The legion announcement + content drought is killing my raiding guild

[Hexian]

Anybody saying this is the norm for the end of an x-pac is fucking hilarious. Blizzard has NEVER just straight up abandoned an x-pac like they have with WoD. One good major content patch in an entire x-pac and we are done. We've got nothing until Legion which Blizzard has already said could be before or after the movie release next summer. Let me repeat that.....NOTHING. They know the shithouse they released with WoD and they are trying to distance themselves from it as much as possible.

[kamuimac]

2. Get an alt saved to the lower ilvl farm bosses and extend that lockout every week so you can skip over the boring bosses from which nobody needs gear. Doing HFA for the 9th time when nobody needs that lower ilvl gear can be incredibly mind-numbing.

that could work for guild which is in mythic already as those attract geared players - guilds which are not even mythic atm cannot allow themselves for skiping hc farm as the people they attract have usually 690-700 itlv which means they need all those bosses.

- - - Updated - - -

\ One good major content patch in an entire x-pac and we are done. \

hm where was that patch ? unless you mean tannan which was supposed to be in game from very begining and dreadfull shityy apexis dailies ? and you know why most probably they delayed tanaan so long ? because they knew perfeckly from very begining there wont be ANY new content outside of raiding whatsoever this expansion so they panicekd and saved and reworked whole ready zone for future patch when most probably it was ready from begining - even minor stuff lie flying was forced on them by players they never planed to put it in.

harh truth is they abandoned this expanion before it was released when they realised how shitty product they have.

This is all I can think of too. I mean, if 2 months is way too long on content for someone, then WoW is just not the game for them. It never has been, nor will it be.

thats because for majority of players raiding is not content they do not want to raid and blizzard forcing them to raid is driving them away- as hard it is for those hwo are addicted to raiding understand most players dont give a single fuck about riaidng and that the main reason raiding base always was and always will be around 10% and if blizzard aimed this expansion at this 10 % out of 10 mln thats exackly what they will get by the end of expansion - they wil be left with less then milion players.

[Deleted]

That would be 7 months into a tier. Tiers are designed to last roughly 6 months. So realistically you would have started a new tier already whether you finished the previous one or not. If you continue for 7 months you deserve a pat on the back. No sarcasm intended. All we can ask for is that Blizzard releases the next expansion before June.

Exactly. That's what I meant. People tend to not give a crap after a while and because we aren't enough to begin with Mythic Progression, we will - if we keep this pace up - run into a long long time of farming HFC over and over again.
Man, SoO was horrid but at least we had Heroic to progress on (we even got Blackfuse before 6.0, lol) but as it stands? I sure as hell hope, there will be some miracle to keep people in the raid-group longer.

[Vivica]

As much as there has been a decline in the player base and no doubt a lot of people have probably decided to take a break until Legion comes out, it's also seemingly just as common for a new expansion announcement to bring some players back into the game.

Maybe this sounds insane to most people here, but we had a lot of older players who felt a little bit burnt out after our blackhand adventures and wanted to take a break. Once hearing about legion they felt motivated to be a part of the game and now are again valued players of our raiding roster.

There is also always that inevitable truth which is guilds die. They die constantly, and they die a lot more come the middle to end of raid tier and expansions. This is what feeds other guilds players and allows them to keep going. I think the most important thing is having something there that people want to still be a part of. Maybe in this case the problem isn't content or lack there of, more just that people feel they have achieved their goal and can't be bothered with more. You can say what you want, but if people want more, they can have it even if it means joining another guild in order to get into mythic raiding.

[Beoren]

Part of the problem in my eyes is that Mythic is 20man and ill explain:

1. HC raiding guilds (which most of them are sub-20 players) are getting bored once they clear HC and can't even attempt the next X/Y bosses of Mythic difficulty which used to keep them in the game, Many teams in MoP had only the first few bosses down in HC (old mythic) now its not open for them to try unless they are 20+ raider in the guild, they have nothing to strive for after clearing HC.

2. Mythic raiders are getting bored because some of them used to experience Mythic content on many toons, now its impossible to pug current Mythic raid. 10-man Mythic (or old HC) kept me 14 (!) months of SoO just because I could pug 11HC (the old Mythic) with my Alts, in WoD I could only play my Alts to finish HC and thats it, usuallly took me 4 weeks to finish my Alt and after that I stopped playing it.

3.Many and I seriously think ppl underestimate how large this group is - Many Mythic raiders enjoy more the smaller more-intimic raid size . Its just feels more free to them and the environment is different, your impact as a player is larger. I enjoyed way more in my 10man raiding teams than my 20/25man.

4. 20man raiding guilds is super hard to maintain logistically, its very hard for guild leaders and officers to recruit and a tons of guilds die, 10man is easier to maintain. Nearly all my friend's guilds disbanded, 2 guilds I've played in disbanded. and alot more other guilds disband. 20man raid sive was just too much for some old 10man raiding guilds.

