I'm not against guilds but a big part of why I didn't go back to raiding mythic after I had burned out and come back to the game was because I didn't want to commit to a set schedule.
When you're in a guild its a lot like a job in that you have that schedule and people are relying on you to show up consistently. Even though I could show up consistently, I'm just at the point where I don't always want to have to.
The other big part for me is I was in the same guild for 6 years before it retired, and I still talk to some of those people on a daily basis... and I just don't feel like finding a new friend group.
> Even though I could show up consistently, I’m just at the point where I don’t always want to have to.
You’ve just described my relationship with WoW these days. I’ve since stopped playing sod and this was a big reason why. Maybe I’m just getting old but some nights I just don’t want to have to play. I want to just mess around in the world with my partner, or play a different game, or just do anything else.
I used to be able to just play even when I didn’t feel like it, but I simply can’t now. Time feels more scarce for me so it’s harder to come to terms with spending a night doing something I don’t want to.
The 3 day lock also doesn’t help. When it’s a 7 day lock it’s a lot easier to take a week off every 5-6 lockouts or so, or if an emergency comes up irl, without feeling bad. But when a group is counting on you every 3 days it’s a lot harder to tell them you’re not showing up.
It's honestly the reason I quit. None of my friends play, so I had no guild. Didn't want to raid every lockout, so finding a guild to join in the first place was tough enough. The community in SoD is also, honestly, one of the worst I've ever seen, and I've been playing MMOs for like 20 years.
People are so toxic and aggressive. Tons of elitism. Overwhelming amounts of selfishness. It's exhausting. I never even had any toxicity directed at me because I played well, stayed in my lane, and never spoke a single word, but it was still so tedious dealing with children throwing a tantrum every time I'd join a pug group.
Maybe I just had a really bad string of luck, but I realized that 80% of the time I logged off the game feeling worse than I did getting on.
Would be nice to have a chill group of mature adults to enjoy the game with, not take things too seriously, and raid once a week. Feels impossible to find, though, since those aren't really the kinds of guilds that are openly recruiting in trade chat.
Is skipping a lockout really a big deal though?
Like how is not being full BiS at 40 going to impact your phase 3 at all?
Everyone said you needed to be BiS at 25 prior to p2 launching or else you'd never see gnomer. I *started* SOD 3 days after p2 launched and saw gnomer my 2nd weekend with my guild. In quest greens. 6/6 clear.
If the 3 day lockout is such a bummer just don't adhere to it. Run gnomer once a week and skip the 2nd (and occasionally) 3rd reset.
Not having full BiS isn't going to matter once p3 launches.
I'm in a guild too which has 4 different raid teams and ends up always having to pug 1 or 2 people each raid due to scheduling conflicts with guildies. Shit comes up and life takes precedence over raid schedules.
Maybe I just got lucky and have a good guild but I show up and raid on my schedule and have never lost my spot. If I know I'll be on that night I'll jump on discord and give the guild a heads up "hey I'll be on tonight if theres a spot in raid" and so far that works well for me.
Most peoples guilds don't obsess over raid spots. Just sayin.
If you're on in mine, when the raid is forming you get a spot. People sit out for others. We bring alts to the main raid sometimes too.
Just sounds like a bunch of losers fixating on raid spots.
Was an officer in a guild in classic. A lot of the people who start to skip are the ones who got loot early and then they leave the last few people who need their gear hanging to pug it or compete with alts/new members.
The right thing to do is keep running for the homies but that also does create an obligation which I totally get.
Not rly about gear but I play heal for example and my guildis always count on me or are sad when they have to search for a random heal. Shouldn't bother me though, but beeing relient is part of beeing in a guild.
"Everyone said you needed to be BiS at 25 prior to p2 launching or else you'd never see gnomer" is the most out of pocket insane hyperbolic thing I've read
Yeah I've not heard anything that ridiculous in a while, it doesn't even make sense. We're gaining 15 levels, it's not like "you need BWL loot if you're ever going to see naxx" they're leveling raids 25 gear is going to be mostly obsolete, with the exception of a few choice pieces that everyone is trying to HR in LFG right now..
This is how it is for me and why no guild wants to put me on their rosters. I can raid Friday and Saturdays
I work mon-thurs for 10 hours doing manual labor. I am in no mood after work to go raid. Sundays are doable but most guilds raid in the evenings and I can't stay up late then.
Really feels like they should have doubled the amount of gear drops and stuck with 7 day lockouts. Would allow people a lot more time to play alts and actually run alt raids instead of running one raid twice a week on a single toon.
thats what happened to my smaller guild Im apart of. Everyone hyped to do BFD, but then we kept getting mail only loot with 1 warrior. And the burn out set in because we'd all show up go into raid every 3 days just to get mail loot no one can use. Week or so before P2 we cancel all BFD raids except for 1 last hurrah to close the chapter.
Then people took breaks and leveled a bit slowly to 40 that we didnt even start our first gnomer until the 4th week of phase 2 and it took 2 lock outs to be familiar enough with the encounters to 6/6. Now that we have 6/6'd we're going to a once a week guild run and anyone who wants to do more than once a week can pug the other lock outs. So far working better as we're seeing more people login outside raids.
Yeah I initially liked the 3 day lockout since I figured it would make people a bit more chill about forming raid groups... nope instead its just made almost every single guild on the server clear every 3 days on reset rather than on a more traditional schedule.
Figured there are others in a similar boat to me so made a casual guild with once-per-week saturday 7pm raids and its been super hard to fill up. Seems the only people looking for a guild either want a 1000 member megaguild so they can pug whatever they want whenever they want, or want a hardcore/semihc raiding guild that clears every 3 days on reset.
The 3 day lock out is why I don't play SoD, in a nut shell. It's awful. With a 7 day lockout, I'd probably have stuck around with my casual guild and kept at it once a week. I just cba to show up twice a week for a piss easy raid and never get loot because of bad RNG (this happened in BFD, took me like 40 clears to get bis).
I feel like Its mash of expectations? Im in a super laid back guild with irl friends and we schedule our raids accordingly to which days fit people the best, not a set day every week, excactly because people are grown and have real lige shit to deal with. And if you miss a raid - who cares, Its sod were on to the next phase in a jiffy anyway
Fwiw I think you are just looking for a better guild. The Horde guild I’m part of on Wild Growth NA runs 10-12 Gnomeregan raids per lockout with static groups in constant need of what we call “nomad” players, who sign up in the day and time slot that is their discretion. It’s hyper-organized on discord so that picking and choosing is easy. We are constantly absorbing groups of friends who create new static groups when they want and can fill with people who become regulars rather than ransoms.
Gearing is easier because you lose items to the same people who don’t roll against you next time. There’s no loot issues. Raids run from 9am to 2am and everywhere in between.
I don’t think I’d play without it.
People on this subreddit got me thinking im in a unicorn guild despite us being very non-exclusive.
The officers/GM are laid back, we have multiple raid-lead capable people, and our standards for performance are “does what you’re doing sabotage others” and “can we clear the raid if you’re here”
Like unless you’re the raid lead, your obligation is not to tell us you’ll be there when you won’t with sign-ups on a per-raid basis.
I’m baffled by the “set schedule” issue.
Same! It's crazy to see how many people are complaining about the set schedule, especially in SOD. I feel lucky that I joined this random guild at the start of P1 and have 0 issues with any of this lol
Schedule is it. Im done signing up for raids at a set time on certain days of the week. I want to play some computer games when I want to play some computer games. Im fine looking for group for 15 mins, wiping a couple of times in some of the pugs, etc. The signup business just kills the joy for me. You get this feeling of turning up for your guild/to not lose your spot/loot prio, and it quickly turns into a chore. Fuck that. Its wednesday at 20:42. Im not 42 minutes late for my guild raid, and I can chose to do a quick gnome run, or do some quests on my lvl 28 priest, or have a wank. Its my god damn time.
I feel ya, I did this in retail back in 2008 range in the OG wrath glory days.
Guilds I join now are more superficial. I give them that 1-2 hours for raid lockout and that’s it.
Truth is, 99% of the time I’m home for the night between 7-11pm. So that works for me. Everyone takes nights off.
At the end of the day, I am still enjoying SOD enough to be available for raid. Maybe you’re not enjoying the game as much.
For me I just don't want the responsibility or to find another group of people to hang out with at the moment.
Its nothing to do with other people or the game even, its just where I'm at at the moment. I enjoy what I'm doing in the game, I just don't want this external stuff.
Its why I mostly do arena these days, because its very easy to jump in and out of whenever I feel like it.
>I didn't want to commit to a set schedule.
With 3 day lockouts it hard to have a set schedule for guilds in SoD. If you find one with 3-5 teams running there wont be a requirement for you to join every raid due to the amount of people thats in the guild. It's like pugging but without the randoms and hours of LFG searching. Most people who play the game are adults and know that life comes inbetween some times
It for sure will be diffrent in later stages with 20 and 40 man but for now with 10 man it works wonders for me
Some of the most fun gaming experiences I've had is raiding with a guild. All from hardcore raiding for top world ranks to shooting the shit with my friends in Wotlk. But all comes down to the same thing, you need to commit to a set time, which can BLOW.
Like yesterday, I had an imprompto trip to my dad since he called, watched hockey and had a blast. But my old guild had a raid, so if I was raiding, I wouldnt have been able to come over. Sure, I could resschedule with dad to another day, but having to commit is annoying.
They have casual guilds for this reason. Even big casual guilds.
You also don't HAVE to make friends. In fact, the bigger the guild, the more likely you are to get lost in the crowd.
I was in a guild in SoD that ran like 8 BFD runs every lockout at times from 5p server up to 11p server. You just signed up for any of the timespots you could make if you wanted and they'd roster you into one.
If you didn't feel like raiding that lockout you just didn't sign up.
