whispered me. There simply isnt enough raiders anymore.

Blizz really need to merge servers asap. They are slowly killing the game with no merges to get their petty dimes from char transfers

That, or at least realize that making current tiers capable for cross realm raiding isn't such a bad idea after all. Or have cross realm guilds, or something. It's not like server community manners anymore for those things to be roadblocks these days.

[Nigeldruid]

Are there fewer active guilds now compared to at the beginning of the expansion or compared to by the end of Cataclysm? If it's the former it's really just the way of the game, if the later, it's a serious problem.

Some people are saying this is normal,but this raid cycle seems a little bit different than others. People are dropping like flies. Raid participation really is down across the board for normals. LFR is booming tho...

The first tier of an expansion always have more people quitting as a lot come back to see the new stuff without the intend of staying the long haul, intensionally or not.

[Osmeric]

On the bright side, this may FINALLY convince the devs that their "hard is good" design philosophy is insane. They seem terribly clue resistant on this issue, though, despite repeated demonstrations that the vast majority of their customers don't like it.

[Viradiance]

Lost two DPS over the holidays, our frost DK and demo lock. DK just never showed back up, lock had school stuff to attend to.

[yjmark]

On the bright side, this may FINALLY convince the devs that their "hard is good" design philosophy is insane. They seem terribly clue resistant on this issue, though, despite repeated demonstrations that the vast majority of their customers don't like it.

I bet they did it to prove the point (a second time) to the people that keep saying "make it harder"!!!! Maybe those people will finally get it.

[draykorinee]

Some people are saying this is normal,but this raid cycle seems a little bit different than others. People are dropping like flies. Raid participation really is down across the board for normals. LFR is booming tho...

Im more concerned by the poor progression guilds are making on our server, we were a total bunch of scrubs and we are now 7th on our server with less than 20 guilds even clearing normal modes, every tier beforehand was being cleared by pugs I think this tier was too many bosses and imo slightly too tuned for our servers quality (not saying its neccassrily too hard) This has seriously demoralised the raiding community and has seen lots of people jump ship to guilds with better progress, I still feel the stacking debuff is what keeps the lower quality guilds going each tier, it probably has a detrement to those higher up but for our server this tier is killing guilds. We had to really up our game this tier to get where we are, and its had an adverse effect on our guilds previous overall casual friendly approach to gaming.

[Osmeric]

I bet they did it to prove the point (a second time) to the people that keep saying "make it harder"!!!! Maybe those people will finally get it.

Perhaps to prove it to some inside the company. I don't think they did Cataclysm's initial tuning because some external influence twisted their arms.

MoP's initial tier does seem like some sort of experiment. Maybe that's why they haven't nerfed things, to not contaminate the results. If it is an experiment, I suggest you studiously avoid any content that you don't find to be fun, just so you can send them a clear signal.

[jsz]

Sorry you guys play with flaky people

[invader]

the number 1 guild on my realm since the begining of time has fallen apart 2 weeks ago.. went from 25 man to 10 thru DS apparently and things have become impossible since then on and now PFFFFF gone... WoW is in pretty bad fucking shape..

[NeverStop]

Yes this is very evident. I have run my guild for six years now. We have had our in and outfluxes yet managed to never implode and go away. It is very difficult at the moment improving our raider's gene pool when more skilled players are desperately needed. Some of this can be blamed on more progressed guilds poaching for bench players as well as lesser progressed guilds throwing everything including officer positions at unwary second string players in order to convince them to move and help their failing progress. I have played hell finding a co tank worth raiding with that does not eventually feel that he should go form his own guild. The same applies to off groups. Eventually they decide they can run their own guild some times after years of mentoring them and helping them progress as raiders. I guess it is just human nature that is causing most of the current issues with recruitment and retention.


GM of a guild stuck at ambershaper because there are not two players available to replace the ones that habitually miss interupts...........

We spent over a month on Amber Shaper. Keep going and eventually RNG will net you the kill.

