How to get more people to raid?

[IntellectuallyChallenged]

Offer free carry which actually is a test of playing skill and social skill. During the run you can observe their skill and attitude.
They can also see how your guild usually do the raids.

So instead of recruiting players to join a guild, players could test guilds to see if they're worth joining? I like it.

[chooi]

It's simple: you don't.

There is only a small fraction of the playerbase that wants to play in organized raids.

You may find ways to make it easier for new players who are genuinely interested in raiding but you won't get people to raid that just aren't interested in and/or can't/don't want to put in the required time for organized raiding.


The same is true for (rated) PvP, Pet Battles and any other genre in the game. You won't get people to do stuff that they aren't interested in.

[Jewsco]

Lol no. You do not want people on a mythic raid team who cannot get through an application properly. Maybe your application sucks and needs to be rewritten but it should definitely be there.

Applications worked fine when game was at its peak and raiding was looked at as doing the pinnacle of the game. Nowadays they are outdated. Hard for beggars to be choosers. If more raid teams that needed raiders took chances and helped players they wouldn't have these problems. Or they can keep doing the same things over and over hoping for other outcomes. Which I believe is near the clinical definition of crazy.

[Deleted]

that complete bs though - they were never guild that tought players how to raid - those were "feeder " guilds which were in constant strain of gear up new players and loosing them to better guild - eventually enough people said "f ..... it its not worth the hassle" and stoped recruiting only started to pug themselves .

Why did it take them that long to get fed up?
The big change was when Blizzard changed the raid-id lock to loot-lock.
It was a mechanic change, not something that feeder guilds suddenly decided themselves.

[ComputerNerd]

Me and the guild I am in have been having a problem. We cleared EN HC ages ago but just can't find people to actually join the guild. How can we get LFR heroes to actually give high tier raiding a go? All player can improve and atleast on my server loads of guilds need new blood.

Stop calling them LFR heroes for a start.
This ignorant view that LFR is inferior, that every other format is "real raiding".
Have realistic entry requirements for content, don't decide that inexperienced and inconvenienced players are simply "bad".
Basically be better than other people.

LFR is not always a choice.
Sometimes due to fragmented gameplay and inability to commit during the "typical hours" it is a necessity.
Some people have a real life that isn't convenient, that can't simply be pushed aside at some regular schedule.

[Sansnom]

yeah I get that everyone of those remarks is very much valid for non-serious guids.

What most of you guys here forget is that people that join a particular guild know beforehand what kind of guild they join. Usually it entails an interview and some research on what guild you are about to join.

So while you guys would never join such a guild and would throw a fit if the "rules" changed into what you did not join for in the first place... Some guilds actually thrive by having those rules/requirements in place.

True. But the OP is looking to increase the people who raids. The people who can and want to raid are probably already doing so. They know the drill. The aim is how to "encourage" the non-raiders to step into Normal+ raider.

The comment "LFR Heroes" shows the they have already have some preconception of the players they are looking at. The post in the others thread also shows similar views.

[Drilnos]

Why did it take them that long to get fed up?
The big change was when Blizzard changed the raid-id lock to loot-lock.
It was a mechanic change, not something that feeder guilds suddenly decided themselves.

Nobody ever actually wanted to be a feeder guild. The length of time these guilds survived was how long it took the regular members to realize they were being milked like cows in a barn.

[Marrilaife]

Maybe your application sucks and needs to be rewritten but it should definitely be there.

Yep, I cringe a lot when I see these 5 page app forms with half the questions irrelevant to raiding. Why do you need my RL name and nationality? It's enough to ask if you can understand and speak english on voice comm, but you can figure their level of english from the app anyway. Why do you need my pc specs and speed test screenshot? I know people on garbo pcs that play better than ones on rockets. If your pc / net makes raiding unplayable and you dc every 2 mins, it will show during trial and you might as well not bother with online gaming. Could go on with such crap, half of those app forms are probably copy pasta from the default website one.

The "better raiding experience for everyone" basically means, "No raids for you!" if you have a 10man guild.