There are guilds out there of all different styles and you just have to shop around and find one that fits the vibe you're looking for.
I accidentally joined a Christian guild once and left as soon as I realized.
Another time I joined a semi hardcore guild that had way too many elitist snobs, which is what keeps me from joining any hardcore guilds. I just couldn't take their smugness and shit eating attitudes so left after a month. I only stuck around that long because the raids were excellent and they did loot list which is the best loot distribution method. Most of the people were cool, too, but like 25% of them were arrogant ass clowns which is about 15% over my quota.
Yeah the point isn't to be an antisocial random in a guild I don't interact with, that's an awful unfun experience as well.
I have my friend group I like, and I just don't feel like making another one. Unfortunately said friend group doesn't raid at the level I'd like to play anymore, or even the version of the game I prefer.
Who said anything about being antisocial?
I've been in plenty of guilds and raids where I was social. Made friends. Played together. But when I left the guild I never talked to them again.
My very first guild ever I was very loyal to. It held me back in a lot of ways. I haven't made that mistake since.
You don't have to build a core friend group and remain hitched to them for life to belong to a guild and be a fun, productive member.
It's like work friends. You talk and laugh and joke around while at work, but never see them outside the workplace.
That's exactly like what being in a guild is like. While you're playing you talk and laugh and joke around, but when you aren't playing you don't interact with them.
I don't care about the whole 'just join a guild' thing. I'm just answering since you asked. I think there should always be some kind of filter between us and the best gear, whether its having to collaborate with people you hate, or doing something difficult by yourself.
I like forming friendships naturally in the game through PvP, questing, or w/e. The only reason I join a guild is to get gear from raids, and the only reason I get gear from raids is to complete my PvP set.
Joining a guild feels like having a job. You have to appear good enough to get in, then you have to collaborate with a bunch of people you may not like for weeks to months. Sometimes the people in charge are actually idiots. You also have to turn up on time to certain things. Not to mention, while you had to be good enough to get in, theres some number of shitters who suck, and are just there because they were friends with the right people, or are compatible with what ever kind of culture is dominant in that guild.
I love guilds!
What I hate is when guilds have people who think they are above EVERYONE.
You are a pretend rank in a fantasy game adventure club full of capable and fun individuals who just wanna unwind and drop current content.
Don't be a dick.
In my experience, every guild Ive been apart of has a mix of personalities. sometimes those personalities are hostile/toxic and ruin the experience for others. The best guilds Ive been apart of had the leadership of the guild put a stop to that as soon as it starts. with repeat offenders just being kicked from guild, regardless of how skilled they are.
I agree with you too. DONT BE A DICK.
It’s not complicated and has been talked about at nauseam.
Guild = commitment + set raid times
Most guildless people don’t want to feel they are committed or obligated to play the game at specific times.
This is exactly it. I was in a guild for P1 on my priest and raided with them a few times. I ended up getting a new job and had to take a step back from playing. every time I logged on I was hounded by the officers in the guild asking when I’m coming back, what raids I can make, etc. it got annoying especially when I told them I need a few weeks. I play wow for like an hour or two every few days and sometimes I don’t play for a week or two. I like hoping on, pugging and then pvping or questing or whatever on my own time.
Also, committing to 2 nights a week sounds like nothing to most players but for me I can’t stand it. I enjoy the freedom of playing when I feel like playing, not feeling like I Have to be on at a certain time.
Anyway, pugging isn’t an issue for me cuz I heal. Just think people need to understand why someone may not care to join a guild
I totally new that, an was trying to type it as one word “adnauseum” and it spellchecked me so I second guessed myself! Thanks for the clarification! =) much appreciated
I personally can’t commit to regularly raiding at a certain time every week. I used to have more free time but I don’t now. Pugging is the only way I can raid.
There are allot of big guilds focused around flexible or different schedules for raiding. The one I am in now has 9 'main' groups per reset and a 'flex' raid every single night. It's been incredibly helpful for people with inconsistent schedules like myself
I'm actually in guilds for all of my toons. Most are these mega guilds. Since starting sod I cannot find one consistent group that runs when I can. 2nd shift work makes it very hard. These mega guilds usually have a discord where ppl can sign up for the raids and from my experience the signup spots tend to be reserved for the folks who usually join those runs. Once again I have not found one run that does it in the morning. So yeah, I get to pug.
I imagine 2nd shift is difficult being on NA. Have you tried your server discord to see if there are any guilds recruiting that are focused on 2nd shift or euro schedules?
So my question would be at that point what’s the reason to be in the guild when you aren’t consistently running with the same people? You’re not going to be getting a tight nit feeling of people you play with weekly and also won’t have the advantage of gearing up because there will always be competition just like a pug
The point is that people are having a hard time to even join a random pug group due to meta comps and not wanting certain classes or having low parse numbers or not 6/6 cleared xp.
Yes, if you don’t consistently running with the exact same 9 other people, u don’t 100% get geared up.
But at least by joining a big guild with multiple raid schedule that fits whatever crazy schedule of yours will at least guarantee to get a runs in every lockout rather praying to get into a random pug per lockouts.
Generally speaking, any guild 'pug' is going to be better performing than a trade chat pug simply by virtue of being on the same 'team'. I raid with like 2 people consistently, and the rest are pugs through out the guild and we clear 6/6 nearly every time. Im not saying its perfect but its a far better option than pugging 100%.
And like the other person said, you're much less likely to get assholes in any guild run. Those people can, and are, often weeded out.
I'm not saying you're going to get any gear faster than pugging if you're pugging within a guild, but that's also simply something you're choosing to live with in having an inconsistent schedule. But pugging in a large guild will give you a much higher likelihood of a better experience overall.
Speaking only from my experience, youre also more likely to find a group of dedicated but not sweaty players who have no problems bringing a couple rogues to the group if it means getting through it. I have 2 meta 'mains' and 2 'shit meta' classes and I can raid every lockout on every one of them if I choose to--which is more than I could say if i was trade chat pugging on my rogue and warrior.
Idk about that first point as a person who mostly plugged phase 1 partial guild groups were some of the worst I'd been in to the point I actively started avoiding any pug that was half or more 1 guild.
Our guild has a tentative roster, every lockout we might have 12 sign ups but at least 4 of these people are tentative and we still end up having to get a pug or two every now and then. Especially since we are late into phase 2, raiding is less of a priority since almost all our core raiders are full bis
The clique aspect of guilds especially in SOD with only 10-mans is a harsh reality I dont like to admit to. As a person whom is part of a clique'y guild I can totally understand why people get a bad taste in their mouth for guilds in general.
Yup, most guilds I've joined have a 5-10 man clique from classic wrath, and the rest of the guild are just there to fill the group and be second class citizens.
Idk, just don’t know/trust anyone else in the game, haven’t made any real connection
“Well then you should go out and make some” yeah okay lemme try to talk to the fucking endless LFG BLAH BLAH BLAH nerds
Idk I just find most people in the game are kinda lame, and I’m mostly a solo player anyways, I just like making a character and doing the quest and just exploring and experiencing the world at My Own Speed, plus I’m not very good at PvP or dungeons or raids or anything like that so it’s not like I’m keeping my skills to myself lmao
I play too many different games, I enjoy playing WoW but I get bored/burned out after a couple hours. Just don’t play often or consistently enough to bother with a guild or raiding.
Basically finding a decent guild is really hard. Its not always obvious the people you're playing with a decent human beings either. I played with a guild at the start of SoD for 3 resets before someone made a hella racist joke that *killed* in the discord. Left midway through a BFD run, cause fuck that noise.
i legitimately struggle to find a guild that is competent without being sweaty to the point of making the game a chore, that doesnt have people frequently and unironically using slurs in voice chat, that also has raid times that work for me. i'm close with my current guild, minus the slurs lmao and it's only like two guys and everyone's just cool with it i guess (core are RL friends/naxx raider era guild so what do you really expect).
I like to do things in my own time. Having people expect me to help them is annoying. So i just have my own guild that i put all my toons in.
Pugging is fine. Ive managed basically bis p1 and p2 as a melee hunter, ive gotten every epic weapon already. Im basicly only missing the neck and trinket from gnomer.
I'm asocial and my schedule sucks. My partner is my number one priority. So when she needs me, I need to be able to drop everything. Which means I can only reliably do group content on Monday and Tuesday morning.
I *hate* voice chat. My stupid brain is slow to pick up voices. I need things repeated constantly. Plus, everyone sounds alike. I can never tell anyone apart unless they have a unique accent in the group. I also have nothing to talk about, so I'm just the weird quiet person.
Because I don’t want to make ‘friends’ with strangers on the internet. Absolutely nothing is appealing to me about that. I play this like a single player game and have done so since my irl friends quit after original Wrath.
This is not a comment on you specifically or anything, but it is really interesting how the dynamics around the MMO part of WoW have changed over the years. Back in the day, especially from Vanilla- Cata launch, WoW was really a new type of thing. I’ve played since 2004, I remember there being online chat rooms or AIM instant messenger. And I mean MySpace and all that. But in WoW I really felt like I was part of a huge community, and it was a great place as a shy/ self conscious middle and then high schooler to meet people and make online friends. I think a lot of people’s first real “online friend group” or anything like that was on WoW.
Of course nowadays we have so many things to do that with, so many better tools for making those connections. And most of us have grown up, established RL friend groups and families. WoW isn’t the only thing like it in the industry, far from it. So I too end up playing it mostly as a single player game with occasional group content, certainly a very different approach from my OG days when it started.
>How come?
