It’s no real secret to those that know me that I don’t particularly want to be a guild master again. Don’t get me wrong; I will move heaven and earth in order to play with my beloved Apotheosis folks again. I will be a GM again, a raid leader again, a healing lead again, whatever is required of me. I’ll heal or I’ll DPS and yes, I’m even considering tanking if I have to. I am dedicated to the idea of many of my long-term in-game friends playing together again in Cataclysm.
It doesn’t mean that I like the extra work or that I like being the one everyone comes crying to when they don’t get a raid spot, when they get outbid on loot, when we don’t kill a boss, when we do kill a boss but it’s not the one that’ll drop loot for someone. It’s a crappy job and, unfortunately, someone’s got to do it. Somehow, that ends up being me within Apotheosis because I’m the only one stupid enough to volunteer. ;)
What particularly drives me nuts is trying to recruit.
I am not as dedicated at recruiting as my current GM is. She’s a champ.
Recruiting sucks. It’s the single biggest timesink related to running a guild. Not only do you have to figure out what your needs are, which is bad enough, but you then have to go hunt down people who might fill those needs.
Even if you do find someone who can make your raid times, is the appropriate role or class, is the appropriate level, is wearing the “right” gear, is willing to transfer to your server and faction, what if they’re a complete jackass?
Then you go back out there and try to find a person who fits all of the above-mentioned criteria and pray they’re not only not a jackass but that they can actually play.
There is not an unlimited pool of talent out there all begging to be part of your guild.
For the majority of this expansion, it has been a seller’s market; that’s to say that people who want to join a guild have all the power. Guilds have very little to offer their members these days. Titles, mounts, achievements, many of these in-game incentives are being offered by and acquired through pugs. The guild, in Wrath of the Lich King, has become superfluous. My hunter is in a RL-friends guild. There are four people active in it besides myself. I have 3/5 T10, a 264 helm, Leggings of Northern Lights, Zod’s and I’m about 30 Emblems of Frost away from getting myself 4pc T10. I’m also Revered with the Ashen Verdict.
I have done this without a guild, per se, and without going further than 4/12 in ICC 25. Pugs and GDKP runs and daily random dungeons have allowed my hunter to get pretty decked out even though I barely get to play my hunter.
I also fear that Wrath of the Lich King has brought with it some horrible changes in the player population of WoW. This is going to make me sound elitist and all I can say to defend myself from such accusations is that I just want people to know and understand the basics of their class and role.
When you are level 80 and you select “tank” as a role for a heroic dungeon, the expectation is two-fold:
1) You can hold aggro against similarly-geared players.
2) You won’t get smashed in the face by a mob or a boss that will lead to your instant, or near-instant, death.
When you are level 80 and you select “healer” as a role for a heroic dungeon, the expectation is also two-fold:
1) You will be able to heal an appropriately-geared tank through the instance.
2) You will be able to keep the majority of the group alive even in somewhat trying circumstances, within reason, given a tank that will keep things off of you. (Unexpected patrol, someone pulled another group, etc.)
When you are level 80 and you select “damage” as your role for a heroic dungeon, there are also two expectations:
1) Do your fair share of the damage. This means doing more damage than an adequately-geared tank.
2) Don’t make your healer’s job harder than it already is. This means not standing in void zones or not pulling additional mobs.
That’s all I really expect from people. That means that tanks wear tanking gear and are not able to be crit by heroic mobs and bosses. That means that the healers have the foggiest clue as to what their healing spells do. That means that DPS should know how to string their abilities together to greater effect (like putting up Serpent Sting and THEN using Chimera Shot, for example).
I don’t think this is too much to ask. I don’t think that it’s too hard to learn some of the basics after playing this game for 80 levels. There are just too many resources out there.
I honestly don’t care if my tank has 25k health in a random, as long as they’re not crittable. I can lower my DPS to match the threat output, or I can feign or go invisible on my mage.
I honestly don’t care if my healer has to drink after every pull or two, so long as they keep us up over the course of the instance.