Sad part is, class specific mechanics are very scarce, most of them were pruned out (like grounding / tremor totem from shamans or mass grip from dps dk), class balance is out of whack, "balanced" mythic roster is inferior to "class stack x class for y boss", raids are melee unfriendly because there are jobs you just need ranged for (like soak this shit at range that would completely cripple any melee dps output) or dps spread adds, most raids want to have triple the amount of mages than any given melee spec, so ofc it ends up in every guild recruiting mages and so on.

10 man raiding had more balanced roster: 2 tanks, 3 healers, 2 melee, 3 range, with a bit of wiggle room. Atm if you check mythic parses you see bazillion mages and hunters way ahead of any other class / spec.

It creates an issue where if you want to play a tank or a melee you're judged extremely harshly while half of the guild's ranged roster are "filler people" treated way more leniently.

Blizzard has no idea how to design raids to be melee friendly, all they can do is design range dps specs to be unfun to play, suck in pvp, be immobile and pruned of utility. That doubles the problem, raid guilds STILL want ranged while less people enjoy playing them! See the whole hunter outrage about legion prune. Or the warlock loud protests. Or the miserable state ele shamans are in. Or shadow priests being a one trick pony and being declined from every mythic+ because only thing they're good is surrendering to madness in front of a raid boss.

[rda]

Well, for starters, lose the condescending attitude with your 'LFR heroes'. That is the main reason people don't raid higher then LFR; people who think they are better because they raid normal+ and feel the need to be all elitist about it. Another reason is scheduling. Being forced to play at certain times just doesn't work for many people. And guilds forcing their members to grind till their ears bleed for one more artifact level, while they are still at 3/7 mythic because they simply suck in executing strategies ánd a rotation at the same time.

So. Be open. Be welcoming. Lose the attitude. Have a generous schedule and don't enforce 90-100% attendance. Help new people gear up in mythic+. Teach them how to play, offer advice and training. Well, plenty more options, but start here.

I'll add, because I get a sense that it has to be said for this particular case:

And if you have a problem with that, ie, won't change your rules or whatever for new people bla bla bla because "you do things differently" in your small "close knit group of friends", etc, you can forget about growing right now.

[Deleted]

Honestly, raiding more than LFR isn't as timeconsuming as some people seem to think..
I work full time, play ice hockey (2 practices, 1-2 games per week), gym, obviously cook/clean and have a social life.
I raid twice a week, 3h/4h so 7 hours per week. Our guild recently got nythendra mythic down.. It's mostly that people think it is more of an effort than it actually is that's holding them back. Wish more people would just try it out instead of making asumptions about how time consuming it will be.

the problem i have is most guilds seem to operate on a strict schedule, and for myself at least, i cant always keep to those schedules, or if i can, i don't want to commit every wednesday night to raiding, if i could find a casual raid guild, that wasn't so strict with attendance and schedules, that would be great. i feel forced into lfr or pugging because i cant always log on the same time every week, i have no idea if im going to be free thursday evening to spend 3 hours raiding, i could be busy.
when you cant commit to a schedule, there are very few proper raiding guilds that will take you on. at least this is true for my low pop server, theres not really a solution though as far as i can see, and i totally understand why guild/raid leaders enforce and stick to their schedule, it just sucks for people that cannot commit to that.
i was in a guild recently that called it self a casual raid guild, but i got kicked for missing a few raids, they just happened to hold them on nights when i was busy the lfg tool helps a lot with finding pugs though, or the occasional guild thats a few people short and taking other people on their run with them

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Yeah the "application process" is an immediate turn off for a lot of people.

Having to register at some shitty website in order to apply? Pass. Logs? Coms interviews? Pass. Its a game, not a career. And many of the remaining players just cant be bothered to jump through those kinds of hoops even if they did actually want to raid.

And were all deluding ourselves if we try to discount the differences with this new generation of gamers and potential recruits with the original genration of wow players.

i remember in vanilla / tbc it was a lot worse applying for guilds. i remember a few guilds asking to see screenshots of my UI to make sure i had sufficient keybinds, asking me to list out what my rotation is, sign up to their website, then make an application on the forum and wait 3 days for the guild officers to review it, then have a "trial" in the guild for 2 weeks.

it was harder applying for guilds than it was for jobs back then! most these days seem a bit more relaxed and just check armoury for your experience or just ask what exp you have.