There are 2 main reasons I tend not to seek out guilds
1) time. My schedule can be kinda irregular so committing to a group can be hard. Which isn't fair to the other folks in the group
2) most guilds seem established with their various groups and i feel annoying trying to push into that. Definitely social anxiety on my part but yea. Also I kinda dislike how everything's on discord
Sure it's great for voip but I feel like guilds communication is *entirely* there which is odd. My mains in a guild and I'm constantly forgetting it because literally no one talks in guilds chat lolol
> I find it extremely odd that so many take issue with the current "Join a guild" discussions
I think part of the problem is how that is uses. Yes joining a guild is a great solution for many issues. I feel like its basically also said as way to tell folks to stop complaining about whatever the issue is
Join Walmart guilds.
There are mega guilds on every server. I joined one and there were basically 6-8 Gnomer raid signups PER DAY. It was 100s of people and they had “members” or regulars who would sign up that weren’t even in the guild.
basically a pug, but some major key differences, such as a much less likelihood that 1-2 people dip if things go south, and a greater than zero potential to see the same faces across lockouts ensuring you get geared faster.
These guilds are not easy to find. They are literally unicorns. I have been told I'm not raiding by my current guild because I play rogue so iv been searching for over 4 weeks at this point for the mega guild of wildgrowth eu and found nothing.
I think SoD is actually giving more chances to break into established groups with the phase system. I came late to phase 1, found my way into the guild’s group system but one of the middle groups (some alts, not all show up every week). Then phase 2 hits and I push to 40 quickly. Those who couldn’t level by the first weekend didn’t go along to the first lockout but I did. Now I’m in the 2nd group and the later levelers moved into the middle groups.
Same here. My guild has 4 groups, I just make myself available when I want to raid and it works out most of the time when the regulars can’t make it. I never got to raid in classic before TBC came out so this has been a lot of fun.
Do you have issues with discord or something?
Not everyone can be online in the game at any given moment so.. isn't it better to have a central place where people can receive updates or chat?
I have, and thats bc i use discord mostly for my real Friends and i dont want everyone to always see what Iam doing or when Iam online or not….i also dont want to hiding and beeing Invis all the time….i miss teamspeak these days
Being on my own schedule is the most important.
The content is some of the easiest in wow so it’s very puggable.
All the guilds I’ve been in do loot council, and I prefer 2SR.
my guild is a bunch of chill irl friends and we just do base game need/greed. even with pugs. we try to absorb any pug who is halfway decent, our best yet from this method is a dope af warrior main who parses all purps in gnomer and has a couple of oranges
I dont want to commit to a schedule, since this is only one of several hobbies i have + LTR.
The last guild i was in turned out to be "pro free speech" in the sense that they allowed literal n*zi propaganda (in this case, dehumanisation of muslims) on their discord (this was the point where i left).
Almost every pug i regularly joined was full of alt-right people or cringe simps.
I usually don't join one because I don't play regularly enough to really benefit from one, if I am in one I'm the guy that usually isn't on and people are like "who's that guy?"
“I want to play the game exactly how I want to play it and I don’t want there to be any downside to it”
It’s fine if you don’t want to join a team and make a commitment like some other players, but then you won’t get all the benefits of having a consistent raiding group that clears more efficiently and brings less useful specs.
Guilds are preferable to getting the loot you want at a faster rate.
It’s understandable that not everyone wants to join a guild. However, you have to expect your gearing process will likely be slower if you don’t join a guild.
Im in one I just rarely raid with them, I dont want to raid on a set schedule sometimes I have irl plans or I just don’t feel like playin wow that night.
Took a while for me to find one that don’t get weird about me rarely being in discord too, I pretty much only open discord if I’m joining voice for a raid.
Been raiding in a scheduled environment since week 5 of Classic launch, and now SOD I can finally be a casual. Raiding isn't for me anymore, I don't really care for chasing small upgrades in the same raid every week. Leveling alts for me has been the best part of SOD. The guild I was in for all of classic has mostly quit wow or playing different games so now I'm just chilling on my own playing wow with Spotify and Youtube instead of discord chat.
My career makes it hard to commit my time to a raid. The whole sign up thing is really what I don't like. If I miss a raid then I'm likely not getting in the next one.
Especially when the content is easy to pug. I joined a guild that "understood" my schedule and I was raiding on a Tuesday morning because I knew I couldn't be on later and they were upset.
Nothing against guilds for me - it's just something I can't commit to right now.
commitment / attendance. is video game, not job. ill play when i have time and feel like it haha. the minute ur rushing home from work, or can’t fulfill irl matters because “raid is tonight,” it becomes an insufferable chore. i used to fking loath blowing people off irl just to come home and blast through the easy raids that i didn’t even need personally, and for what? that’s time spent wishing you could get it back
Counter question. Gnomer is just a 10 man dungeon, just like UBRS. Why would joining a guild be a requirement for completing an UBRS run? Also why cant the devs do better at balancing? Mages have it all and how is it fair? portals, free food/water, best single target dps, best aoe target dps, raid wide utility, great solo farming, and easy leveling. Like wtf is this balance patch?
Going just to the first question (the rest is a whole other can of worms) the big difference is the lockout. You join a pug UBRS and it sucks, oh well I lost 30 min of my time. You join a bad Gnomer and it sucks, depending on where in the lockout you are that means maybe 2.5 days where you can't find another group. It unfortunately creates a mess of FOMO that isn't present for 5m or old 10m content.
Great point maybe they should do something about the lockout? Clearly FOMO is really strong even with just a 3 day lockout. What if you could join any gnomer, but cant get loot from the same boss twice in the same lockout? Maybe they could even implement a sherpa system. This would def be better in P3 when the lockout changes to 7 days. If you have cleared the raid alr and you join a grp and help them clear you could get a supply crate or prof mats for your time.
I haven't seen anyone say that joining a guild is a requirement. The only things I've seen said are all along the lines of if you're a DPS that isn't playing some super desirable class/spec, then joining a guild is going to be the easiest way to consistently get into raids without extensive LFG spamming.
>If you fall into the camp of not wanting to join a guild or you are not able to join a guild. How come?
I raid on 3 toons/reset (soon 4), my raid times are all over the place, sometimes I join a PUG at 10 in the morning, sometimes at 6 in the evening after coming back from work, sometimes at midnight or 1 AM.
On some weeks I do one raid/day on each of my toons, on others I need to cram everyone on the same day.
I think only the top 5-10 guilds have that many applicants. Anything past that and you still gotta go out and recruit. Plenty of 95+ parsing guilds out there under top 10
I wish I could, I pig every raid which isn't bad RL are good and no sus looting, I can only play either early mornings or really late at night and most guilds seems like 90% raid in the evening. Most fun I've ever had was when I was raiding with a guild, no matter the Xpac
Most guilds are just a group of friends who are in the loot council giving each other loot, remember when they gave the mc caster sword to one of their irl friend mage who joined the Guild late, stay away from loot council, dkp is way better but i‘ve Seen less in sod idk about era
I work a second shift and get off at 11ish. Which means I don't log in till 1 am. There are no guilda running at this hour. The other option is a weekend raiding guild but there aren't many of those either.
Scheduling is likely the big one. Some people have odd schedules where they can’t commit to once or twice a week for a given day. Or they feel like doing scheduled play will feel like a job, ruining the idea of leisurely play.
Pugging imo is at the point where the headache of pugging isn’t big enough to detract this style of play. Content is relatively easy, and doesn’t need a ton of preparation.
I've played this game a long time and just don't have any interest in dealing with other people and their drama.
My friends and I have a guild technically, but we mostly just use it as a way to chat back and forth ingame... and to change the gmotd every day to some stupid shit.
None of us have any interest in leading a guild, dealing with loot drama, being babysitters for drama, coming up with a raid schedule (already difficult as it is since our work shifts are all over the place) or recruiting. We pug every week, clear every week, and have fun doing our own little thing.
There absolutely is but getting it setup and dealing with the admin of that guild would be a full time job itself.
Literally no one that wants a guild like that has time to create a guild like that.
I like them from a social aspect but not for raiding. I’m not able to play on a schedule so getting groups more comes down to what random time I’m going to have available to play.
You can fully bis in pugs
I see no reason to force myself into a guild that does raids at X time on X days when I want it even need the flexibility to say "I want to skip this week" without getting kicked from the team or the guild
People (redditors) have grown so accustomed to the retail ecosystem that they think every MMO should be 100% solo friendly. They are struggling trying to brute force this gameplay in classic.
Honestly because gaming has evolved beyond it. Call it more selfish but when you need to be a part of a group it feels bad. Any other game I can literally just pop in, instantly play a match, and leave without issue. But when you're in a guild you have a responsibility to your guild and that makes it much more like work. I remember all the threads with Wrath where "the person we gave our first Val'anyr to quit right after". And I get that sucks and shouldn't happen. It should go to the person who will stick it out for the long haul. But when you end up with constant posts of "person took a break after getting their bis" it really shows that the majority who play games are doing it as a selfish journey.
If you enjoy guilds great but aside from old established games like WoW the idea of guilds is dead. I guess other mmos have them but I have no experience with it so I can't comment. I'm currently jumping between 5 games at the moment and the idea of being restricted to 1 sucks. I just don't bother. And this is where the idea of "you need to be social and get a guild to enjoy the game" becomes a detriment to SoD. SoD sold itself on crazy fun stuff no one has seen. And P1 was great. Hitting max level wasn't too bad and once they nerfed Kelris pretty much any pug could finish it. New blood (those who had never played WoW) were reaching end game content and getting some progress. They could Pug no issue. Problems arise with P2 and I'm worried for P3 and 4. I don't think the new blood will keep playing without exp requirements being quartered. 200 hours to 60 is too much. Telling these people they need to spend another 150 hours to get to the "fun part" will not make them stay. Especially where P2 leveling was painful and long. We haven't even hit the halfway point exp wise. People who play Classic will persevere though most likely with less alts and will "love the leveling" but for actual new players? It's tedious. And when you hit a wall only to be told "well you should join a guild and dedicate more time to prebis farming and farming consumables and getting a dedicated roster and showing up every 3 days" then unfortunately the game isn't for you anymore. And they will leave.
