Did high end raiding guilds change or is it me?

[Krakan]

I thought it was interesting how calm Limit's voicecomms were when they were racing for WF. The casters made the point that it is more typical of guilds out of the top 50 to be toxic. If the raid leaders know what they are doing and have control of the raid there is no reason to panic, you just fix what went wrong and move on. If you don't know what you're doing you start screaming and saying caustic shit while punitively benching people.

I rarely noticed top guilds being "toxic" they can be sort of cruel. I've seen someone raid for six years with a group being sat for a trial who just did more damage. There are rules that I imagine a lot of less progressed guilds wouldn't tolerate but it was all handled rather professionally most of the time. There were a few that reacted badly but most understand it isn't personal at that level.

- - - Updated - - -

Raiding has gotten significantly harder since TBC.

Blizzard has tuned mythic encounters to brutal levels in comparison to TBC 25 mans. The execution required has skyrocketed, the preparation has skyrocketed, and the margin for error has diminished dramatically. What you bring is equally important to WHO you bring, and you never know when the next Carapace (LOCK REQUIRED) or Nzoth (Fire Mage) is around the corner.

Some fights (specifically towards the back 25% of the instance) require such coordination and memorization and repetition that losing 1-2 players due to burnout is enough to throw a wrench in the entire guild. All of a sudden you're not killing the boss or seeing the same progression because you are missing DPS checks or re-teaching new players the fight. 2 more raiders get burned out because you've regressed due to it. They leave. Then 2 more, then 2 more, then you're calling it quits for the tier.

So, it's more common that you get guilds running a bench for multiple reasons. Bring those players in to learn the encounter when the others can't make it due to whatever reason, so the downtime is minimized. Honestly? The game would likely be more successful if they de-tuned Mythic a bit. But for every "HIGH ELF NOW" vocal minority, a "MAKE RAIDING MORE DIFFICULT" minority is there to match them, decibel for decibel.

Heroic is too easy. Mythic is too hard. Normal shouldn't exist.

I'm torn on this. My experience with clearing mythic or before mythic heroic was from tbc to wod with very few exceptions. I have noticed a ramping of difficulty but I'm not sure how large a jump it truely is. I can't say I found the last bosses of mythic znoth ( cant recall the raids name walking city?) To be on par with mythic HFC.

[kaminaris]

Raiding has gotten significantly harder since TBC.

Blizzard has tuned mythic encounters to brutal levels in comparison to TBC 25 mans. The execution required has skyrocketed, the preparation has skyrocketed, and the margin for error has diminished dramatically. What you bring is equally important to WHO you bring, and you never know when the next Carapace (LOCK REQUIRED) or Nzoth (Fire Mage) is around the corner.

Some fights (specifically towards the back 25% of the instance) require such coordination and memorization and repetition that losing 1-2 players due to burnout is enough to throw a wrench in the entire guild. All of a sudden you're not killing the boss or seeing the same progression because you are missing DPS checks or re-teaching new players the fight. 2 more raiders get burned out because you've regressed due to it. They leave. Then 2 more, then 2 more, then you're calling it quits for the tier.

So, it's more common that you get guilds running a bench for multiple reasons. Bring those players in to learn the encounter when the others can't make it due to whatever reason, so the downtime is minimized. Honestly? The game would likely be more successful if they de-tuned Mythic a bit. But for every "HIGH ELF NOW" vocal minority, a "MAKE RAIDING MORE DIFFICULT" minority is there to match them, decibel for decibel.

Heroic is too easy. Mythic is too hard. Normal shouldn't exist.

Fully aggreed, especially with last sentence

[exochaft]

I'm torn on this. My experience with clearing mythic or before mythic heroic was from tbc to wod with very few exceptions. I have noticed a ramping of difficulty but I'm not sure how large a jump it truely is. I can't say I found the last bosses of mythic znoth ( cant recall the raids name walking city?) To be on par with mythic HFC.

