Where have all the Raiders Gone?

[Iso]

I think most people still raiding at this point are people whom have played for a long time. I doubt there's alot of new people who enter into the raiding enviroment.

And by raiding enviroment I don't mean press the LFR buttons and faceroll. I mean having a set scheduel, min/max, manage the rooster, setups and tactics, and cope with other personalities of the internet.

[Nemah]

I think most people still raiding at this point are people whom have played for a long time. I doubt there's alot of new people who enter into the raiding enviroment.

And by raiding enviroment I don't mean press the LFR buttons and faceroll. I mean having a set scheduel, min/max, manage the rooster, setups and tactics, and cope with other personalities of the internet.

I tend to agree with this. When we recruit (and let's face it, sometimes we just give up for any number of reasons) the average potential recruit seems to be someone who started playing in late Wrath or early Cata and has extremely limited raiding experience, sometimes limited to LFR alone.

This is not necessarily bad, but I say again that I think the "old guard" of available raiders is dwindling. The key then becomes figuring out how to adapt to the new model and not just survive, but thrive. That's what we're working on.

As an added side note, I have nothing against LFR but I will say one of my biggest disappointments from Blizz is that it didn't live up to the "teach people to raid" ideal that it was initially pitched with and instead became something completely different.

[Tax]

More people might raid if every single boss didnt consist of staring at the ground and doing the funky chicken for hours.

[starkey]

Stopped raiding in Cata, im in my final year at Uni so study is more important then playing wow, with most people i guess they move on to other things.

[zimzum2523]

I don't know if it was lfr that killed real raiding for me or if these new raids just don't interest me at all. I check the raids out in lfr and by the middle of each 10 min boss fight I just want to tab out.

[BergErr]

What I am saying is that the cost of scheduled raiding is very high. And there are other multiplayer online game activities that offer progression/social interaction/high skill cap/etc for less. Ppl shold take advantage of that.

Think u raided more then Iv seen most do in this game. (From what I saw most nonHC do max 8h/week, usually 4-6h)
I mean, unless u progress and wipe there is only content for 3-4h =D

Id say WoW is the most casual friendly game Iv ever seen, if u actually have time to spend u can't because u already did all progress in few hours.

Ofc fixed time will have some cost, but I can't say I missed much while doing 3-6h raiding per week. Mostly less time spent surfing ze_webb and watching TV :d

[Nemah]

I don't know if it was lfr that killed real raiding for me or if these new raids just don't interest me at all. I check the raids out in lfr and by the middle of each 10 min boss fight I just want to tab out.

I don't know if you raid regularly or not (or have had the experience of the new raids in normal mode) but I think this can illustrate at least part of the problem. Though I think LFR has its uses and appeal to a certain group of players, I think a lot of people do it and feel unfulfilled. That in turn undermines the desire to see the regular raid because a player has already seen the fight in some form and perhaps found it boring or lacking.

I'm not going to say that current raid content is the best Blizz has ever done, I tend to believe that happened in some sections of TBC, Wrath, and Cata overall, but I find the regular content FAR more engaging and entertaining than LFR.

I'm not saying this applies to everyone, but I really believe that Blizz is not really doing themselves any favors with LFR, much less the "regular" raiding community.

[Deleted]

I think its interesting how the vast majority of people posting on this thread presume that the players who are no longer raiding are still playing Wow...

All of the evidence shows the main reason the raiding population has dropped is because these players have simply left the game.

Wow has lost 25% of its playerbase since the middle of Wrath, im pretty sure that among that 25% (3million) players a large number of them were regular raiders.

[Eisenstein]

I think its interesting how the vast majority of people posting on this thread presume that the players who are no longer raiding are still playing Wow...

All of the evidence shows the main reason the raiding population has dropped is because these players have simply left the game.

Wow has lost 25% of its playerbase since the middle of Wrath, im pretty sure that among that 25% (3million) players a large number of them were regular raiders.

This is what I am worried about. Maybe I have an old school mentality even though I've only been with WoW since Wrath if the normal and heroic raid content slowly turns into all matchmaking I'm not sure I could continue playing. Even if progression style raiders are becoming the minority in the game still a minority represents a large portion of WoW's population. For someone who really strives to run a progression raiding group watching the collapse of this end of the game is very disheartening. I've run the other avenues of the game and to me are really not worth the monthly due's. I mean I know most of the mechanics and ideas in every fight have been rehashed from one thing or another but seriously nothing against PvP but how many times can you get excited to see the same maps for years now.