[isadorr]

Sorry you guys play with flaky people

Have you tried to recruit good players? Top 100 guild players? It is incredible that someone can play a game for 5 years and after 5min of talking to someone in vent, you realize they have no clue about their class. How do you do any activity for 5 years and still not understand the basics of it? I see guilds gearing people with heroics gear that are horrible players but when I talk to their officers, they say its the best we could find and their progression goes to shit because of it.

It is much harder finding even decent players even with a good progression history.

[Deleted]

This expac my guild has had a few problems.

We server transferred and then merged with another guild. Raids went smooth for a bit, once we'd finished MSV normal and started in terrace that guild disbanded. We transferred out old guild to our new server, moved our old members (And new recruits for our specific raid group, we were separate from that guild main group) but we just haven't been able to recruit.

For the past few weeks we've been without backup DPS and a 2nd Tank. I don't know what to do other than wait. I've been using recruitment macro's in trade (Fairly, may i add), checking forums, asking same-server members in LFR, LFG or just anyone I group with and we have to PuG at least one member a week to raid. Hell, we can't even find a PuG most the time.

The worst part, is that this all started just as we got our 2nd kill in HoF. We can't progress further because we can't recruit and we can't recruit because people aren't looking for a guild that hasn't at least completed HoF on normal meaning we never will.

Now, with raids few and far between, I've had members leaving who have found spots elsewhere, people who I've raided with for a few years. I love raiding with my guild because we're all friendly and we've known each other for years. Whilst I doubt anyone will be leaving the game, I fear that if this keeps up I'll end up having to find another guild, at which point I'll probably stop raiding because It just isn't the same without the guys and gals I regularly raid with.

I've been trying to specifically recruit people for 5.2, but at the moment my attempts have been far from fruitful. I just hope that when 5.2 hits we will see a decent influx of members.

Edit: It's not just the lack of progress that has hindered us on the recruitment front. There seems to be a stigma attached to guilds only doing Normal modes, like we're 2nd class citizens to those doing Heroic modes, some sort of fire-standing, void zone-eating scum that should be avoided. I understand that people looking to do Heroic mode raiding won't look into a guild not currently on Heroic modes (Or perhaps because they're not convinced we can do Heroic modes), but there are some people that I've chatted to that genuinely believe that every situation in which a guild is doing normal modes this late in the tier is doing because they're just bad. I'm sick of it. I wish this mindset would just die out, it was much easier to convince someone to join your guild (And they'd probably have a good time within) when we didn't have these labels and a million ways for potential raiders to check what you're guild is up to. People end up pre-judging your guild and raiders because of the level you're currently raiding at, regardless of why you're there. Even if you're not doing the harder content because your raiders maybe just aren't Heroic mode material, or can't put in the extra time and effort to get Heroic kills, you still end up being labelled as a scrub.

This isn't always the situation, but it's a trend I've picked up on the expansion, and it's hurting our guild.

[Deleted]

Yeah, we did have some trouble in the last few weeks aswell, but we are still getting enough applicants and it's looking better now.

[dizzzave]

Our guild totally dissolved in December after 10/16 normal progression. We finished heroic DS (10% nerf), and had high hopes to continue our success into the new expansion.

I think Blizzard significantly missed the mark with this tier. Normal modes should be easy enough to allow social groups (guilds or even organized PUGs) to complete them in a reasonable amount of time. LFR is not an acceptable substitute as it is very anti-social and not the sort of thing that people do in organized or semi-organized groups. Blizzard was very clear about the "bring the player, not the class" approach, and it would be nice if that was further extended to "bring the player, skill helpful but not required" for normal modes. People want to raid with their friends, and difficult normal content places a lot of strain on online-only friendships when people aren't great players.

Further, the double tiered approach and huge number of bosses really kills progression raiding for casual players. Trying to do multiple progressions (heroic MSV, normal HoF in our case) was totally unworkable with a limited raid schedule. As a result, people either were extremely bored (farm MSV) or extremely frustrated (HoF). Gating ToES concentrated the problem because there was only a single option for 496 raiding.

[isadorr]

On the bright side, this may FINALLY convince the devs that their "hard is good" design philosophy is insane. They seem terribly clue resistant on this issue, though, despite repeated demonstrations that the vast majority of their customers don't like it.

