Too many guilds, not enough players?

[Acidbaron]

It's more how you recruit rather then anything else, some guilds that barely make it into mythic, like to pretend to be great and set their standards also near that level. You are never going to attract players like that and if you do you won't keep them and they'll feel lied to since you promised things that were simply never going to happen.
It is also from my experience the guilds that take themselves too serious are the least flexible and is also noticeable while raiding, since if there's an air of raid etiquette where everyone has to be approached carefully, you can't have fun, you can't have banter and most importantly people don't speak up, what means good ideas are passed over and some people are immune to criticism which is simply flat out bad. I'm not saying you have to go to levels our guild does it which is even create gifs as of late to memorize moments but everyone should be open to criticism and if someone in the officer team plays badly, well guess what their spot should not be safe simply due to time served if you want a progression team at least.


Incapable leadership won't create a capable raid team.
Plenty of guilds had gone through regime changes or restarted over what means many of those in charge, are people that should not be in charge they lack the skill set, knowledge and dedication their predecessors had. It is fine that people who lead play other games or have other things but if those people only log in to raid and log out they at most should be a raider and not hold any officer spot.


Raiders should be flexible, so should your guild.
Require applications but don't let applications be the end of it all, speak with the person drag him into your discord and see what he/she has to say. Drop them in a farm raid if you are satisfied, if they don't perform well debate if the person can be improved upon or is simply below your standards of what you require. Forum applications are good if you are busy, simply depending on forum applications is just lazy.



We started up a new guild a good 2,5 months ago with those that were discontent in the old one, we went from struggling on heroic to clearing heroic in under 2 hours, to struggling on mythic nyth to clearing it the whole of EN in 2 months, with progression like less then 50 pulls on the eye for a kill.

During that time we gained and lost players and are still recruiting, now ToV seems less interesting to some what means you get less good applications and so you need to adjust and take risks with trials. While AP is a big thing gearing up could not be easier during this expansion. But WoW has seen worse days regarding recruitment so i can't agree with it being bad right now. Plenty of those lower tier guilds should however get of their high horse do their members a favor and merge with another like minded guild to create a team that can actually carry some.

[kary]

It's more how you recruit rather then anything else, some guilds that barely make it into mythic, like to pretend to be great and set their standards also near that level. You are never going to attract players like that and if you do you won't keep them and they'll feel lied to since you promised things that were simply never going to happen.
It is also from my experience the guilds that take themselves too serious are the least flexible and is also noticeable while raiding, since if there's an air of raid etiquette where everyone has to be approached carefully, you can't have fun, you can't have banter and most importantly people don't speak up, what means good ideas are passed over and some people are immune to criticism which is simply flat out bad. I'm not saying you have to go to levels our guild does it which is even create gifs as of late to memorize moments but everyone should be open to criticism and if someone in the officer team plays badly, well guess what their spot should not be safe simply due to time served if you want a progression team at least.


Incapable leadership won't create a capable raid team.
Plenty of guilds had gone through regime changes or restarted over what means many of those in charge, are people that should not be in charge they lack the skill set, knowledge and dedication their predecessors had. It is fine that people who lead play other games or have other things but if those people only log in to raid and log out they at most should be a raider and not hold any officer spot.


Raiders should be flexible, so should your guild.
Require applications but don't let applications be the end of it all, speak with the person drag him into your discord and see what he/she has to say. Drop them in a farm raid if you are satisfied, if they don't perform well debate if the person can be improved upon or is simply below your standards of what you require. Forum applications are good if you are busy, simply depending on forum applications is just lazy.



We started up a new guild a good 2,5 months ago with those that were discontent in the old one, we went from struggling on heroic to clearing heroic in under 2 hours, to struggling on mythic nyth to clearing it the whole of EN in 2 months, with progression like less then 50 pulls on the eye for a kill.

During that time we gained and lost players and are still recruiting, now ToV seems less interesting to some what means you get less good applications and so you need to adjust and take risks with trials. While AP is a big thing gearing up could not be easier during this expansion. But WoW has seen worse days regarding recruitment so i can't agree with it being bad right now. Plenty of those lower tier guilds should however get of their high horse do their members a favor and merge with another like minded guild to create a team that can actually carry some.