I think Blizzard have to consider bringing back 10man, ofc its not the only reason and clearly not the major reason for subs lost, but for the players/ raiding teams I mentioned it does have an impact.

[Fritters154]

i really wonder why Blizz doesnt bring in another carrot on the stick like garrosh heirlooms in MOP.

That's really true...there needs to be some incentive that pertains to the drive toward 110. Obviously can't do weapons this time because we will get our artifacts first thing in Legion but another interesting one would be trinkets. Like if they made the class trinkets 100-110 heirlooms.

Another one I was thinking of was a loyalty reward system that incentivizes staying subbed for x amount of time. I think if there is an incentive to stay subbed the players will stay and potentially play the game...but the playing the game part is still iffy.

[clevin]

So i can easily say, that you can do nothing to stop people from un-subing undtil next expansion. What you can do though, is to make sure that the contact that you have with these players are maintained with keeping them on your Battlenet account. People on my server, and from my guild, often un-sub when we have killed the last HC boss in the current expansion(or normal before mythic) and did other stuff undtil a new expansion came out. By not being afraid of them leaving, i made sure to take a talk with most guildies who were quitting to make sure that when the next expansion comes out, they should come back to the old team.

People need stuff to do, but just because they unsub because of content drought, does not mean that they are going to quit the game forever. Get a deal going with your full team, take in pugs, switch guild if needed, but always keep the contact open so you are ready for new raids.

This is a great post. Especially at the end of an expansion, there's less motivation to farm gear since you don't need it for the next tier... there IS no next tier where the gear will help, so people who get a kill in normal or heroic have in many senses completed the expansion.

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Exactly. That's what I meant. People tend to not give a crap after a while and because we aren't enough to begin with Mythic Progression, we will - if we keep this pace up - run into a long long time of farming HFC over and over again.

Look at it as a regular raider though - what's the point of farming? There's no next tier before Legion and each expansion will reset the gear. The main reason to farm gear is because it will make the next tier easier and that reason always dies at the end of an expansion.

[hulkgor]

Same cycle as before, the only difference for me is, the 'active' cycle just got shorter, and the wait for new stuff gets longer.

Eagerly awaiting the new expansion, of which i will certainly enjoy a lot at its launch, but already knowing that it won't hold me for long. The game isn't exactly new and fresh, is it?

[Alvito]

That's the usual and just fine.

Not so early in a final raid tier though. A lot of this is a carry over from so little to do for all of WoD. Looking at half a year of HFC left to choke down with nothing else has a lot of people pulling the plug on the game for now.

[Deleted]

I quit raiding a few weeks after HFC came out. In the very first week I cleared the raid on normal. In the second or third week I killed everything on HC.

Why would I bother to wipe/progress/kill (on) the same bosses for the third time?

this multiple difficulty model sucks the fun out of raiding

[Deleted]

maybe they should lower the item drops per boss to 2 items again and get back an unique tier set style, since wotlk the tier sets looked complete bs and felt like lvl 1 starting sets. it should feel good to get an epic again and stop giving us the opinion to get full epic after one day hitting lvl 100! 10 man and 25 man raids are enough, with hardmode or hc modes, nothing else. bring back raids that can only be cleared with 10 man and not 25 and bring back the badge system from bc and wotlk and all will be great.

[Dartz1979]

I do all the lfr wings to get my tomes once i get my ring on one character i move on to next onc ei get em all done no need to do hfc no more.

[Alvito]

I do all the lfr wings to get my tomes once i get my ring on one character i move on to next onc ei get em all done no need to do hfc no more.

Why grind out the ring at all if you are just going to shelf the toon when they get it?

[Foj]

If organized raiding was actually fun for most people, it would be more popular.

The fact that when people see a way out of the raiding grind, they take it, maybe should indicate to you that what you think is fun, only a handful of other people also think is fun.

[kamuimac]

Why grind out the ring at all if you are just going to shelf the toon when they get it?

some people are completionists - once ring is done your alt is more or less set unless you plan to do the same instance on normal and hc untill you barf . and good luck getign into any pugs to farm tomes on normal without ring atm.

[Soeroah]

Why does an announcement of the next expansion contribute to a slowdown in raiding? An extended period of time in the same raid, sure, but there's been no reason to assume there wasn't another expansion coming so it's odd to me that an announcement of something we already knew was a given should affect playstyles that much.

[Deleted]

I stopped playing a month ago. I tried, I really tried to hang on to the game because there is shit else to play until November, I do mean SHIT, but I'm just not finding myself being motivated anymore, this game is sooo fucking boring now. I spent a ton of cash on tokens to sell for gold and buy conquest points from the AH because I would rather throw my PC out the window than farm conquest gear for another character right now. Every time same shit, level a character to 100, hit Ashran and discover there is something I really don't like about that character in pvp.

