Why Guild Applications are becoming a thing of the past

[isadorr]

A player who plays one spec to near perfection but has no clue about how to play the other 2 specs can hardly be considered a bad player.

You can play a bad spec as well as you want and still be behind someone playing the best spec not as well. It isn't rocket science to change specs, it is becoming more and more common as nerfs happen during progression.

[Otimus]

Far as I can tell, an application on a guild exists for one of two purposes:

1) The guild needs it to keep track of all the requests and such and such they that are flooded with (NOT VERY LIKELY)
2) The guild wants to pretend it's a top tier guild (VERY LIKELY)

It's just one of those things you're going to have to live with. Ignore those guilds and move on.

As a person who does it, I can sometimes get annoyed at what things other people in this game do, even if it doesn't directly involve me, and there's certainly a need, a feeling, to be vocal about it. But remember, this community IS full of the opposite sort of people, and you're most likely never, or very rarely, going to get people on your side. I'm assuming you fall into the same category right there. Things bother you, so you want to talk about it. It doesn't mean (Like people wrongfully assume) that you want to be involved in these things.

[TheOne]

A player who plays one spec to near perfection but has no clue about how to play the other 2 specs can hardly be considered a bad player.

I'm great at healing with pretty much any healing class, but I'm terrible at DPS with those same classes. Resto shaman is my first love. I almost miss him... not enough to go back to that train wreck that is the WoW community, though.

[isadorr]

You missed the point. I made sure they understood that this is an audition for raiding. It's no longer just a heroic dungeon. Learning to follow simple instructions is vital to raiding. If they couldn't follow instructions in a heroic dungeon, then I had no place for them in my raids.

The problem is, you think it's just about numbers. You couldn't be any more wrong. Numbers can be fixed if a player is willing to make the effort to learn. The effort to learn is one of the main things I look for in a raider.

So in your opinion you can take any player and make them a good player? Does this good player rank? Put up the numbers they should for their gear and class/spec? It is about numbers when you are pushing progression, you want to gear someone up who is going to max the numbers and get the most out of each upgrade. What do you tell them to do in a heroic? If they are pushing good numbers the heroics are over so fast and everything dies super quick.

Are you looking for good players or people to teach? The idea of a application and parses is to save the guild time as you can see if they know their rotation and if they are doing well for their gear. You can tell everything from that.How many times they used cds, when they used cds, pre-pot, dmg taken and so on all from parses. You can ask 5 minutes worth of questions to see if they know their class.

[Deleted]

It isn't rocket science to change specs.

It is for classes that require completely different gear and playstyle depending on spec, Mages, especially Shamans....

[Osmeric]

I wonder how many guilds with rigorous screening processes are also complaining about not being able to get enough recruits.

The number of raiding guilds doing normal or heroic raids appears to be declining. The # of guilds tracked with nonzero progression in T14 is climbing only very slowly now, and many of the bottom 10K or so guilds appear to have given up. This is very different from T11, where the number of guilds with progress was still trending upward this far into the tier.

[Shaley]

Far as I can tell, an application on a guild exists for one of two purposes:

1) The guild needs it to keep track of all the requests and such and such they that are flooded with (NOT VERY LIKELY)
2) The guild wants to pretend it's a top tier guild (VERY LIKELY)

It's just one of those things you're going to have to live with. Ignore those guilds and move on.

The system is a system because it works.

I can assure you, if you can't take TEN MINUTES To set whatever self-imposed ego you have aside for ten minutes to fill out an application, to show a guild you wish to play with that you actually give a shit, then rest assured, they don't want you.

I'd take an ilvl 485 Hunter with 4/16 Normal modes to our 6/16 Heroic guild that took the time to fill out an application well, than a ilvl 500 Hunter with 5/16 Hard modes that scoffed at our simple request.

We don't even run an application anymore, but when we did, this is how it was.

---------- Post added 2013-01-14 at 10:48 PM ----------

I wonder how many guilds with rigorous screening processes are also complaining about not being able to get enough recruits.