The shift in difficulty has mostly moved from "one person makes a mistake, it's a serious setback but we can recover" to "one person makes a mistake, it's a wipe".

A lot of it comes down to raid design and the mechanics, as Blizz loves to fall back on things like soaking mechanics. Unfortunately, falling back on soaks ends up making certain classes always a safe bet for mythic raiding due to immunities, and if immunities completely trivialize the encounter compared to a group w/o... well, that's just dumb and not well designed. Even Blizz has started to realize this, as they've made an effort to have more and more mechanics ignore immunities. However, part of the problem is that messing up a soak has been tuned into instant wiping versus a setback, or that the soaks are tuned to where immunities are basically required unless you really want to shoot yourself in the foot.

It's not just soaking, it's anything that requires personal responsibility. Now, having personal responsibility play a larger role in a fight is fine, but we're getting to the point where you cannot afford to have a roster of a handful of lesser skilled people and the stronger players pick up the slack. I remember back in HFC mythic we had a couple specs in our raid that were considered trash tier, but we could carry them and let them play the specs they enjoyed because we weren't heavily restricted by design. We're not at "bring the player, not the class" anymore... heck, we're not even at "bring the class, not the player", it's downright "these classes are mandatory, or don't raid mythic at all" in some cases. Having things like immunities or warlock gateways should be nice, but never feel mandatory else the difficulty curve jumps up drastically.

If one couldn't guess, I'm also not a fan of one class bringing 5% physical/magic damage debuffs with how things are tuned.

From my experience the last 15 years of raiding the most difficult raiding content, the reason a lot more guilds are getting more aggravated at their members or being more strict/serious when it comes to mythic raiding is how the content is balanced and designed. Doesn't help that currently there's zero incentive to actually mythic raid, and the pool of players willing to mythic raid (or raid at all) is likely severely lacking.

[Wheeler]

I'm torn on this. My experience with clearing mythic or before mythic heroic was from tbc to wod with very few exceptions. I have noticed a ramping of difficulty but I'm not sure how large a jump it truely is. I can't say I found the last bosses of mythic znoth ( cant recall the raids name walking city?) To be on par with mythic HFC.

Yeah - I mean, at the end of the day difficult is always going to be relative, right? I know there are guilds that think Heroic is incredibly difficult content, and I'm not really trying to rain on their parade or anything. I just think Mythic is significantly more difficult on the back half than it needs to be (Or Xanesh - Yikes).

But I've been in some bad guilds with some great people (like 400 Orgazoa Mythic wipes before a kill bad), and they're absolutely destroying Heroic within 2 raid weeks, maybe 3 for the last boss if it's a real knee slapper that requires better play than average.

So when someone says "Yikes, Mythic is brutally difficult" and the reaction from someone in the thread ends up being "ThEn JuSt Do HeRoiC", it doesn't hold water to me. There's a significant difference between deleting Heroic in 14-20 days from launch, and spending 10 times that in Mythic and never seeing the final boss (or if you see it - never killing it).

The reward should (and honestly - does) come from the speed at which you kill it, not the fact you kill it at all. Honestly though, I'm likely a minority on this opinion. If EVERYONE cleared Mythic, it wouldn't really be so special. I just think it needs a bit of a de-tuning as it stands now.

[kaminaris]

Yeah - I mean, at the end of the day difficult is always going to be relative, right? I know there are guilds that think Heroic is incredibly difficult content, and I'm not really trying to rain on their parade or anything. I just think Mythic is significantly more difficult on the back half than it needs to be (Or Xanesh - Yikes).

But I've been in some bad guilds with some great people (like 400 Orgazoa Mythic wipes before a kill bad), and they're absolutely destroying Heroic within 2 raid weeks, maybe 3 for the last boss if it's a real knee slapper that requires better play than average.