Most played characters are
*hunter, which I discovered it's a dogturd in 1v1 against other ranged classes (except mage) as well as against some of the melee, and I can't stand losing in 1v1.
*protection warrior, which was nice, until I discovered it's really not that strong in 1v1 against melee who know what they're doing and also does really low damage which is not fun.
*feral druid, was nice until I discovered how crappy and glitchy looking is the claws of shirvallah form that apparently is mandatory for pvp because it lets you cast in cat form, and I HATE visual glitches with a passion.
*affliction lock, discovered its mobility is exactly 0 meaning that in group pvp situations unless there is healer nearby there is no way for you to survive nor even run away
*balance druid, really disliked the dps rotation
*frost dk. I dunno, I used to play a dk in wotlk and cata but today I find dks to be extremely boring, especially the dual wield frost build that is apparently fotm.

Anything else is terrible in 1v1 situations, so no reason to try those. Cancelled sub and deleted wow two days ago but I'll definitely be back in Legion, no reason and no motivation to play until then. Also, the shipyard missions are giving me a nausea, I never believed the garrison missions could be even worse than the follower mission part. Did most of the flying achievement but I really cba with the Tanaan rep crap, not at all.

God there is nothing to play until November, so trolling forums and twitch watching for me for the next two months.

[Paula Deen]

I hate to be the bearer of bad news but this is not only going to get worse, but the temporary relief you may feel at the launch of Legion may be just that, temporary. If you are having troubles recruiting for your preferred difficulty the best thing to do is merge with another long time guild on your realm. You will be getting many problems because at Legion Launch you will see many return, and many new faces, all of whom want to raid. Sadly, these people will quit again. The only real way around this odd scenario is to stick with people who you know will not be leaving the game. In terms of actual advice to any guilds, not just OP, separate yourself from the crowd. I personally hate seeing a 4/13N guild saying they plan to do 13/13M HFC. It is unrealistic and just makes you come across as a liar or under performing. What you should be attempting to do instead is exploit the niche. That niche being the group that doesn't plan on progressing to Mythic (or Heroic.) This group is a rarity even on the big realms and it is usually highly successful.

Another reality you need to face (OP) is that Mythic is locked to 20 People. This means you always need that big roster. As I said above, try merging with another like-minded group. It will alleviate roster problems and has the added bonus of helping people make new friends on the realm. The biggest reason I see for failure on my realm (Proudmoore) right now is a lack of like-minded groups OR the lack of cooperation with that group or groups. You may lose your leadership position, so may your friends, but if it means your guild members still get to raid together, I would say that it is worth it in the end.

[Merlaine]

Our guild has been around for over 8 years, and during that time we've seen many people come and go. However, we've never seen it as bad as it is now. We started HFC with over 20 raiders and on Thursday, we actually had to cancel our raid because we couldn't get a team together of 10 people. To see how bad things really are, take a look at the 'Looking for players pve' on the wow eu forums. You have a player who has just returned to the game after a long break with no gear and or experience, asking if any guilds would be willing to accept him/her and mythic guilds are fighting over getting this player as a recruit.

We are 12/13 normal and 5/13 hc so still have some ways to go before we're finished with HFC, but it seems every week someone else announces they are bored with wow and need to take a break. Any new recruit we do get (and those are few and far between) tend to be players who need gear and that pushes our progression back further, so we end up having to re-run normal to get these people their gear as fast as possible. Yes crafted and Tannan gear help but it all takes time which we can't afford to lose and running the raid for gear that the majority don't need leads to more boredom and more people quitting.

In the past, people would stay around to get achievements from older raids/dungeons etc. Most people who are into achievements already got them during past expansion droughts. Running old raids for gold isn't worth it since Blizz reduced the amount of gold you can get from old raids. This leaves mount farming, which again, unless someone has been really unlucky, they already have. In short, apart from Garrison dailies, and Tannan rep, there is nothing to do and it is hurting. For the first time since our guild was born, I have serious doubts we will survive until Legion. For now, it's not the game that keeps me playing, it's the people, the friends I have made over the years, and as more and more leave, I can see myself eventually following suit.

The only band-aid solution I can see would be time-walking raids. Bring back a different one every month and make the gear worth getting and the difficulty reasonable, not a face-roll and it may just hold us over until Legion.

[Cwimge]

You mean you got bored of the last tier more quickly and earlier than in the past because you already killed the bad guy on a lower difficulty first, so there was less reason to stick around longer? Because even if it the "final form" was technically longer-lasting content, the motivation was missing because you kinda did it already?

So in a way, the lower difficulty settings are a kind of a spoiler?

You need a middle road, particularly near the end of an expansion. If a guild can't push heroic archi and normal wasn't there many would take the "what's the last boss of wod matter?" approach and drop as well. God knows outside of his shoulders I have no burning desire to push him