Good Enough?

[Krazyboomkin]

Just want to get an overall view of our Mythic progression. I have a few key spots I am recruiting for but as many people mentioned on this forum as well as others, recruiting is not very easy to find good reliable people. But just how good is good? And how good are we? I know we are not amazing or awesome but we are a group of hard working adults working on mythic. Some may have a bad attitude after wiping for a few hours due to be frustrated, others may get a little negative but the support of the group tries to keep people motivated to keep pushing forward.

I am not sure how many groups kill Beastlord Mythic using 2 tanks and 4 healers for their very first kill. Maybe a lot, may not. It is not that we did not have the DPS and need more of it, it is we did not have the extra tank or healer to do what seems to be more common, 5 heal and 3 tank it. Even Method on their first kill with their super geared players, 5 healed it and 3 tanked it their first kill. In no way do I think we are better them. We raid only 2 nights a week, a true 2 night schedule. I am proud of my group, especially the healers.

So why is that I see so many other guilds getting these new players and we are struggling so much? That is my main question. We are only 1/10 mythic and really can go so much further if I was able to get some key people in the group. Is it because we are only 2 nights and today it seems more people want 3 to 4 day guilds? Is it because we start at 7 pm EST and many people are stuck working odd hours, like 2nd and 3rd shift and either need a late night or early morning guild? I am trying to get the feel of what people are looking for.

Thanks for the information and any support. And thanks for trolling since I know some people cannot hold back (hopefully not though).

[Dracodraco]

2-4 was standard first week. Method didn't use 3-5. They used 2-5. And your gear now is on par with their "super geared players" or better due to +5 ilvls if you're doing mythics/have been running hcs.


But yes, you will see far less recruits because of limited raiding hours. You have an extremely limited pool of players, because they should want to only raid 2 nights, and then they need to fit in your raid schedule. Very few people do 2 nights a week; rather just PuG if you raid that little, and do it on your own schedule.

[Ailylia]

This raises the other question of why hasn't blizzard done much to address how mediocre their tools for finding or advertising a guild are? I mean the in game guild finder is useless. The forums are a mess. There's no way to search based on relevant criteria. Even the fansites fall short of a very useful guild recruiting tool.

[Deleted]

Is it because we are only 2 nights and today it seems more people want 3 to 4 day guilds?

This. Our guild also run only 2 nights (http://www.wowprogress.com/guild/eu/...or/Mir%C3%A4ge) and it's very hard to find "Good players" who only want to play 2 times a week.

Hopefully for us we succed in finding those 20 players and we're currently at 3/10MM. Don't give up!

[novakayn]

2 times a week is low unless its a 4 hour, weekend raiding guild.

[Shamburger]

This raises the other question of why hasn't blizzard done much to address how mediocre their tools for finding or advertising a guild are? I mean the in game guild finder is useless. The forums are a mess. There's no way to search based on relevant criteria. Even the fansites fall short of a very useful guild recruiting tool.

Because wowprogress does the perfect job for them. Why dedicate resources to something that someone already does perfect for them?

On topic// OP. Your low progress this far into the tier, whether do to previous recruitment issues, late start (raiding wise), or your limited raiding hours(is it at least 4 hours for those 2 nights?) and early-ish start time will hinder your recruitment.

http://www.wowprogress.com/gearscore...week=2&lang=en

There you go. Players looking for 2/night week guilds. Start PM'ing

[Ailylia]

Wowprogress leaves a lot to be desired, tbh. It could be done much, much better.

[Chuckadoodle]

Wowprogress leaves a lot to be desired, tbh. It could be done much, much better.

So many other resources for guild recruiting that anything in game is really superfluous, forums, MMO-C, wowprogress, wowlemmings, reddit.. all of these tools are out there, just need recruiters with in the guild to be proactive and go after those players vice sitting in trade chat.

[Shamburger]

Wowprogress leaves a lot to be desired, tbh. It could be done much, much better.

What's it missing? Apart from actually selecting raiding days and time availability. It does like everyhting else...

So many other resources for guild recruiting that anything in game is really superfluous, forums, MMO-C, wowprogress, wowlemmings, reddit.. all of these tools are out there, just need recruiters with in the guild to be proactive and go after those players vice sitting in trade chat.

never heard of this before.... interesting site!

[IxilaFA]

This raises the other question of why hasn't blizzard done much to address how mediocre their tools for finding or advertising a guild are? I mean the in game guild finder is useless. The forums are a mess. There's no way to search based on relevant criteria. Even the fansites fall short of a very useful guild recruiting tool.

Its the same reason Blizzard hasn't developed a rankings tool or a log tool or in-game damage meters. Other sites already do it better, why waste the resources?