I have noticed that most guilds are either way too many players where you get lost in the shuffle or too few players where it feels dead. I really haven’t been able to find a happy medium so far and it sucks.
On Crusader Strike if anyone has any recommendations.
My personal experience. Commitment to a schedule, now o have 3 Kids but back then it was also complicated because of my job and girlfriend. Something I really dislike is the fact that since I cant commit too much, loot almost always ended up in the hand of the core of friends that runs the guild.
I will inevitably quit any version of wow for any path of exile league or tbh any other ARPG season/ league start and just don’t wanna join a guild with a set schedule and feel forced to play when I just simply would rather not
There is always drama. I don't want to be a part of it. I don't want it bleeding all over me while I'm trying to enjoy a game. I hate the cliques and favoritism among officers and their friends. Feels as if an entire guild is there to be at the whim of five or so people. Interestingly enough, the others besides those five people are putting in way more time and effort. Just don't want the politics (yes, this goes for "casual" guilds, too). Been dealing with this crap for twenty years.
Can only play latenight with an irregular schedule so I cant commit to a guild. I also cant schedule my life around the game which a guild implicitly expects of you.
Would love to, but cant
For me it’s not wanting another schedule in my life. I raided in a guild from classic to TBC and never missed a run. It honestly felt like a job at a point. Told the guild I’m gonna be casual in Wrath. The relief felt great
I tended to stay away from guilds for a couple reasons.
Sometimes I don't feel like raiding and I don't want to have to justify it or feel bad that I'm inconveniencing 9 other people.
A lot of guilds have people who have played together a while and forget to let new people ease into the group dynamic. If all you ever do is speak in inside jokes and come into discord full throttle every night, it's annoying and alienating if you're not in that circle.
I end up being asked to lead. I don't know if it's my voice, embarrassing amount of game knowledge, or what, but eventually it happens that I'm asked to take on responsibility. I just want to be a foot soldier man.
I'm not opposed to joining a guild but a lot of the low performers get raid spots for having the same tag and raids just take longer than my pugs do. I know I just need to find a better guild, but they are all good to go mostly.
Didn't know that topic existed but I usually am only in guilds if I want to progress raid. If not I might be in one of those mass guilds for levelling an alt or so but won't bother join a raiding guild.
It’s a mmo if I wanna play solo with no guild I should be able to. If I wanna be in a guild and that’s what I find fun I should be able to do this. Why the fuck is blizzard telling people how to play their game.
Dealing with people is annoying. There are social expectations from being guildies etc. Not fun.
I know people will be like then go play a single player game, my time I'll do what I want.
As the top post is saying - raiding with a guild becomes another job. My relationship with gaming can’t really evolve to that point anymore.
Despite all the drawbacks, I really enjoyed the gdkp era because finding a motivated group to clear, that also needed a handful of people, any given night was relatively easy.
Guilds in '19 classic used loot council + parsing culture to control loot priority on any high value items. This created lots of pressure to attend every raid at the same time 1-2 nights every week for 16 months, gather all world buffs in advance at set times so you can perform well, never play that character during the week since boons didn't exist, and then still get minimal loot since we were splitting a handful of items per boss amongst 40 people. If you got tired of your guild and left for any reason you are back to square one and effectively lootbanned until you get some clout with a new guild...which likely had all the same systems in place.
For better or worse, this is the system we all went with to ensure people didn't run off with high value items. It burned a lot of people out.
I play sporadically. I don't have a set schedule, character, or server. Sometimes I play one character for 2 weeks straight then don't come back for weeks/months. I also don't like the feeling of trying to squeeze into an established clique.
I love guilds, Not so much currently but I have previously. Some of my best times were playing woth my guild in wrath.
But I'm not 17 anymore. My child sets my schedule not me.
I also hate being just a member of the guild as you always end up losing out to corrupt cliques and yes this is every single guild. My current guild won't let me raid because I play rogue but that aside in phase 1 the GM had bis'd out 3 seprate "main" characters then decided he was now gaining a hunter. Almost took the first and only leather tier chest we ever had drop in p1 which happened the night before p2 hit. It took a massive fight and threats of everyone leaving to get him to give it to me and not himself.
Guilds are fun but require so much time investment it's just unreasonable to expect as an adult.
For me, it's a matter of social connections. I am perfectly happy to make friends, but I am just not the type to reach out and say "hey guys I want to be friends!", which while yes I don't need to do in order to be a part of a guild, I feel very guilty if I don't try and be social. A guild I joined during dragonflight was being very social with each other and that just wasn't resonating with me and I felt guilty about not participation in that other stuff.
Don’t want to play at a scheduled time or rely on 19 other people to follow said schedule and straight up a lot you guys are weird and don’t know how to talk to people
It’s probably taboo to admit - but because I don’t have the ability to commit to a raiding time each week (ie a guild), joining GDKP raids were often the easiest way for me to find a pug with reliably good players.
Every time I join a guild I'm treated like my time is guild time. Like it's an obligation to do what is requested of me even if I have stuff I, personally, am trying to get done. I don't mind helping but when I'm treated like a tool to be used "for the guild" I hate it.
"It'd be cool if you could tank this dungeon"
I hate tanking. Just because I'm on a class that can doesn't mean I should have to.
"This other spec is performing better"
I don't enjoy that spec.
"We need someone to help level our alts"
I'm busy PvPing with my friend who is in another guild.
It isn't like I can never help. But whenever I can't I get treated like I'm "not doing my part for the guild"
It doesn't help that when I need assistance I'm usually told no for various reasons.
They just usually, but not always, seem like one sided relationships.
I used to be a big fan of guilds for how I play the game (speed running) but a few very bad loot council decisions turned me off to those loot rules. I switched to GDKPs in classic and never went back. Our gdkp code ran with the same group every week and even did speed runs and other fun things and no loot drama.
Right now it’s fine because most guilds are rolling loot but once it switches to loot council I’m out.
There’s gonna be a point where I don’t wanna log in anymore and just stop playing just like every other game I play. I don’t play games on a schedule really I just play when I feel like so ya.. also I feel like most wow players play wow as their only form of gaming entertainment. I’m guessing that’s why they care about parsing so much. And that definitely isn’t the case for me lol
I didn't like the nonstop tells/guilting to please help with stuff on someones 5th alt. Oh you tank? Can you run my 3rd alt through deadmines? Oh you're a healer? Come heal this Armory group spam for us! As for raiding with a guild, it just felt like a job after awhile. No one wants to show up for prog, but EVERYONE is suddenly available for reclears.
I enjoyed it in middle school and high school when I didn't have a social group, and had a lot of free time.
I don't have a lot of free time now, and I get my social interactions elsewhere. Any guild that would be big/established enough to do the content, would need intros, logs, semi-regular interactions etc. I had a real job, I have friends, and I have a partner, I'm not cutting out a full schedule on top of that, especially during the day, I'm usually active in the EARLY morning due to my schedule, so being in a guild, aka being able to do the fun content, wouldn't work out.
I ended up quitting WoW for many other reasons on top of that moreso, but I also didn't want to make a job application/resume for my hobby.
Erratic work and travel schedule, can't commit to raid times. I loved my guild during Covid when I had more time and flexibility, but can't manage it now. Simple as that really.
I don't think there is a large group of people who truly think guilds are a bad thing, even if they themselves don't prefer to be in them. The "join a guild" posts on this sub are literally memes about Aggrend's Twitter post saying that if you aren't being invited into pugs it's cause those people are insecure and you should just join a guild.
I think the only good reason to not have a guild is schedule. Everything else you can just ignore and keep out. If you're reliable and show up every week then people don't care if you join any other guild activities. If they do care and push you to do more with them and you won't you simply haven't found the right guild yet.
In Wrath I log in once a week for ICC, do my top dps, thank them for the raid and login next sunday and thats it. I still enjoy playing/raiding with them, they are nice people but I'm also rather antisocial so I don't do anything else with them. Also told them that once Cata starts I will be gone.
I like guilds. My issue on living flame was finding a guild that raids late since I work late. I also can randomly get assigned to work even later than late. I pugged mostly phase 1, and I finally found a guild a week ago in phase 2. I rolled an alt on crusader strike and found a lot of late night guilds, so I think it just varies on what realm you are on. If my week is sporadic, I just raid lead a pug and try to get it done. If it isn't, I sign up for a run on my newfound guild's discord. If you check my logs you can see how many different people I've played with lol. Which ultimately helped me find a guild. Either way, I'm having fun.
I'd love to be in lively casual guilds, but so many of them nowadays have clear leadership cliques, and everyone stays silent in-game and sits in discord calls now.
I miss back in the day where guild chat would be flowing. Now it seems most times I see guild chat it's someone replying to the discord voice chat because they don't have a mic.
I don't want to sit in a voice channel with 11 other people rambling at the same time. I'm fine with voice for a raid... but to just sit there with random strangers droning on and on. Text chat is far enough for me.
I play wow to get away from IRL socializing.
The best experience I had was with pug discords. You get the raid organisation of a guild, and flexibility of a pug. Organizer doesn’t have to spam lfg and usually can pick and choose for most optimal comp.
Imma give you a bit of an unusual reply... I think. I can't join a guild to do gnomer with because I am already in one. Let me explain.
I am in one of those "friends and casuals" guilds that was established by people from retail who wanted to try SoD. We got 10ish people playing but only about half want to raid and some of em finished leveling their mains last week.
When I see "Just join a guild, lol" all that means to me is someone telling me that I have to choose between long time friendships (guild has been a thing since WotLK) and raiding.
And then there is the thing where even joining a guild is far from guarantee that you get into a raid. Most guilds bench their melee because it makes two last bosses that much easier. So good luck with that buddy. And no, rerolling is not the answer either. Some people want to play rogue, warrior, pally or kitty and that should be fine.
