Raiding community issues: recruitment, player expectations, & attitudes

Greetings all,

I want to take a moment to discuss a few things persistent in the community that are maddening to many. The key topic here is static & fc recruitment for raiding members, especially with regard to returning raiders.

Many established groups looking for MC~(S)HC players are judging the worthiness of a potential recruit solely based on a couple things:
-Current ilvl
-Current raid tier progression

This ironically is similar to the issues in a current job market where essentially employers are looking for a 20-24 year old with 10 years of exp and a diploma in that a) you need to beat the tiers to be BiS and b) obsessive insta grat. hc raiders often won't even consider a player if they haven't already cleared most if not all of the current tier.

Further, I've seen several instances personally where the people in the judgment chair joined raiding or started playing at the Alexander tier of raids and have never cleared Coil at all. (or in some cases: either without echo or without unsynced)

So a returning competitive raider who cleared in first 10 wins (server / world) in a previous raid tier applies to a group looking for a dedicated, intelligent, capable / reliable new recruit. They dismiss this raider on the points mentioned above (isn't currently BiS & hasn't cleared the latest tiers)

Returning to the game does not always mean someone left for boredom, another game, etc. Family illness, personal injury, and many other things can contribute to being away from a game for awhile. We all know Duty Finder can be a hostile environment, especially towards players learning new progression, and any seasoned raider knows that a group with good potential synergy and cool-headed members will advance through content generally faster than an average player.

To me, a group or individual passing the potential of a player who might have 6-10+ years mmo & raiding xp for such crap as this isn't hardcore - this is an elitist mentality a problem for development of new raiding potential in the community. This is not coming from a player frustrated and diplomatically b***ing about it, as I'm quite seasoned in X|V historically. This is coming from a leadership perspective hoping to wake some people up. This may never reach the eyes of a minority of FC leadership overall, but I believe it is vital more time and attention be paid to an individual's raiding history as opposed to 2 very small and narrow guidelines for yes / no.

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Originally Posted by MagicofGaia

Greetings all,

I want to take a moment to discuss a few things persistent in the community that are maddening to many. The key topic here is static & fc recruitment for raiding members, especially with regard to returning raiders.
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I think the major issue is just non elitist not acutally coming together to form more midcore groups or people just not willing to get out of what they are used to. And patience is another thing that is lacking, time spent in game has to be winning for so many people so to wipe on the same content over and over again isnt appealing to alot of people from what Ive seen. But I think if more midcore players just formed their own groups and gave each other a chance that things could be better in the raiding scene.

While I don't join in the raiding scene of the game, from looking at it from the outside is that this game is built around casual gameplay and with that type of gameplay people want their stuff yesterday. Also the way gear works from reading here on the forums lot of raiders want their stuff asap so they can run around with it before it replaced by the next patch. Now I'm not sure if this is exactly what you talking about but there my piece.

I think a huge part of the problem is that there isn't really anything to gain from doing the savage raids, unless you're extremely into min/maxing stuff. The average player looks at the rewards from the raids, then looks at the stuff they can get from other sources, looks at what there is to do outside of raids that need gear, shrugs and says "why bother with the hassle of doing the savage stuff, for rewards that will never be useful for anything?" and just doesn't bother with even trying to get into the raiding comunity.

I know I reason like that, I know that I'll be able to get gear of equal value (or very close to) without doing the savage modes if I just wait for a while, and there's nothing else in the game that I'd ever need that gear to complete.

This means that a large part of the raiding cuminity in this game is made up of the min/max kind of people, and they tend to be pretty picky with who they raid with.

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Originally Posted by bswpayton

I think the major issue is just non elitist not acutally coming together to form more midcore groups or people just not willing to get out of what they are used to..

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currently the community is rather discouraging
I try making Practice group in PF, it usually took 30+ min to fill up
and people just quit after 2-3 wipe, despite I clearly state it is practice group
especially when I leave at 3.1 and only return at 3.55, which I usually make PF group to catch up with some earlier content, it is even worse
and some practice group isnt very practice group at all, I have seen so many Midas savage practice which have 240+ iL restriction

I agree with everyone's points here and would like to add another point. It's a given that the higher in the current tier things should get harder but the stop gaps for this current savage are very bad for the ego of the casual. 9 and 10 were easy, builds up the self esteem of someone who's never raised before quickly, than 11 comes in like the koolaid man and just puts a new perspective. I still remember trying to help a static clear when their message said "been to 5%" but they couldn't even coordinate lapis correctly...this tier is too kind at first than destroys the casual expectation of these new raiders which forces them to have unreasonable expectations of other players.

