World of Warcraft®

I’m looking for some advice about the fine line between casual and hardcore. I am a raid leader for a guild that prides ourselves on having fun while raiding. We are not a “hardcore” raiding guild that makes it uncomfortable or unenjoyable to raid. We do not yell and scream in vent, and we do not berate other players for making mistakes. However, we do take our raiding seriously, and expect people to bring the best toon that they can to a raid. We progress through content at our own pace, and are downing new bosses pretty regularly.

Since the release of patch 4.2, a few of my raiders have decided to put quite a bit of effort into the out of raid stuff like dailies, valor capping, and rep runs. It shows to the rest of the raid that these people are putting in the extra time, and I make sure that I give those people kudos whenever possible. The extra time that these folks are putting in is beginning to cause a rift amongst the team. I was approached by one player and basically told “I’m sick of putting in the extra time on this toon when nobody else is. I feel like I’m giving 110% and others are just showing up to raid. I don’t think it is fair to me that I bring the best toon I possibly can while others get carried”

After hearing this, I made a comment before one of our raids that I would like people to try to Valor capped when possible. I don’t want people to change their real life priorities to get more play time, I just requested that people get their valor before farming that crazy rare vanity pet or spend a day in RBGs. As I said before, we are not a hardcore guild, and I would never mandate that people do x throughout the week. All I asked is that if you are going to be on anyway, please get your valor on your main before you go and goof off on an alt.

This got some resounding disdain from the raiders that were falling behind. They felt as though the reason they joined this guild and my group is that they didn’t want to have to do “x” throughout the week to retain their raid spot, and that I was guilting them into changing heir playstyle. Some people play the game as an outlet and a stress reliever, and asking them to do something that they may not particularly want to do is going to ruin that for them. I can totally understand the angle that these players are coming from. Some had left other more hardcore teams, and the reason for leaving is that they wanted to play the way they wanted to, not the way the raid leader told them to. I have now taken the team to a different level of raiding, and that is not what they signed up for.

I can see both sides to this argument, but I feel as if I am between a rock and a hard place. The old phrase “you can’t please them all” comes to mind. How would you handle this situation? I’m worried that a long term team that’s been together since the beginning of ICC is about to fall apart, and I don’t know how to stop it from happening.

TL;DR

Some players on team feel like they are putting in extra effort while others are getting carried. On the other hand, we advertise as a casual guild who would never force anyone to do "x" to get a raid spot.

I think there are many guilds in the same boat as this. My guild is a casual guild, but our raid team is a couple steps above the casual aspect. Maintaining a balance between everyone's skill, willingness to improve, availability, and taking into account the difficulty level of Firelands (and even some tier 11) is a constant juggling act. On one hand you really don't want to be a hard a$$, but if you are not then there won't be any progression.

I've approached it this way, and it hasn't always worked, but it's the best I have. No one ever has to raid to be in the guild. If you want to raid, you need to know your class, research the fights before, come prepared, and keep interrupts to a minimal. If you are not performing up to par (and our par is normal, not insane or anything) then we try and work with that person to help them improve. If there is still no improvement or no willingness to change, then they are placed as a substitute.

Now, this only works if you actually have others to bring in, and that's where recruitment comes in. Just in the past couple weeks I've had to bench two longtime players because they couldn't improve. It sucks, but it isn’t fair to keep them in.

TL:DR - Keep the guild casual, but require a more dedicated commitment to the raiding team.

You advertise yourself as a guild that won't force people to do something to get a raid spot. Those raiders that are pushing themselves to get valor capped or do dailies and then coming to you demanding that you change the guild to suit them are a bit off.

Unless you intend on changing the direction of the guild, you need to live up to what you promised.

It is possible that you might lose people over this, but it seems that some of your raiders feel like the guild should suit them.

It sounds like your group of VP Capping raiders did that of their own accord and are now trying to push their beliefs/goals onto the rest of the guild and are angry that the Non-Cappers are not bending to their will. But, based on the fact that you brought it up in raid, it also sounds like you might be interested in changing the direction of the guild a bit. That's fine, but you need to make a choice and stick to it. Otherwise, you're just going to end up with a lot of dissatisfied/confused raiders who will likely slowly leave to find guilds that more closely suit their personal goals.

In the end, it's up to you as GM to set the goals of the guild, not factions of raiders in your guild. If you want a more hardcore environment, then go that route, if you don't, then keep things the way they are. But, you really do need to choose one or the other. Either you're going to enforce standards or you aren't. I've said this before, but it's nearly impossible to have a happy raid that is a mix of casuals and more hardcore players. The hardcores resent the casuals' perceived or actual lack of effort and the casuals resent the hardcores' perceived or actual elitist attitudes. It's a recipe for disaster.

You are right that you can't please everyone and, further, what pleases people today may not please them tomorrow. You need to set your guild's vision and goals and stick to them, whatever they may be. There's no shame in changing your vision, but if you're going to do that, you need to make a clear announcement and state your new goals and any new expectations that might accompany those goals.

Jariyah hit it pretty much on the head. This group of raiders, took it upon theirself to start going the extra mile. It was not asked of them to do this, and you (OP) stated that your raid team has been downing new bosses fairly regularly. If the raid team is progressing (and by progressing I mean downing new bosses), then there is no issue.

If I were in your position, then I think the best thing to do would be sit down with the group of raiders who are more "hardcore" and inquire of them why they feel they are carrying the raid team. Do they have logs that show that people are not performing to standards for the raid team? Can they show that members are not meeting the bare minimum requirements in terms of DPS, Heals, or Tanking to be in the current raiding environment? If they can present you facts that shows that someone may be slightly underperforming, then you can have a talk with that member to help them adjust whatever mechanic is wrong.