So when someone says "Yikes, Mythic is brutally difficult" and the reaction from someone in the thread ends up being "ThEn JuSt Do HeRoiC", it doesn't hold water to me. There's a significant difference between deleting Heroic in 14-20 days from launch, and spending 10 times that in Mythic and never seeing the final boss (or if you see it - never killing it).

The reward should (and honestly - does) come from the speed at which you kill it, not the fact you kill it at all. Honestly though, I'm likely a minority on this opinion. If EVERYONE cleared Mythic, it wouldn't really be so special. I just think it needs a bit of a de-tuning as it stands now.

Well your example of xanesh is actually bad because this boss is actually one of the best bosses when it comes to what I think balance should be
It doesn't require high dps nor hps but requires coordination, is fun to play.

Gorgonzola is good one, this boss was bad, straight up bad boss that required good reaction time, high dps and high hps, very tight.

Imo more bosses like xanesh, less dps checks, less hps checks, more coordination, less tight reaction times.

[goldlock]

Yeah - I mean, at the end of the day difficult is always going to be relative, right? I know there are guilds that think Heroic is incredibly difficult content, and I'm not really trying to rain on their parade or anything. I just think Mythic is significantly more difficult on the back half than it needs to be (Or Xanesh - Yikes).

But I've been in some bad guilds with some great people (like 400 Orgazoa Mythic wipes before a kill bad), and they're absolutely destroying Heroic within 2 raid weeks, maybe 3 for the last boss if it's a real knee slapper that requires better play than average.

So when someone says "Yikes, Mythic is brutally difficult" and the reaction from someone in the thread ends up being "ThEn JuSt Do HeRoiC", it doesn't hold water to me. There's a significant difference between deleting Heroic in 14-20 days from launch, and spending 10 times that in Mythic and never seeing the final boss (or if you see it - never killing it).

The reward should (and honestly - does) come from the speed at which you kill it, not the fact you kill it at all. Honestly though, I'm likely a minority on this opinion. If EVERYONE cleared Mythic, it wouldn't really be so special. I just think it needs a bit of a de-tuning as it stands now.

I would agree with this... Speaking as someone who clears heroic on the week its launched it feels like class stacking and the need to bring range got out of hand. I don't know if that was intended or just another knock on effect from blizzard believing they didnt need to properly test or balance corruptions. I almost wonder if they didn't nerf gushing if melee would have more then a chance beyond a token DH or WAR for mythic 'znoth.

I am not really sure how you go about fixing it either. I enjoy mythic how it is but even I have the sinking feeling that its getting to be to much. The balance isn't really there anymore when it comes to classes and the tuning is so harsh that you can't really overlook it. With all that said though I don't know what the sweet spot would be... if I had to pick I would say something like mythic blackrock foundry or perhaps heroic throne of thunder.

[Marrilaife]

-- snip --
it's downright "these classes are mandatory, or don't raid mythic at all" in some cases. Having things like immunities or warlock gateways should be nice, but never feel mandatory else the difficulty curve jumps up drastically.

If one couldn't guess, I'm also not a fan of one class bringing 5% physical/magic damage debuffs with how things are tuned.

From my experience the last 15 years of raiding the most difficult raiding content, the reason a lot more guilds are getting more aggravated at their members or being more strict/serious when it comes to mythic raiding is how the content is balanced and designed. Doesn't help that currently there's zero incentive to actually mythic raid, and the pool of players willing to mythic raid (or raid at all) is likely severely lacking.

I fully agree. It's really hard nowadays to make a guild that would be a "monolith" and not different sub groups of players loosely grouped together, but each of them has their own sentiments.
- people who wanna grind vs people who wanna raid log
- people who focus on m+ pushing and only wanna loot from the raid to help in m+ vs people for whom raid is main focus and m+ is the chore they have to do to obtain gear for raids
- people who wanna play w/e spec they want vs people who think everyone should play meta specs

The fact raiding transitioned from 10 man to 20 man, wow population dropped drastically, there are other alternative end game routes than raiding, all that contributes to the fact it's harder to fill a roster and you often have to compromise and fill it with people who don't match the guild with skill, attitude, goals, effort, you name it.