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Originally Posted by Yonanja

I know I reason like that, I know that I'll be able to get gear of equal value (or very close to) without doing the savage modes if I just wait for a while, and there's nothing else in the game that I'd ever need that gear to complete.

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Well, but that's a systemic issue: If you reward the best gear from the hardest content, it naturally follows that you will never need that gear for anything, because you already beat the hardest and thus most gear intensive content in order to get it.

Hence why it's pointless to reward gear from the hardest content at all - stats are a means to an end and that end is beating harder/more gear intensive content.

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Originally Posted by MagicofGaia

hc raiders often won't even consider a player if they haven't already cleared most if not all of the current tier.

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To be completely honest with you...I don't think it is elitist for static groups to have certain conditions in order to join. It is kind of bleh to start throwing that elitist term around just because static groups who worked for farm status don't feel like teaching a new player the content.

It is their static, their group, they are allowed to say whether or not you can join them and their reasons are their own.

Helping others is nice and I do it a lot, but you can't expect it from everyone all the time. They have their own desires to do what they consider fun and adding someone who hasn't even cleared A9S into a group who is on A12S might not be what they consider fun.

It would be nice, sure, if people gave people more of a chance to prove themselves, but again they have every right to not bother since it is their group and if the majority of the members in it don't have enough time to spend on teaching someone new then that is their right. I would say it is because no matter how good of a player you are you are still going to need some time to learn the mechanics in the fights you've never even been in and maybe those groups didn't want to give up their own time to deal with that.

So maybe the best option would be to make your own group?

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Originally Posted by Zojha

Well, but that's a systemic issue: If you reward the best gear from the hardest content, it naturally follows that you will never need that gear for anything, because you already beat the hardest and thus most gear intensive content in order to get it.

Hence why it's pointless to reward gear from the hardest content at all - stats are a means to an end and that end is beating harder/more gear intensive content.

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While that is true for the game as it is now, would it still hold true if you couldn't buy better/equal gear with the tomes? If you needed the gear from A1S-A4S to get into A5S and on, then maybe people would actually think that doing the raids might be more worthwhile?

I'm of the opinion that the tomestones should only be used to buy gear that brings you to the "lowest expected for endgame" in HWs case this would be gear that lets you enter A1 or maybe A1S. More or less reseting the gear every time they add a new batch of raids is silly in my opinion, since it means that the previous raidtier is made outdated completely, as it's not needed for anything anymore. It's also this that makes the devteam having to keep making up so many reasons for people to do the older content in the game. A raidtier getting outdated in 3-4 months is just ridicolous.

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Originally Posted by Miste

To be completely honest with you...I don't think it is elitist for static groups to have certain conditions in order to join. It is kind of bleh to start throwing that elitist term around just because static groups who worked for farm status don't feel like teaching a new player the content.

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I do agree with you on this miste, for me coming from behind I wish that others didnt just wait for someone to just jump out there and do it first because thats what it really is. I rem when I was doing some of the hw primals I hadnt done people joined my party so fast that had never cleared. I know the community is out there that hasnt done content its in the numbers in that census, It shows how quickly when a learning party for something is made how many people want to do the content.

Its just bad representation or hesitance, for what ever reason it might be it sucks because I know people want to do content but I know its hard to get everyone on the same page especially when you maybe doing cross world type stuff. I personally learned my lesson I hate and I mean hate burning through the msq, but if I want to raid I know that its best to start doing it from the very beginning because of how content is treated in this game its unfortunate but its just the way it is. Its a mix of many factors tho I think new players dont want to put themselves on the spot, and many dont realized that its alot of players in the same position , and it just simply involves reaching out to one another to try and do that content.

Quite frankly nobody should be using creator as a benchmark for anything. Synced Coil? sure! Gordias and Midas! Excellent! Creator as a test for anything other than telling left from right? Nah.

