Best way to recruit? What are my options?

[Kruiuiul]

Wowprogress is always good

[Nuckels]

Recruiting right now is hell, its summer, the game is boring as hell, I wish you the best of luck but your best chance is your raiders to recruit friends.

[Riistov]

LFR really killed most chances of you recruiting all that well. Blizzard systematically destroyed any reason to be in a guild.

I wish you luck, though!

That's not even remotely true.

If you're raiding at any level above normal, LFR had nothing to do with it.

[Jibjub]

That's not even remotely true.

If you're raiding at any level above normal, LFR had nothing to do with it.

But ... it did? Your evidence is your opinion. My evidence is having been a guild leader and trying to recruit people and failing because they can "experience the content" without the need of a guild or failing at attempts over and over for a few weeks. Why put up with drama and failure when you can log in and have SURE success in less than an hour? It's common sense, really, that this would have a HUGE affect on recruiting for smaller guilds.

It's like ... take VR for example. The better VR technology gets, the more likely people won't have a reason to leave their homes. Why go to a bar and struggle picking up a mediocre woman when VR can help me "experience the content" with the hottest woman of my choosing. An easier path of resistance, with enough reward and no headache, will be very appealing to people.

I really mourn the death of common sense. Truly.

[Dracodraco]

But ... it did? Your evidence is your opinion. My evidence is having been a guild leader and trying to recruit people and failing because they can "experience the content" without the need of a guild or failing at attempts over and over for a few weeks. Why put up with drama and failure when you can log in and have SURE success in less than an hour? It's common sense, really, that this would have a HUGE affect on recruiting for smaller guilds.

It's like ... take VR for example. The better VR technology gets, the more likely people won't have a reason to leave their homes. Why go to a bar and struggle picking up a mediocre woman when VR can help me "experience the content" with the hottest woman of my choosing. An easier path of resistance, with enough reward and no headache, will be very appealing to people.

I really mourn the death of common sense. Truly.

Main issue is that any person that thinks LFR is seeing the content probably wasn't a good fit for a guild anyway; At best they'd stick around till stuff was cleared, then fuck off after content was over, if that is their attitude. It hasn't made it *harder* to recruit. It's made it harder to get substitutes you'll have to replace ASAP because they won't be loyal. It's made it easier to recruit people that actually *wants* to raid.

[Jibjub]

Main issue is that any person that thinks LFR is seeing the content probably wasn't a good fit for a guild anyway; At best they'd stick around till stuff was cleared, then fuck off after content was over, if that is their attitude. It hasn't made it *harder* to recruit. It's made it harder to get substitutes you'll have to replace ASAP because they won't be loyal. It's made it easier to recruit people that actually *wants* to raid.

I agree with the spirit of your post, but not its application. Maybe I am naive, but I think a lot more players WANT to raid. And before LFR and X-realm BS, these players you refer to would have had to rise to the occasion. The guild I led was very ragtag ... we weren't cutting edge. We downed the LK like 2 weeks before the pre-patch would have made the fight trivial. We really really struggled with Rag during Cata. We weren't good but we had fun and we weren't jerks about it (subs loved raiding with us, even while we failed A LOT).

Because here's the thing: there wasn't another option. If you wanted to enjoy that part of the content -- which was never so hard that it was inaccessible -- you had to suck it up and join a guild and give it everything you had. It felt great to succeed. You really achieved, even if the best guilds did it months ago.

Now, there is another option. You still "see" the fights. You still get loot. You don't need a guild. You don't need to get onto Vent or log on Mondays even though your favorite TV show is on that night. You can do the same content -- granted, without any of the fun -- and do it when and how you want ... without any effort. It's human nature that a GREAT majority of players -- many of whom could succeed in higher difficulties -- to take the easy road.

I've played with these people. They CAN rise to the occasion. But the question is ... because of LFR and x-realm: Why?


I'll leave you with one more metaphor. If Blizzard made an arena mode / BG mode that had you fight against WAY easier AI instead of other players ... and you were rewarded (not as well but good enough) for it, what do you think that would do to the PvP community? Those who really love a challenge and find the fun in that, they will stick around. But a great majority of players will take the easy road.

[Zogarth]

Now is a horrible time to find dedicated raiders I would assume. Maybe wait till pre-patch to start recruitment as that should bring in some fresh blood. Most serious raiders are "done" with this expansion, either due to having cleared all content or burned out.

