guild recruitment - how to recruit raiders for non mythic raids going forward

[hlx]

hi all,

I recently was thinking about guilds and recruitment for Legion. I am an officer in a long standing guild (started in vanilla MC) we had ups and downs, bigger, smaller community, but we kept going. We raided current content, we sometimes had multiple raiding teams. Never going too hardcore but after clearing normal modes we dabbled in heroics till new tier came out.

In WoD we didn't go for mythic but had fun clearing both normal and heroic modes.... till HFC came and suddenly we started loosing people left and right. Not leaving the guild but rather leaving the game. From two raiding teams we went to one, then we had trouble filling in one raid, used OpenRaid for a bit to find fill ins till mid-summer we stopped raiding as it became an exercise in futility.

as a dedicated raider myself I really can't imagine going into legion without a raiding team - while thinking about maybe finding another guild for myself I am still hoping to revive our current guild with new people.

and this brings us to why I created this thread - how can a guild that is not server first, not doing mythic content, and not impressively progressed, handle the recruitment at this time? I was hoping that blizzard would address the issue on BlizzCon but sadly nothing was said about any kind help for dying guilds. I really don't see how our kind of guild can present itself in an attractive fashion to attract more people.

what do you guys think?

[Deleted]

It's best to just give up and save yourself the hassle and frustration, I think.

[hlx]

It's best to just give up and save yourself the hassle and frustration, I think.

lets call it Plan Z for now

I'd rather not have this thread go towards "should I stay or should I go" but rather talk about how guilds like my current one can deal with this situation?

[Deleted]

i don't know for most others but i myself like to raid, i however like doing rbg's more. and thus rarely find a guild doing both and end up playing rbg's with my guild and raiding occasionally with randoms, so my suggestions is the wider the spectrum of things your guild actually does not just brags about in trade the more people of the sort who'd either raid on the side or whatever, which i consider heroic to be in my case, you cater to.

[Deleted]

Just tell them what they are in for. I myself am/was an officer of a HC only raiding guild. We tell everyone right at the start that we don't do mythic and if they want to, they should search for another guild.

You would be surprised who many players don't have the time or don't want to raid mythic. We have many players who could raid mythic regarding their skill. We had a rooster of 29 people once and could have done mythic easily, but once you start doing mythic there is no going back. Also the benching of players creates a lot of drama and canceling the raid when you only have 19 players is just annoying. Overall is just not worth it, in my opinion.

We present our guild more as a community, we play other games, we are not to harsh regarding attendance and skill, but try to make the most out of the time we invest in raiding. Apparently that works for us.

[Logwyn]

What server/region?

Basically what I found back when I did this sort of thing was that you just have to hang in there and grab people as you can. PUG if you need spots and hope they work out. Found a number of members from pugs. Guild only dies if the leaders stop caring and just stop moving the guild forward.

I still think with the server transfer fees Blizzard makes it hard to recruit new members. Even with all the cross realm crap. Summer was always a hard time to get new people and it slowed down for whatever reason. The announcement of a new expansion also does that as well.

Maybe recruit as a going forward thing for building a team for the next expansion?

[hlx]

Just tell them what they are in for. I myself am/was an officer of a HC only raiding guild. We tell everyone right at the start that we don't do mythic and if they want to, they should search for another guild.

You would be surprised who many players don't have the time or don't want to raid mythic. We have many players who could raid mythic regarding their skill. We had a rooster of 29 people once and could have done mythic easily, but once you start doing mythic there is no going back. Also the benching of players creates a lot of drama and canceling the raid when you only have 19 players is just annoying. Overall is just not worth it, in my opinion.

We present our guild more as a community, we play other games, we are not to harsh regarding attendance and skill, but try to make the most out of the time we invest in raiding. Apparently that works for us.

this is all very valid, thank you.
the big issue for me right now is the fact that we dont raid even normals, we don't have a stable raiding team and so when recruiting (either now or close to Legion) we really don't have anything to show outside of our previous track record. I understand that your guild is actively raiding but fur us, recruiting 5-7 people that would be a good cultural fit at this point might be impossible?