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Originally Posted by Yonanja

While that is true for the game as it is now, would it still hold true if you couldn't buy better/equal gear with the tomes? If you needed the gear from A1S-A4S to get into A5S and on, then maybe people would actually think that doing the raids might be more worthwhile?

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But that then means that once you get the A1S entry gear, there cannot be any further gear upgrades outside of raids, or the first raid gear would be invalidated. This in turn means that the only gear progression to be had from then on is in raids and thus, they become the only "endgame" for people who care about gear progression.

And not just for a few patches - forever. The moment any reset is scheduled, the most recent gear is going to be pointless again.

Honestly? If raids suck that much that you need to coax people into them like that, maybe they simply aren't fun and the real issue lies therein. It reminds me of the Diadem debate, truth be told.

I don't raid in this game, but when I raided in WoW I was in a top 100 world guild and we weren't much different. We were looking for people ready to step into a spot and fill it, not fixer-uppers. We were a little flexible about ilvl because we DE'd a ton of gear after the first week every week anyway and if someone had exceptionally strong parses, we might overlook bad current tier progression or a low ilvl. However, if you're good enough, it's very much a recruiter's market and there's no reason to settle. I'd be rather surprised if this game is significantly different in those respects.

Also, generally speaking, when people were like "Oh, I had this amazing progress two years ago and then quit raiding, but now I'm back," don't hold your breath that they'll be any good. They usually aren't. It might not be as big of a problem in this game because it's younger and there has been less time for it to drastically change, but there's a reason current progress is highly valued.

If you were a raider in the previous tier who just came back from a break you probably should state it, especially considering the current tier is far easier than previous tiers. If I was recruiting for a non hc static I'd gladly take someone who cleared a4s or a8s since it's easy to get them caught up with gear ilv (we're at a "catch up" patch anyway, i250-260 gears aren't hard to get and i270 upgrade items can be farmed).

But if you're talking about raiders back in coil era, their skills may no longer be relevant anymore considering the difference between lv 50 and 60 rotations and cds, so I'd be quite skeptical. I'd have to see how they perform at lv 60 before deciding whether to accept them or not. Heck they may not even like their main job back then anymore since some jobs play very differently at lv 60 compared to at lv 50. They probably should start by applying to casual groups that don't require current raid progress.

There are also several reasons why people demand progress in current raid tier when recruiting. They might currently be at certain floor/phase and don't really want to retrain someone from the start (personally I might give them some chance if they cleared a4s or a8s since that definitely says something about their skill).

Think of it as something like applying for an advanced high level job when you're switching from a different field (raid tier). Not everything you gained from that other field can be useful or transferrable to the new job (gordias/midas -> creator might be very close, but coils -> creator are completely different things).

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Originally Posted by Miste

To be completely honest with you...I don't think it is elitist for static groups to have certain conditions in order to join.
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It would be nice, sure, if people gave people more of a chance to prove themselves, but again they have every right to not bother since it is their group and if the majority of the members in it don't have enough time to spend on teaching someone new then that is their right. I would say it is because no matter how good of a player you are you are still going to need some time to learn the mechanics in the fights you've never even been in and maybe those groups didn't want to give up their own time to deal with that.

So maybe the best option would be to make your own group?

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I appreciate many people offering their own voices to this. I think too many though are missing the mark a little. This is not coming from a player frustrated and diplomatically b***ing about it, as I'm quite seasoned in X|V historically. This is coming from a leadership perspective hoping to wake some people up. This may never reach the eyes of a minority of FC leadership overall, but I believe it is vital more time and attention be paid to an individual's raiding history as opposed to 2 very small and narrow guidelines for yes / no.

When you look at 2 applicants: a) the individual who has raided in mmo's for 6-10 years and just needs a couple-few weeks to get up to snuff or b) the player who has been playing for a few months and is more comparatively ready to take on content. In terms of wanting to play together long term, it's not a decision in my mind if I had to choose.

I lead a LS turned FC from 1.0~final coil, and had to take a raiding break due to wife's pregnancy. I've come back and am establishing a new group: http://arcsystems.guildwork.com/

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Originally Posted by MagicofGaia

I appreciate many people offering their own voices to this. I think too many though are missing the mark a little.