[kary]

I agree with the spirit of your post, but not its application. Maybe I am naive, but I think a lot more players WANT to raid. And before LFR and X-realm BS, these players you refer to would have had to rise to the occasion. The guild I led was very ragtag ... we weren't cutting edge. We downed the LK like 2 weeks before the pre-patch would have made the fight trivial. We really really struggled with Rag during Cata. We weren't good but we had fun and we weren't jerks about it (subs loved raiding with us, even while we failed A LOT).

Because here's the thing: there wasn't another option. If you wanted to enjoy that part of the content -- which was never so hard that it was inaccessible -- you had to suck it up and join a guild and give it everything you had. It felt great to succeed. You really achieved, even if the best guilds did it months ago.

Now, there is another option. You still "see" the fights. You still get loot. You don't need a guild. You don't need to get onto Vent or log on Mondays even though your favorite TV show is on that night. You can do the same content -- granted, without any of the fun -- and do it when and how you want ... without any effort. It's human nature that a GREAT majority of players -- many of whom could succeed in higher difficulties -- to take the easy road.

I've played with these people. They CAN rise to the occasion. But the question is ... because of LFR and x-realm: Why?


I'll leave you with one more metaphor. If Blizzard made an arena mode / BG mode that had you fight against WAY easier AI instead of other players ... and you were rewarded (not as well but good enough) for it, what do you think that would do to the PvP community? Those who really love a challenge and find the fun in that, they will stick around. But a great majority of players will take the easy road.

Path of least resistance.
I understand the idea behind LFR but there's no way it could be applied and not cause people to ignore organized raiding.

[Deleted]

Path of least resistance.
I understand the idea behind LFR but there's no way it could be applied and not cause people to ignore organized raiding.

That reminds me of the fallacy that if someone scalps concert tickets by reselling them, then he hurts the market. No, what hurts the market is not offering the right prices so scalping does not exist. Similarly, LFR offers something organized raiding does not, hassle free story telling.

The majority of players that would not raid at all because of LFR only affect the most basic level of organized raiding, those guild that will mainly do up to heroic mode or slightly more by the end of the expansion.

And if the story is all you need you can watch everything on youtube anyway. That might sound strange today but in Vanilla even that was rare to find.

[Jibjub]

That reminds me of the fallacy that if someone scalps concert tickets by reselling them, then he hurts the market. No, what hurts the market is not offering the right prices so scalping does not exist. Similarly, LFR offers something organized raiding does not, hassle free story telling.

The majority of players that would not raid at all because of LFR only affect the most basic level of organized raiding, those guild that will mainly do up to heroic mode or slightly more by the end of the expansion.

And if the story is all you need you can watch everything on youtube anyway. That might sound strange today but in Vanilla even that was rare to find.

The problem with LFR is that it isn't JUST story-mode. You get rewarded for it, for running it over and over. The idea that it exists so people can "See the content" is just plain wrong. Give rewards for the first LFR and then remove all rewards for subsequent runs and you'll see how popular it is. Very few really /ENJOY/ LFR ... there is just nothing else for these people to do and it's way easier than keeping a schedule, depending on others, and needing to be depended upon.

I can 100% tell you with certainty that LFR, and now group finder, has really hurt small guild recruiting. I have run a guild I have tried recruiting. It's a wasteland. And when you get people, they are rarely reliable because they can just do LFR or get picked up in group-finder, etc. You can argue that all these things make the game better (and I would disagree with you), but you cannot argue that they have not impacted guild recruitment and organized raiding.

The benefits to being in a guild, for a great majority of players, are not good enough for the drawbacks--for raiding regularly above LFR, that is.

[Deleted]

The problem with LFR is that it isn't JUST story-mode. You get rewarded for it [..] when you get people, they are rarely reliable because they can just do LFR

I think that might be true only for a certain segment of casual guilds because even if someone aims to clear mythic slowly by the end of a Tier, they will still not be satisfied by LFR rewards only, or at least they shouldn't recruit people that are satisfied by only that if their goal as a guild is to be more serious.

Now if a guild does have actual competition from LFR and they are actually casual enough for that to be perfectly normal, the best thing they can do to combat that is to have a very good social environment. What LFR really sucks at is having social life.