Your last line... Everyone wants to have their "super hardcore 10 man core that are best friends irl and in game" and won't open themselves up to mergers, or at leas that's the picture painted here on these forums.
My guild went from 16 man M highmaul to a healthy roster with mergers and willingness to accept works in progress. A lot of people here don't want to do that.

[Teri]

Your last line... Everyone wants to have their "super hardcore 10 man core that are best friends irl and in game" and won't open themselves up to mergers, or at leas that's the picture painted here on these forums.

I think that mentality all started with the introduction of splitting raid sizes, and continue the trend via Flex size, 8 years of mentality is hard to remove at this point in time.

Cataclysm also promoted people to stay in their guilds not to lose perks/achievements. Some of those remnants still exist.

Tbh they need to reduce the "guild run" numbers for old content for those achievements to count, or eventually just phase out (previous expansion) guild rewards being locked behind achievements completely and just make them available to solve that.

I'm not saying remove things like Guild Glory of the Legion Raider, strictly previous old content.

I suppose if it weren't for the mass negative feedback on removing the black/plagued proto drakes, blizz would have just kept those mounts "limited" available as they were meant to be. Gladiator mounts follow a similar system really , limited for a reason.

Unless they force let's say a fixed 20 size man for all future content outside of 5 man (mythic+) bringing back 10 mans won't solve much but create even more guilds?

[kary]

I think that mentality all started with the introduction of splitting raid sizes, and continue the trend via Flex size, 8 years of mentality is hard to remove at this point in time.

Cataclysm also promoted people to stay in their guilds not to lose perks/achievements. Some of those remnants still exist.

Unless they force let's say a fixed 20 size man for all future content outside of 5 man (mythic+) bringing back 10 mans won't solve much but create even more guilds?

I quite like the flex system we have now.
For instance, I don't raid mythic anymore. EN didn't interest me, RL stuff happened, cant find a class I enjoy thoroughly, etc. My guild has had a healthy 20 man roster (25-30 people geared/interested in raiding) plus boatloads of f+f casuals. 30 man allows you to gear your full mythic roster. Basically (imho) you shouldn't attempt mythic until you can field a 30 man raid. You'll always have people unable to make it. You'll also have people later on on alts, you might have new players you want to gear, etc. So you may end up with 15 or less, and the raid would still operate well.

20 man is/was about tuning. Unless you're specifically going towards that particular niche of content, the size of your raid doesn't matter at all. You an have 10 man f+f raids if you want in this system. You can also have 30 man raids with a boatload of alts or pugs or whatever. Fixed raid sizes for trivial (read: non hardcore progression oriented) content is nowhere as good as flexible sizes, especially in today's game.

[Teri]

20 man is/was about tuning. Unless you're specifically going towards that particular niche of content, the size of your raid doesn't matter at all. You an have 10 man f+f raids if you want in this system. You can also have 30 man raids with a boatload of alts or pugs or whatever. Fixed raid sizes for trivial (read: non hardcore progression oriented) content is nowhere as good as flexible sizes, especially in today's game.

Sure good arguments but it splits the community, if anything they should just have Flex Normal and 20 man Hard, remove Heroic inbetween, make normal harder then now.

[kary]

Sure good arguments but it splits the community, if anything they should just have Flex Normal and 20 man Hard, remove Heroic inbetween, make normal harder then now.

Why?
The current number of difficulties is fine.

Why?
LFR: You see the story. You could be a dribbling idiot and succeed. Cool.
Normal: You get your feet wet into organized content. Comps matter a little, not too punishing.
Heroic: Comps matter more, you need a little more organization, higher risk/reward, little more punishing.
Mythic: Comps matter a lot, you need to actually know mechanics, not failing on mechanics becomes important. Proper play/gearing is expected.

4 difficulties is the best number. Easy > Normal > Hard > Very Hard.

[Deleted]

I joined a small guild at the beginning of Legion. Objectively bad players (only good enough to clean EN N with 860 ilvl), but fun. When they started EN HM I told them their dps was not enough and that they couldn't clean the HM with these "performances" even if the ilvl wasn't an issue (the GM was at 150 k dps with 860 ilvl, wtf). That wasn't an attack but an objective analysis. They kept wiping on HM dragons with 3 evening raids.

When I gave constructive advices (like checking armory to see that the enchants were suboptimal, crafting enchants for free, taking logs), they told me I was arrogant (while I'm the first to admit I'm bad at this game) and used the lamest excuses. Ok cya!