[Galaddriel]

The rate of attrition is looking very grim.

# of guilds by Tier (killed at least one boss)

US
T11 28479
T12 26192
T13 25120
T14 16162
T15 5563

EU
T11 38751
T12 36570
T13 34997
T14 23732
T15 9133

KR & TW
T11 3956
T12 2769
T13 2531
T14 2129
T15 821

Plus there's barely a third of the 25 man guilds raiding now as there were in T11

[Lordender]

The whole "Raid or gtfo" mentality these MMO's now have is why lots of MMO's have failed and why WoW is stale for a lot of people. I believe dailies aren't the answer and actually made the problem worse.

Leveling in these games is really nothing more than an inconvenience since MMO's now start at the level cap(even the new ones). You level so fast there is no need to do dungeons other than to just experience them, I never even did a normal mode dungeon while leveling through MoP.

PVP, sure its fun, when its balanced, WoW has very questionable PVP that causes an endless stream of nerfs, buff's. In ages past, these constant changes based around PVP completely ruined playstyles in PVE because it was being abused in PVP. Blizzard talks about fun all the time when it comes to talents/mechanics/new abilities but they will always be hamstrung in what they can introduce to make classes play fun, unique because they never separated PVP from PVE.

The sense of community is non-existant in many of these games. In the beginning of FFXI, I remember if you trolled or acted like a idiot, every reputable guild on your server took note, refused you, had nothing to do with you and server transfers didn't exist until years later. You were screwed at participating in most of the endgame activities, hell, people would even refuse to party with these people, it just wasn't tolerated at all. The only hostility was between guilds that were competing for the same endgame world boss spawns. You join trade chat in WoW, you just want to puke at all the dumb stuff that is said, the trolling in all forms of chatting in WoW is disgusting. I always wondered why Blizzard doesn't have chat monitors to straight up permaban repeat offenders from all global chat is beyond me.

WoW is 9 years old in November, many raiders have already been there and done that. It is the same boss mechanics over and over, don't stand in that, add phase, off-tank that. I believe people just want to see the content these days, a lot of people don't want to put up with guild politics, drama, being forced to play with people they don't like because of the said drama. I know many people who are perfectly happy with running LFR and have no plans of joining a raiding guild due to the above mentioned.

[Deleted]

T11: 171 guilds raided
T12: 133 guilds raided
T13: 121 guilds raided
T14: 84 guilds raided

I know of at least a few guilds that switched during t15 so far as well. End results will be even lower.

My realm is dying. >.<

[rzzr]

LFR raiding is slow as well. I waited an hour at the weekend to get into the new raid as dps. Seems to be a severe shortage of healers!

[Wildtree]

You join trade chat in WoW, you just want to puke at all the dumb stuff that is said, the trolling in all forms of chatting in WoW is disgusting. I always wondered why Blizzard doesn't have chat monitors to straight up permaban repeat offenders from all global chat is beyond me.

which is definitely one of the key factors when I quit WoW for good. the lack of real time monitoring and countering the decline of the community behavior.
It is far from what it once was.

WoW is 9 years old in November, many raiders have already been there and done that. It is the same boss mechanics over and over, don't stand in that, add phase, off-tank that. I believe people just want to see the content these days, a lot of people don't want to put up with guild politics, drama, being forced to play with people they don't like because of the said drama. I know many people who are perfectly happy with running LFR and have no plans of joining a raiding guild due to the above mentioned.

It's Tier 15 now...
The question that comes up for myself is..... How many more times does the game design expect me to chase after all that gear, just to throw it away again eventually and rather sooner than later? As for my very self. If I would continue doing so, I would consider myself dumber than a slice of bread.
I am not a lab rat that runs from gate to gate for the treat... I don't need to raid anymore, I've done it and got the T-Shirt, got burned out from it, and nowadays I am okay with having just the gear that keeps me from dying during questing. I don't need to pull 6 mobs at once, I'm cool with one or two.
I play the game to relax from the daily chores and seriousness. And any form or shape of stress I simply don't allow for me to happen.

