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Guildmaster’s Corner: Realities of Raiding and Recruiting at an Expansion’s End

by - 10 years ago

I think back to the recruiting and personnel struggles I had from Wrath of the Lich King, to Cataclysm, to Mists of Pandaria and ask myself one question:

Why the heck is it that the real end game of Mists feels like the worst one of them all? Was recruiting this tenuous during Wrath as it is now? Sure as heck didn’t feel this way then. I’m conscious of the difficulties that many guilds are experiencing. I keep thinking to myself that it gets easier. But then I realize that I’m lying to myself.

This kind of thing doesn’t get any easier with every expansion. You know and can expect what’s going to happen. You are aware of players who plan to flake out and leave. The ones who just can’t take it anymore will tap out. Anyone who says they plan to stick it out for the long haul will never be as long as you think.

There’s two really general groups of players in a guild:

New Recruits

These tend to consist of players who are just entering heroic for the first time ever in their raiding careers. Their story tends to be the same. The guild they were in has fallen apart. The GM or raid leader never logs on. They just reached 90 or finished boosting to 90. Or maybe they just returned to the game because the last time they subscribed it was during Wrath of the Lich King but that’s okay. They’re still considered really good at the game because they used to be in a top 100 guild back then. Even though they’re under geared, they say they know their class and are willing to work at it.

This doesn’t even factor in the players who have taken advantage of the boost to 90.

What we have now is a combination of players who are under skilled, under geared, and underprepared. But often times, GM’s don’t have a choice. They have to take the less powered players because they risk not raiding at all solely due to attendance. Guildmasters like myself swear to always find a way to raid. And we sacrifice and make compromises. We’re willing to run the raid shorthanded with 23 or 24 people. Or else we toggle down the heroic difficulty on some of the later fights to at least obtain some normal or war forged gear for the new and returning players.

Because we know if we start cancelling raids consecutively, it sends the message that the raid isn’t going anywhere and it’s only a matter of time before more people begin jumping ship. It’s all about perception.

Veterans

Meanwhile, there’s another segment of players in the raid. These are the raiders that have been around since the beginning of the previous raid tier (minimum) or even longer. The idea of these players leaving remains in the back of any GM’s mind. No matter what people say, players tend to first and foremost be loyal to themselves above all else. So long as their interest aligns with the guild and the raid, they will stay. But the moment goals begin looking unachievable, they’ll begin looking elsewhere.

Some veterans may even have performance related problems themselves but they can’t be removed because the raid roster will find themselves in the hole for attendance. Other skilled veterans might end up leaving because they’re frustrated that nothing is seemingly done about under performing players.

As a result, veterans tend to get exhausted from re-training and re-gearing the new recruits. They get tired from doing and wiping to the stuff repeatedly. The reality is that burnout does settle in and they will call it quits usually by the time the newer recruits have acclimated to their role and accumulated the necessary gear standards.

We call it attrition.

But it’s just too little too late. By this point, the new players have graduated to veteran status. Most players who stay only do so because they’ve invested so much time and money in the organization that they can’t bear to walk away from it.

I mean the easy solution would be to just recruit veteran and skilled players. But good luck finding any around that are available.

Although, now that I think about it, that’s got to be the main reason why I’m here. I’m not just a simple player anymore. I’ve created a guild from the ground up. I’ve created a blog from practically nothing. I have so much invested into this community and this universe that I just can’t drop everything and quit. To do so would completely invalidate everything I’ve accomplished. Guess I’m stuck in the big chair for a while.

So what’s the answer?

I don’t have a clue. The ability to raid cross-realm has helped significantly. At the very least, it has expanded the accessibility of raiders across the spectrum. You can hit up Open Raid and try to pick up any players to fill in your raid that way, but that’s more of a short term solution. There’s no real long term answer that can be solved at this point of the patch cycle. You can only remedy these things during new content drops when players are jumping back into the game. It seems like the best thing you can do is to just hold on and keep grinding away at the recruiting process. The guild comes first.


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JR Cook

JR has been writing for fan sites since 2000 and has been involved with Blizzard Exclusive fansites since 2003. JR was also a co-host for 6 years on the Hearthstone podcast Well Met! He helped co-found BlizzPro in 2013.


0 responses to “Guildmaster’s Corner: Realities of Raiding and Recruiting at an Expansion’s End”

  1. Malvenue says:

    My guild just decided to stop raiding until 6.0. GG, Blizzard.

  2. DreyfussFrost says:

    And then there’s me, sitting at 13/14H, willing to raid every week until 6.0, stuck keeping the lights on alone in a burned out guild. It wouldn’t be that bad, but I’m too poor to buy a Garrosh run from any of the other guilds at our level. The only way I can do my favorite activity, raiding, is by first doing a TON of my LEAST favorite activity, gold farming.