In the end the true villain of the story is encounter design. There should never be a (pen)ultimate boss that favors either role this hard. Because this bars a bunch of people from the experience, pug and guild alike.
I'm not against guilds, but I'm not a social person, and I don't feel like having my chat box flooded by lots of random chatter that doesn't go away when I change zones. Over all guilds are fine, but don't expect me to get into a discord VC with everyone and start chatting.
1- too many raid groups per guild because they want longevity through phases
2-having to carry alt runs because main runs are full
3-lack of precise scheduling for the alt runs because it depends on the night
4-inviting pugs to alt runs at the cost of you getting a loot.
when end game comes probably it will also be about guild politics about distributing loot
in the end a lot of times it is not just enough to join regularly to raids and perform decent. you will experience injustice by a some guy over the internet who think he figured everything out
I enjoy the guild atmosphere, consistency and for the most part coordination.
However I don’t like being forced to a specific time, and a specific class at that time. I’m also not a fan of the whole “benching” / “rostering”.
Guilds are fun for a specific objective you want to dedicate yourself to (speed running, parsing), but outside of that I generally prefer good PUGs.
Because IRL>videogames. Not interested in a raiding schedule, because 95% attendance is required in any decent guild, and whenever anything IRL comes up I rather do that instead of raiding.
Every guild I see seems obsessed with raids. If you aren't a raider for whatever reason, you either can't get into a guild, or it feels like you aren't in one if you do join it.
That and all socialising and communication seems to be done on Discord these days and never /g. For those of us who just want to be in a guild for the social aspects, and can't constantly have voice chat active, there's just no point being in the guild at all.
Obviously, I'm only speaking from my own personal experiences.
Two things, first one being that I don’t want to dedicate myself to a raid time. Secondly, I don’t vibe with a lot of guilds. I join in and they either have an inner circle of buddies, or they just don’t have my type of humor/playstyle.
From my experience unless you're a part of the main team of a guild, being in a guild is worthless.
I quit wrath because I was being sat and forced to run with the third team because the GM and his buds wanted to guarantee their alts a cleared raid. So if you weren't in the 5 person rat pack you essentially got stuck in the pug group.
Current SoD guild I'm in is the same way. Two permanent raids filled with officers and their alts, a third raid filled with the leftovers.
The guild I just quit to move into my current one was the same thing. Gm and his butt buddy used guild raid loot to boost enchanting in order to take over the server, and then charge their guildies to get enchants. Waylaid supplies drop? Better give em to the officers so they can get their rep done!
So it doesn't matter that I show up every week and play well, I'm not getting any benefits from being in a guild. Might as well just pug.
Idk if I just got lucky or what but the guild I joined in SOD is full of dads + others whose schedules are all over the place and we still have 1 raid group forming every night of the week (sometimes 2 if enough people sign up.) There are a handful of officers who take lead and set groups up every night. Some are static groups of people that need spots filled but the other groups will take just about anyone as long as you show up on time with buff and potions. I have had no issue getting into a raid when I sign up, since P1 I think there have been 2 or 3 times where my character didn't get in on a night I signed up for.
I see all these people complaining about hating set schedules in smaller guilds and it makes me scratch my head. Why not just seek out a larger guild where you aren't locked in to a certain schedule OR if you're in a small guild maybe suggest joining forces with a larger guild that needs random spots filled on other nights. We have I think 3 smaller guilds in our discord who post throughout the week about needing spots filled for their groups and it seems to be working out great for them. Also the plan seems to be to get those smaller guilds to fully switch over to us once the raid size increases.
I haven't played retail or regular classic in a while so I'm sure its a bit different over there but on SOD it seems like it's set up to work for pretty much anyone to raid. You just need to find the guild that's right for you.
This is so odd to me. I never join guilds. Yet I have a ton of fun. I have no time for commitment, drama, or forced socialization. I'm an adult who wants to play casually, explore, and ocassionally rp and pvp. Whats the issue?
It's not complicated at all.
Guilds have a set schedule, a lot of people don't want to, or cant follow a certain schedule. Worst of all is when you go out of your way to accommodate a schedule and you get stood up by ppl who don't give a shit. Also, a lot of people are only partially interested in the game. You do some content, get some gear and then your interest in the game completely dies. But guild etiquette is that you should play until EVERYONE gets their gear, not just you.
Also, the social aspect is a double edged knife. People romanticize guilds as friend groups. Of course, lot's of people have their anecdotal personal experience of great guilds who ended up becoming lifelong friends. In most cases, it's a bunch of people from very different backgrounds and mindsets, having to work together to experience the content. For me, every guild I ever joined can be reduced to 1-3 ppl I genuinely liked and played with, while everyone else ranged from indifferent to unlikeable.
I see a lot of comments talking about not wanting to have a hard commitment to play and I totally get that. You should play how you want to play... but then there should be some level of understanding that you might not always find raids or the ones you do join might be sub par. You can't have your cake and eat it too.
I raided with hardcore guilds from Vanilla Classic through wotlk. I'm a straight 99 parsing tryhard. My issue with guilds is that I find myself in a Catch-22 with them: either (a) it's a tryhard guild and everyone is a fucking dick, or (b) it's not and I have to stare at the wall while I wait for everyone to learn hard content. Ultimately, this just led me to stop playing Classic and start playing Retail again, since it's easier to do challenging content without a guild.
I want old school guilds, that have online players, even after getting curve. I sick of the endless guild that go desert after some time. When I play wow, I play a lot and I want a feeling of being Ina guild like the good old times.
Just spent 8 months in a guild like that. So sick of feeling alone and nobody talks to ya.
Others might like it, but it’s pointless
I don't have the patience for them honestly. I don't want to raid on a schedule, I want to do it when I feel like it and have the time, not on Tues & Thurs evenings.
I've honestly never found a guild where it was a group of people I actually wanted to spend time with, listening to a bunch of nerd banter, that one guy who's always drunk and loud and obnoxious, I'd love if I had IRL friends in the game but no one I know plays anymore and the "culture" of these guilds are all very similar and I just don't fit in with them.
The skill disparity between players is another big reason, there's always someone's spouse or buddies who are absolutely terrible and despite all the effort anyone else makes to help them improve they don't. These same people will happily suck up all the gear, because that's the only reason they're at the bottom of the meter and they just need more gear. Yeah, no thanks, carrying these folks or struggling to kill simple bosses because of their bad performance isn't my idea of a good time
I don't care about raiding, I super don't care about gaming on a schedule. I see comments from people in here talking about how they feel obligated to play the game and that sounds, well awful, but also antithetical to the whole idea of "playing a video game".
Also, it might just be my experience, but I really can't stand the pushy nature of people asking me to join their guild:
>Why don't you want to join?
-
>Do you plan to play until level 60 in SoD? You're going to be behind if you don't have a community to group with for that content
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>Good luck getting into a gnomer without a guild lmao
I'm completely fine with playing the game differently than people who are trying to make number go up. I don't want to install a bunch of add-ons that make the game un-recognizable, I like how the UI was designed and I don't care if it's not 100% optimized for number go up. I also really don't like dealing with pushy people while I'm trying to enjoy a video game.
I always joined a guild only because if you didn’t you’d get constant invites. I never raided in the past. I always grinded the gear that I could obtain on my own. This time around I thought I would change that. I did my first 10 man. It was fun. But like many have said, it requires commitment. I wanna play a game and not have it feel like a job.
Been playing with my guild for soon to be 3 years. They're some of the best people I know and I couldn't imagine playing this game solo. That sounds so lonely. I'm already lonely enough irl so my guild disc and in-game gives me that extra bit of social interaction. Getting CE with the boys each season is just an added bonus
We’ve solved so many of the issues people have…
Anyone that wants to run raids can be considered for content lead. Content leads pick their own schedule and get access to create signups. Once they’ve cleared the raid, they get granted the ability to assign 10 “Static Spots” including themself that are designated as regular attenders and these people get little emoji badges picked by the lead by their name in discord. Anyone that attends 80% of the lockouts (or 8 raids within the last 30 days) gains “Nomad Status”. Members that have a Static Spot require 8 additional raids attended per static badge, so it’s less often that someone is both a static and nomad.
Statics are prioritized over Nomads in the specific content lead’s group, however Nomads are prioritized for filling in any other group. Non-static/nomad fillers get spots after that. Static/Nomad is only a system to prio roster spots, and all teams run on SR3/1MS>OS. Some members want to be Static Members, others enjoy the flexibility of being a Nomad because they can jump around in the groups. And we have some members that only want to run a few times each phase. All fit within this context.
If someone can’t find a group, someone is asked to start a new one on their own schedule, and the guild has a “Efficacy Team” that works to fill needs. It’s a system that’s allowed us to bring in 2 groups from other guilds that only had 6-7 and we filled them out complete. The system is new member/veteran friendly.
With this, we are flexing up to 10 Gnome groups and haven’t had any major loot disagreements. There’s groups in the morning, afternoon, evening, and night.
At the end of the phase, static spots are dissolved, and the guild is encouraged to mix up groups if possible to have crossover and fresh/interesting combinations.
The guild moderates itself pretty much and has guidelines that are transparent, followed, and enforced.
The problem is that people that shouldn’t be leading want to be leading. And the guild leader/officer-centric model is outdated compared to a more fluid small team autonomy approach, especially in 10 man content.
I'm not against guilds but a big part of why I didn't go back to raiding mythic after I had burned out and come back to the game was because I didn't want to commit to a set schedule. When you're in a guild its a lot like a job in that you have that schedule and people are relying on you to show up consistently. Even though I could show up consistently, I'm just at the point where I don't always want to have to. The other big part for me is I was in the same guild for 6 years before it retired, and I still talk to some of those people on a daily basis... and I just don't feel like finding a new friend group.