[xanzul]

What's the point? I raided for 7 years but come mop I can see all the content and "raid" when I feel like it in lfr. But! The main reason I stopped raiding was the fact that bosses are starting to get very boring. Reusing old raid mechanics from fights in years past is not fun. Doing a boss that is doing the same move with a different name that a boss did 4 years ago is bullshit.

What's the point? I think the point is considering your post most people who crap all over current Wow raiding tend to know the least about it. ToT has a lot of new mechanics (and don't try to deny it because not 2 days ago there was a QQ thread on these forums crying about it). Also normal is significantly different from LFR and normal is significantly different from heroic. I understand people don't consider variable difficulty modes to be content (which is a fair argument) but to pretend multiple modes of raiding in Wow consists of nothing more than tacking on extra health and damage is just simply not true.

[Aspect of Death]

I raided vanilla-tbc-wrath-first tier cata serious raiding. After that i just did once a week runs for the raggy/DW mounts. I tried in MoP, and i found it extremly booring.

It might be because im tierd of raiding, but i'm not "OOW wow, going to kill this awesome boss with so much lore, and WOW" Like i was with Illidan, Kil'jaeden, Yoggy, and Arthas.. In vanilla it was just " fuck this boss is badass". Now that isn't working anymore. But there is no awesome bad guy in MoP, and cata Nefarian and Onyxia? Killed neffy twice and onyxia 3 times, and ragnaros twice. Sinestra was cool to kill for the lore about her. They ruined the awesome lore for DW tho.

I honestly don't like MoP as much, but i still play sometimes casually. I have been asked to come back and raid, but i just don't feel it. (And i wouldn't have time for it either->studies)

[StaeleAilar]

The second blizz made bosses more challenging the number of "raiders" began to decline. The vast majority of players who are not top 500 quality just do not want to put in the effot to down challenging bosses. Throw LFR into the mix and you are now teaching "raiders" that is is not only acceptable to whine until the challenge of content is dropped to a level sufficient for EVERYONE to be able to complete it but hey lets throw in a wipe reward for the players who cannot even handle that.

I think its more of an issue that LFR rewards both wiping and terrible players. Hey don't worry if you die, you'll be carried by the rest of the pugs. It's a terrible idea that greatly contributed to the downsizing of guilds and raider population in general. When raiders retire due to real life and such, they are no longer able to be replaced by quality players. "I did it on LFR so i'll be fine"... yeah no you won't. Back in DS was a prime example. Hey we didn't wipe on normal madness of deathwing, we didn't have to kill the exploding thing either or even move from it. *stands at impact zone and dies* WTF?!? Inc wipe"... it's just really bad.

But i guess that is the target audience now.

[Merk]

I stopped because LFR does it for me, now i take all the time i save and do pvp

[freighttrain]

They're doing LFR and calling it good

And there is nothing wrong with that. I believe the majority of raiders were only in guilds and raided with them because it was the only avenue for them to see the content. With LFR, those players have no need for raiding guilds. They can log on when they feel like it and raid. They are not hassled with silly application processes, strict guild rules, and do not need to spend hours farming for mats, and VP to keep up with their guild mates.

LFR is a godsend for many players. This does not maen that raiding is dying at all. It just means that raiding had inflated numbers to begin with because of no other options.

---------- Post added 2013-03-18 at 10:58 AM ----------

I think its interesting how the vast majority of people posting on this thread presume that the players who are no longer raiding are still playing Wow...

All of the evidence shows the main reason the raiding population has dropped is because these players have simply left the game.

Wow has lost 25% of its playerbase since the middle of Wrath, im pretty sure that among that 25% (3million) players a large number of them were regular raiders.

Pure assumption on your part. We know for a fact that the majority of all the sub losses since Cata have been in the East specifically China with banned accounts, players leaving for D3, and people quitting mainly due to their silly time card pay structure. All of the data I have seen shows stable NA/EU accounts where most of the raiders reside. LFR is the cause of the lower guild participation rates, however, many more players run LFR than normal/heroic raids.

[chimeechang]

Well...if you aren't interested in putting effort to your character, you may aswell stay playing facebook games.

Worst rebuttal in the history of bad rebuttals