I don’t care if the DPS is low, as long as we have people doing their best to get the mobs down.
Why am I talking about people I run into in random groups if I’m talking about guild stuff?
My fear is that Wrath of the Lich King has dumbed down the entire player population significantly.
I’m terrified to start recruiting for Cataclysm, when I eventually start doing so, and discover that hey, everyone applying to Apotheosis is terrible. I don’t really care about achievements and I definitely don’t care about gear score; I care about how you play and why you make the choices you make.
There was someone who applied to my current guild the other day. Nice guy, disc priest. I asked him, out of curiosity, why he didn’t snag Desperate Prayer with his 14 talents allocated to his holy tree.
He said he’d try it out.
And promptly removed all his points from Inspiration to fill out Spell Warding and Desperate Prayer.
It’s like… why? Why would you do that?
He also rescinded his application, deeming us to be a little too hardcore for him, before anyone even mentioned the respec.
We’re not that hardcore.
Everyone’s got a right to play the game in the way that suits them best, but if this guy, who is probably the best disc priest app I’ve seen in a while, can make the choice to drop out of Inspiration and think that’s okay, then we have a problem with the playerbase.
The players, by and large, are not educated.
The players, due to the fact that it’s a seller’s market, don’t want to learn.
The players, due to the ease with which you can gear yourself, figure they can get into a decent raiding guild based on gear alone and then get more shinies and achievements and titles.
This is the playerbase from which I will be recruiting?
I am praying that Cataclysm dungeons and content will be difficult. I want crowd-control abilities to come back. I don’t want my hunter to get swapped out for a mage, mind you, but I want crowd-control to be required for most dungeons.
I want epics to feel epic again.
I want raid content to be designed to be cleared by guilds, not pugs.
I don’t want content to be facerollingly easy.
I want people to learn how to play again.
If this doesn’t happen, I’m genuinely afraid for the quality of applicants to any given guild, including my own.
You and I are on the same wave length here. I could not agree with you more. My only concern is that I have lost that spark that makes me want to play currently. I hope it returns for Cataclysm.
would the answer of: “I forget to use it most of the time, so I felt it was a waste of points for me” be acceptable?
guilds still have plenty to offer to players. I’m currently unguilded. well I have 2 characters in a guild but I might as well not have them there for all I get to accomplish which the as a guild. and at the same time, I’m this close to being kingslayer, i have some very lovely pieces of gear across multiple characters, I get to raid I get to see some content, but in the end…its not the same as raiding with the same group of people again and again, learning to play with each other as a team adopting to each other’s strengths and weaknesses. I want that again. I miss that.
But I don’t know if I’ll be able to find it becasue it seems that my choices are between the guilds that I’m not good enough for and never be good enough for (age general ability, affinity for video games, reflexes etc – they all come into play here. no matter how smart you are or how much research you do – we still all have our limits and mine are too low) and guilds that I just cannot bring myself to play with becasue they do not research as much they are not organized, sure they are open to new players all the time, but they stumble on the same walls over and over and cannot seem to ever fix their issues.
add to that the reason why Blizzard is simplifying the talent trees so much, consider that an average player, majority of players cannot play the game well in group environment without referring to outside sources, constantly, especially if they haven’t been playing for 5 years and the picture changes.
now consider again that the game has been out of 5 years. how many people raided in this game for years and at this point know exactly how to react to variety of mechanics that blizzard throws at us. look back and you will see that fights AND talents AND abilities have gotten more and more complex. its not easy becasue they game is that much dumber, its easy because so many of the players are practically professional and the knowledge to get even close to it is readily and easily available from multiple outside sources if one wishes to find it. And the issue with the fact that for every class and every encounter there’s one best way to do it, and that many many guilds refuse to accept anything that is in their opinion subpar being not being 100% optimal.
the last raid I did was actually more of a semi pug. I stumbled into a group of guilds that pug together and was lucky enough to be accepted at least on the fringes. After the raid, I talked to the raid leader. I wanted to know if I’d be able to go again. he said that at this time? no. why? becasue me situational awareness, my general performance was not at 100%. I got hit but a splash from maleable goo once. a ghost got to me once. blood beast meleed me once. I spent an extra half a second in bad. I wasn’t perfect. I understand where he’s coming from, but not all of us can be perfect.
is that a wonder that people get defensive and discouraged? they are used to perfection being expected of them and some just give up completely and don’t even try anymore. why? early content is doable without it and they are not getting into latest content anyways.