The number of raiding guilds doing normal or heroic raids appears to be declining. The # of guilds tracked with nonzero progression in T14 is climbing only very slowly now, and many of the bottom 10K or so guilds appear to have given up. This is very different from T11, where the number of guilds with progress was still trending upward this far into the tier.

Because unlike Tier 11, this tier actually had road blocks for the (below?) average guild on normal mode. You could fart and piddle your way through normal mode Cho'gall in a pug. You're not going to pug Empress Shek'zeer on normal, nor are the below average groups that could piddle around on Kel'Thuzard 2.0, or Cho'gall/Nefarian/Alakir.

[TheOne]

So in your opinion you can take any player and make them a good player? Does this good player rank? Put up the numbers they should for their gear and class/spec? It is about numbers when you are pushing progression, you want to gear someone up who is going to max the numbers and get the most out of each upgrade. What do you tell them to do in a heroic? If they are pushing good numbers the heroics are over so fast and everything dies super quick.

Are you looking for good players or people to teach? The idea of a application and parses is to save the guild time as you can see if they know their rotation and if they are doing well for their gear. You can tell everything from that.How many times they used cds, when they used cds, pre-pot, dmg taken and so on all from parses. You can ask 5 minutes worth of questions to see if they know their class.

Read the rest of my posts and you will see that I agree with some of what you say. To answer your initial question though, I am looking for good players that are willing learn whatever it takes. In heroics, I treat it like a 5 man raid. Sure, bosses go down fast, but I get to see how they handle situations. Reaction times. Whether or not they're paying attention. See if they follow instructions. I'm tough on them. If they pass that, then I know they are a solid player, and possibly, as gear progresses, one of the best.

[Deleted]

Cho'gall/Nefarian/Alakir.

That gotta be a joke. You can count the guilds that killed them before T12 on one hand. WAY more guilds have cleared T14 than T11 during the same time frame.
Compared to T11 normal, T14 normal is a snoozefest.

[Shaley]

That gotta be a joke. You can count the guilds that killed them before T12 on one hand. WAY more guilds have cleared T14 than T11 during the same time frame.
Compared to T11 normal, T14 normal is a snoozefest.

Are you seriously suggesting that normal Nefarian Chogall and Alakir made it to June 2011 (6 months after release) with a minimal amount of guilds killing them? Surely you're the one joking here.

[Osmeric]

WAY more guilds have cleared T14 than T11 during the same time frame.

If you look at the stats, I don't believe you'll find this to be the case.

[Dawnrage]

Guild applications are fine honestly. The problem are the guilds themselves. Being a GM/officers of a guild doesn't equate to having the skills necessary to run an organization, especially in WoW where guilds are predominantly consisting of people still in college. Yes, all of them have the logistics part down of running their guild, either by raid leading well or doing what is necessary in order to keep a guild floating via sales runs or organizing the guild bank and such, but a lot of them do not have a good head on their shoulders.

Also, a lot of guilds expect you to perform far above a certain level of expectation, that most times they themselves cannot reach. A lot of them are honestly in over their heads and way to stuck up that they can't see past the main fact that this is a game first and foremost, and that none of their raiding "accomplishments" mean a thing in the grand scheme.

I see a lot of comparisons to real jobs, but that isn't wholly true at all. You don't go burning bridges in real life the way you do in WoW with no backlash as an organization. That's why there's such a focus on keeping good PRs in the public's eyes in the real world, whereas in WoW, most high end guilds enjoy "trolling" and being absolutely childish with no real consequence, yet when push comes to shove, like to cite their rankings or progress as if that's some sort of merit to all the things they do.

Don't get me wrong though, while a lot of them are like that, there's plenty of guilds who are also properly ran and do amazingly well. Those guilds truly have my respect, not that respect is worth a damn in the game itself. In short, why even put yourself through this OP? You may not be the best player and such. Does it matter? I can't believe you would put yourself through 29 pages of this junk, and that there's enough people even replying to fill up 29 pages to begin with (mostly with downright humiliating responses that any sane adult reading would laugh at). What a joke of a thread.

[Deleted]

Are you seriously suggesting that normal Nefarian Chogall and Alakir made it to June 2011 (6 months after release) with a minimal amount of guilds killing them? Surely you're the one joking here.

