Raiding community issues: recruitment, player expectations, & attitudes

[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.

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.

[bswpayton]

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.
.

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.

[Lexia]

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.

[Yonanja]

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.

[Misutoraru]

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..

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

[WeekendSoja]

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.

[Zojha]

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.

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.

[Miste]

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

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?

[Yonanja]

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.

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.

[bswpayton]

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.

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.