LFR -> Flex -> Normal -> Heroic: Why?

[Deleted]

You are mistaking your HC experience with the average experience. Most regular guilds still often wipe on farm content.

In any event, their will still be a shitload of wiping going on in the first months before it all becomes farm content. Which means plenty of time to get stuff done.



Flexi goes as low as 8 man and you can take literally anyone to it without them getting saved. Will take 30 seconds to get someone from trade to fill in.


Flex has got waaaay too much going for it compared to normal mode.

What I can see happening is a rebirth of 25 man normal mode guilds in the near future though. Once you are going 25 flexi and your guild knows all the mechanics and fights, why not just flip that toggle and clear it on 25 normal after flexi is cleared? Same shit, slightly harder, better loot.

Are you sure, Flex will allow only bringing 8 players? I remember reading something about that, or someone asking that question. But I was pretty sure the minimum number of players remained 10 - got a source?

Cause if that's the case, Flex just got another card to play vs. Normal indeed.

Also, I know that people will be wiping a lot more, when the content is new. But that's how it's always been. The thing is, that when Joe gets rotated out for 1 boss, will he then be so selfish and foolish to join a Flex pug, risking that his guildies will have to wait for him to finish whatever boss they're on? Also, this won't really work, if you're a) the tank or b) one of of 2 healers. Sure you can be a douche and just leave but that won't get you invited back.

[Deleted]

Are you sure, Flex will allow only bringing 8 players? I remember reading something about that, or someone asking that question. But I was pretty sure the minimum number of players remained 10 - got a source?

Yeah I am sure. The bosses will scale as if there are 10 players, but you can queue up with only 8 in the raid, GC said this was to allow eople to start the raid while waiting for people to log on (as people start clearing trash on normals now i guess.)

BASHIOK -

Quick edit to the above, all that is still true, but the designers are discussing allowing you to at least enter the raid with 8+ people. The intent would be to allow a group to start clearing trash while they wait for a couple stragglers, as the difficulty with less than 10 would still be scaled for 10. It could allow for skilled/geared players to do it with less than 10, but some mechanics just may not be possible as we're not designing for it.

http://www.wowhead.com/news=214482/n...ing-discussion

Last I saw you could indeed do this on PTR.

Cause if that's the case, Flex just got another card to play vs. Normal indeed.

Yup. I'm waiting for the HC guys to start doing it challenge mode style with 8 already.

Also, I know that people will be wiping a lot more, when the content is new. But that's how it's always been. The thing is, that when Joe gets rotated out for 1 boss, will he then be so selfish and foolish to join a Flex pug, risking that his guildies will have to wait for him to finish whatever boss they're on? Also, this won't really work, if you're a) the tank or b) one of of 2 healers. Sure you can be a douche and just leave but that won't get you invited back.

It's in no way selfish. he can join the flexi pug and leave it any time he like swith absolutely no impact to that flexi raid. They don't need him. He doesn't get saved. They won't care if he leaves.

There is literally nothing whatsoever stopping anyone not in a flexi from going to one if they are benched. That's why i think normal mode guilds are completely hosed.

[Deleted]

Yeah I am sure. The bosses will scale as if there are 10 players, but you can queue up with only 8 in the raid, GC said this was to allow eople to start the raid while waiting for people to log on (as people start clearing trash on normals now i guess.)



http://www.wowhead.com/news=214482/n...ing-discussion

Last I saw you could indeed do this on PTR.


Yup. I'm waiting for the HC guys to start doing it challenge mode style with 8 already.


It's in no way selfish. he can join the flexi pug and leave it any time he like swith absolutely no impact to that flexi raid. They don't need him. He doesn't get saved. They won't care if he leaves.

There is literally nothing whatsoever stopping anyone not in a flexi from going to one if they are benched. That's why i think normal mode guilds are completely hosed.

If you go back and read my 2 examples, then yes, they will complain. Cause if you enter a Flex raid with 2 tanks and 2 healers and a tank or a healer then bails, you kinda got an issue. That said, I do get your point. But then I have to say, that the loyalty and dedication (or the lack of it) with Normal mode/casual raiders is surprising to me. Personally I would just never do that, I'd wanna be ready for when my guild needed me for the next boss. Not having to say "gimme 10 more mins to finish this boss". Also, I'd rather do Flex with a bunch of friends on a non raid day. Rather than trying to jump into a run, only to do one or 2 bosses. That just doesn't make sense to me.