[Gsara]

I dont see any reason to commit to a raid guild when I can pug normal and heroic every week and have 0 interest in doing mythic. My friends and I would rather do m+ anyways on our own time and not be locked into a 3-4 night a week raid guild.

[Deleted]

Nobody ever actually wanted to be a feeder guild. The length of time these guilds survived was how long it took the regular members to realize they were being milked like cows in a barn.

Yeah, but feeder guilds don't form anymore because it's all just freely puggable.
They used to be the first step-in for new raiders (who would then either run away in panic, or move on to a "real" guild)

[Molis]

Lose the shit attitude towards new people that want to raid. You are not gods gift to raiding.
Have a schedule in the evenings after dinner for your servers time zone, and dont force over 3 hours a night. Do not raid Fri or Sat.
Do not have mandatory attendance or attendance penalties.
Have some damn patience with new people.
Be willing to wipe. (This is one of the biggest issues with WoW raiding now. Do you know how long we spent on Ragnaros or Kael?)

If you are unwilling to compromise or have an open mind then disband.

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Nerf raids, disable cross realms. That's what friendship means.

Sounds sarcastic, it is, yet true for the few who can look through it.

This is 100% true. Blizzard kept saying Normal is Friends and Family mode, however it never has been since MoP Flexible.
This mode should not be progression it should be for people in 825 gear that sometimes fail at mechanics.

You will only get people interested if you set them up for success.

Getting yelled at by some douche bag leader in normal mode raiding is not fun and does not encourage participation.

[Jewsco]

Yeah, but feeder guilds don't form anymore because it's all just freely puggable.
They used to be the first step-in for new raiders (who would then either run away in panic, or move on to a "real" guild)

The feeder guild original leaders didn't mind so much being a feeder because a lot of those people actually liked teaching the game. Also a lot of those leaders got to tag along when possible with the bigger guilds that is where they learned the mechanics.
Finally they liked being a "big fish" in a small pond. It was the next generation of leaders that got fed up with being poached. Also poaching became more of a thing in tbc and wotlk.

[bufferunderrun]

Me and the guild I am in have been having a problem. We cleared EN HC ages ago but just can't find people to actually join the guild. How can we get LFR heroes to actually give high tier raiding a go? All player can improve and atleast on my server loads of guilds need new blood.

First and foremost what our actual raiders want to do? Go for mythic? Remain Heroic? Scale down to normal? depending on what you want to do lfr raiders may not be the right peoples to target a merge with a similar guild is better idea.

Keep in mind that lfr has some perk that a guild unless a supersocial one cannot offer:

-fair and square system
-freedom from any form of schedule
-not being subject to the judgement of other peoples
-queue and teleport system that doesn't impede other activities
-personal loots or fair loot

what organized raid can offer

-superior gear
-special rewards

what you need to do to steal peoples from lfr is not aiming to build a roster you need to aim building a community where peoples is happy to log and do shit together be it going to kill Xavius hero or going to hold a pvp tower etc.

[Kyriani]

One thing that was off-putting to me which is why I stopped raiding in MoP, is the mindset that you aren't really raiding if you aren't doing the highest difficulty. I have no desire to "challenge" myself or beat my head against a wall for hours to get a kill. I wanna log on to voice chat, gab while we clear trash, tell some off-color jokes, have a good time, kill some bosses and maybe get some loot. What I don't want is to do bleeding edge difficult content for 4 hours a night 3 or 4 days a week. That's just not me anymore. Guilds that only raid normal aren't exactly a large portion of the community. It's easier to find one that raids only up to heroic, but most guilds seem to want to push Mythic and I have absolutely no desire to do "difficult" content. When I game I am looking for fun, not work. I find the new Kara fun. It's a bit challenging but not overly difficult once you learn the boss fight mechanics (and run it with people you know >_>).