Even in guilds declared casual there tends to grow a group of "hawks" that want to push for being more hardcore, first it's just them (grinding ap day and night, pushing m+, etc.) but then sooner or later one of the 2 happens: either they leave the guild looking for more hardcore greener pastures, crippling the guild because it's very hard to replace 5+ people at once, or they try to push their mentality onto everyone else and start creating toxic atmosphere and witch hunting who's "slacking" and "not pulling their weight".

These problems were much less pronounced when 10 man raiding was a thing because it was twice as easy to fill a raid with likeminded people than when it's 20 and you have different groups trying to sway the guild into their way of thinking which to them is "the only right way(tm)".

I've seen it happen way too often when a guild that was holding specific rank and attitude across patches and raid tiers suddenly tries to "go hard" and ends up with player burnout, massive quittings and often breaking apart.

Raiding population imo is getting too small after m+ became a competition to sustain 20man mythic raiding especially in the world where we don't have a megaserver and cross faction play. The community is fragmented between servers and factions and tbh outside of few big servers (and in my region, outside of horde) you don't stand a chance to sustain a guild just within a narrow bracket of likeminded people. So you're forced to take any player who passes by, even ones that don't match to your guild profile, just to sustain the roster, which is a breeding ground for toxicity when you mix in one pot players with completely different points of view, attitudes and goals.

[Hero2Zer0]

>provides a singular experience based on one guild

"Are ALL guilds like this???"

Do you write for BuzzFeed in your spare time?

Did you even bother reading the title. The second half of the title clearly states "or is it just me". Clearly they are talking about their experience... and trying to compare with others.

[Relapses]

Did you even bother reading the title. The second half of the title clearly states "or is it just me". Clearly they are talking about their experience... and trying to compare with others.

What the OP wants is a happy little negativity echo chamber where people can quote block each other and fawn with nostalgia about how much better the game was before it became corrupted by the imaginary toxicity that the current game design has fostered in high end players.

And he succeeded, even though the plural of anecdote is not data.

[Krakan]

What the OP wants is a happy little negativity echo chamber where people can quote block each other and fawn with nostalgia about how much better the game was before it became corrupted by the imaginary toxicity that the current game design has fostered in high end players.

And he succeeded, even though the plural of anecdote is not data.

I more realized I was playing a extremely popular class that wasn't really valued beyond one or two spots ( dh ). I kind of just decided to relax. I joined a 11/12 guild struggling on znoth. I alreadly have all my drops including the mount from it and they seem pretty cool.

While I'm doing that I am going to level and gear up a warlock try to get some mythic experience before sl then find a guild in the first tier. It's a bit annoying I can't really play the class I would like to ( I'm missing rather key trinkets and items so while I can and have pulled my weight in mythic znoth I wouldn't really be suited for selling carries without farming raden a lot)) end of the day that has always been a issue with pushing progression.

I am sure in time I will find my flock but till then I found a rather nice inbetween guild to relax at.

[Wheeler]

Well your example of xanesh is actually bad because this boss is actually one of the best bosses when it comes to what I think balance should be
It doesn't require high dps nor hps but requires coordination, is fun to play.

A bad example to you, maybe. And that's fine, because again - it's all relative. For everyone that hates something, I'm sure there is someone with the opposite opinion.

But you're the first person I've ever heard say Xanesh was "one of the best bosses" - So it's good to hear the differing view.

[Gaidax]

I more realized I was playing a extremely popular class that wasn't really valued beyond one or two spots ( dh ). I kind of just decided to relax. I joined a 11/12 guild struggling on znoth. I alreadly have all my drops including the mount from it and they seem pretty cool.

While I'm doing that I am going to level and gear up a warlock try to get some mythic experience before sl then find a guild in the first tier. It's a bit annoying I can't really play the class I would like to ( I'm missing rather key trinkets and items so while I can and have pulled my weight in mythic znoth I wouldn't really be suited for selling carries without farming raden a lot)) end of the day that has always been a issue with pushing progression.