[Deleted]

If you go back and read my 2 examples, then yes, they will complain. Cause if you enter a Flex raid with 2 tanks and 2 healers and a tank or a healer then bails, you kinda got an issue. That said, I do get your point. But then I have to say, that the loyalty and dedication (or the lack of it) with Normal mode/casual raiders is surprising to me. Personally I would just never do that, I'd wanna be ready for when my guild needed me for the next boss. Not having to say "gimme 10 more mins to finish this boss". Also, I'd rather do Flex with a bunch of friends on a non raid day. Rather than trying to jump into a run, only to do one or 2 bosses. That just doesn't make sense to me.

You don't have to choose, you can do both.

You don't get saved to flexi.

[Deleted]

You don't have to choose, you can do both.

You don't get saved to flexi.

I know that..... But seriously, just try and read what I wrote. Do you actually think that if Joe is being swapped out for the second boss (which is supposedly meant to be easy even for casual players) and is meant to be in for the third boss, that Joe has time to find a pug run in the mean time? I doubt he'll have time and if he can't wait 20 mins to get swapped back in but would rather have his raid team wait for him to finish in Flex pug, he's a selfish douche.

[Deleted]

I know that..... But seriously, just try and read what I wrote. Do you actually think that if Joe is being swapped out for the second boss (which is supposedly meant to be easy even for casual players) and is meant to be in for the third boss, that Joe has time to find a pug run in the mean time? I doubt he'll have time and if he can't wait 20 mins to get swapped back in but would rather have his raid team wait for him to finish in Flex pug, he's a selfish douche.

You are talking about when you have cleared the tier, know what you are doing and are rotating people around.

I'm saying that normal mode guilds won't get to that stage because their bench will have already gone. (Unless they make flex their priority.)

Most normal mode guilds barely get to clear the tier on normal before the next one comes out. Swapping people out is just to actually to be able to run or to get some progress on a new boss. Again, you are mistaing your own HC raiding, high personal responsibility, high organisation experience with that of most guilds.

The choices are going to be pretty stark - go and clear flexi mode with everyone or sit wiping on boss#7 and expect a few people to not raid. Why would anyone who sit out when they can raid? Why would anyone ask them to in the first place? For progress? On normal modes? Pffft. Not going to fly. in the absence of the HC mode BiS carrot, it's not going to work.

[Nobleshield]

That said, I do believe we're going to see a decline in 10 man Normal guilds. I just don't think they're going to completely disappear. But probably something in between, since Flex doesn't share lockout with anything.

What I think will happen (and honestly what I am afraid of to an extent) is that there will be an entire new subclass of guild created, that raids Flex mostly with all of their friend/casual members such as Bob who everyone likes but can't kick turtles to save his life, and dabbles in normal modes. Semi-Normal guilds, if you will; something like clearing Flex every week and getting say around halfway through normal mode by the end (barring huge nerfs of course), similar to how many guilds will clear normal every week and get something like 5/13H by the end.

Which really means that the guilds focused on Normal mode (at the start) will actually be the Heroic guilds that use Normal as a stepping stone to progress into heroics. I'm not really sure how I feel about that, because I don't like the current segregation we have in raiders.

[Deleted]

What I think will happen (and honestly what I am afraid of to an extent) is that there will be an entire new subclass of guild created, that raids Flex mostly with all of their friend/casual members such as Bob who everyone likes but can't kick turtles to save his life, and dabbles in normal modes. Semi-Normal guilds, if you will; something like clearing Flex every week and getting say around halfway through normal mode by the end (barring huge nerfs of course), similar to how many guilds will clear normal every week and get something like 5/13H by the end.

Which really means that the guilds focused on Normal mode (at the start) will actually be the Heroic guilds that use Normal as a stepping stone to progress into heroics. I'm not really sure how I feel about that, because I don't like the current segregation we have in raiders.

Completely agree. here is how I see the next set up of raiding in wow, next tier.

LFR - most popular, lods of people do it all the time.
Flexi mode. Hugely popular, pugs, guilds, pretty much everyone has a go at it.
Normal modes. First couple get downed by most guilds who now focus on flexi, if SoO carries on for 6 months maybe it'll get cleared. Normals also done by HC guilds who drop down to get to an easier HC boss. Normal modes done just to do normal mode guilds almost completely extinct. They either pick go more hardcore or go more towards flexi, few exceptions.
HC mode - as it is now. Niche interest, not many people care about it, very few people clear it.

