This seems to be the mantra of mythic guilds everywhere – where are all the raiders? Where are the people who want to kick bosses in the face? Where are the people who want to hang out with a bunch of random weirdos for a laugh and a few jokes? Where are the people who are…
I think there are also a lot of people – like me – who just don’t want to raid with that many people regardless of whether it’s the end of the end of the end of end game or not. Most of the people I raid with I’ve known for YEARS. A lot I’ve met in person. One is my bff. Sure, we pick up new people once in a while, and occasionally recruit to round out our roster for night people can’t make it, but for the most part we’re just not interested in inviting a whole slew of unknowns into our raid and having to police them. Forcing a 20-man format for the top tier of end game really was a mistake on Blizzard’s part. One I hope they fix (if not for the rest of WoD then at least in the next expansion).
Would I like to kill the hardest bosses and get the bestest loot? Sure, why not? But only if it’s with a group of my close friends. People I enjoy being with. People who’s strengths and weaknesses I know inside and out and can count on or compensate for accordingly. Otherwise it’s just not worth it. We’ll piddle around in Reg and Heroic and be perfectly happy.
And this mindset in a lot of smaller raiding guilds is probably also contributing to the lack of interested players available for heroic recruitment. A lot of really decent long-time raiders who have gotten used to a small raid environment aren’t looking to jump ship into Mythic.
YES! This is a very good point that I forgot to include in my original post and is also true for so many other guilds.
Blizzard spends a lot of time and energy reminding us that this is a multi-player game, and that it is best enjoyed with other people. They put in a lot of features to facilitate this, such a as guilds, group finder, LFR, dungeons etc. And we have been listening. Many people have found other players in the game that they could consider friends. They’re the people you have a laugh and a joke with – they are the people you feel comfortable with. They’re your mates! And raiding with them is fantastic fun. What’s not fun is having to tell a bunch of them there’s no place for them anymore (cull from 25 man) or trying to figure out had to add a whole bunch of people in to an already well oiled team. You can’t just force friendships. Adding new people to the mix can be very difficult – team compatibility is a massively underrated factor when choosing new recruits.
On the flip side, being on the outside and trying to break in to a new guild is just as tough. The friendships thing was the hardest part for me when I left my first raid team. I had friends on the team (or at least people I enjoyed spending time with in game) and it was a real shock to be on a new server, not knowing anyone. Later when I was looking for a new team I felt like such an outsider – some guilds are so well established it feels like you’re trying to break in to the “cool crowd” at high school again, and for a lot of people this is not an easy task. I got really lucky with the guild I’m in now – they are such a great bunch of people. I really enjoy raiding with them. Which I think is why it can be so frustrating not getting to do the raids because we don’t have the full 20.
And yes, if you’ve been in 10 man raids all this time, the jump to 20 can be a bit of a shock. I know it was for me as a healer for the first few fights panicking at how many more people there were in the process of dying at any one time. But not just that – it’s doubling the number of voices in vent/mumble. It’s doubling the number of people that need to be coordinated to show up at a particular time.
There’s 20 voices to compete with when strats aren’t going right.
And it’s quite a big leap for raid leaders who have only raid lead 10 mans to suddenly be thrown in with 20 people to boss around. Some people do ok with it, but others don’t.
I understand why Blizzard made the raid size set to 20 only. I understand it’s easier to have 1 set difficulty, rather than trying to scale for just 10 or just 25, or even scaling for whatever size we want to bring in. But it has been a really rough transition for a lot of people, and I don’t know if it’s been worth it. I would be curious to see information about how many people are currently raiding at the highest level in Warlords of Draenor compared to previous expansions to see if others are struggling as much as we are. And perhaps in some cases it’s not an issue for the team to not do mythics, but for others like ours, where we are so keen on getting to do mythics, it is and issue. The options if you can’t get the group of 20 are to not do mythics, just keep trying to recruit, or leave your friends and try to find another team. None of these options promote the group play spirit Blizzard talks about it. And it’s for this reason I think this is one of the worst mistakes made in the game.
cinder says 
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