Would I do a normal raid? Sure, but I likely wouldn't do it with strangers via group finder. Why? Because I don't know those people. I don't know what they are capable of and what to expect from them or if I'll even like them. When I do content with my friends, I know what to expect from them. I know I can count on them to perform and I know what they expect from me. If I joined a guild that only raided normal, I could develop new friendships and grow to know who I can count on what they are capable of but I'm not really in any hurry to leave my current (non-raiding) guild where my current friends are.

I'm perfectly capable of completing mythic raid content. I just have no desire to engage in that level of difficulty. I want to relax, have a good time, have room for error and yet still clear content. That's why mythic+ 5 mans are my "endgame". I'll pop into LFR for quests (where possible) or for specific loot (trinkets or maybe tier when its available). If someone I know says "hey come do this normal raid with us" then I'll probably go, but heroic? Probably not. Mythic? DEFINITELY NOT.

[demonyaa]

Stop making raiding seem like it's some extremely hard content that only "HARDCORE" players can do. When i started playing WoW, i was very intimidated by raiding because according to this community, raiding is hell on earth. Once i decided to try it out, it turned out to be practically the same shit as dungeons but with 10-25 players.

Other than that, there's not a lot you can do to make people commit to playing a video game on a schedule. Some can, some can not, some are willing, some are not.

Up until the late stages of AQ40 / Naxx the biggest difficulty in raiding was getting 25 to 30 people to get online.

My raiding group (back in the day cross guild raiding groups were common) cleared MC, BWL and most of AQ40 with no more than 30 people.

[Zic]

Lose the shit attitude towards new people that want to raid. You are not gods gift to raiding.
Have a schedule in the evenings after dinner for your servers time zone, and dont force over 3 hours a night. Do not raid Fri or Sat.
Do not have mandatory attendance or attendance penalties.
Have some damn patience with new people.
Be willing to wipe. (This is one of the biggest issues with WoW raiding now. Do you know how long we spent on Ragnaros or Kael?)

If you are unwilling to compromise or have an open mind then disband.

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This is 100% true. Blizzard kept saying Normal is Friends and Family mode, however it never has been since MoP Flexible.
This mode should not be progression it should be for people in 825 gear that sometimes fail at mechanics.

You will only get people interested if you set them up for success.

Getting yelled at by some douche bag leader in normal mode raiding is not fun and does not encourage participation.

Have you actually done normal EN? It's barely above LFR in difficulty. It can't really get much easier.

[Deleted]

I personally don't like using consumables and don't really try to get that much better in game, so i would not be really good raider anyway. I'd say i was only a "decent normal mode raider" back then when i did raid with my old guild, years ago in WotLK. Also i hate schedules in game, and overall have no real competitive spirit and don't care about challenging myself. So, i just don't care about raiding.

[Armourboy]

The feeder guild original leaders didn't mind so much being a feeder because a lot of those people actually liked teaching the game. Also a lot of those leaders got to tag along when possible with the bigger guilds that is where they learned the mechanics.
Finally they liked being a "big fish" in a small pond. It was the next generation of leaders that got fed up with being poached. Also poaching became more of a thing in tbc and wotlk.

Nope we didnt, we had come to learn that it was part of being the smaller fish. When people decided to move up we wished them well, but we did make them choose where they wanted to be. You weren't going to main in 25 man and then have us gear your alt so you could move it too.

Feeder guilds died because of Blizzard's dumb ass decisions in Cata with loot and upping the difficulty of 10 mans. If you notice there is a cut off between Cata and Wrath, and that is why. The glory day of the feeder guilds was TBC and Wrath, in fact in Wrath they exploded. Cata destroyed that, added LFR to compensate, and I would argue things have slowly gotten harder for raiding guilds since then.

I will also add, the other big thing that hurt feeder guilds, although lots of us didn't figure it out til Cata, was LFD. Pugging people for 5 man's is where lots of us found our good people. It was a place where we could see personality and see if they had the basic idea how to CC and could be taught. Once that came out and especially once it went cross realm, that basically died.