[Nobleshield]

The choices are going to be pretty stark - go and clear flexi mode with everyone or sit wiping on boss#7 and expect a few people to not raid. Why would anyone who sit out when they can raid? Why would anyone ask them to in the first place? For progress? On normal modes? Pffft. Not going to fly. in the absence of the HC mode BiS carrot, it's not going to work.

Are you arguing that a guild on Boss #7 would give up progression and raid Flex? I was under the impression most normal guilds would have a dedicated night or two to Flex, or else it's a "Hey we have 12 people on, everyone for Flex?" kind of thing where there isn't a set day but just kind of at random, and then people would be all like "My buddy Steve has a healer and he's on <other realm>. Let me send him a RealID message" and kind of cascades up from there.

What I would REALLY like them to do is after a few months or so, open up the current tier cross-realm on Normal/Heroic. It would be several months in so most of the realm firsts would be done, so you can't cheat that by bringing in a "tiger team" from other realms, and open up more options for Normal raiders and Flex, and be a good way to trial recruits without them having to server transfer (although Flex is going to be amazing for that now; I could even see with the damage being lower running "fire drills" e.g. if you are trialing a healer, have a DPS or two stand in the bad stuff to see how they react etc.)

[Deleted]

Are you arguing that a guild on Boss #7 would give up progression and raid Flex? I was under the impression most normal guilds would have a dedicated night or two to Flex, or else it's a "Hey we have 12 people on, everyone for Flex?" kind of thing where there isn't a set day but just kind of at random, and then people would be all like "My buddy Steve has a healer and he's on <other realm>. Let me send him a RealID message" and kind of cascades up from there.

What I would REALLY like them to do is after a few months or so, open up the current tier cross-realm on Normal/Heroic. It would be several months in so most of the realm firsts would be done, so you can't cheat that by bringing in a "tiger team" from other realms, and open up more options for Normal raiders and Flex, and be a good way to trial recruits without them having to server transfer (although Flex is going to be amazing for that now; I could even see with the damage being lower running "fire drills" e.g. if you are trialing a healer, have a DPS or two stand in the bad stuff to see how they react etc.)

I find a more realistic scenario to be normal guilds keeping a 10-11 player roster, and whenever they only have 9 players they grab a friend and go flex, sticking to normals when they got the people for it. If you are a guild raiding normals, it makes no sense to go flex the days when you actually can go normal.

[Deleted]

Are you arguing that a guild on Boss #7 would give up progression and raid Flex? I was under the impression most normal guilds would have a dedicated night or two to Flex, or else it's a "Hey we have 12 people on, everyone for Flex?" kind of thing where there isn't a set day but just kind of at random, and then people would be all like "My buddy Steve has a healer and he's on <other realm>. Let me send him a RealID message" and kind of cascades up from there.

It's either that or lose your bench to someone who does, imo. Siege has an enormous amout of bosses and even easy flexi clears will take ages.

What I would REALLY like them to do is after a few months or so, open up the current tier cross-realm on Normal/Heroic. It would be several months in so most of the realm firsts would be done, so you can't cheat that by bringing in a "tiger team" from other realms, and open up more options for Normal raiders and Flex, and be a good way to trial recruits without them having to server transfer (although Flex is going to be amazing for that now; I could even see with the damage being lower running "fire drills" e.g. if you are trialing a healer, have a DPS or two stand in the bad stuff to see how they react etc.)

Tbh, personally I hope not. I hated the poaching crusade for the sort of environment that would create.

[Deleted]

I find a more realistic scenario to be normal guilds keeping a 10-11 player roster, and whenever they only have 9 players they grab a friend and go flex, sticking to normals when they got the people for it. If you are a guild raiding normals, it makes no sense to go flex the days when you actually can go normal.

With holidays, sickness, random stuff, basic player churn etc to run a 10 man normal guild you need about 15 viable raiders. Yes, there wil be some outliers who can set up and run with merely 10 and whatnot, but that's not going to be the average guild, really.

- - - Updated - - -

You're missing something big. Why would anyone want to re-do flexi when their guild is either going to do it at a later point in the week, or they're saved to loot already?
do you see people doing multiple LFRs a week? no? then why would you expect flex to be any different?

I'm not missing that at all.

