Where have all the Raiders Gone?

[judgementofantonidas]

All ranks are server, not world.

I will say this, I have raided since TBC, I started shortly after the start of TBC, and rocketed a maged up to 70, faster than many thought possible, because, after talking to a few "Hardcore Raiders" in school they said it was the most fun they have ever had. So in TBC I was DPS, my guild never got very far because even though we where relatively good, not the best, but better than average, we where used as a stepping stone guild. In fact, many of the people who where in the top 3 horde guild came through my guild, but that's another post for another topic.

Come WotLK, this time I leveled my alt prot/holydin up to raid level and raided as the off tank in 10 man, and heals in 25. while we where never top of the progression lists we where in the top 25 of the server most of the time. ICC comes out, and for a while we are in the top 10, but then the raid lead of the 2nd 10 man group has a disagreement with the guild leader because he was stripped of his officer rank because he did not show up to his raids for a week, left the guild, and took nearly all our raiders except for the ones that where with us since TBC, as when they where recruited they went through the secondary 10 group instead of the core.

Cata comes, several more raiders have left due to burn out, and do not come back. But still we are able to raid, but this xpac we started raiding before we where ready, to great consequences, the first tier we couldn't get past the first 2 bosses because once we started raiding most people thought they had enough gear to get the first few bosses down, and devoted all their time to gathering mats for flasks and feasts instead of farming heroic 5mans. After about 2 months of this I had an argument with another of the raiders over how to down a boss, simple thing really, but at the time it was our 5th wipe of the night, but no changing tactics so everyone was running hot, I just had hit my boiling point then and took a 3 month break to come back during 4.2. I went back to raiding on my holydin, but not with my guild group because of the way I had just disappeared for 3 months, I waited until they offered me my spot back, instead of demanding it back. All if fine and dandy until DS, LFR comes out and the raiding population explodes due to alts being able to get geared enough to start DS. We go back to having 2 10 man groups we progress along the back end of the bell curve, but still fairly quick, and everything is fine....fast forward 5 months, back down to one group, but still doing normal because it was an easy farm, noone raided on alts other than LFR, just getting burned out.

Now MoP, first few months, big population of raiders, our guild has no trouble getting the people on for raids, but lots of trouble getting gear due to the daily grind and poor luck in heroics. When we finally get our gear to 460+ for all of our raiders, our pool had shrunk to the core 7 people that have been raiding with us since begining of Wrath, and a few long time members that just got into raiding in MoP. Despite trying to recruit, many of the competent raiders have left the server, or stoped playing, during end cata, leaving just recount heroes to choose from, many who don't last long because they refuse to learn the fights. come the current patch, 5.2, small bump in trade about people looking for 1 DPS/Heal/Tank for 20-30 min at a time, but when Sha is up a full 40 man takes less than 10 min to fill, with the last 5 min looking for tanks and healers if it's not started by a guild.


TL;DR Through out the history of WoW my guild has seen first hand the rise of raiding in TBC and WotLK, but then the serious, and profound decline begining Cata, and the subsequent rise when LFR came out, and the drop again, when gating for entry level came back.

Moral of this rant? If the starting tier of raids where not so heavily gated, but more like Naxx(WotLK) we would see a bigger pool of raiders because they don't give up so early because of the massive amount of work you would have to put in to get the gear level to even walk into a raid and expect to have a snowball's chance to down even the first boss.

well written and brings me to thoughts of "hey do I know this guy?" as your experiences so mirror some of my own. although I agree with what you say in principle I accept things the way that they are and try to overcome them as they are intended.

---------- Post added 2013-03-18 at 10:53 AM ----------

But, again, doesn't that ensure that new people are excluded by virtue of being new? Don't you see that as a problem? It's absolutely unfair. It's not like they're magically going to get to do content elsewhere. They'll be shoehorned into just being able to do something like LFR, because no one will "allow" them to do anything else, because.... they've never done it before. Regardless of how much effort they've put in, or are putting in. They simple lack the previous experience, and thus, aren't allowed to do stuff. That IS a problem. How isn't it a problem? Why should new people be excluded from activities because they weren't there from the beginning?

Let's propose this scenario: There's a guy who wants to raid. He's min-maxing up the wazoo. He reads up on his class. He's gemmed, enchanted, and all that. He has maxed out cooking, he has all the right professions. He has his flasks. He has all that stuff. Only problem is, is he's never been in a raiding guild. he's never raided before. He has zero experience. Should he be punished for that?

The player that you mentioned would easily find his way into an alt run of farm content.

[Djuntas]

Blame LFR. Bring back TBC raid model, that is all.

[Otimus]

well written and brings me to thoughts of "hey do I know this guy?" as your experiences so mirror some of my own. although I agree with what you say in principle I accept things the way that they are and try to overcome them as they are intended.

---------- Post added 2013-03-18 at 10:53 AM ----------



The player that you mentioned would easily find his way into an alt run of farm content.

