Raiders, why do you raid? None riders, why not?

[Kosmos992k]

I don't raid. I honestly don't like the group dynamics that the game's design enforces with static groups and the loot rules. I dislike the enforced schedule of raiding, my personal schedule is so changeable I cannot guarantee to be available, I dislike banging my head off a brick wall until it (the wall) breaks, I dislike stress and drama - which from personal experience are rife in raiding.

Knowing all of this I know that regardless of whether I am good enough, I would still be a poor addition to a raid team. So I wouldn't inflict myself on a raid group anyway. I might PUG some of the older raids, I might run some unsync'd with friends. Really though, I play to relax, and the inherent stress and pressure of 8 people learning the raid content and gearing is not compatible with that IMHO.

Some will say that the reason players don't raid is because they are not good enough. I'd counter by suggesting that perhaps those who choose not to raid are better, and know their limitations.

..oh and I also don't like dealing with people who overuse the term "meta" for everything. It doesn't making video gaming sound scientific or complex- it's just irritating to me. It's become a generic term that gamers throw around because they either hear it used by others they think are "hard core" or they want to sound "hard core".

Or maybe I am just sensitive to it after years of seeing it.

You're being meta sensitive over "meta"....how very meta of you.

**snip**
So, what do you do when you wind up with someone who just can't cut it in your group? If your group is coldly professional, you drop them and get someone else. But then, you're in a coldly professional group, which lacks a lot of the joy you get when you're on a team full of buddies hanging out and having fun. If your group is a bunch of warm buddies having fun, on the other hand, it can be very hard to tell that weakest link that they have to leave. Then there's the rare team of warm buddies that HAS no weakest link - that's the ideal everyone aspires to, but it is so, so rare...

That, I think, is why the raiding community is as small as it is. The bulk of them are all business and there to get the job done, having ruthlessly culled any members that happen to fall short of their expectations, with a scattered few teams of buddy groups who happen to be lucky enough to have a full team of skilled players. Neither set is very keen on the idea of welcoming new members - they have a team that works, and so they're going to stick to it. This means that any new teams have to assemble themselves from the morass of wannabe raiders, and doing so is a long and frustrating process that drives many potentials with legitimate talent to simply give up.

In my opinion this has been the case since at least November 2013, and the raid community has evolved and refined itself in the manner you describe since then. I remember a very impassioned topic here way back then about the negative impact that the static groups of raiding were having on friends, Free companies and other social groupings. I've seen nothing to contradict that old post over the years, and your description of how a raiding community refines itself simply reinforces that. It's not that anyone means for the negative impacts to happen, no one sets out to break friendships over gear drops or failed mechanics, but over time those things can poison relationships and break up friendships.

That said, perhaps that is in the nature of raiding and you're better off not raiding with friends? I don't know, it's harder looking from the outside in. I have several friends who used to raid and burned out, then left the game and I have seen FC members leave for no reason other than their raid group demanded it. So, raiding doesn't have a very good reputation with me.