People will join the pug because they don't get saved, then later on find an excuse not to go with their guild. Loot now > maybe loot later. Raid now > maybe raid later (with people who obviously 'don't care about you much anyway.)

[Nobleshield]

It's either that or lose your bench to someone who does, imo. Siege has an enormous amout of bosses and even easy flexi clears will take ages.

I don't understand this part. You're saying that someone who is rotated (let's not use "benched" because I think that carries the notion of "Bob you aren't good enough for this fight so sit it out" and not "Bob you don't need any loot off this boss/just had a pizza arrive and need to eat/have to put kids to bed anyways so we'll bring in Steve for this boss" out will go and rather do a Flex raid than progress on a Normal boss, assuming that "wiping on Boss #7" actually means "getting progression in on Boss #7"? I kind of see that point but those people don't sound like they are normal mode raiders at all, they sound like people who want to raid whenever it's convenient for them and not wipe on a boss. Can't say I'd like to have those kind of people around, honestly.

I see Flex as more of a tool and group morale activity, kind of like how some companies have a softball team. It's not a substitute for Normal mode, and it isn't meant to be although I could see it turning into that.

[Deleted]

I don't understand this part. You're saying that someone who is rotated (let's not use "benched" because I think that carries the notion of "Bob you aren't good enough for this fight so sit it out" and not "Bob you don't need any loot off this boss/just had a pizza arrive and need to eat/have to put kids to bed anyways so we'll bring in Steve for this boss" out will go and rather do a Flex raid than progress on a Normal boss, assuming that "wiping on Boss #7" actually means "getting progression in on Boss #7"? I kind of see that point but those people don't sound like they are normal mode raiders at all, they sound like people who want to raid whenever it's convenient for them and not wipe on a boss. Can't say I'd like to have those kind of people around, honestly.

I see Flex as more of a tool and group morale activity, kind of like how some companies have a softball team. It's not a substitute for Normal mode, and it isn't meant to be although I could see it turning into that.

My bet is there are way, way more people who just want to raid with friends in a semi organised fashion than there are people who are willing to wipe for normal mode loot. I also bet that an easy way to show you aren't all that good friends with someone is to not do a raid mode you can take them to in favour of getting yourself some better loot. (Especially if you are asking them to not raid at all.)

[Osmeric]

Which really means that the guilds focused on Normal mode (at the start) will actually be the Heroic guilds that use Normal as a stepping stone to progress into heroics. I'm not really sure how I feel about that, because I don't like the current segregation we have in raiders.

When my tinfoil hat is feeling particularly tight, I think Flex is the first step to a stealth nerf of heroic and normal. The steps:

(1) Introduce Flex.

(2) Tune up normal and heroic a bit, since now we have Flex.

(3) Notice that almost no one can now do heroic (or is doing heroic).

(4) Remove heroic, since so few are doing it.

(5) After a few complain about (4), rename "Flex" to "Normal" and "Normal" to "Heroic".

Bam! Normal and Heroic have effectively been nerfed by (1)-(5) (and normal now has the flex mechanism).

[kamuimac]

What I think will happen (and honestly what I am afraid of to an extent) is that there will be an entire new subclass of guild created, that raids Flex mostly with all of their friend/casual members such as Bob who everyone likes but can't kick turtles to save his life, and dabbles in normal modes. Semi-Normal guilds, if you will; something like clearing Flex every week and getting say around halfway through normal mode by the end (barring huge nerfs of course), similar to how many guilds will clear normal every week and get something like 5/13H by the end.

Which really means that the guilds focused on Normal mode (at the start) will actually be the Heroic guilds that use Normal as a stepping stone to progress into heroics. I'm not really sure how I feel about that, because I don't like the current segregation we have in raiders.

erm i think it it will be little more interesting - this tier will be probably very long 9-10 months if not year and during this time we will definelty see some interesting developements - some of will lead in next tier to model where they will remove normal compeltly switching it with flex - meaning it will be called normal but will be of flex difficulty with flexibility in raid size - something what people wanted from the very begining meaning normals which are normal difficulty and then huge jump to hc raiding for those who really seek for chalenge . if normal tier will be like it was in tot - it will serve only for gearing purposes for guilds which defeat whole/half of heroic modes purly by overgearing and bruteforcing mechanics not executing encounters properly - while flex will be very popular - time will tell but my guts are telling me tehy will go into this direction - if not in the next tier then in the tier after - there is simple no need for normal mode with the shape and difficulty it has atm - chalenge raiding is and belongs to hc raiidng - for normal modes some mechanics just have no place to be in in current state.