[Khuteh]

What server/region?

Basically what I found back when I did this sort of thing was that you just have to hang in there and grab people as you can. PUG if you need spots and hope they work out. Found a number of members from pugs. Guild only dies if the leaders stop caring and just stop moving the guild forward.

I still think with the server transfer fees Blizzard makes it hard to recruit new members. Even with all the cross realm crap. Summer was always a hard time to get new people and it slowed down for whatever reason. The announcement of a new expansion also does that as well.

Maybe recruit as a going forward thing for building a team for the next expansion?

This ^^

This whole expansion has been really hard for a lot of guilds. I've been banging my head against the wall since January. Around 1 applicant a month whether good or bad..

We've been lucky we have a looong history and a lot of players come and go and in the last few months a lot of our old vets have come back and we've managed to get into Mythic for the first proper time since WoD was released. We've always been a good guild but without new members we were stuck at the recruitment boss for ages. We farmed HC for months when we should have moved towards Mythic progress.

Now our patience is paying off! We're 3/13 M in 3 raids.

Previously we've had server firsts, pre-nerf Muru etc so we have pedigree and would not disband just cos we couldn't raid the hardest content for one ex-pac.

Be honest with your guild, tell them that you're trying to achieve, and get them to buy into it. Pug where you can, and take risks on players, undergeared etc, sometimes you will find the diamond.

Think about how you can encourage new people to join, advertise on realm forums and trade, find your guilds niche, and market it.

The more lottery tickets you have, the more chance you have of winning.

[hlx]

What server/region?

Basically what I found back when I did this sort of thing was that you just have to hang in there and grab people as you can. PUG if you need spots and hope they work out. Found a number of members from pugs. Guild only dies if the leaders stop caring and just stop moving the guild forward.

I still think with the server transfer fees Blizzard makes it hard to recruit new members. Even with all the cross realm crap. Summer was always a hard time to get new people and it slowed down for whatever reason. The announcement of a new expansion also does that as well.

Maybe recruit as a going forward thing for building a team for the next expansion?

I'm on EU-Aggramar, Alliance side.

One of the options I'm considering is move to Silvermoon which seems like a PVE paradise, but as mentioned earlier leaving the guild would be the last step way farther down the line.

The big issue with PUGs for me is that you really need a stable core of your own players for it to work and just fill in the less crucial gaps.

[ceall]

If your guild does solely raid in normal and heroic, why not give new players who have never raided before a try?

I myself am a mythic raider and started low in wrath. I joined a guild, that couldn't beat the lich king on normal until 3 weeks before cata came out. Soon after cata release, I switched to a somewhat better guild, which cleared all normal raids of its first tier, but couldn't go beyond 1 heroic kill. When firelands came, I switched guilds again, this time, we were able to clear heroic up until mop began, when my raid group had didisbanded come mop, I took a break until ToT, because my raid has disbanded. I then joined a semi good hc guild, going 6/13 heroic before SoO came. I then had the opportunity to join a better guild again, with which I could clear heroic SoO. As the raidlead became a bitch, I then switched during BRF to the guild, I'm currently in. Now we're in the range of top1000 world, with 9/13 mythic currently (we're re-gearing our new tank atm, which is why our progress stagnates) and I now am totally happy.

Tl,Dr: give new players a chance, they can turn out very competent, even if they are inexperienced.

[hlx]

If your guild does solely raid in normal and heroic, why not give new players who have never raided before a try?

I myself am a mythic raider and started low in wrath. I joined a guild, that couldn't beat the lich king on normal until 3 weeks before cata came out. Soon after cata release, I switched to a somewhat better guild, which cleared all normal raids of its first tier, but couldn't go beyond 1 heroic kill. When firelands came, I switched guilds again, this time, we were able to clear heroic up until mop began, when my raid group had didisbanded come mop, I took a break until ToT, because my raid has disbanded. I then joined a semi good hc guild, going 6/13 heroic before SoO came. I then had the opportunity to join a better guild again, with which I could clear heroic SoO. As the raidlead became a bitch, I then switched during BRF to the guild, I'm currently in. Now we're in the range of top1000 world, with 9/13 mythic currently (we're re-gearing our new tank atm, which is why our progress stagnates) and I now am totally happy.