As for OP, your guild starts pretty early. I work a flexible shift and yet I would still have a hard time making it to raids on time at 4pm PST. Basically by putting the raid time at that hour youre elimination the entire west coast and even some central areas from your recruitment pool. I was in a guild once that started at 5pm and even then we had trouble getting people. It would be easier for your east coast players to stay awake until midnight than for your west coast players to get off work one or two hours earlier.

Secondly, two day a week guilds have poor reputations. You can clear just fine in one, but the number of guilds who are wildly successful number in the couple dozens. It requires an immense effort and dedication to pulling quickly, not wasting time with afks or breaks, and having no down to between wipes. Beyond farm, once you get 5 or 6 bosses down you will struggle to progress consistently because you will only have one night a week to work on it.

Finally, not to be Buzz Killington here, but you are not as good as you think you are. Almost every guild 2 tanks Darmac, and I've heard of none who did it with three tanks. I dont remember Method doing that, but if they did it was because they actually had LESS gear than the average guild who has been farming Heroic BRF and tier gear for seven weeks now does. Im not saying you guys are bad, but it will take more than that Darmac kill to attract potentially skilled recruits.

[Krazyboomkin]

I thank everyone for their input. To make a couple of quick comments of what I read. First I am far from lazy and sit around waiting for things to happen. I am extremely active. I advertise on 5 different sites with multiple post to promote the guild. I read 2 to 3 of the most active recruitment sites at least 5 times a day. I do also use wowprogress and have search for players looking for 2 day raiding guilds. Most of the people are from EU servers so we need more US people using it to make it a good tool for recruitment. I keep my guild site as well as wowprogress up to date regularly. I am around at least 3 to 4 days outside of raid times to chat with anyone interested. I put more into recruiting, leading and managing a guild than probably most. I am also not a rookie. I been playing for over 9 years, been on the same server for 6 and it is not a dead server. It is the best alliance server out there, or at least one of the best.

As for times and trying to accommodate west coast and starting later may be good in theory but for east coast players that have to get up early for work the next day, later is not ideal. So there are different times for different people and no one can accommodate everyone. So if I was able to adjust the times I may lose east coast players to gain west coast. Probably end up right where I am

As for giving up, will never happen. I like WoW, I like raiding and I plan on being around for awhile. I just want to know why it is recruiting dying down. At the start of the expansion I had more people than I can handle and now I can go works without one interested person. Our progression is not bad for 2 days. And to address that. We do not go AFK, we have never started late, we do not carry people, or tolerate anything that you may fine in a 4 day guilds. We have high expectations from our members to focus and get things done effectively. I have to say on the most part we have very little down time unless it is to correct something we are doing wrong.

Again thanks for the feedback. I am sure sooner or later things will come around. I am not really that concerned but was just wondering the thought process of others to why.

Happy hunting....

[Wilderness]

Keep being as proactive as you can regarding recruitment - hit all the websites you can, and get your information out there as much as possible.

There are less people who are looking for 2-day a week guilds than 3 or 4 days, but I don’t think the pool is as low as you think. I do think that your 7pm est start time makes it harder for you though. You have to consider the type of person who wants to raid 2 days a week. Often, they are looking for reduced hours because of outside commitments, such as a spouse/children, college/graduate school, working a lot of hours, etc etc. If they have a family or other commitments, making it home from work and taking care of any other responsibilities (dinner with spouse, getting kids to bed, studying, or whatever) would make raiding at 7pm difficult. I don’t think that starting a little later, even 30 mins or an hour, would bring in a lot more west coast folks, since I think it’s a more limited pool of people who can start raiding at even 5 pm their time. But if you were able to move your start time back a bit, you could be more appealing to folks on the east coast, and possibly open yourself up to some folks in the central time zone who could now just make it.

The flip side of starting then is you can finish earlier, so those who work early in the morning are happier so its all a trade-off, but my completely subjective opinion is that there are probably more people looking for 2 days a week who would prefer a later start time than an earlier one. My own guild raids twice a week, and we start at 8:30pm est. I don’t think we have anyone from the west coast, but we have a healthy mix of central and eastern time zones. We’re not overflowing with recruits, but we have managed to keep things going well enough thus far this expansion. Just my 2 cents.

No matter what though, you have to be as active as you possibly can in recruitment. Get your information out and don’t stop keeping it up. There may be less people who want to raid 2 days a week than 3+ but at the same time it can also be a big draw to the type of player who still wants to keep raiding but is unable to commit to more hours. You just have to get your info in front of as many of those types as you can.