what we have atm is due to blizzard listening too much to hc raiders cause they are the vocal minority which comunicates with blizzard due to sites like mmochampions and due to them testing ptr - but there comes a point when they need to make decision based on their own opinion not on opinion of someone for whom some things are abvoius and who dont belong to normal mode anymore - cause they are much more skilled and have much bigger expectations both from players and game - if someone is hc raider his vision of normal mode is ...incomplete - he is this super good player who burn through normals while overgearing and overskilling it from previous tier in 2-4 weeks and then hes doin real raiidng hc- we seen such situation this tier on horridon when people went there in 505-510 itlv skilled avare of things and then they were shocked while liestening to normal mode raiders who went there in 490 itlv why they consider horridon tough - they didnt see this wall everybody was talking about cause ir execution was flawless and adds were dying fast enough to not start causeing them problems - and this is hwats is making normal mode unwanted in future tiers - there is no need for it - chalenge will be in hc raiidng -a bit hcalenge and fun - flex - and then there is no place for normal mode .

This is my tin foil hat visions

[Mormolyce]

No that's not what I want. you don't get it. I want an alternative to raiding the provides me with character advancement as good or better than raiding. A casual friendly alternative. It doesn't necessarily have to be dungeons although that was what we had in the past. They could do something innovative and fresh but that never happens so yea dungeons I guess.

Well, raids have been the endgame thing since mid-Vanilla or so, so I doubt that would happen. LFR has made it kind of a moot point for most people.

There's lots of things to do outside raiding, lots more than ever before, but if you want raid gear out of it then no, the game doesn't cater to that. It can't really since that would undermine raiding.

[Nobleshield]

My bet is there are way, way more people who just want to raid with friends in a semi organised fashion than there are people who are willing to wipe for normal mode loot. I also bet that an easy way to show you aren't all that good friends with someone is to not do a raid mode you can take them to in favour of getting yourself some better loot. (Especially if you are asking them to not raid at all.)

I'm not sure you understand the concept of rotating people in; it's not "asking them not to raid" it's swapping people so everyone gets a chance at loot they need, and so you keep a healthy roster of raid-ready people in the event that Bob can't make it but Steve is online, you don't have to pug or call the raid because you only ever bring in Bob, so Steve is at 500 iLevel with stuff he's cobbled together from LFR and old raids/VP.

I'll use my own guild as an example since it's what I know: We don't rotate people in at all, as a general rule. We have 10 people and if one of them can't make it, either we call the raid (more so if it's a tank or healer) or pug someone from trade, or in a rare case we might have a more casual "Friend" member online with gear that's lower than ours but not so much that we'd be carrying them. If somebody goes on vacation or makes plans, we're screwed for raid essentially. If we rotated people (and had enough people to support this) we would not have that problem. If our Disc Priest is on vacation, we have another Disc Priest or other healer ready to step in without stunting our raid night. If one of our DPS has to work late last minute, we don't have to hope we can find someone from Trade because we have 2-3 other available DPS that we can bring in.

The whole idea of rotating people isn't to prevent them from raiding, it's to A) Give people a break, as sometimes you don't really want to deal with Boss X but you are on because it's a commitment, B) If you don't need anything from a boss, let someone who could actually use the loot come in instead of it going to D/E, and C) Making the guild as a whole stronger by insuring that you have a choice of people to bring in. I'm sure some asshole guilds use "rotating" as code for sitting people they don't like or letting a friend/GM's pet hoard loot, but that's not how it's meant to work. Rotating in and out is a choice, and it's a choice that people are usually okay with so long as they know it's not singling out somebody, and that everyone will get their fair chance.

What you seem to be saying or hinting at is that any guild which does this risks losing an otherwise core member because they would rather go to a guild that runs Flex almost exclusively, and forget Normal, because there doesn't have to be any sort of rotating people with Flex? Again I would argue that somebody who doesn't understand the reason for rotating people, or worse takes offense at "being sat" and looks elsewhere isn't a team player and is clearly only out for themselves; if not they would understand that being asked to sit on a boss isn't a knock on the person, it's because they don't need a drop or, in rare cases when pushing progression, because their class is borked on that fight.

- - - Updated - - -

When my tinfoil hat is feeling particularly tight, I think Flex is the first step to a stealth nerf of heroic and normal. The steps:

(1) Introduce Flex.