I’m with you, there. I mean, I might not be the BEST, and numbers tend to make my head spin, but I at least look stuff up, and figure out what talents are NECESSARY, and if spirit does ANYTHING significant for me. (It doesn’t. I’ve known that for a while, thankfully. XD) And on top of that, if I’m making a mistake, or even just doing something in a less-than-optimal way, I am totally down with listening to some good advice and figuring out the best way to implement it.
But so many people seem to not GIVE a crap. T_T That makes me a sad Apple. Also a nervous Apple, but at least I’m not GMing. >_>
@Apple: Yeah, I posted on that very subject a while back. People just don’t care. The only people that care already know what to do, apparently.
On a related note: I applied to the #1 guild on my realm last week and got a not entirely negative response, so I can’t wait to talk to these guys and see if I’m up for the challenge. If I get a trial, great!
I must admit, Kurn’s efforts and her blog really REALLY helped me out here. I am so grateful! Can we have a Kurn-day to celebrate Holy paladin awesomeness?
“The players, due to the fact that it’s a seller’s market, don’t want to learn.”
I think this is spot on. A lot of applicants we get have excellent gear, often run pug ICC raids themselves, but when we question a poor glyph/gem/talent choice they don’t get defensive (which I’d be okay with) they just withdraw with “forget it” or similar responses.
And then join the next guild.
I think there’s an attitude of “I’ll play how I goddamn choose to play, and there’s nothing wrong with my thinking because I’ve never had any problem getting into great PuGs. And I’ve got ICC 10 Kingslayer so I know all there is to know about the fights already”.
Symentol – I think you’re better off than I am. I still have that desire to keep playing, which keeps me worried about things like the player base and people’s general knowledge. I think my life would be significantly happier if I didn’t think so much about WoW. ;)
leah – That would be a great answer to explain not having Desperate Prayer. I loved having it while playing a dwarf priest back in the day (when they had Desperate Prayer and Fear Ward as priest racials), but if it’s not something you can train yourself into using, I can understand not taking it as a talent. I was honestly curious about his reasoning.
its not the same as raiding with the same group of people again and again, learning to play with each other as a team adopting to each other’s strengths and weaknesses. I want that again. I miss that.
Sadly, I think you’re in the minority here. Obviously, I want that, I love that, I crave that. But I don’t think a lot of people do.
And the issue with the fact that for every class and every encounter there’s one best way to do it, and that many many guilds refuse to accept anything that is in their opinion subpar being not being 100% optimal.
I think there are several different ways to do encounters and a guild has to find the one that works best for them. But I do agree that there are optimum ways to spec/glyph/etc a class. I’m willing to teach someone who understands the basics, for example, but if a holy paladin is spam-casting Holy Light and is gemmed for spellpower and has 142 haste, that’s not adequate. That’s not a good enough base for me to work with.
becasue me situational awareness, my general performance was not at 100%. I got hit but a splash from maleable goo once. a ghost got to me once. blood beast meleed me once. I spent an extra half a second in bad. I wasn’t perfect. I understand where he’s coming from, but not all of us can be perfect.
This is an interesting point. I, personally, do not expect perfection. I expect *attempts* at perfection. I expect people to TRY to be perfect and to occasionally succeed. I think that, with practice, perfection is possible. But do I expect it from someone who’s never seen a fight before? No. Do I expect it from the raid group in general if they’re new to it? No.