[IxilaFA]

I thank everyone for their input. To make a couple of quick comments of what I read. First I am far from lazy and sit around waiting for things to happen. I am extremely active. I advertise on 5 different sites with multiple post to promote the guild. I read 2 to 3 of the most active recruitment sites at least 5 times a day. I do also use wowprogress and have search for players looking for 2 day raiding guilds. Most of the people are from EU servers so we need more US people using it to make it a good tool for recruitment. I keep my guild site as well as wowprogress up to date regularly. I am around at least 3 to 4 days outside of raid times to chat with anyone interested. I put more into recruiting, leading and managing a guild than probably most. I am also not a rookie. I been playing for over 9 years, been on the same server for 6 and it is not a dead server. It is the best alliance server out there, or at least one of the best.

As for times and trying to accommodate west coast and starting later may be good in theory but for east coast players that have to get up early for work the next day, later is not ideal. So there are different times for different people and no one can accommodate everyone. So if I was able to adjust the times I may lose east coast players to gain west coast. Probably end up right where I am

As for giving up, will never happen. I like WoW, I like raiding and I plan on being around for awhile. I just want to know why it is recruiting dying down. At the start of the expansion I had more people than I can handle and now I can go works without one interested person. Our progression is not bad for 2 days. And to address that. We do not go AFK, we have never started late, we do not carry people, or tolerate anything that you may fine in a 4 day guilds. We have high expectations from our members to focus and get things done effectively. I have to say on the most part we have very little down time unless it is to correct something we are doing wrong.

Again thanks for the feedback. I am sure sooner or later things will come around. I am not really that concerned but was just wondering the thought process of others to why.

Happy hunting....

Regarding starting time you didnt really read what I said about the benefits of starting later. Yes if you run 9 - 1 EST it may be an issue for people who have to get up early on the east coast. But, its easier and more within individual control to just go to sleep late two nights a week, compared to having to leave work early two days a week. If the average person wakes up at 6am and works 9 to 5, they would deal with 5 hours of sleep to raid in your guild rather than have to lose out on 2 hours of work two days a week. For most people they dont have the capability to leave work early like that on a consistent basis.

So recruitment wise, pushing back your raid time you would be excluding some potential Eastern recruits, but keeping them where you are at is excluding almost all Western recruits. I knoe my guild raids from 9:30 EST to 1:30 EST and we still have a few East coast raiders. They just suck it up and go to bed late on raid nights.

[Cheze]

good/mythic players who want to raid a two night a week schedule are likely to be folks with jobs/families/etc that prevent them from raiding a more involved schedule, and a 7EST start time effectively eliminates a big chunk of the USA from your recruiting pool. When I was looking for guilds pre-WoD I probably saw a recruiting post from you if you had them on the usual websites, but your schedule rules me out immediately.

Granted I'm on the west coast but I'm not even out of the office until 8-830 EST most days. Even for people in mountain/central who're an hour or two closer to you it'd likely be a tight squeeze.

I sympathize with east coast folks not wanting to raid past midnight (lord knows I don't), but the later you can start the bigger your recruiting pool will be.

[Burynerds]

Keep being as proactive as you can regarding recruitment - hit all the websites you can, and get your information out there as much as possible.

There are less people who are looking for 2-day a week guilds than 3 or 4 days, but I don’t think the pool is as low as you think. I do think that your 7pm est start time makes it harder for you though. You have to consider the type of person who wants to raid 2 days a week. Often, they are looking for reduced hours because of outside commitments, such as a spouse/children, college/graduate school, working a lot of hours, etc etc. If they have a family or other commitments, making it home from work and taking care of any other responsibilities (dinner with spouse, getting kids to bed, studying, or whatever) would make raiding at 7pm difficult. I don’t think that starting a little later, even 30 mins or an hour, would bring in a lot more west coast folks, since I think it’s a more limited pool of people who can start raiding at even 5 pm their time. But if you were able to move your start time back a bit, you could be more appealing to folks on the east coast, and possibly open yourself up to some folks in the central time zone who could now just make it.

The flip side of starting then is you can finish earlier, so those who work early in the morning are happier so its all a trade-off, but my completely subjective opinion is that there are probably more people looking for 2 days a week who would prefer a later start time than an earlier one. My own guild raids twice a week, and we start at 8:30pm est. I don’t think we have anyone from the west coast, but we have a healthy mix of central and eastern time zones. We’re not overflowing with recruits, but we have managed to keep things going well enough thus far this expansion. Just my 2 cents.