(2) Tune up normal and heroic a bit, since now we have Flex.

(3) Notice that almost no one can now do heroic (or is doing heroic).

(4) Remove heroic, since so few are doing it.

(5) After a few complain about (4), rename "Flex" to "Normal" and "Normal" to "Heroic".

Bam! Normal and Heroic have effectively been nerfed by (1)-(5) (and normal now has the flex mechanism).

I would perfectly fine with this.

[Raelbo]

yes it is. And that's all I have to quote from your post to simply agree to disagree.

In short, you have your own unique and special definition of the word "bad". You view good/bad as a black/white issue, and you seem to have no understanding of the concept of grey, or the fact there are many shades of grey. And while you are entitled to use it that way, I stand by my simple premise: It is not helpful to anyone.

[Deleted]

I'm not sure you understand the concept of rotating people in; it's not "asking them not to raid" it's swapping people so everyone gets a chance at loot they need, and so you keep a healthy roster of raid-ready people in the event that Bob can't make it but Steve is online, you don't have to pug or call the raid because you only ever bring in Bob, so Steve is at 500 iLevel with stuff he's cobbled together from LFR and old raids/VP.

I'll use my own guild as an example since it's what I know: We don't rotate people in at all, as a general rule. We have 10 people and if one of them can't make it, either we call the raid (more so if it's a tank or healer) or pug someone from trade, or in a rare case we might have a more casual "Friend" member online with gear that's lower than ours but not so much that we'd be carrying them. If somebody goes on vacation or makes plans, we're screwed for raid essentially. If we rotated people (and had enough people to support this) we would not have that problem. If our Disc Priest is on vacation, we have another Disc Priest or other healer ready to step in without stunting our raid night. If one of our DPS has to work late last minute, we don't have to hope we can find someone from Trade because we have 2-3 other available DPS that we can bring in.

The whole idea of rotating people isn't to prevent them from raiding, it's to A) Give people a break, as sometimes you don't really want to deal with Boss X but you are on because it's a commitment, B) If you don't need anything from a boss, let someone who could actually use the loot come in instead of it going to D/E, and C) Making the guild as a whole stronger by insuring that you have a choice of people to bring in. I'm sure some asshole guilds use "rotating" as code for sitting people they don't like or letting a friend/GM's pet hoard loot, but that's not how it's meant to work. Rotating in and out is a choice, and it's a choice that people are usually okay with so long as they know it's not singling out somebody, and that everyone will get their fair chance.

What you seem to be saying or hinting at is that any guild which does this risks losing an otherwise core member because they would rather go to a guild that runs Flex almost exclusively, and forget Normal, because there doesn't have to be any sort of rotating people with Flex? Again I would argue that somebody who doesn't understand the reason for rotating people, or worse takes offense at "being sat" and looks elsewhere isn't a team player and is clearly only out for themselves; if not they would understand that being asked to sit on a boss isn't a knock on the person, it's because they don't need a drop or, in rare cases when pushing progression, because their class is borked on that fight.

.

Ah right, my experience is a bit different. (Gm for years, before that officer, officer in other guilds atm as well as GM here in Debonair.)

Ime, if you don't have at least 4 or 5 spare people, your main run is going to run out of steam quite quickly. There are holidays, life events, sickness, CBA evenings, hardware/software fuck ups., blizzards melee/ranged alternating favourtism etc etc that if you are 10 or 11 will stall your run quite fast. As you say, you frequently run to trade to fill out the last spot. I've never seen anyone take that as a favoured choice, they'd rather have someone they know. (Could be wrong on that, feel free to jump in and tell me I'm wrong, random readers.) Ideally your raid would have at least 11 regular raiders.

To really be in with a shot at running you need those extra arses on seats. Just ime. I think it's fairly common for a normal mode guild to be a solid, immovable core of a few players (maybe husband+wife/BF+GF/ or IRL friends) and then "the neccessary" - i.e. people they pick up and hang out with to achieve stuff in the game.

I just can't see the overspill hanging around in a flexi world. Not as a general thing, I am sure there will be exceptions here there and everywhere though.


Edit - I am also not saying that people will run away from normal guilds to do flexi. I am saying that guilds who do flexi (take everyone) raids first, and then normal modes afterwards have a comparative advantage over guilds that try to just carry on with normals or who only grudgingly do flexi as an afterthought.