Guaranteed Raid Spots
Posted 3 months, 1 week ago at 3:49 pm. 2 comments
My guild is currently going through what seems to be quite common at the moment especially if you examine the BlogAzerothosphere. With the realization that WotLK is in alpha, the statements that there will be no more fundamental class changes and no other major patches, and the removal of all attunement requirements from the highest end raid instances, people are reevaluating how they want to spend the rest of their remaining time in The Burning Crusade. Big Bear Butt and Cassieann took a step back from their raiding guild for something more casual. Dinaer and his guild is looking at a merger with another guild.
My guild is also looking at absorbing members of another guild. We’ve struggled a lot lately with how to keep our "casual" feel while still making progression towards the next raid instance. Any attempt to bring a little bit more "hardcore" to our guild has resulted in it being shot down. At times, I have even actively participated in these attempts "to squash towards our casualness".
However, a paradigm shift is occurring within my own mind and I think among the long time players that are still playing in my guild. One part of our casual nature is the ability of every guild member to feel included and wanted. But this concept of "every member feeling equally entitled to a raid spot in whatever instance we are currently attempting" has seemed to work up to now, but also stifling our progression.
As a result, I’ve posted this on our guild forums in reply to a thread discussing the merger with this other guild.
RE: the other guild and raid spots
I’d like to preface this by saying I mean all of this in the most positive light. It’s not disparagement toward anyone or our current state, but once again a call of encouragement and honest examination of where we are.
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It is rapidly becoming very apparent that our progress is going to be severely limited with our guild in its current state. If we are only raiding 25-man content on two nights every week, we need to make those two nights are stacked in our favor. Currently, we seem to have 20-30 guild members that show up to a raid. Everyone that logs on gets in as every filled raid spot helps towards completing our goal.
I hear a lot of dissatisfaction in the guild. I don’t hear many people grumbling about the rigors of our schedule nor the grueling demands of our requirements to raid.
People seem to be unhappy that we are constantly having to reiterate the same points over and over again to try to increase our chance of success:
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Sign up, aka COMMIT to being there.
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Show up ready and on time.
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Make the raid leadership aware if you need to leave early.
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Minimize time spent for wipe recovery.
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Maximize your own contribution to the raid by using consumables and FOCUS, FOCUS, FOCUS.
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Ensuring your raiding character is ready for the instance by:
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Optimize your talent build for your raid functions.
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Actively seek out the most effective gear.
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Diligently research the ways to improve your play.
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Don’t waste 24 other people’s time.
Let’s face it. Right now, we don’t have much incentive for people to try to improve. Your spot in a raid is guaranteed because 1 more DPS/HPS/TPS is better than 0 from an empty spot.
Many guild members are playing alts because their mains are "capped". There is no other way for them to progress except for our guild to move forward to the next raid instance in the Kara/SSC/TK/BT/MH/SWP progression. Others are focusing on several characters to ensure we have more selection for raids - while this is beneficial, two characters wearing 75% of our high-end available gear maybe not help us as much as one at 95% of our high-end available gear.
We need bodies and not just any random body to fill a raid spot, but one that wants to be there, has worked to be there and is fully prepared to be there.
It’s time to stop thinking that merely because you have a guild tag over your head that you are guaranteed a raid spot.
If we accept these members, they would be held to the same standards that every guild member would be held.
If you are worried about the raid spots, think about what you can do to make yourself more indispensable to our raids. We aren’t going to bench our most effective people. If you’re struggling to justify your spot, maybe the character you’re bringing isn’t ready for the top end instance we are attempting.
My guild seems very similiar to yours and is going through the same things. Its really hard to find dedicated people that actually know how to play though. :/ At least on my server.
My old guild had this very similar problem. It is a big leap from ‘we are casual’ to ‘we want to get more serious about raiding’. It is also a fine line going from casual to hardcore. The one thing i can tell you about doing this is to make sure everyone is on board with this kind of change. Bickering back and forth between two factions can polarize a guild. And as long as you still have the same people you loved to play with before in that family feel setting than you can keep that feeling in a more serious guild.
You can keep the same guild feeling but when those raid invites go out you are there for the raid and the raid leader and you have to get serious. I think this is the biggest problem with more casual raiding guilds. Many people cannot see the line that they cross when they accept that raid invite. Raid chat is not Guild chat and every 25 of those people have to understand that to make it work.
Now of course no matter what anyone says raid chat will still look alot like guild between pulls and that’s part of what makes raiding so much fun is that you can still joke about something while your running back or while you are buffing as long as that dose not impede on the speed of buffs and especially during boss fights. If certain people just have trouble switching gears like that (and i know its hard to know when its ok to joke or not sometimes) you just gotta tell them they gotta focus more on the fight. Also make sure your raid leader isn’t afraid to break up a conversation in the middle of it to get the raid moving again.
One last thing is to be prepared for certain friends that you know and love to play with to not step up to that raiding plate. For the people that don’t have that raiding drive if you still value their friendship make sure you find some way to still play with them. When a raid group gets more focused on progressing it can open up a huge gap between the raiders and the non raiders. It will open a gap but make sure that that gap isn’t too big. Try to make them feel included. Whether it be arenas or playing alts that second half of the guild has to have something to keep them part of that family still.
Edit: I would also like to apologize about my long post. I still don’t know how this keeps happening (i talk way too much). ><