I almost only do mm+ and pug in raids very occasionnally, why would I join a shitter's guild that can't handle valid criticism and takes everything as a personal aggression? I don't need a guild to clear the current content.

[IceMan1763]

Why?
The current number of difficulties is fine.

Why?
LFR: You see the story. You could be a dribbling idiot and succeed. Cool.
Normal: You get your feet wet into organized content. Comps matter a little, not too punishing.
Heroic: Comps matter more, you need a little more organization, higher risk/reward, little more punishing.
Mythic: Comps matter a lot, you need to actually know mechanics, not failing on mechanics becomes important. Proper play/gearing is expected.

4 difficulties is the best number. Easy > Normal > Hard > Very Hard.

100% agree... I never understand where the people are coming from that said offering multiple levels of difficulty is/was the downfall of this game.

Legion has a myriad of problems... the way gear is handed out and the amount of grinding required to be effective at higher levels of difficulty being the biggest two IMO. I have NEVER seen offering multiple levels of difficulty as anything but a positive change for the game.

[Teri]

100% agree... I never understand where the people are coming from that said offering multiple levels of difficulty is/was the downfall of this game.

I came from a time before flex raiding, so there was only LFR > Normal > Heroic when I quit, so maybe my mindset is stuck in 2013.

Even so it's not the downfall of the game, but at least for EN people were complaining about normal being far too easy and irrelevant.

Low population servers / old guild achievements / illusion CRZ people you cannot guild with / and high transfer costs are far bigger issues at hand on why the guild community isn't as fluid.

[kary]

I came from a time before flex raiding, so there was only LFR > Normal > Heroic when I quit, so maybe my mindset is stuck in 2013.

Even so it's not the downfall of the game, but at least for EN people were complaining about normal being far too easy and irrelevant.

And grats! If normal is too easy for you, there's a harder difficulty level that's just as casual.

[HuxNeva]

Why would I join your guild, as opposed the hundreds of others that are recruiting?
As we have finished the sub inflation always following the new expansion release, this is the ideal time for people looking for a guild. All are recruiting, and you can try out however many you like. Guilds are great if you find the one that matches what you are looking for in the game and clicks with you in terms of personalities. Shop around, and find one that sticks. You don't have to settle for 'sort of okayish'.
I've said before that we can use another layer of organization on top of the guild system to facilitate 'defragmentation'. Call it a clan or something, but or sort of 'guild of guilds' so you don't have to disband your guild to merge into another. Apart from that, the system is fine.

[WarriorBP]

I personally have had a nightmarish time finding a guild this expansion. Most of my friends quit during warlords and I have found it hard to find a home since. My chief complaint is the "Hybrid" role guilds want me in, as someone who only likes to heal, I have been asked in 4 guilds since launch to start as a healer, but maintain dps too. This doesnt really work with limited AP sources unless you have alot of extra time to grind. Couple that with a personal desire to not do mythic raids and you end up in a tough situation. The few remaining people I talk to are in similar situations, and being benched for underperforming in your primary role, because you split your efforts between two is a huge turn off.

The reason guilds ask healers to also have a dps setup ready is because when you get fights on farm or reach dps checks you first cut healers. This means if you are 5 healing a fight and cut to 4, you now have a situation in which healer 5 either dps's or doesn't get loot. If they do not get loot they fall even further behind. It sounds counter intuitive but a 50th percentile healer/dps hybrid can be more valuable then a 70th percentile pure healer.

[Otimus]

The main problem is that too many guilds think they're ultra-hardcore guilds when they're not. Rather, misaligned goals, which will cause the wrong kind of people to join (Good or bad), and the wrong kind of people (Good or bad) to NOT join. Misaligned goals is the biggest problem of all. Turn it around, the same thing happens to casual guilds as well. (Just not as much, but they will get a negative stigma thrown at them and will have people who are a fit for them not joining because of that)

Not really any way to fix any of that, at least not one I can think of. (Short of reducing the minimum player count of raiding, which probably isn't likely to happen any time soon).


Best we can hope for is improved guild finding tools (That will happen!) and improved cross-realm tools in the future (Probably a long ways off!).