Tl,Dr: give new players a chance, they can turn out very competent, even if they are inexperienced.

oh I am all for giving newbies a chance and don't mind showing how it's done. Thing is, how to attract those people if there are better guilds out there?

Also, unless you server transferred a lot during that guild hopping, I assume you are on a server with rather rich raiding scene, something that is not present on all servers.

[ceall]

oh I am all for giving newbies a chance and don't mind showing how it's done. Thing is, how to attract those people if there are better guilds out there?

Also, unless you server transferred a lot during that guild hopping, I assume you are on a server with rather rich raiding scene, something that is not present on all servers.

Been in like 5 or more different servers since I started raiding. Now I'm in a "middle" - pop server, with 4 successful mythic guilds, and we are the least successful of those 4 with our 9/13 mythic.

[Deleted]

Just tell them what they are in for. I myself am/was an officer of a HC only raiding guild. We tell everyone right at the start that we don't do mythic and if they want to, they should search for another guild.

You would be surprised who many players don't have the time or don't want to raid mythic. We have many players who could raid mythic regarding their skill. We had a rooster of 29 people once and could have done mythic easily, but once you start doing mythic there is no going back. Also the benching of players creates a lot of drama and canceling the raid when you only have 19 players is just annoying. Overall is just not worth it, in my opinion.

We present our guild more as a community, we play other games, we are not to harsh regarding attendance and skill, but try to make the most out of the time we invest in raiding. Apparently that works for us.

i have very similar experience, most people wont even stick with mythic raiding if they get there, once they drop out of that they search for stable guild but for some reason everyone is "recruiting for mythic" even though they never got there as a guild in WoD, i dunno why, i smell false promises just to lure as many peeps as they can. There is shitloads of time for moose mount, build your recruitment strategy around that - goal is to kill heroic archimonde and not go any further. Then get solid gear, full heroic tier sets, class trinkets, upgrade your rings, come with alts...

[Deleted]

oh I am all for giving newbies a chance and don't mind showing how it's done. Thing is, how to attract those people if there are better guilds out there?

Also, unless you server transferred a lot during that guild hopping, I assume you are on a server with rather rich raiding scene, something that is not present on all servers.

At this level people probably aren't motivated primarily by raiding.

You need to be a welcoming, friendly, supportive guild and pull in pugs, people you meet in dungeons or whatever. You will be maintaining your guild on the basis of its social environment not its raiding prowess.

[Kolvarg]

I'd say you have 2 ways to go:

1) Pause recruitment until the Legion pre-patch, when there will most likely be an overflow of people coming back quite possible interested in finding a guild to raid with for Legion.

2) Continue actively trying to find new people, pugging to complete the roster if needed.

Whichever you pick, just do your best not to lose the "core" raiders for the long-term. Make sure you add people on b.net and keep contact when possible to increase the odds they'll return to raid with you in legion even if they unsub for a while.

In the end for a lot of people it's just not very fun to farm the same raid for months on end with 0 progress. If you can try to offer some variety. For instance, in my case we've completed Normal & HC Progression, then after farming a bit started doing the Glory of the Hellfire Raider achievments. With the new patch we'll start giving Mythic HFC a try, and after we're finished with the achievments we're planning to start an alt group - everyone on a different class in 630 dungeon gear, starting from Highmaul again for some fresh air.

[Summer]

Recruitment is pretty horrible for most of us atm. However if you read LF Players Forum, there are alot of returning (unbanned or for Legion) players and those are probably where you should be looking at.

However if you need 5-7 players your best bet is a merge or a "guild alliance" - cross realm raiding with another similar guild from here to Legion, when you both can probably boost your numbers up again for your own raid teams, for a while atm least.