Having someone come into an ICC25 HM guild, I expect more than passing familiarity with the fights, though. I expect people not to get hit by blood beasts the vast majority of the time, because on heroic, that kills you. I expect people not to bunch up on Blood Prince Council. I expect a lot of things, it’s true. But it’s stuff that people should already be familiar with after running the place on normal.
is that a wonder that people get defensive and discouraged? they are used to perfection being expected of them and some just give up completely and don’t even try anymore. why? early content is doable without it and they are not getting into latest content anyways.
My argument here is that they’re not outwardly defenseive or discouraged; they give up and try elsewhere. It’s not worth their time to try to explain their thought processes for an application. It’s just easier to go elsewhere where the questions aren’t as strict. It’s certainly easier to do that than change how they think altogether.
With regards to reflexes and stuff, I find that it’s generally okay if someone lags a bit on most things. Defile, maybe not, but the game is built for humans to be able to react to things. Human response time is a variable thing and what makes an amazing player is, in part, reaction time. Yours may lag due to one factor, mine may lag because my computer is crappy. Either way, we’re standing in bad stuff a half-second too long and may eat a goo here or there. But as long as it’s not a constant thing, to me, that’s acceptable.
I feel like I sound really harsh and unwavering, but when I evaluate someone, it’s not on the basis of a single run or just a couple of runs unless they are incredibly bad and that’s really obvious. Eating some environmental things happens to everyone at some point. It’s just when it’s a constant thing that it becomes a major problem, IMHO.
Apple – That’s the attitude I want to see in an applicant. Try hard, be open to constructive criticism, do your research. It’s not so much to ask, is it?
Kaboomski – I haven’t had a chance to respond to your email (or do a lot, these last few days). GL with your trial, though!
Kurn-day would be a little weird. ;) But I appreciate the thought.
Cassandri – I think there’s an attitude of “I’ll play how I goddamn choose to play, and there’s nothing wrong with my thinking because I’ve never had any problem getting into great PuGs. And I’ve got ICC 10 Kingslayer so I know all there is to know about the fights already”.
Exactly. And that’s not cool by me. The overall attitudes are driving me nuts. I can’t imagine how my poor GM forces herself to wade through bad player after bad player, sifting through them to find ONE who MIGHT not suck!
I want epics to feel epic again.
I do not think I will ever understand this mindset. I value my Oathbinder and my recently-retired Fal’inrush just as much as I valued my Blessed Qiraji Musket and Barb of the Sand Reaver.
Why does the color of the name have to mean so goddamned much? Play for the people, play for the memories, and play for the challenge.
Rilgon – My very first epic was Striker’s Mark, which was something I won in our fourth or fifth visit to Molten Core. We were all in blues, all in pre-raid gear. Almost no one had an epic and so when you got one, ANY epic at all, over 39 or so other people, it felt like it meant something. It felt meaningful and important. Actually, I take that back. My first epic was more than likely my Zandalar Predator’s Bracers. In a raid zone that mostly dropped blues, this was great. My upgrades depended on a drop from the boss and my own rep.
I don’t like the entitlement attitude everyone has these days. EVERYONE feels like they’ve worked hard and deserve epic items. My priest is almost all in epic gear. Guess what? She has done shit-all to deserve it.
By the very definition of “epic” (“extending beyond the usual or ordinary especially in size or scope”), everyone should not feel like they deserve epics to be handed to them. The mentality about loot in this game has changed over the years, from “oh my God, did you SEE that? That was an epic sword! One day, I want to complete that boss fight.” to “gimme!!!!! Gimme it now!”.
I really enjoyed working my way up from Tier 0 to a mix of T0.5, T1 and ZG’s armor set. I loved getting Striker’s Mark. I adored, beyond measure, my Rhok’delar quest. These items were worthy of the epic designation.
Tier 9, these days, like Tier 8 and Tier 7 before it, is worthless in terms of effort. Even T10 is pretty easy, at least 251 versions thereof and a couple 264 pieces (from Toravon).
I like when my tier armor, when my epic items, reflected the work I put in to obtain them. If there’s no work aside from chaining heroics required, why should these be epic in name? It’s not out of the ordinary, it’s totally usual and normal.