'Course, there's also the problem of, well, not everyone needs their own guild, and that's a whole other can of worms dealing with the typical guild structure.

[Gsara]

I dont really see a reason to join a larger guild. We have a total of 17 characters in my guild right now including alts and we only do m+ and pug normal/heroic raids once in a while. Its more than enough for the 4 or 5 regular players we have and no one cares about doing mythic. Id wager that the majority of players do pretty much the same thing as my guild.

[Deulon]

Too many servers, not enough players.

[darkwarrior42]

'Course, there's also the problem of, well, not everyone needs their own guild, and that's a whole other can of worms dealing with the typical guild structure.

I actually like the way GW2 handled guilds...

-You can be in up to 5 guilds at once
-You represent only one guild at a time
-The guild you are currently representing defines your visible guild tag, and if you participate in a guild activity, which guild it counts toward.

Lots of social guilds out there, and some people even like making their own personal guilds either for a small group of friends, or just for their own personal guild bank for extra storage. Let people be members of multiple guilds, and you can do that sort of thing without losing the ability to join a more serious/progression guild.

[Trapped]

100% agree... I never understand where the people are coming from that said offering multiple levels of difficulty is/was the downfall of this game.

Legion has a myriad of problems... the way gear is handed out and the amount of grinding required to be effective at higher levels of difficulty being the biggest two IMO. I have NEVER seen offering multiple levels of difficulty as anything but a positive change for the game.

Well, I've been one of "those" people that says the game doesn't need 4 difficulties, and I'll tell you why. When raiding used to be 1 or 2 difficulties, people had to "git gud" at the game, learn their class, learn their rotation, and probably find a guild. There wasn't a babysitting mode and there wasn't a beer league mode. That's what dungeons used to be for. With all the modes available now, you no longer need to excel at your class to see content. You can run LFR, maybe find some normal mode pugs, and that's where your content ends. There's not a lot of incentives to go any further than that for a lot of people. What I'm basically trying to say is that I think the overall skill of players has declined since the addition of all these different modes to cater to every play style. I think, at most, raiding should be 2 difficulties. Normal mode, which would be slightly harder than LFR, and Heroic, which would be around where it's tuned at now, with maybe a "hardcore" end boss thrown in at the end for all the no-life world first chasers to fight over.

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Too many servers, not enough players.

This as well. I thought they mentioned more server mergers incoming, but maybe I was dreaming it.

[Servasus]

20 man mythic being the only hard mode raiding available was the biggest mistake Blizzard has ever made in terms of the hardcore end game. Period.

[Trapped]

The main problem is that too many guilds think they're ultra-hardcore guilds when they're not. Rather, misaligned goals, which will cause the wrong kind of people to join (Good or bad), and the wrong kind of people (Good or bad) to NOT join.

Fair statement, but that does come down to recruitment. You want to recruit people of the same mindset right from the get-go, and unfortunately, those people can sometimes take a long time to find. So, like most guilds, we're stuck recruiting people that are outside of our own goals and standards, just to keep a raiding roster going. Its really a lose-lose situation.

[Servasus]

Well, I've been one of "those" people that says the game doesn't need 4 difficulties, and I'll tell you why. When raiding used to be 1 or 2 difficulties, people had to "git gud" at the game, learn their class, learn their rotation, and probably find a guild. There wasn't a babysitting mode and there wasn't a beer league mode. That's what dungeons used to be for. With all the modes available now, you no longer need to excel at your class to see content. You can run LFR, maybe find some normal mode pugs, and that's where your content ends. There's not a lot of incentives to go any further than that for a lot of people. What I'm basically trying to say is that I think the overall skill of players has declined since the addition of all these different modes to cater to every play style. I think, at most, raiding should be 2 difficulties. Normal mode, which would be slightly harder than LFR, and Heroic, which would be around where it's tuned at now, with maybe a "hardcore" end boss thrown in at the end for all the no-life world first chasers to fight over.

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This as well. I thought they mentioned more server mergers incoming, but maybe I was dreaming it.

What a shame. A game being accessible to all types and skill levels of players. If they can't git gud they should just stop playing WoW and probably kill themselves while they're at it. /s

This is also coming from a hardcore player. Get your head out of your ass. This game isn't just for you, and in fact, if it weren't for the casuals you try to turn away from the game, the game wouldn't even still have live, updated servers.