Another option would be to split into two raiding teams, if you have the membership for it. Allow one of this group to be a raid leader and allow them to set the rules for their team. This will allow them to progress at the rate they feel is appropriate and may net you some new recruits. The only thing I would be concerned about with that approach is if it fostered an "us vs them" attitude, which may be brewing already.

The one thing I would make sure and do is have open communication with the entire current roster of your raid team. Present the facts to everyone and attempt to have a conversation around the issue. Perhaps there is a compromise that can be reached that would satisfy all parties. Best of luck.

08/08/2011 07:14 AMPosted by Jglordsphinx

, I just requested that people get their valor before farming that crazy rare vanity pet or spend a day in RBGs

You should not have done this - valor capping can be extremely time consuming and tedious, especially if you are forced to queue as DPS. If you have some raiding standards, and players are meeting those standards, you should not care what they are doing on their off nights.

08/08/2011 10:41 AMPosted by Subrosian

So it's okay for one group of players to fall behind by about one gear piece a week, and therefore hold back progression AND force the group to give them a disproportionate amount of loot to keep them appropriately geared?

If the GM has in fact advertised his guild as "a casual guild who would never force anyone to do 'x' to get a raid spot", then yes. Also, the "one gear piece a week" claim is a bit overblown. Say you are moderately successful and are able to kill 4 bosses per week at 120 VP per kill - that is a 520 point gap (1000 - 480) per week between the cappers and non-cappers. Thus after 5 weeks, the valor-capper could purchase the 378 Tier 12 Chest, while the non-capper may still have the 359 chest. Personally, I would not force my raiders to run the equivalent of 16 troll dungeons for an +19 ilevel difference to a high-budget item like a chest every 4-5 weeks. You could replace the Chest with a Ring+Relic, and the upgrade value would remain approximately the same.

VP capping should be considered mandatory, especially for your alt-o-holics, because otherwise those players are expecting to be handed additional loot to keep up with your raiders who are VP capping.

This is ESPECIALLY true for a casual guild, since you will, on average, be getting less loot that hardcore guilds. All you're doing is asking them to play their main in content that is easy, gives gold, gives DE mats, etc... so, if they don't want to play their main, why are they raiding on it?

The OP said that the guild was advertised as a guild that does not require you to do "x" to get a raid spot. So to suddenly require that everyone in the raid be VP capped is changing the guild focus.

If he wants to do that, fine, but it was not what all the raiders agreed to.

I raid on four toons. VP capping has nothing to do with the desire to raid. What you see as necessary, I see as kinda nice. But I am not pushing for progression on any toon these days. And we kill Firelands bosses without being VP capped every week.

Lot of people have already said it, but this is one of the areas where you can't ride the fence. If your goal is to be casual and have fun and have an overall general lack of accountability around performance you can't begin laying out expectations around how people spend their time playing.

As a leader - this is where having goals or a charter / mission statement would come in handy so you can just point people towards it as it should reflect the core ideals and culture of your guild.

If your guild advertises itself as a "you don't have to do anything to raid" guild, and you don't want to change that, you will have to tell the hardworking people that you will not force other people to do things they don't want to do. Perhaps it will be best if the hardworking raiders left to join a guild where the other raiders shared the same philosophy as them. Raiders are happiest when they are raiding with people who are like them.

You need to have two tier raids.....stick with BwD and BoT, for the peeps that arent' putting in the effort and do Firelands with the peeps who are, and if there isn't enough of ya who are geared for it. Recruit and put your raiders who are working thier butts off at ease.

I understand what you are saying here. You want to progress as a guild but you also want to remain casual as opposed to leet. This is a conundrum. However, there is something you can do about this situation.

If you are attempting new content, keep the rule as it is that raiders must bring their best equipped toons to handle the encounters. Reiterate to your team that you are a casual guild and that this requirement has not changed for the new content. Then, step back and schedule some older content raiding and set a gear minimum requirement for it. It has been my experience that older content raids sometimes hold gear upgrades for players who seem very well geared already. You will find that a few players might bring an alt but some other players may still bring their best geared toons in hopes of winning that coveted heal trinket or dps weapon.

Going about it this way may satisfy those who are being "carried" by getting them honest upgrades and may satisfy those who are doing the "carrying" by allowing them to play and gear their alts.

My guild has always been small and casual - full of real life friends. We have rarely attempted raiding as a guild. As a result of this, I was an avid "pug" raider during WOTLK and was able to obtain my rusted proto-drake through "pug" raiding. For the most part, I would heal raids for guild groups as one of a handful of "pug" raiders in their main group. I noticed that several players in those guilds would gear up on their mains and then switch to an alt for raids. This did not usually cause problems and content was still cleared at the normal pace regardless of these lesser geared alts. I did not notice any hard feelings about people bringing alts so long as the alt was well enough geared for the content being done. If the alt was not well enough geared, the raid leaders were good about saying no to the person while encouraging them to gear up that alt and bring it next time.

Happy raiding!

This happens a lot. Some players will always put in their best effort, even if there is no rule stating they have to. And sometimes they start to resent those who don't.

But if you have no intention of upping the standards or making a second raid with different standards, those players need to either chill out, or leave and find a guild that matches their playstyle better. Many people have tried to backseat-drive a casual guild into more hardcore territory, but the bottom line is that it's not their guild and it's not their decision. It's yours.