Guild recruitment and Tiers of capabilities
One of my observations, related to the current state of things in WoW concerns the quality of applications for recruitment. It seems that the level of those seeking guilds, in terms of quality, has degraded a lot. At least in our realm - allegedly the top PvE realm in EU - and regarding our own applicants. So, I could not help thinking that the easier content essentially hurts mid-range guilds and eventually will hurt top guilds. Now, here is my reasoning.
We got three tiers of guilds. Tier One (T1) is the `hardcore' top guilds of a realm where the 'cream of the crop' finds home to satisfy the desire total annihilation of bosses-targets within the smallest amount of time possible, after their introduction. Tags like, realm-firsts, rankings etc go in this category.
The second tier (T2) is mid-range guilds which are usually slower than the top ones, either due to schedule (like my guild which raids 3 days per week just for its members to keep their sanity, their spouses and their RL in order) or due to `lesser' skill.
The third tier (T3) is the entry level guilds wich range from `social' doing-nothingness, to clearin a fragment of the content or just not attaining the top achievements.
Since the content is easier these three tiers are more distinct than ever. Those who can do things fast, efficiently or what I like to call `punchy'. Those that can do the same things more or less but require a bit more time. And those that for a variety of reasons can not do all, some or most.
Although my tier model is crude, its adequate to demonstrate my point. Each tier mostly replenishes itself from its immediate lower.
Now, I believe that in the past where the content was harder people often transferred to guilds within their tier. Top guilds were off limits, mid range guilds were much more and casual guilds quite fewer cause there was not much `casualness' in the game (I am excluding PvP from this ofc).
Whereas some players sleeked for more and jumped tiers, many stayed with in their tier - mostly T2 - and tried to find more satisfying raid environments. Nowadays things are a bit different. Since content is easier people can jump to the tier above with greater ease. That means that T2 which has capable players looses quite a few to T1. Unfortunately those from T3 who wish to go to T2 and who for a variety of reason could not complete certain (if not many) elements of an overall easier content are usually not good enough for T2.
In other words those that have not done basic things in this content (and wish to do more, hence its not a matter of commitments/time etc) are not good enough for many T2 guilds.
Of course, these are just observations. I may be way off there. Do I make sense or this sounds like a phd thesis...?
We got three tiers of guilds. Tier One (T1) is the `hardcore' top guilds of a realm where the 'cream of the crop' finds home to satisfy the desire total annihilation of bosses-targets within the smallest amount of time possible, after their introduction. Tags like, realm-firsts, rankings etc go in this category.
The second tier (T2) is mid-range guilds which are usually slower than the top ones, either due to schedule (like my guild which raids 3 days per week just for its members to keep their sanity, their spouses and their RL in order) or due to `lesser' skill.
The third tier (T3) is the entry level guilds wich range from `social' doing-nothingness, to clearin a fragment of the content or just not attaining the top achievements.
Since the content is easier these three tiers are more distinct than ever. Those who can do things fast, efficiently or what I like to call `punchy'. Those that can do the same things more or less but require a bit more time. And those that for a variety of reasons can not do all, some or most.
Although my tier model is crude, its adequate to demonstrate my point. Each tier mostly replenishes itself from its immediate lower.
Now, I believe that in the past where the content was harder people often transferred to guilds within their tier. Top guilds were off limits, mid range guilds were much more and casual guilds quite fewer cause there was not much `casualness' in the game (I am excluding PvP from this ofc).
Whereas some players sleeked for more and jumped tiers, many stayed with in their tier - mostly T2 - and tried to find more satisfying raid environments. Nowadays things are a bit different. Since content is easier people can jump to the tier above with greater ease. That means that T2 which has capable players looses quite a few to T1. Unfortunately those from T3 who wish to go to T2 and who for a variety of reason could not complete certain (if not many) elements of an overall easier content are usually not good enough for T2.
In other words those that have not done basic things in this content (and wish to do more, hence its not a matter of commitments/time etc) are not good enough for many T2 guilds.
Of course, these are just observations. I may be way off there. Do I make sense or this sounds like a phd thesis...?
6 comments:
Even I am a casual player and even I understand what you are talking about in this post. I know that it's easier to lvlup since whithin only 3 hrs someone can take a lvl with only going as the guide says... But that doesn't give us the xp we need to play correct our character and explore how to use all our abilities. I am a 54 lvl rogue, but I use some of my abilities to complete the quests. But that happend when the WoLK came, cause till then the lvling up process was a bit more difficult and you ought to learn and use more abilities and to do more thinking than now.
If the goal is to lvl up then the game is ok, especially for players like me, but I believe that is not the way all other kind of players feel.
The only thought croses my mind is that Blizzard made WoW easier so that more players - subscribers get into the game.
I don't know if i am unfair but ttha is my opinion...
Lance I agree with you 100% !!!
Erlune
It sounds a bit like a phD thesis, but I understand your point. I've done heroics with aweful healers who were in the T1 guilds on our server.
If the content is so easy, then the only difference in the guilds tiers is effort really. How often people are willing to raid. If they come prepared... start on time.. don't goof off a lot. I've noticed that these things can make more of a difference in clearing content than how much dps one person has or what color their gear is.
And I agree with the comment above. Remember how us pallys had to get our epic riding mounts? How we had to use a certain ability on each mob? Now you just train for it.
@ Barista: Yes, the Charger quest was a `crash-course' in the notion of judgments. Back in the days when I was CL I made sure that I assisted all the paladins in my guild with the Scholo bit, just to make sure they understood it. Judgments may not have been as groundbreaking as they are now, but that's exactly why it demonstrated some class understanding through being so subtle.
Things are much easier now. But when something becomes easy, it often becomes un-appreciated and undervalued. And that leads to people not having completed Naxx to applying to guilds preparing for Ulduar...
Go figure....
@ Erlune: Blizzard may be increasing its customers in the short term but it is loosing old, trusted ones. So its a bit of a trade-off that we do not know for the time being where it leads...
I agree with you once more Lance!!! And I' m not from the ones that don't come along with the new stuff... but some changes are not for the best... ( we rogues used to learn to make poisons and now we buy them!!!) Don't know...
We might understand (oneday) the meaning of all these..
I think that nowadays players want everything to happen easier and with no cost of time, but that's not what the game is for...
Till then... beware... I'm somewhere near you... and watching you... !!! ;)
Erlune
I think my guild is from the top end of T2 as we are the most progressed guild that has not gotten 3d sarth down yet but we are having trouble recruiting quality people as they would prefer to go to "T1" guilds.
I pretty much agree with everything that was said in this post.
:(
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