Coeurl & Heavensward

[stuscott]

I want to expand out a little on Mahes' player classifications before I comment:

One could argue we have four types of players on this server:

1 - Players who have no interest in end-game raiding - this thread is not directed at them - I would guesstimate this is about 60% of the players on our server.

2 - Players who are interested in end-game raiding but are missing several key components to be able to do so (self-awareness, skill, commitment, time, persistence, ability to take criticism, ability to work as a team, ability to see more than what they alone are doing in a raid, among many other traits I could list, but that's another topic for another time). These are the players buying their way through content or expecting people to carry them through it without putting in time and effort to learn fights. This thread could be directed at them, but until they learn work on some of those things, they won't be successful at end-game raiding. I would guesstimate this is about 20% of the players on our server.

3 - Players who are interested in end-game raiding and could, with some time and practice, be there and typically want to work to get there - this group is typically the group clearing content once it gets out of weekly lockouts and onto PF and DF - these are the people who we need to work with the grow our community - the issue is - well, that's complex - some of them might not be getting out in the community, some of them may have tried to get into raids and were unsuccessful. In my experiences leading a raid team on this server, most of them are waiting for someone to come to them and say we have a spot for you, which isn't going to happen, or are too scared and intimated by the current end game community to try to put themselves into it. I would guesstimate this is about 15% of the server.

4 - Players who have cleared all content and are waiting for Heavensward. These are the players who we need to get on board and help group 3 get thru content to grow our end-game community. This is probably about 5% of the server population, if that.

The biggest issue I've found is Group 3 has for the most part is pretty much under the impression they have little chance at getting through harder content when it's current without buying a clear, which again doesn't do our end-game community any help. The ones who are buying clears aren't going to be successful in further gated content because they haven't learned mechanics. The ones who can't afford to buy a clear are moving to higher population servers, shrinking the candidate pool when statics have openings, causing those end-game clearing players to move to higher population servers. It's a dirty cycle.

We end-game raiders are going to have to "donate" some of our time and help mold these players if we want to spur growth in our end-game community. We need to reach out and make friends with newer players and help them. Otherwise, the server is going to continue to shrink.

But again....it's not all on us. The players who want to get into this content need to speak up, make friends, join parties, and get themselves out there before Heavenward comes out and exhibit necessary behaviors of end-game raiders if they want to get into that content with the players who will be trying to clear Alexander right away. Players looking to get through end-game content need to take personal responsibility for themselves in regards to learning the classes they play and how they work together. Granted, with Heavensward, we all will be doing this as all rotations are changing, but they have to be willing to spend the time to do that.

Finding players who share the same play style as you, whether it be zerging content right away and putting in tons of work to raid or a group that maybe clears it a little slower and only raids 1-2 nights per week, is up to the individual player. They can't do that if they don't get out there and make friends with people and use PF, this forum, or the Reddit recruitment subreddit to meet new people. When I led a static, I recruited all my members from PF or these forums.