Are you serious? Too hard on normal mode? I picture you sitting there drooling over a keyboard nodding yes so i will continue. People always find someone to blame when the problem is the person staring back at you in the mirror. If you are really that incredibly bad that you can't clear normal mode then you need to l2play seriously. Normal mode is nowhere near difficult, it is the overall talent of the players in the game that is getting worse. People like you saying things are too hard then they are nerfed and when you clear normal with a 30% nerf you think you are 10 times better than you really are. Next content comes out with no handicap for you and you whine that the content is too hard. Get better, learn your class, and im not going to tell you to go to a good guild but you obviously wouldnt cut it there if you think normal mode is hard.

---------- Post added 2013-02-15 at 07:16 PM ----------

This expac my guild has had a few problems.

We server transferred and then merged with another guild. Raids went smooth for a bit, once we'd finished MSV normal and started in terrace that guild disbanded. We transferred out old guild to our new server, moved our old members (And new recruits for our specific raid group, we were separate from that guild main group) but we just haven't been able to recruit.

For the past few weeks we've been without backup DPS and a 2nd Tank. I don't know what to do other than wait. I've been using recruitment macro's in trade (Fairly, may i add), checking forums, asking same-server members in LFR, LFG or just anyone I group with and we have to PuG at least one member a week to raid. Hell, we can't even find a PuG most the time.

The worst part, is that this all started just as we got our 2nd kill in HoF. We can't progress further because we can't recruit and we can't recruit because people aren't looking for a guild that hasn't at least completed HoF on normal meaning we never will.

Now, with raids few and far between, I've had members leaving who have found spots elsewhere, people who I've raided with for a few years. I love raiding with my guild because we're all friendly and we've known each other for years. Whilst I doubt anyone will be leaving the game, I fear that if this keeps up I'll end up having to find another guild, at which point I'll probably stop raiding because It just isn't the same without the guys and gals I regularly raid with.

I've been trying to specifically recruit people for 5.2, but at the moment my attempts have been far from fruitful. I just hope that when 5.2 hits we will see a decent influx of members.

You arent going to get new members with no progression. And even worse are the players that will be interested are usually terrible and pull horrible numbers which then just leads you to wiping on easy normal mode content. The best thing is to be on a solid raiding server where there arent so many bads, that has been the best move we made.

[Deleted]

Are you serious? Too hard on normal mode? I picture you sitting there drooling over a keyboard nodding yes so i will continue. People always find someone to blame when the problem is the person staring back at you in the mirror. If you are really that incredibly bad that you can't clear normal mode then you need to l2play seriously. Normal mode is nowhere near difficult, it is the overall talent of the players in the game that is getting worse. People like you saying things are too hard then they are nerfed and when you clear normal with a 30% nerf you think you are 10 times better than you really are. Next content comes out with no handicap for you and you whine that the content is too hard. Get better, learn your class, and im not going to tell you to go to a good guild but you obviously wouldnt cut it there if you think normal mode is hard.

---------- Post added 2013-02-15 at 07:16 PM ----------



You arent going to get new members with no progression. And even worse are the players that will be interested are usually terrible and pull horrible numbers which then just leads you to wiping on easy normal mode content. The best thing is to be on a solid raiding server where there arent so many bads, that has been the best move we made.

Games too hard. Clearance of normal T14 is very, very low.

[Otimus]

Have you tried to recruit good players? Top 100 guild players? It is incredible that someone can play a game for 5 years and after 5min of talking to someone in vent, you realize they have no clue about their class. How do you do any activity for 5 years and still not understand the basics of it? I see guilds gearing people with heroics gear that are horrible players but when I talk to their officers, they say its the best we could find and their progression goes to shit because of it.

It is much harder finding even decent players even with a good progression history.

Frankly, I'd say a huge problem, especially with that last line, is that raiders, generally, in this game, have very, very, very unrealistic expectations considering the base the game is plainly aimed at. But that's not all their fault, Blizzard practically enables and promotes this whole lopsided playstyle.