how to motivate people to raid

[Dubalicious]

good, if people don't want to run 25 mans then they deserve to die

Seems like a pretty big assumption. There are plenty of people who "want" to run 25 mans, but see no reason to exert extra effort to do so or there are no immediate/viable options for them to do so.

[Talen]

I'll give an example on how raid progression worked in TBC for instance :

Time sink after time sink after time sink, with artificial gating and the need to continually cycle as members were either poached or left. That's how it worked. It was fun...but it was far from perfect.

And the fun\best part was, each guild was progressing at it's own pace, at its current tier, aiming to reach higher, but without 'crying' about others... Whilst some guilds were in Black Temple, others were progressing through SSC\TK. At THEIR OWN PACE. Instances didn't need buffs like ICC\DS, nor massive nerfs like Cata tier1... and even better, content lasted an entire expansion.

And resulted in next to noone actually using it. Besides, this "AT THEIR OWN PACE" is misleading. We run the raids at our own pace even today. Which is as fast as our own guilds can manage. Too many guilds wree kept away from higher content because they could keep a stable roster because more pressed guilds kept poaching the players they needed.

The only issue that guilds might have was replacing raiders, and having to attune them up to their current situation, and it got a bit exhausting after a bit, but it was accepted as the price of having raid progression.

Now?

They've been done away with because they were a hindrance, a barrier to entry, replacing raiders who were nicked by other guilds was infuriating and the attunements more trouble they were worth.

Face it...we ran old content time and time again not because we wanted to, but because we had to.

You have content released, and everyone needs to experience it on the first week, because we're all entitled to it. And if you don't finish the content in a couple of months, it get's nerfed or you get buffed. And when the following tier is released, all the previous content is made obsolete, with no reason to return what so ever, except for the occasional mount or flavor item. And the cycle repeats.

And this is bad because.....? Sure, its repetitive but its the same basic style of gameplay either way. The "cycle repeats" in your version as wel. The current version just doesn't have the annoying apsects or artificial time sinks.

Why can't people just progress at their own pace, with each tier of raiding having it's difficulty increase, and having different guilds with different time restraints progress at their own pace?

Why?

Because it's not viable.

Your desire to return to "the days of single difficulty (hard.) raiding tiers with attunements and raid progression" overlooks the huge number of problems such a model had.

The single difficulty means that Blizzard can only tune it to one set of players. The harder it makes it, the less players can do it. The fewer players can do it, the less economically viable the raid is to develop.

Attunement caused issues. Great for lore....but having to drag an entire guild through a first tier raid simply to gear up a brand new tank simply to see him get pinched by another guild was only one of the issues involved.

Put simply, Blizzards job is to ensure players stay in the game. To do that, they have to maintain a certain level of interest amongst the player base and the reason these aspects were removed was because most of the player base didn't like them. There are times when the player base is wrong, and when unpopular aspects of the system need to be kept for the good of the game...but singhle difficulty raids and attunements don't fall into that category.

and ofcourse, making 10man \ 25man rewards and achievements equal... it's just killing 25man guilds. Badly.

Yep. And if you didn't, you lose 10 mans.

The realm i played in decreased for having swarms of 25man guilds in the BC, to dozens in Wotlk and less then a handful now. There are now 3 25man guilds when there were countless others... and not by lack of players on the realm, considering there are hundreds of 10man guilds. I find it sad.

Did you find it sad when 10 man guilds were treated as jokes? There were and are valid reasons the rewards for 10s and 25s were equalised.

Rose tinted glasses aside, TBC was a lot of fun, and did a lot right. But it wasn't perfect.

EJL

[announced]

if people know they will lose their spot after missing a raid.. they wont miss it. recruit until u have 25 people ready to raid.... and try and do something fun.. like a few bosses in MSV... or whatnot.. be sure that every raider knows attendance is key.. and they will be sat out if they are retarded or unprepared... theres no real motivation we can give for people to want to raid atm since theres no new content.... people just have to be satisfied with whats there or they just wont raid.

[Talen]

if people know they will lose their spot after missing a raid.. they wont miss it. recruit until u have 25 people ready to raid.... and try and do something fun.. like a few bosses in MSV... or whatnot.. be sure that every raider knows attendance is key.. and they will be sat out if they are retarded or unprepared... theres no real motivation we can give for people to want to raid atm since theres no new content.... people just have to be satisfied with whats there or they just wont raid.

This. If you want people to be reliable, the best thing IME is to be firm. Attendance is not optional. It is mandatory. If you miss a raid without good reason, there need to be consequences.

However, if you envisage your guild to be a little more casual, a little more flexible, then you 'll have to accept that raiding will suffer. If you want raiders to show up, you need to be firm. Be flexible enough to downgrade to 10 if you have to, but keep working towards 25s. Granted, that won't be easier, and it depends on your server to some degree, but if you just depend on people to turn up if they feel like it, you'll find many won't.

EJL

[Zofu]

25 man FTW!