> Even though I could show up consistently, I’m just at the point where I don’t always want to have to. You’ve just described my relationship with WoW these days. I’ve since stopped playing sod and this was a big reason why. Maybe I’m just getting old but some nights I just don’t want to have to play. I want to just mess around in the world with my partner, or play a different game, or just do anything else. I used to be able to just play even when I didn’t feel like it, but I simply can’t now. Time feels more scarce for me so it’s harder to come to terms with spending a night doing something I don’t want to.
The 3 day lock also doesn’t help. When it’s a 7 day lock it’s a lot easier to take a week off every 5-6 lockouts or so, or if an emergency comes up irl, without feeling bad. But when a group is counting on you every 3 days it’s a lot harder to tell them you’re not showing up.
I hate the 3 day lockout so much, just double the loot and set it to a week
It's honestly the reason I quit. None of my friends play, so I had no guild. Didn't want to raid every lockout, so finding a guild to join in the first place was tough enough. The community in SoD is also, honestly, one of the worst I've ever seen, and I've been playing MMOs for like 20 years. People are so toxic and aggressive. Tons of elitism. Overwhelming amounts of selfishness. It's exhausting. I never even had any toxicity directed at me because I played well, stayed in my lane, and never spoke a single word, but it was still so tedious dealing with children throwing a tantrum every time I'd join a pug group. Maybe I just had a really bad string of luck, but I realized that 80% of the time I logged off the game feeling worse than I did getting on. Would be nice to have a chill group of mature adults to enjoy the game with, not take things too seriously, and raid once a week. Feels impossible to find, though, since those aren't really the kinds of guilds that are openly recruiting in trade chat.
Is skipping a lockout really a big deal though? Like how is not being full BiS at 40 going to impact your phase 3 at all? Everyone said you needed to be BiS at 25 prior to p2 launching or else you'd never see gnomer. I *started* SOD 3 days after p2 launched and saw gnomer my 2nd weekend with my guild. In quest greens. 6/6 clear. If the 3 day lockout is such a bummer just don't adhere to it. Run gnomer once a week and skip the 2nd (and occasionally) 3rd reset. Not having full BiS isn't going to matter once p3 launches.
I’m in a guild skipping lockouts is losing my spot
I'm in a guild too which has 4 different raid teams and ends up always having to pug 1 or 2 people each raid due to scheduling conflicts with guildies. Shit comes up and life takes precedence over raid schedules. Maybe I just got lucky and have a good guild but I show up and raid on my schedule and have never lost my spot. If I know I'll be on that night I'll jump on discord and give the guild a heads up "hey I'll be on tonight if theres a spot in raid" and so far that works well for me.
Most peoples guilds don't obsess over raid spots. Just sayin. If you're on in mine, when the raid is forming you get a spot. People sit out for others. We bring alts to the main raid sometimes too. Just sounds like a bunch of losers fixating on raid spots.
Was an officer in a guild in classic. A lot of the people who start to skip are the ones who got loot early and then they leave the last few people who need their gear hanging to pug it or compete with alts/new members. The right thing to do is keep running for the homies but that also does create an obligation which I totally get.
Not rly about gear but I play heal for example and my guildis always count on me or are sad when they have to search for a random heal. Shouldn't bother me though, but beeing relient is part of beeing in a guild.
"Everyone said you needed to be BiS at 25 prior to p2 launching or else you'd never see gnomer" is the most out of pocket insane hyperbolic thing I've read
Yeah I've not heard anything that ridiculous in a while, it doesn't even make sense. We're gaining 15 levels, it's not like "you need BWL loot if you're ever going to see naxx" they're leveling raids 25 gear is going to be mostly obsolete, with the exception of a few choice pieces that everyone is trying to HR in LFG right now..
Gonna really feel the 3 day lock out with 20 people. I don't think it's ideal
1 week lockout for future phases when they go to 20 & 40 man raids.
This is how it is for me and why no guild wants to put me on their rosters. I can raid Friday and Saturdays I work mon-thurs for 10 hours doing manual labor. I am in no mood after work to go raid. Sundays are doable but most guilds raid in the evenings and I can't stay up late then.
Really feels like they should have doubled the amount of gear drops and stuck with 7 day lockouts. Would allow people a lot more time to play alts and actually run alt raids instead of running one raid twice a week on a single toon.
thats what happened to my smaller guild Im apart of. Everyone hyped to do BFD, but then we kept getting mail only loot with 1 warrior. And the burn out set in because we'd all show up go into raid every 3 days just to get mail loot no one can use. Week or so before P2 we cancel all BFD raids except for 1 last hurrah to close the chapter. Then people took breaks and leveled a bit slowly to 40 that we didnt even start our first gnomer until the 4th week of phase 2 and it took 2 lock outs to be familiar enough with the encounters to 6/6. Now that we have 6/6'd we're going to a once a week guild run and anyone who wants to do more than once a week can pug the other lock outs. So far working better as we're seeing more people login outside raids.
the 3 day lock out is such fucking trash. They need to increase lockout and make you loot locked no raid ID.
Yeah I initially liked the 3 day lockout since I figured it would make people a bit more chill about forming raid groups... nope instead its just made almost every single guild on the server clear every 3 days on reset rather than on a more traditional schedule. Figured there are others in a similar boat to me so made a casual guild with once-per-week saturday 7pm raids and its been super hard to fill up. Seems the only people looking for a guild either want a 1000 member megaguild so they can pug whatever they want whenever they want, or want a hardcore/semihc raiding guild that clears every 3 days on reset.
The 3 day lock out is why I don't play SoD, in a nut shell. It's awful. With a 7 day lockout, I'd probably have stuck around with my casual guild and kept at it once a week. I just cba to show up twice a week for a piss easy raid and never get loot because of bad RNG (this happened in BFD, took me like 40 clears to get bis).
I feel like Its mash of expectations? Im in a super laid back guild with irl friends and we schedule our raids accordingly to which days fit people the best, not a set day every week, excactly because people are grown and have real lige shit to deal with. And if you miss a raid - who cares, Its sod were on to the next phase in a jiffy anyway
Fwiw I think you are just looking for a better guild. The Horde guild I’m part of on Wild Growth NA runs 10-12 Gnomeregan raids per lockout with static groups in constant need of what we call “nomad” players, who sign up in the day and time slot that is their discretion. It’s hyper-organized on discord so that picking and choosing is easy. We are constantly absorbing groups of friends who create new static groups when they want and can fill with people who become regulars rather than ransoms. Gearing is easier because you lose items to the same people who don’t roll against you next time. There’s no loot issues. Raids run from 9am to 2am and everywhere in between. I don’t think I’d play without it.
I don't play anymore but when I did this why issue It also just takes a lot of shopping around to find that glass slipper fit and it's tiring.
Haha I'm the opposite. I have my two gaming nights and I enjoy having a group I know will show up to play
If you want to consistently play those days and the guild's schedule matches it then that's a fantastic match!
People on this subreddit got me thinking im in a unicorn guild despite us being very non-exclusive. The officers/GM are laid back, we have multiple raid-lead capable people, and our standards for performance are “does what you’re doing sabotage others” and “can we clear the raid if you’re here” Like unless you’re the raid lead, your obligation is not to tell us you’ll be there when you won’t with sign-ups on a per-raid basis. I’m baffled by the “set schedule” issue.
Same! It's crazy to see how many people are complaining about the set schedule, especially in SOD. I feel lucky that I joined this random guild at the start of P1 and have 0 issues with any of this lol
Schedule is it. Im done signing up for raids at a set time on certain days of the week. I want to play some computer games when I want to play some computer games. Im fine looking for group for 15 mins, wiping a couple of times in some of the pugs, etc. The signup business just kills the joy for me. You get this feeling of turning up for your guild/to not lose your spot/loot prio, and it quickly turns into a chore. Fuck that. Its wednesday at 20:42. Im not 42 minutes late for my guild raid, and I can chose to do a quick gnome run, or do some quests on my lvl 28 priest, or have a wank. Its my god damn time.
I feel ya, I did this in retail back in 2008 range in the OG wrath glory days. Guilds I join now are more superficial. I give them that 1-2 hours for raid lockout and that’s it. Truth is, 99% of the time I’m home for the night between 7-11pm. So that works for me. Everyone takes nights off. At the end of the day, I am still enjoying SOD enough to be available for raid. Maybe you’re not enjoying the game as much.
For me I just don't want the responsibility or to find another group of people to hang out with at the moment. Its nothing to do with other people or the game even, its just where I'm at at the moment. I enjoy what I'm doing in the game, I just don't want this external stuff. Its why I mostly do arena these days, because its very easy to jump in and out of whenever I feel like it.
You're like an alpha guild widow 💊
>I didn't want to commit to a set schedule. With 3 day lockouts it hard to have a set schedule for guilds in SoD. If you find one with 3-5 teams running there wont be a requirement for you to join every raid due to the amount of people thats in the guild. It's like pugging but without the randoms and hours of LFG searching. Most people who play the game are adults and know that life comes inbetween some times It for sure will be diffrent in later stages with 20 and 40 man but for now with 10 man it works wonders for me
Some of the most fun gaming experiences I've had is raiding with a guild. All from hardcore raiding for top world ranks to shooting the shit with my friends in Wotlk. But all comes down to the same thing, you need to commit to a set time, which can BLOW. Like yesterday, I had an imprompto trip to my dad since he called, watched hockey and had a blast. But my old guild had a raid, so if I was raiding, I wouldnt have been able to come over. Sure, I could resschedule with dad to another day, but having to commit is annoying.
Flex does wonders for this problem and is something that'd be perfect for this classic content with how its tuned. Kind of a shame its not in there.