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I apologize if I misunderstood some of what you posted, but most of what I posted still stands though that it isn't elitism like you claimed.

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Originally Posted by MagicofGaia

I believe it is vital more time and attention be paid to an individual's raiding history as opposed to 2 very small and narrow guidelines for yes / no.
When you look at 2 applicants: a) the individual who has raided in mmo's for 6-10 years and just needs a couple-few weeks to get up to snuff or b) the player who has been playing for a few months and is more comparatively ready to take on content. In terms of wanting to play together long term, it's not a decision in my mind if I had to choose.

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Everything you say here is your own personal ideas of how to recruit. That's great and all, but I guess I just don't personally see the point in trying to tell other groups how they should recruit. Each group is going to recruit what they agree is best for them and their members and while I agree it would be good if people were a bit more open-minded the members of those groups are allowed to have reasons not to be.

I mean if you want to spread a good message of being more open-minded when it comes to recruiting for raids then that's great, but labeling groups that don't recruit based on your personal ideas for it elitist seems a bit bleh, you know? Best to spread a good message without labeling certain groups terms that could be considered derogatory.

Just how I feel about your idea/post anyway. I hope you get the people you need for your team; Excalibur represent :D

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Originally Posted by MagicofGaia

When you look at 2 applicants: a) the individual who has raided in mmo's for 6-10 years and just needs a couple-few weeks to get up to snuff or b) the player who has been playing for a few months and is more comparatively ready to take on content. In terms of wanting to play together long term, it's not a decision in my mind if I had to choose.

I lead a LS turned FC from 1.0~final coil, and had to take a raiding break due to wife's pregnancy. I've come back and am establishing a new group: http://arcsystems.guildwork.com/

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That's the thing though, some groups may not want to wait for a few weeks until you get caught up with the rest, some groups only recently cleared the raid so they may want to quickly farm gears and get BiS, so they'd prefer someone who's ready to join the farm. Different needs for different groups.

As for the 6-10 years raiding exp vs players who played for a few months but cleared current raid tier comparison, aren't you being sorta elitist yourself? Seems like you're implying that your past exp makes you better than the newer raider, despite them being more up to date with current raid tier and possibly even cleared it. Not trying to be rude but after months/years of break you may take a while to be able to perform at their current level, especially if the last time you raided in this game is during the previous expansion (fcob) since there are new jobs/skills/strats/meta etc so it may be quite different from before. Maybe you can and will outperform them in a few weeks but there's no guarantee on that (again, no offense) while the other person can clearly show what they're capable of in this tier from their gears (which implies they cleared the floors) and possibly even fflogs parses.

Well anyway welcome back, glad you got everything sorted and started a new group. Hope you enjoy raiding again.

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Originally Posted by MagicofGaia

Many established groups looking for MC~(S)HC players are judging the worthiness of a potential recruit solely based on a couple things:
-Current ilvl
-Current raid tier progression

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This is why whenever my group had to look for replacements, all we looked for was loyalty, a willingness to learn and an understanding that this is raiding- it comes with certain expectations (raid times are sacred, let us know if you had something come up and can't make it and to respect the rule to not just join another group and progress ahead). We long ago decided we can work with a bad DPS as long as they want to learn and we can teach the new recruit the fight. Our particular group is about getting through it together than we need to have this on farm now.

Despite the lax requirements, I'm sure most people would label our group "elitist" or "hardcore" (depending on the perspective since both terms have been misused and warped). We have no problems pointing out when someone's DPS is bad, someone messed up a cooldown, left cleric stance on, mitigation wasn't applied in time, people avoiding the damage clip from overkill and not being counted toward DPS (FFlogs BS), so they leave the add up and causes us to wipe, tank was too slow to pull into position, tank was slow on aggro, overhealing (I long ago gave up telling my co-healer to just let HoTs do the work if an AoE wasn't coming out within so much time. I just take the overheal hit and not care).

We're friendly. Mostly. I sometimes bite. We don't treat this like a business because we're not trying to beat [other] people. We just want to clear the content. If we want to be competitive, most of us play actual competitive games (Street Fighter, Tekken, For Honor, Overwatch, King of Fighters).