No matter what though, you have to be as active as you possibly can in recruitment. Get your information out and don’t stop keeping it up. There may be less people who want to raid 2 days a week than 3+ but at the same time it can also be a big draw to the type of player who still wants to keep raiding but is unable to commit to more hours. You just have to get your info in front of as many of those types as you can.

This is really good advice. I am an officer in the guild Wilderness is talking about above. In my opinion the number one thing holding your guild back from getting the recruits you want at the moment is progress. The quicker you get to around 5/10 mythic the quicker you will separate yourselves from some of the less serious and less organized guilds. Once you are getting more recruits the best advice I can give is to make sure people know you are serious about being a successful 2 night a week guild.

In my experience a lot of guilds in this category seem to fail from wanting to be serious but kind of being somewhere in the middle on actually executing on that. Obviously none of us are Midwinter or Method but you can be serious about what you want from your raiders. Set expectations and hold your raiders accountable. Be that performance, attendance, preparedness, etc. We try to make sure we have some elements of all of this represented but certainly we could improve in some areas. Take a hard look at your roster, is anyone there that really doesn't deserve to be raiding at the level you want to? If so do you think they can improve to the level you need? If not you need to look at replacing them, every guild will have a range of skill but if there are too many people at the bottom the people at the top will get frustrated and look for somewhere new.

Take a look at your guilds atmosphere. One of the biggest fears recruits coming into Despotism have is that they wont like the atmosphere of the guild or that they won't fit in. This is the first guild I have ever been in where the rules about conduct are actually fairly strictly enforced. That isn't to say that this is a requirement but I think that it helps people feel comfortable raiding with us. One of the great things about twitch is it allows you to give prospective applicants and recruits a chance to really sit in on a raid night with you and get a feel for you the. More so than even just sitting with you on voice chat. With Twitch archives an applicant can go back and look at how you do on a fresh progression boss, farm, etc. Use this to your advantage, if you are the kind of guild that uses their time outside of raiding to be well prepared coming into fights show it off. A lot of guilds in our bracket do not come in as prepared as they could be and waste time during their schedule to things that could be prepared for outside of raids.

Like you mentioned this isn't the start of WoD anymore applicants, especially geared and experienced ones, can take their pick a lot of the time. Make your guild stand out.

I don’t think we have anyone from the west coast

Also Ash, Iggins would be so displeased with you. At least him and Sno are full on pacific time.

[Deleted]

What's it missing? Apart from actually selecting raiding days and time availability. It does like everyhting else...

Tools such as that and more. It would make it a lot easier if you could filter by spec and time since last updated. It would also be better if it encouraged players to enter their battletag with a specific box, rather than leaving it for the comment box. Many do this anyway, but it takes a while to contact those who don't. It would also be good if there was an option to not only state how many days you are available, but which days and which times. The amount of people I contact who aren't available for our times (we finish quite late for people in Eastern Europe) is significant.

[knitten]

All I can say is that if my server had a 2-night a week guild that had 1/10 mythic progress and a good guild atmosphere, I'd be all over that. My guild is 4 nights a week and just starting Darmac progress... only 3 guilds on the server better than us, a handful just behind us, and all raid at least 3-4 nights a week. But we're a small EU server, so not a lot of choices if you want a guild capable of raiding mythic at all...

It seems to me that an early start time and limited raiding days (because of *which* raiding days, not the fact that it's relatively low hours) would be harder on recruitment than current progress. There's got to be more people than me that would love to be as progressed as they currently are (finishing heroics/just into mythic) on a lighter raid schedule. So yeah, you have a smaller pool of recruits, both from the hours and the days of the week your guild raids, but it seems to me that the people probably exist... but I don't know what more you could do to find them.

[Ailylia]

So many other resources for guild recruiting that anything in game is really superfluous, forums, MMO-C, wowprogress, wowlemmings, reddit.. all of these tools are out there, just need recruiters with in the guild to be proactive and go after those players vice sitting in trade chat.

So, that really sounds like a job, and this is game played for fun, why is it that when players ask for better tools its met with derision such as this that "bah, all you have to do is spend 2-3 hours a day working on this and its fine. The tools are out there!"

Sorry, the tools that are out there suck. Nothing is centralized. Half of them are out of date. Look at wow-progress list and many people haven't updated their profile in 30 days or more. There's no indication of what they're looking for other than some basic tools. I could spend a few days designing something that would be lightyears ahead of what we have now except it's not my job, I don't have the kind of pull to create a more centralized player base that people would actually use, and without people adopting it, its essentially worthless. Blizzard, on the other hand, has everything it needs to develop a good tool for recruiting that would lift this burden from guilds and be a boon to both players and guild leaders, yet apologists and naysayers all the time show people like myself down when we point out that recruiting sucks.