On the majority of medium pop servers they surely didn't get killed by more than 3-4 guilds per server until June. T11 was a disaster that caused blizz to lose nearly 3mil subs.

[Osmeric]

On the majority of medium pop servers they surely didn't get killed by more than 3-4 guilds per server until June. T11 was a disaster that caused blizz to lose nearly 3mil subs.

The difference between then and now is not that normal mode is easier, it's that we now have easy heroic 5 mans and (vitally) LFR.

[schwank05]

I have never filled out an App, I have just gotten into guilds via friends and server Rep. Apps are BS and not a true test of a player, neither are logs IMO. But then again I have no interest in ever doing Heroic Modes, why do Heroic when Normal is the same thing. I play the game to enjoy it with friends and could care less if I was just doing LFR or Heroics.

[Shaley]

On the majority of medium pop servers they surely didn't get killed by more than 3-4 guilds per server until June. T11 was a disaster that caused blizz to lose nearly 3mil subs.

I'll do it for you.
http://www.wowprogress.com/achieveme...next/1100#last
http://www.wowprogress.com/achieveme...next/1040#last
http://www.wowprogress.com/achieveme.../next/800#last

As of June 28th 2011, Firelands Release date: 27,700 guilds had killed Nefarian.
As of June 28th 2011, Firelands Release date: 29,700 guilds had killed Al'akir
As of June 28th 2011, Firelands Release date: 39,000 guilds had killed Cho'gall

3 Months into their tier release (which is where we're at now with 5.1)

Nefarian: 13,700
Alakir: 18,500
Chogall: 17,300

3 months into 5.1's release we have
Will of the Emperor: 21442
Empress Shekzeer: 9348
Sha of Fear: 8500

Now, please, show me your numbers where Tier 11 was harder to start out than Tier 14?

inb4 "WILL OF THE EMPEROR HAS MORE KILLS THAN ALL 3"

Nef Alakir and Chogall were on the same Tier. Will of the Emperor isn't even a tier. It's an introductory raid.

[Goatfish]

There is a good reason for applications, especially if you have higher-end theory crafters running through your applicants. It also helps easily weed out the bads with minimal time investment, such as a certain hunter app from wotlk I remember who thought that using mana regen flasks was the best option.

On that note, there are many people who use application processes that are either retardedly strict, or just don't know what they are looking for so they either take forever looking at it or refuse it for trivial reasons. This coming from someone who was accepted for trial to world top 10 guild (right before my computer literally had a meltdown) and yet was refused to multiple sub 500 guilds for reasons such as: "We don't want to take the chance that you might leave later." and "One of our raiders doesn't like you."

The second of those was mainly hilarious since the guy who had an issue with me was worried I was going to replace him if I got in.

edit: I forgot to mention since someone mentioned 'hard heroics' not being a way to test people. While it might not be a way now, it worked pretty well in BC taking a new tank into H-Shattered halls with a couple of our better dps, or throwing a healer into H-Shadow Labs with a tank in troll gear.

[Osmeric]

As of June 28th 2011, Firelands Release date: 39,000 guilds had killed Cho'gall

What's sad is that's more guilds than have currently killed Stone Guards.

[TheOne]

edit: I forgot to mention since someone mentioned 'hard heroics' not being a way to test people. While it might not be a way now, it worked pretty well in BC taking a new tank into H-Shattered halls with a couple of our better dps, or throwing a healer into H-Shadow Labs with a tank in troll gear.

Yeah, I used those two quite a bit. The Botanica was another one of my favorite tests.

[Shaley]

What's sad is that's more guilds than have currently killed Stone Guards.

Why is that sad? It's actually a good point either the difficulty of tier 14, or the reduction in raiding guilds.

At present time, there are 36,430 guilds that have killed Stone Guard normal. Compared to Cho'galls 6 month total of 39,000.

Comparing to Halfus' 3 month total of 52,000 kills... and 6 month total of 60,000.

The way it's presented here, 15,500 less guilds are raiding Stone Guards that raided Halfus.