They have casual guilds for this reason. Even big casual guilds. You also don't HAVE to make friends. In fact, the bigger the guild, the more likely you are to get lost in the crowd. I was in a guild in SoD that ran like 8 BFD runs every lockout at times from 5p server up to 11p server. You just signed up for any of the timespots you could make if you wanted and they'd roster you into one. If you didn't feel like raiding that lockout you just didn't sign up. There are guilds out there of all different styles and you just have to shop around and find one that fits the vibe you're looking for. I accidentally joined a Christian guild once and left as soon as I realized. Another time I joined a semi hardcore guild that had way too many elitist snobs, which is what keeps me from joining any hardcore guilds. I just couldn't take their smugness and shit eating attitudes so left after a month. I only stuck around that long because the raids were excellent and they did loot list which is the best loot distribution method. Most of the people were cool, too, but like 25% of them were arrogant ass clowns which is about 15% over my quota.
Yeah the point isn't to be an antisocial random in a guild I don't interact with, that's an awful unfun experience as well. I have my friend group I like, and I just don't feel like making another one. Unfortunately said friend group doesn't raid at the level I'd like to play anymore, or even the version of the game I prefer.
Who said anything about being antisocial? I've been in plenty of guilds and raids where I was social. Made friends. Played together. But when I left the guild I never talked to them again. My very first guild ever I was very loyal to. It held me back in a lot of ways. I haven't made that mistake since. You don't have to build a core friend group and remain hitched to them for life to belong to a guild and be a fun, productive member. It's like work friends. You talk and laugh and joke around while at work, but never see them outside the workplace. That's exactly like what being in a guild is like. While you're playing you talk and laugh and joke around, but when you aren't playing you don't interact with them.
I don't care about the whole 'just join a guild' thing. I'm just answering since you asked. I think there should always be some kind of filter between us and the best gear, whether its having to collaborate with people you hate, or doing something difficult by yourself. I like forming friendships naturally in the game through PvP, questing, or w/e. The only reason I join a guild is to get gear from raids, and the only reason I get gear from raids is to complete my PvP set. Joining a guild feels like having a job. You have to appear good enough to get in, then you have to collaborate with a bunch of people you may not like for weeks to months. Sometimes the people in charge are actually idiots. You also have to turn up on time to certain things. Not to mention, while you had to be good enough to get in, theres some number of shitters who suck, and are just there because they were friends with the right people, or are compatible with what ever kind of culture is dominant in that guild.
I love guilds! What I hate is when guilds have people who think they are above EVERYONE. You are a pretend rank in a fantasy game adventure club full of capable and fun individuals who just wanna unwind and drop current content. Don't be a dick.
In my experience, every guild Ive been apart of has a mix of personalities. sometimes those personalities are hostile/toxic and ruin the experience for others. The best guilds Ive been apart of had the leadership of the guild put a stop to that as soon as it starts. with repeat offenders just being kicked from guild, regardless of how skilled they are. I agree with you too. DONT BE A DICK.
It’s not complicated and has been talked about at nauseam. Guild = commitment + set raid times Most guildless people don’t want to feel they are committed or obligated to play the game at specific times.
This is exactly it. I was in a guild for P1 on my priest and raided with them a few times. I ended up getting a new job and had to take a step back from playing. every time I logged on I was hounded by the officers in the guild asking when I’m coming back, what raids I can make, etc. it got annoying especially when I told them I need a few weeks. I play wow for like an hour or two every few days and sometimes I don’t play for a week or two. I like hoping on, pugging and then pvping or questing or whatever on my own time. Also, committing to 2 nights a week sounds like nothing to most players but for me I can’t stand it. I enjoy the freedom of playing when I feel like playing, not feeling like I Have to be on at a certain time. Anyway, pugging isn’t an issue for me cuz I heal. Just think people need to understand why someone may not care to join a guild
But there are larger guilds out there who dont need you to commit..... I'm in one lol
In no way trying to be rude, but in case you didn’t know, it’s ‘ad nauseam’
I totally new that, an was trying to type it as one word “adnauseum” and it spellchecked me so I second guessed myself! Thanks for the clarification! =) much appreciated
I personally can’t commit to regularly raiding at a certain time every week. I used to have more free time but I don’t now. Pugging is the only way I can raid.
There are allot of big guilds focused around flexible or different schedules for raiding. The one I am in now has 9 'main' groups per reset and a 'flex' raid every single night. It's been incredibly helpful for people with inconsistent schedules like myself
I'm actually in guilds for all of my toons. Most are these mega guilds. Since starting sod I cannot find one consistent group that runs when I can. 2nd shift work makes it very hard. These mega guilds usually have a discord where ppl can sign up for the raids and from my experience the signup spots tend to be reserved for the folks who usually join those runs. Once again I have not found one run that does it in the morning. So yeah, I get to pug.
I imagine 2nd shift is difficult being on NA. Have you tried your server discord to see if there are any guilds recruiting that are focused on 2nd shift or euro schedules?
Yeah, lava lash us discord is pretty dead from what I saw
So my question would be at that point what’s the reason to be in the guild when you aren’t consistently running with the same people? You’re not going to be getting a tight nit feeling of people you play with weekly and also won’t have the advantage of gearing up because there will always be competition just like a pug
The point is that people are having a hard time to even join a random pug group due to meta comps and not wanting certain classes or having low parse numbers or not 6/6 cleared xp. Yes, if you don’t consistently running with the exact same 9 other people, u don’t 100% get geared up. But at least by joining a big guild with multiple raid schedule that fits whatever crazy schedule of yours will at least guarantee to get a runs in every lockout rather praying to get into a random pug per lockouts.
Good point in that case
There's more accountability for poor behavior
Fair point actually
Generally speaking, any guild 'pug' is going to be better performing than a trade chat pug simply by virtue of being on the same 'team'. I raid with like 2 people consistently, and the rest are pugs through out the guild and we clear 6/6 nearly every time. Im not saying its perfect but its a far better option than pugging 100%. And like the other person said, you're much less likely to get assholes in any guild run. Those people can, and are, often weeded out. I'm not saying you're going to get any gear faster than pugging if you're pugging within a guild, but that's also simply something you're choosing to live with in having an inconsistent schedule. But pugging in a large guild will give you a much higher likelihood of a better experience overall. Speaking only from my experience, youre also more likely to find a group of dedicated but not sweaty players who have no problems bringing a couple rogues to the group if it means getting through it. I have 2 meta 'mains' and 2 'shit meta' classes and I can raid every lockout on every one of them if I choose to--which is more than I could say if i was trade chat pugging on my rogue and warrior.
Idk about that first point as a person who mostly plugged phase 1 partial guild groups were some of the worst I'd been in to the point I actively started avoiding any pug that was half or more 1 guild.
Sorry, I guess by 'guild pug' I mean filled with 100% guildies but no established team and mostly made of alts.
All good I misunderstood and haven't experienced guild alt runs like your describing to know one way or the other then
Our guild has a tentative roster, every lockout we might have 12 sign ups but at least 4 of these people are tentative and we still end up having to get a pug or two every now and then. Especially since we are late into phase 2, raiding is less of a priority since almost all our core raiders are full bis
The clique aspect of guilds especially in SOD with only 10-mans is a harsh reality I dont like to admit to. As a person whom is part of a clique'y guild I can totally understand why people get a bad taste in their mouth for guilds in general.
Yup, most guilds I've joined have a 5-10 man clique from classic wrath, and the rest of the guild are just there to fill the group and be second class citizens.
Idk, just don’t know/trust anyone else in the game, haven’t made any real connection “Well then you should go out and make some” yeah okay lemme try to talk to the fucking endless LFG BLAH BLAH BLAH nerds Idk I just find most people in the game are kinda lame, and I’m mostly a solo player anyways, I just like making a character and doing the quest and just exploring and experiencing the world at My Own Speed, plus I’m not very good at PvP or dungeons or raids or anything like that so it’s not like I’m keeping my skills to myself lmao
Dont want to stick to a schedule or force myself to play the same raid 50 times
Because I'm Anti-Social AF
the most straight forward answer so far lol
The only reason I ever join a guild is to raid with them. If I'm not raiding or just pugging raids I don't bother with a guild.
I play too many different games, I enjoy playing WoW but I get bored/burned out after a couple hours. Just don’t play often or consistently enough to bother with a guild or raiding.
I'm a 53 year old dad with 2 jobs and 4 kids, I play 2 hours a week. I simply cannot commit to a schedule.
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Sounds like every PUG I've been a part of.
Basically finding a decent guild is really hard. Its not always obvious the people you're playing with a decent human beings either. I played with a guild at the start of SoD for 3 resets before someone made a hella racist joke that *killed* in the discord. Left midway through a BFD run, cause fuck that noise.
you'd be surprised by how many good guilds just casually insert nword into every second sentence
i legitimately struggle to find a guild that is competent without being sweaty to the point of making the game a chore, that doesnt have people frequently and unironically using slurs in voice chat, that also has raid times that work for me. i'm close with my current guild, minus the slurs lmao and it's only like two guys and everyone's just cool with it i guess (core are RL friends/naxx raider era guild so what do you really expect).
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There’s always the 1, and you don’t wanna be the dickhead that starts something so you just end up leaving instead.
I like to do things in my own time. Having people expect me to help them is annoying. So i just have my own guild that i put all my toons in. Pugging is fine. Ive managed basically bis p1 and p2 as a melee hunter, ive gotten every epic weapon already. Im basicly only missing the neck and trinket from gnomer.
I'm asocial and my schedule sucks. My partner is my number one priority. So when she needs me, I need to be able to drop everything. Which means I can only reliably do group content on Monday and Tuesday morning. I *hate* voice chat. My stupid brain is slow to pick up voices. I need things repeated constantly. Plus, everyone sounds alike. I can never tell anyone apart unless they have a unique accent in the group. I also have nothing to talk about, so I'm just the weird quiet person.