But the fact remains WoW as the game has become loses players all the time. We get an influx for new content but then even more people quit. I started a guild in WotLK and recruitment then or in Cata and recruitment now are just so different, and not in a good direction. Really sucks as I still like to raid but guild stability has become an issue everywhere.

[Deleted]

One of the options I'm considering is move to Silvermoon which seems like a PVE paradise, but as mentioned earlier leaving the guild would be the last step way farther down the line.

I am currently leveling my chars in silvermoon (alliance) and Draenor (horde), both servers are totally alive, they are both PVE although i have not raided in neither of them, too busy with a great leveling project.
Anyway i suggest you do a little effort and level 1 char in silvermoon, and give it a try to the raiding scene there, so you can better decide if moving there is the right choice.
There is plenty of time until legion, and leveling just one char would not be such a chore.

[Nihilan]

While there is still a long wait until Legion, you must also bear in mind that the rate of end of xpac burnout is only going to increase. As it does every expansion. And the truth is that Blizzard has implemented so many ways for people to get into or experience raiding that guilds are no longer necessary.

Also bear in mind that a lot of people preferred the old 10man roster HC content. Many of us are simply no longer interested in raiding within today's 20man environments. The shift to 20m killed almost every single raiding guild on my low-pop server. The last stalwart 20m holdout went on hiatus about a month ago as they just cannot fill slots in the raid to do mythic.

The answer may be as simple, yet as unavoidable as moving servers. In the end, its just a guild name - dont let nostalgia hold you back.

[Scyclone]

I'd say that it is sort of a slowly sinking ship, in that content gets consumed too quickly to resupply it. The door boss for Mythic is indomitable as hell, but I think in time (and these legion dungeon changes should help here) this will no longer become a major issue. I do dislike the assumption that a mythic guild takes more time than a heroic or normal guild out of some magical virtue of it being harder.

Our guild is a mythic progression guild, we raid 2 nights a week, 3 hours per. That is significantly less than many guilds and yet we are halfway through the mythic track at this point. So it really isn't a time issue, it is a desire issue, you need to establish that first.

I do not see a non-progression raiding guild as viable in WoWs environment at this point, because it is so easy to hit the wall and just give up. If there is nothing to strive for, it just becomes a simple routine and people quit or head for greener pastures.

Consider this: You enjoy raiding, it is fun, you want to raid. Would you join a heroic guild that raids 3 nights a week for 3 hours per. Or would you join a mythic guild that raids the same exact times. Sure, the heroic guild guarantees a raid spot, but you know that there is nothing left past the next 2-3 bosses it kills until they become a mythic guild (assuming they even go that far) or you have the mythic guild (a bit stricter, understandably so) that has 2-3 bosses left as well (more unlikely given the difficulty curve of mythic). You can already figure that naturally the mythic guild will remove those bosses at a slower pace than the heroic guild should, because of the difficulty difference. At the end of the day, which guild offers more longevity of raiding experiences (and challenge). You either raid heroic, become bored once you've beaten it, and then farm or play tag with the mythic door boss. Or you raid mythic, getting re-immersed into the challenge of harder raiding, and still feel like there is more to do with it, even after you've finished the last boss. Ultimately, if I wanted to raid, and I was a recruit looking for a guild. I wouldn't ever consider a heroic guild over a mythic guild, because the heroic guild cannot offer me anything that a mythic guild can not offer as well... and then I get more out of the mythic guild past that.

So like someone mentioned above, diversify your guild, become both raiding and pvp (and actually do pvp as a guild) and that gives you something attractive to recruits. Beyond that, you are inviting people to hop aboard a ship that is slowly taking on water anyway.

[DeadmanWalking]

Most likely if you have a play style or a guild need there is someone out there that is looking for the same thing. Since we have 6-9 months before legion and burn out will be high you will have to constantly look for more member, but once legion starts you will have a massive amount of returns and a full guild again. Just keep at it.