That's good! That's not the norm, seemingly, though. At least on my server (Blackrock-US)

[judgementofantonidas]

That's good! That's not the norm, seemingly, though. At least on my server (Blackrock-US)

if you look at it again. that playe is also where all the raiders are at the begining of a patch. all min maxed in thier shiney new blues that have replaced the majority of their old heroic gear.

[Ridesdel]

That's good! That's not the norm, seemingly, though. At least on my server (Blackrock-US)

Someone(s) like that would easily find a spot, and wind up replacing someone(s) in my raid team without a second of hesitation after (s)he has shown they can follow instructions, without a doubt. But I'm on Terrokar-US, AKA Terrobad/Terrofail since mid-late LK xP

[Galaddriel]

Number 3 is a really, really, really good point. Most raiders I've seen are a VERY unaccepting bunch, and just want people who've already raided with other guilds in the past. Usually, anyways. Not always. but it seems abnormally, and unfortunately common. Raiders, with their toxic attitudes, will eventually make organized raiding a ghost town in a few years. It's pretty much already heading that way.

And let's face it, the elephant in the room that everyone wants to ignore is that from the game's launch in 2004, till T15 in 2013, not many people have ever really raided all that much. You'd think knowing that, these people would be a little less.... the way they are.

I was in a guild (briefly) that rather than give loot to a recruit that was still in their first month trial would DE it. It was stupid and sickening to watch, especially when it was a rare item like a heroic shield.

This guild is still around, ranking around 500 world atm.

[judgementofantonidas]

Someone(s) like that would easily find a spot, and wind up replacing someone(s) in my raid team without a second of hesitation after (s)he has shown they can follow instructions, without a doubt. But I'm on Terrokar-US, AKA Terrobad/Terrofail since mid-late LK xP

The point is that a raid leader can be selective but fair, have good reasons for being so yet be labled a/n (he wont take me because it's my own fault for not trying).

---------- Post added 2013-03-18 at 11:03 AM ----------

I was in a guild (briefly) that rather than give loot to a recruit that was still in their first month trial would DE it. It was stupid and sickening to watch, especially when it was a rare item like a heroic shield.

This guild is still around, ranking around 500 world atm.

Although that loot scheme seems brutal even to me, it apperantly worked for them.

[Deleted]

there is no point to join a raid now when you can see all content by lfr etc might as well focus on having fun then suffering trough raids with lootwhores guildrama afk marathons and the risk of jerks and douchebags that you have to get along with to progress.

[Maniac2]

Let's propose this scenario: There's a guy who wants to raid. He's min-maxing up the wazoo. He reads up on his class. He's gemmed, enchanted, and all that. He has maxed out cooking, he has all the right professions. He has his flasks. He has all that stuff. Only problem is, is he's never been in a raiding guild. he's never raided before. He has zero experience. Should he be punished for that?

Good old " I need an achievement for a raid where that achiement is earned?"

[judgementofantonidas]

That's good! That's not the norm, seemingly, though. At least on my server (Blackrock-US)

Will have to continue this later. Phase III should be open today and time to go learn my Blacksmith pattern for my new helm!

[calanos]

I have built raiding guilds of varying forms and hardcore-ness since MC/BWL were still current. I think I am on about my 5th raid core built.

Anyway: it has NEVER been anywhere close to hard as it is right now to recruit decent players. And my server has a "thriving" horde side despite a dead alliance. We still only have like 35 guilds raiding, and despite our large, quick progression when we formed in January ( 16/16, 4/16H from Jan 13-Feb 20)...it has been literally crickets when we spam or make forum posts for recruitment. Over 8 weeks we have recruited like 5 people, and they were all LFR-geared recent rerolls etc.

It really seems like the playerbase is now split between people looking to raid very hardcore, and people who just want to use LFBads and "see content." It REALLY has not helped that T14 and T15 have been tuned so tightly. I think a lot of good raiders who were on the fence about Normal modes got skullf*#%ed by Elegon and Garalon in guilds that lacked the coordination for those fights and just gave up. Those people have been the only ones we were able to scoop up.

I am sure it makes sense from a business standpoint for Blizz, but for people trying to run raiding guilds its been brutal. We went from 7 25m good raids to 2. And I would estimate that we have lost 50 10-man raiding guilds since MoP started. Its been a tough landscape.

[Kazgrel]

LFR is a factor, no question. The convenience of being able to do it at your own leisure and have it be faceroll level difficulty (for the most part) doesn't help when folks are trying to recruit for a raid guild that raids on a set schedule.

Guild my friend runs recently came back together on WoW after having left for SWTOR and GW2. Cata pretty much destroyed their guild, aside from the few people that pvped and did RBG pugs. Now they get their raiding fix via LFR. They have no desire to bother with organizing a raid team. I'm pulling numbers out of my ass here, but for every guild trying to do scheduled progression raiding, there are probably 10 guilds similar to that of my friend's.