I am sure in time I will find my flock but till then I found a rather nice inbetween guild to relax at.

There is simply way too much melee. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

As a whole melee were always more popular and it certainly did not help that all the class additions so far were melee. So you end up in a situation where you have insane amount of melee squabbling over these few melee spots in every raiding group worth its salt.

Nor that it helps that melee in mythic raids usually tend to be a hindrance rather than asset. There are exceptions and Blizz is sort of trying various hacks to make it better, but still you can bet there will be at least a couple of bosses per tier where you simply can't afford to bring more than X melee DPS without making everything much more difficult than it should be.

I think it's just part of accepting that to get into a decent raiding guild, you need to come with an attractive offer and melee is about the worst option there is really.

- - - Updated - - -

A bad example to you, maybe. And that's fine, because again - it's all relative. For everyone that hates something, I'm sure there is someone with the opposite opinion.

But you're the first person I've ever heard say Xanesh was "one of the best bosses" - So it's good to hear the differing view.

Different people like different things.

I too think that Xanesh is an absolute cancer, as is every boss where one mistake = immediate wipe. Reminds me of Crucible - first boss was an absolute cancer because you could insta-wipe 8 minutes in due to one single fucked up interrupt, where subsequent boss - Uunat had a similar mechanic with adds that needed interrupt, but you could actually recover from a fuckup, yes it would be bad, but at least you could continue with proper A game.

[Marrilaife]

Hate to break it to you, but you are the common denominator in those stories, and it usually takes two to tango.

Yep, it's definitely my fault alliance guilds are disbanding or going horde left and right. I single handedly scared them off the faction. Some of you people need a reality check.

The only way I can keep playing is pay 55$ for faction change, downsize to the guilds that are really low rank or reroll to fotm range dps to get a spot in the small amount of guilds that exist on my faction.

Also some guilds that treated me like shit disbanded after I already left them. So yeah, definitely I'm a factor here? Lol.

Feel free to comb the alliance hall of fame from let's say Uldir and tell me how many of these guilds still exist and are still alliance. I'll wait.

Also last time I depicted how a guild treated me in another thread people told me "lol just leave big deal", and now apparently I'm at fault here? That's some next level victim blaming. They weren't treating like that just me, so it's not that I'm provoking it, they benched a guy perma because he was a spriest not a fotm class, they refused to trade loot to one warrior over another because "he doesn't have blacksmithing so he clearly doesn't put the effort" (he had alchemy and jc afaik, and he would benefit more from the item dropped), btw the warrior who "put effort" no longer is with that guild, is now in top 150 horde guild because well... he was getting good logs, was handed loot so he can carry the guild, but after he got the logs, he bailed.

And I'm not the only person going through this, I know people who got kicked / perma benched from guilds for similar reasons, 1 guy was a ret pala, another one was again a spriest, in both cases guilds sidelined them because they weren't a fotm class. Anyone who thinks people playing non-fotm specs aren't treated like this probably doesn't raid mythic.

And yes, biggest question is how I didn't have any problem finding a guild and fitting in from wotlk to mop but nowadays guilds have problem with me?

Oh yea, and after I left that guild people recommended me to leave, I joined a guild where GM was so bad and toxic that half the guild decided behind his back to leave and transfer to horde. I didn't wanna go horde so I wasn't a part of it. So yea... defo I'm the "common denominator" here.

It's basically the same thing as claiming if you feel the league of legends community is toxic, then it's your fault and you should've "grown a thick skin". Nope, it's a statement shared by a lot of people and it ends up one way - the people who don't want to deal with toxic community quit, so the only people left are people who are toxic themselves and don't care / don't mind. Therefore reinforcing the vicious cycle. The same is happening with wow. People who don't wanna deal with toxic community either close in their small bubble if they still have non-toxic friends they can play with, or they quit.