My own Disc spec doesn’t have Desperate Prayer. I had it at one time but I never used it. Around the time that I re-spec’d TotC had just came out. I found that other point more useful in the talent that reduces the cost of dispells (I can’t remember the name of it for the life of me.) Dispelling stuff is my absolute pet peeve so it’s a good fit for me. I just transferred to Skywall so you may see me running around Dalaran sometime. :)
Wanna know what I miss?? Being in a guild where people actually play! I love my casual guild(s). I love some of the people and chatting. I hate that they only PUG raids and never invite others along anymore. I hate that the first time I ever set foot in ICC was because a RL friend felt bad that and wanted to let me see the game. He built the raid around me so I could FINALLY participate. I wouldn’t even want to raid “omgallthetime” but an occasional run would be nice. Would you know that on I didn’t die once until the Loot Ship (set on Heroic)? I died only three times… The second happening immediately after getting a rez and falling through the floor of the ship to my second demise. The last one was when we got Putricide down to about 2% and wiped. This is not me being an “omgamazing” player, but I listened and did what I was told. My DPS sucked but I’m fairly undergeared. Got a couple upgrades so I was stoked.
I don’t understand how ANYONE could play for that long and not know their class. The BF plays his Resto Druid differently than I do. That’s okay with me. But he gets irate when I tell him I want haste and Spirit over SP. Irate. I read blogs, check forums, leveled as Resto to learn to BE a healer. These wete y choices so *I* could be a better player. I don’t, and will not, understand why people don’t learn their class better. Or the apathetic attitude. I’m so much outside of the stuff you do and deal with that I don’t get it.
I’m excited and have been leveling another druid to app to Apotheosis when the time comes. I, honestly, can’t wait to play the game with a guild again. Cause I really dislike PUGs.
By the very definition of “epic” (“extending beyond the usual or ordinary especially in size or scope”)
Epic gear fits that definition when you remember that “epic” refers to the quality of the item. A purple-named item is an “epic quality item”, per official Blizzard documentation.
And in that vein, it is quite “epic”. An epic item is significantly higher quality than an ordinary/common item of the same type.
With all due respect, if you are suggesting we go back to the old days of [grind normal dungeons ad nauseum] -> [grind heroics ad nauseum for a smattering of introductory gear] -> [grind every raid tier sequentially until you have enough gear for the next one] again, then I will respectfully tell you to take that mindset and shove it. :P
The fact that is exceptionally easy for an alt to go from “fresh 80” to “ready to hit up ICC10” is a godsend. I’d think you, as someone with raid-leading experience, would appreciate that. :P
“I want raid content to be designed to be cleared by guilds, not pugs.”
Yes! Tactics, coordination, planning… this is what raiding should require.
How do I motivate my casual raiding guild to keep going when there is an approaching expansion and they can get their alts into raids clearing the same content? I have a guy whose warlock alt has been 80 for less than two weeks and went 6/12 in ICC-10 last night. I don’t mind when the previous tier of content is PUGgable, but it sucks when the current tier is. Of course, part of the issue is how easy it is to level and gear an alt and the fact that a lot of folks in progression raiding guilds have well geared and played alts that they PUG with which makes a lot of the PUGs more successful than some of the casual raiding guilds.
I want to kill LK on 25-man with my guild. I want the first time that we all have killed LK on 25-man to be on our mains together. It means so much more that way (at least to me it does).
Tobeume – And that would have been a perfectly good response to my question to the disc priest. I was honestly curious because I LOVE Desperate Prayer and use it constantly.
Wave at me sometime if we run into each other! Horde or Alliance?
Mailynn – I can’t imagine not being in a guild where people actually play and raid together. I’m very much looking forward to you being part of Apotheosis. :) Especially if you only died on Putricide at 2%. Nice. :)
In your BF’s defense, once you hit appropriate levels of haste to get your GCD to one second, spellpower is king. Spellpower is almost always awesome for a resto druid, but to maximize your ability to heal the raid (which is what most druids are pigeon-holed into doing these days) you do need the 1s GCD. After that, though, spellpower and spirit ftw, IMHO. :)
Rilgon – Yes, that is Blizzard’s naming convention for a certain percentage of item points allocated to the item in question. But I’m pretty sure that the reason it was chosen in the first place was because an Epic-level item was supposed to be fairly rare at the time except for the most dedicated players.