However, yeah, I have to agree, a lot of the players put these stipulations make finding a group very frustrating and hard to start off (or even return to) unless you're in an FC that starts their raids or with a group of friends with intentions of raiding. I would like to point out your timing if you're just starting out to raid again. This tier has been out since a little before Las Vegas Fanfest back in mid October 2016 and Stormblood is literally 3 months away. Part of the issue you're running into now is most people that have had it on farm and are simply gearing ALT jobs up for the upcoming expansion since the gear will probably last into lvl 65-68. The raid cycle is basically over.

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Originally Posted by Yonanja

While that is true for the game as it is now, would it still hold true if you couldn't buy better/equal gear with the tomes? If you needed the gear from A1S-A4S to get into A5S and on, then maybe people would actually think that doing the raids might be more worthwhile?

I'm of the opinion that the tomestones should only be used to buy gear that brings you to the "lowest expected for endgame" in HWs case this would be gear that lets you enter A1 or maybe A1S. More or less reseting the gear every time they add a new batch of raids is silly in my opinion, since it means that the previous raidtier is made outdated completely, as it's not needed for anything anymore. It's also this that makes the devteam having to keep making up so many reasons for people to do the older content in the game. A raidtier getting outdated in 3-4 months is just ridicolous.

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If you do that then you run into the same problem that WoW had - it was extremely hard to replace veteran raiders.

The perfect system for raiding was Coil. Gear wise, everyone was equal, but the real valuable was the clear and how BIS would help you in the next tier. However, for that to work again, we'd need to go back into a single difficulty mode, which would displease a lot of people.

Personally, I enjoyed the Coil model, the problem was that the best story line was on it. So I felt a lot of pressure to do it.

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Originally Posted by Ririta

The perfect system for raiding was Coil. Gear wise, everyone was equal, but the real valuable was the clear and how BIS would help you in the next tier. However, for that to work again, we'd need to go back into a single difficulty mode, which would displease a lot of people.

Personally, I enjoyed the Coil model, the problem was that the best story line was on it. So I felt a lot of pressure to do it.

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Do you mean unable to proceed to the next tier unless you completed the previous one?

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Originally Posted by JunseiKei

Do you mean unable to proceed to the next tier unless you completed the previous one?

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Yes. The balance was really wacky (Nael and Twintania never getting nerfed, walling people from the easier new tier fights), but the model itself was good as it valued clears instead of gear.

Raiding is one of those things that i'd really like to try, but trying to get into/create a static just seems so daunting. yeah sure i have an i268 AST, but i have absolutely zero savage experience and trying to find learning parties at this point seems rather difficult. I have joined in to sub for a fellow FC mate's static for some ex primals, but that's about it.

Not really. When Creator & Sophia came out, new gears were introduced. Shire (iL260) & crafted (iL250).
So I don't think iL matters too much. About experience, some groups care about it, others don't.
If you start early in the patch or few weeks before you'll find many groups recruiting. When I first started raiding I was not asked about my raid experience. The leader was recruiting players based on the job/s they played and dummy check. That is it.
But people go on looking for statics very late into the patch. That is when most people have already cleared it and got better gears. At this point you either have experience with current raid or it will be very hard to find a static.

Nerf raid group

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Originally Posted by JunseiKei

This is why whenever my group had to look for replacements, all we looked for was loyalty, a willingness to learn and an understanding that this is raiding- it comes with certain expectations (raid times are sacred, let us know if you had something come up and can't make it and to respect the rule to not just join another group and progress ahead). We long ago decided we can work with a bad DPS as long as they want to learn and we can teach the new recruit the fight. Our particular group is about getting through it together than we need to have this on farm now.

We're friendly. Mostly. I sometimes bite. We don't treat this like a business because we're not trying to beat [other] people. We just want to clear the content. If we want to be competitive, most of us play actual competitive games (Street Fighter, Tekken, For Honor, Overwatch, King of Fighters).

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I am so happy that at least one person really, truly gets where I'm coming from. I find that focusing on ourselves (improvement, constantly learning & optimizing), maintaining a set schedule, etc naturally lends itself to winning together. We got world 2nd solo tank t5 and we were not at all concerned with other FC progression, we just kept trying on our own terms.