[TEHPALLYTANK]

They definitely changed, and I'd say it was the introduction of Mythic that did it. 20man raiding is now the only form of top-end raiding, and it doesn't really foster the same type of community you could get with 10man raiding.

[antelope591]

You just need to find like minded players. I'm in a 2 day guild that gets CE in a decent time for the most part. We're laid back but we also expect people to put in similar effort as each other. That means knowing your class, the encounters, having proper corruptions, etc. I've also been in a similar guild who raided the same hours and could only clear 4/12. That wasn't fun to me but for others, that's their thing. When you have players with conflicting mentalities you're gonna run into trouble.

[Demeisen]

Feel free to comb the alliance hall of fame from let's say Uldir and tell me how many of these guilds still exist and are still alliance. I'll wait.

For top 100 Alliance Uldir, I could only see one (non-Chinese, because Chinese data is harder to access) guild that transferred to Horde, and only a small handful who've disbanded.

[Popastique]

I got back into the high end (well world 900 but still full clearing)) and the attitudes I'm encountering seem so forgien to me. Previously I was in a guild from tbc to legion and everything was laid back. We hit world 50ish constantly and each raid night was laid back like a cozy pub with friends.

I returned during the last patch of bfa and the guilds I've joined have been almost Mercantile in how they operate. Massive benches are brought in full of people they never plan to use. Sale runs are pushed heavily for all level of content and their is a odd air of distrust between the members.

At first I thought this was a one off but I've seen it in more then a couple of guilds now and I'm wondering if this is the new norm or if I've had rotten luck?

Guilds differ, that's it.

[La]

Sounds like you joined a top 500 world guild, or a guild that thinks they're far better than they actually are. There are a *ton* of guilds out there that don't have very large benches, and a lot of guilds that do really well and even struggle with recruitment. So, it's not a guild problem, it's your choice of guild that is the problem.

You want to join a guild? When you apply just make a little explanation and say, hey, I'm confident in my skill and experience and I play to raid so I would rather be declined if I'll be on a bench" or some shit. In the guilds I've been in there was only a "bench" if you were a bad or mediocre player and we didn't have someone better/new recruits. Obviously you need to over recruit for people missing raids, and that's where guilds want hybrid classes, but if your guild has a x amount of attendance or you get removed/benched, then again, there won't be a large bench.

[Azerate]

If you dislike your current guild, you either leave the guild, or you bear with it because you enjoy clearing content at good pace. The choice is yours. Debating on "all guilds changing" won't get you anywhere.

[Marrilaife]

For top 100 Alliance Uldir, I could only see one (non-Chinese, because Chinese data is harder to access) guild that transferred to Horde, and only a small handful who've disbanded.

I don't know how did you check, but I can tell you about my region (EU English servers):
PG - moved to twisting nether horde
Bleached Bones - is horde
Group Therapy - moved to kazzak horde
Alterac Deviants - moved to twisting nether horde
Inner Sanctum - still alliance
Polar - disbanded
Honolulu - still alliance
Arctic Avengers - moved to kazzak horde
Unnecessary Flame - disbanded
Whatever - disbanded
Member Berries - disbanded
The Inner Circle - still alliance
Eversio - still alliance
Halo - moved to tarren mill horde
Strange Behaviour - disbanded
Avalerion - still alliance
Loot FTW - moved to draenor horde
Consilium - disbanded
Eternal Shadows - still alliance
No Hard Feelings - still alliance
Phoenix - still alliance

So out of 21 guilds in Hall of Fame in my region from Uldir, 7 went horde, 6 disbanded and 8 are still alliance. That's about 1/3rd of the guilds surviving 1 expansion. What kind of goddamn lie is "I could only see one guild that transferred to Horde, and only a small handful who've disbanded" what kind of data are you even looking at? I went to wowprogress page of each of these guilds and that's the info they come up with in the present day.