I am not suggesting that we go back to running Strat Undead 100 times for our legs or heroic Steamvaults for something or grinding our way through Kara/Gruul/Mag before moving to SSC/TK, before moving to Hyjal/BT, before moving to Sunwell.
What I would like, both as a former (and future) raid leader is something that allows us to work a little harder initially than we do now. Now, it’s ridiculously easy. Is that a good thing? In the hands of the right people, yes. If I needed to gear out my priest for my guild, it wouldn’t take me long to get decked out for ICC 25. My hunter is already ready for ICC 25 and could probably do a few heroic modes, especially with the ICC buff.
But in the hands of other people, it’s a disaster. I’m not the best player ever — but at least I don’t choose to inflict my undergeared/stupid self on a random raid group if I’m not fairly sure what to do. I’ve stepped into ICC on my paladin (healer), my hunter and my shaman (healer) and while I do just fine on the first two, the shaman is kind of sad. I was pulled in with my brother’s guild for a few raids where they were short a healer and I was available and I did wonderfully — as compared to the rest of the raid group. But I know I wasn’t doing things properly and I wasn’t doing all that I could do to beat the encounters because I just wasn’t familiar enough with the class. My haste on my shaman is TRAGIC. Like, it’s SO sad. If I were a paladin app with that amount of haste, I’d laugh myself out the door.
The trouble is that people aren’t taking the time to learn their characters, and that includes me. It’s like “Oh look! I have an 80 shaman!” and while I’m comfortable on her, I’m not conversant with all her tricks.
What I would like is a little more time for people to learn how to play before they can get geared up and try to join people in a fairly progressed guild. I’m not suggesting grinding the previous tier so you have the gear to get to the current tier — that’s what the hero points are for or whatever — but I’m suggesting that we have a bit more time on the learning curve. Actually, I’m suggesting that the learning curve NOT be optional as it currently is. Do I know how to enforce this? No.
But then, I’m not a developer. I’m just a loud-mouthed, long-term customer. ;)
Awryt – EXACTLY. Tactics, coordination and planning. Right on. :)
I’m sorry to hear your guild is lacking motivation, but it’s not just the casual raiding guilds who are suffering. The more hardcore ones are, too. Burnout, end-of-expansion malaise, summer… all of these together make it exceptionally hard for people to field solid raid groups.
I agree, I don’t think the current tier of content should be puggable. That just makes me really sad.
Sounds like you want your LK kill to be like my Vashj kill. It was a whole epic tale in and of itself — 100+ wipes on Vashj, battling server lag, disconnections, bad raid composition, the allocation of resources, the fight mechanics. Most memorable kill for me, ever. You’re right to want that sort of feeling. My only concern is that there are fewer and fewer people who do value that. I feel like we all need to team up and form our own guilds comprised almost entirely of these people.
Oh, damn. My iphone typos were pretty horrible. I’m sorry for my lack of ability to speak properly from the mobile device. Ha!
I know what I need to get for my haste to be soft-capped (before raid buffs, totems, etc). I can’t even tell you how many resto blogs I have in my reader. Or how many hours (of work) I’ve spent doing research. Looking up gear. Literally making a list and everything.
Thanks for the compliment on Putricide. I have no idea what took me out on the Loot Ship, but the falling death was lame. I like getting to experience the game, and the Kingslayer title would be pretty amazing at some point on ANY of my characters. I can’t wait to see the rest of ICC (and this was 25, not 10). And I surely can’t wait to app Apotheosis when the time comes. :D
@ Kurn – I’m Alliance – a cute human Priest. I tried Horde and it was not for me. I was so confused on Gunship and I kept trying to kill the Cow’s totems in BGs…