Right now I'm in a guild of old friends/raiders assembled together over the course of our wow times that enjoy raiding together, so we're able to pursue normal/heroic raiding (mostly normal at this point). Our progress in ToT has been gimped due to having to replace one person this week. We had known he was going to leave several weeks in advance, though, so no bad blood.

Were this guild to disband or whatever, I would end up joining my friend in the aforementioned "casual/LFR guild" and just do whatever the hell I wanted. I don't see myself going out of the way to join another raiding guild at this point. Said mindset doesn't appear to be applying just to me, though; that said, I definitely do NOT speak for everyone.

[Terielx1]

Same with Illidan-US, people need to stop using anecdotes as evidence.

no people need to stop using the highest populated servers in the game as evidence that there are raiders left, illidan is constantly full to locked when you look at it on the server menu so of course theres going to be a ton of raiding guilds

---------- Post added 2013-03-18 at 03:35 PM ----------

Uh, reusing old mechanics? Where in ToT for example? o0
Some are similar, for sure, but a lot of mechanics are really new

and to add to what you said, even the first tier of raiding this expac has had pretty much 99% unique fights, blizz got most of the "rehashing" out of their system after the cataclysm failure

[smokii]

i guess most people have just given up organised raiding for LFR, as it's fairly quick, easy and the rewards aren't too dissimilar from normal modes.

it's a shame though, LFR just doesn't give the same level of satisfaction when you clear it - but tbh, there hasn't been a huge sense of satisfaction when downing a boss since my guild killed the lich king, but even then, he was the only one we even mildly cheered for - before that it was yogg, before that it was gruul (mostly because thats as far as my guild got in tbc)

tbh, i dont know what blizz can do to fix it.

a friend of mine has just taken over my guild in an attempt to recruit and get back up and running again as a raid guild, but tbh, i think he's flogging a dead horse. the players on our server are prety much the same players we've always had, there's not enough fresh blood keen to learn, or enough veterans still interested. it makes me wonder if blizz needs to either open up free server transfers to allow the population to rebalance itself, or they need to work on superservers that can merge servers together (using battle tags to allow for duplicate names on the sme server)

i think blizz realise they need to bring the playing population back together, not have them spread far and wide across multiple servers. imagine all the english EU servers merged into one super english EU server, it'd make recruiting a lot easier, it'd make finding the right kind of guild a lot easier. tbh i think they are probably working on solutions, but the problem they have is that it needs to go past the finance department and they probably wont be happy about the amount of money blizz stands to lose by making server transfers free - but then when you consider the amount of subs they stand to lose if they dont do something about this rapidly escalating problem, they wont have any money coming in at all.

free server transfers for all or megaservers need to happen imo.

[Sansnom]

FL wasn't as hard either, i joined a PUG and i had myself not the best raiding gear, and manage to down 6/7 bosses, only ragnaros not because of the lack of time.

But i ment in general DS idd.

FL was nerfed by 30% in one go? My guild is not best of raiders and not the best geared but we progress, at a slower rate than most guilds. After the FL nerf, we pretty much got to Rag with relative ease, which surprised us. We were not expecting the nerf to be than significant in one go.

So if FL did not troubled us, then it was a pretty substantial nerf. Of course there were people who already found it relatively easy before the nerf anyway.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

I'm not an elite raider. I've never done a heroic. But I do raid, and I've quit.

Blizz managed to do something I thought was impossible. They made a worse endgame experience than Cata. They completely destroyed the fun of the journey and joy of finishing a goal. Endgame is just farm normals, farm heroics, farm dailies, farm scenarios, farm LFR in that order. Only then do you get into raiding.

And I say farm because it's also so easy you can afk, bot, or faceroll them.

[McNeil]

Blame LFR. Bring back TBC raid model, that is all.

While I vastly prefer the TBC model over MoP's, I don't think the current playerbase can handle the TBC model anymore.

Pretty sad actually, that model was the best imo. With maybe hardmodes

[jmacphee9]

i never really enjoyed raiding, i just wanted to see the story i guess..so now i do an lfr or so a week, and dedicate my time to my passion which is pvp, and then find a new f2p game that is much more fun(see: tera) and stop playing wow.

[Peng]

Last time I joined a normal mode raid, I was bored only 5 mins later. I really don´t know, how this could hook me for 7 years. It´s so time consuming. Also, I think the visual effects are completely overdone. Even if I turn them down until I barely see fire on the ground, it still hurts my eyes.

2nd point would be the rewards. One model in 20 colors. And the models don´t even come close to T6. And the iLvl? I laugh at your pve item level when I gank you on the Isle of Thunder.

[nooty]

i am x-wow player quited 4months back i had mmochamp bookmarked on my browser just to read what's going on with wow community after playing so long .

Honestly speaking i can't connect with this game anymore nothing feels interesting to me MOP felts awesome at start and fresh but got dull later on and felt like the whole thing repeating again .

I moved on to other games which i missed out in many years and trying to finish them on my new gaming PC

Cheers