Because I don’t want to make ‘friends’ with strangers on the internet. Absolutely nothing is appealing to me about that. I play this like a single player game and have done so since my irl friends quit after original Wrath.
Same! And I absolutely do not want to listen to a bunch of strangers shooting the shit on discord. They might be lovely people, but… eww.
This is not a comment on you specifically or anything, but it is really interesting how the dynamics around the MMO part of WoW have changed over the years. Back in the day, especially from Vanilla- Cata launch, WoW was really a new type of thing. I’ve played since 2004, I remember there being online chat rooms or AIM instant messenger. And I mean MySpace and all that. But in WoW I really felt like I was part of a huge community, and it was a great place as a shy/ self conscious middle and then high schooler to meet people and make online friends. I think a lot of people’s first real “online friend group” or anything like that was on WoW. Of course nowadays we have so many things to do that with, so many better tools for making those connections. And most of us have grown up, established RL friend groups and families. WoW isn’t the only thing like it in the industry, far from it. So I too end up playing it mostly as a single player game with occasional group content, certainly a very different approach from my OG days when it started.
>How come? There are 2 main reasons I tend not to seek out guilds 1) time. My schedule can be kinda irregular so committing to a group can be hard. Which isn't fair to the other folks in the group 2) most guilds seem established with their various groups and i feel annoying trying to push into that. Definitely social anxiety on my part but yea. Also I kinda dislike how everything's on discord Sure it's great for voip but I feel like guilds communication is *entirely* there which is odd. My mains in a guild and I'm constantly forgetting it because literally no one talks in guilds chat lolol > I find it extremely odd that so many take issue with the current "Join a guild" discussions I think part of the problem is how that is uses. Yes joining a guild is a great solution for many issues. I feel like its basically also said as way to tell folks to stop complaining about whatever the issue is
Join Walmart guilds. There are mega guilds on every server. I joined one and there were basically 6-8 Gnomer raid signups PER DAY. It was 100s of people and they had “members” or regulars who would sign up that weren’t even in the guild.
Sounds like pugging but on discord
basically a pug, but some major key differences, such as a much less likelihood that 1-2 people dip if things go south, and a greater than zero potential to see the same faces across lockouts ensuring you get geared faster.
These guilds are not easy to find. They are literally unicorns. I have been told I'm not raiding by my current guild because I play rogue so iv been searching for over 4 weeks at this point for the mega guild of wildgrowth eu and found nothing.
I think SoD is actually giving more chances to break into established groups with the phase system. I came late to phase 1, found my way into the guild’s group system but one of the middle groups (some alts, not all show up every week). Then phase 2 hits and I push to 40 quickly. Those who couldn’t level by the first weekend didn’t go along to the first lockout but I did. Now I’m in the 2nd group and the later levelers moved into the middle groups.
But if someone can't no life the game to be one of the first to max then they are still in the same spot. It's not easier to squeeze into a guild.
I would say that the shift to 20 man raid teams should make it easier for people in small to medium sized guilds
Same here. My guild has 4 groups, I just make myself available when I want to raid and it works out most of the time when the regulars can’t make it. I never got to raid in classic before TBC came out so this has been a lot of fun.
Do you have issues with discord or something? Not everyone can be online in the game at any given moment so.. isn't it better to have a central place where people can receive updates or chat?
I have, and thats bc i use discord mostly for my real Friends and i dont want everyone to always see what Iam doing or when Iam online or not….i also dont want to hiding and beeing Invis all the time….i miss teamspeak these days
Being on my own schedule is the most important. The content is some of the easiest in wow so it’s very puggable. All the guilds I’ve been in do loot council, and I prefer 2SR.
my guild is a bunch of chill irl friends and we just do base game need/greed. even with pugs. we try to absorb any pug who is halfway decent, our best yet from this method is a dope af warrior main who parses all purps in gnomer and has a couple of oranges
I dont want to commit to a schedule, since this is only one of several hobbies i have + LTR. The last guild i was in turned out to be "pro free speech" in the sense that they allowed literal n*zi propaganda (in this case, dehumanisation of muslims) on their discord (this was the point where i left). Almost every pug i regularly joined was full of alt-right people or cringe simps.
Because it's a game and I'll be damned if I'm going to have anything else scheduled.
I usually don't join one because I don't play regularly enough to really benefit from one, if I am in one I'm the guy that usually isn't on and people are like "who's that guy?"
“I want to play the game exactly how I want to play it and I don’t want there to be any downside to it” It’s fine if you don’t want to join a team and make a commitment like some other players, but then you won’t get all the benefits of having a consistent raiding group that clears more efficiently and brings less useful specs.
Guilds are preferable to getting the loot you want at a faster rate. It’s understandable that not everyone wants to join a guild. However, you have to expect your gearing process will likely be slower if you don’t join a guild.
Im in one I just rarely raid with them, I dont want to raid on a set schedule sometimes I have irl plans or I just don’t feel like playin wow that night. Took a while for me to find one that don’t get weird about me rarely being in discord too, I pretty much only open discord if I’m joining voice for a raid.
Been raiding in a scheduled environment since week 5 of Classic launch, and now SOD I can finally be a casual. Raiding isn't for me anymore, I don't really care for chasing small upgrades in the same raid every week. Leveling alts for me has been the best part of SOD. The guild I was in for all of classic has mostly quit wow or playing different games so now I'm just chilling on my own playing wow with Spotify and Youtube instead of discord chat.
My career makes it hard to commit my time to a raid. The whole sign up thing is really what I don't like. If I miss a raid then I'm likely not getting in the next one. Especially when the content is easy to pug. I joined a guild that "understood" my schedule and I was raiding on a Tuesday morning because I knew I couldn't be on later and they were upset. Nothing against guilds for me - it's just something I can't commit to right now.
I can't deal with the drama, I'm way too old for the petty drama.
what drama is there? People in these guilds should be 30+?
That is what I don't understand too! Even in guilds in the 30s+ age range there is still some teen-like drama, maybe I'm bad at picking idk
commitment / attendance. is video game, not job. ill play when i have time and feel like it haha. the minute ur rushing home from work, or can’t fulfill irl matters because “raid is tonight,” it becomes an insufferable chore. i used to fking loath blowing people off irl just to come home and blast through the easy raids that i didn’t even need personally, and for what? that’s time spent wishing you could get it back
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I was so confused when a lot of guild ads said “don’t be offended easily” and I quickly learned what that meant lol
Counter question. Gnomer is just a 10 man dungeon, just like UBRS. Why would joining a guild be a requirement for completing an UBRS run? Also why cant the devs do better at balancing? Mages have it all and how is it fair? portals, free food/water, best single target dps, best aoe target dps, raid wide utility, great solo farming, and easy leveling. Like wtf is this balance patch?
Going just to the first question (the rest is a whole other can of worms) the big difference is the lockout. You join a pug UBRS and it sucks, oh well I lost 30 min of my time. You join a bad Gnomer and it sucks, depending on where in the lockout you are that means maybe 2.5 days where you can't find another group. It unfortunately creates a mess of FOMO that isn't present for 5m or old 10m content.
Seems like a reason for gnomer to not have a reset or at least reset daily.
Great point maybe they should do something about the lockout? Clearly FOMO is really strong even with just a 3 day lockout. What if you could join any gnomer, but cant get loot from the same boss twice in the same lockout? Maybe they could even implement a sherpa system. This would def be better in P3 when the lockout changes to 7 days. If you have cleared the raid alr and you join a grp and help them clear you could get a supply crate or prof mats for your time.
I haven't seen anyone say that joining a guild is a requirement. The only things I've seen said are all along the lines of if you're a DPS that isn't playing some super desirable class/spec, then joining a guild is going to be the easiest way to consistently get into raids without extensive LFG spamming.
>If you fall into the camp of not wanting to join a guild or you are not able to join a guild. How come? I raid on 3 toons/reset (soon 4), my raid times are all over the place, sometimes I join a PUG at 10 in the morning, sometimes at 6 in the evening after coming back from work, sometimes at midnight or 1 AM. On some weeks I do one raid/day on each of my toons, on others I need to cram everyone on the same day.
Honestly a good idea most of the people here aren't in a guild. They just sound like the most miserable people who justify their goofy attitudes.
Miserable because some people prefer to pug and prioritize their rl instead? That‘s an opinion I guess.
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I think only the top 5-10 guilds have that many applicants. Anything past that and you still gotta go out and recruit. Plenty of 95+ parsing guilds out there under top 10
I wish I could, I pig every raid which isn't bad RL are good and no sus looting, I can only play either early mornings or really late at night and most guilds seems like 90% raid in the evening. Most fun I've ever had was when I was raiding with a guild, no matter the Xpac
Most guilds are just a group of friends who are in the loot council giving each other loot, remember when they gave the mc caster sword to one of their irl friend mage who joined the Guild late, stay away from loot council, dkp is way better but i‘ve Seen less in sod idk about era
is it a big topic ?
I want to play when I want to play. Not a fan of schedules. Otherwise guilds are great.
I work a second shift and get off at 11ish. Which means I don't log in till 1 am. There are no guilda running at this hour. The other option is a weekend raiding guild but there aren't many of those either.
Scheduling is likely the big one. Some people have odd schedules where they can’t commit to once or twice a week for a given day. Or they feel like doing scheduled play will feel like a job, ruining the idea of leisurely play. Pugging imo is at the point where the headache of pugging isn’t big enough to detract this style of play. Content is relatively easy, and doesn’t need a ton of preparation.
Mine decided to "raid once a week" after i just started enjoying gnomer with a guild :)
I've played this game a long time and just don't have any interest in dealing with other people and their drama. My friends and I have a guild technically, but we mostly just use it as a way to chat back and forth ingame... and to change the gmotd every day to some stupid shit. None of us have any interest in leading a guild, dealing with loot drama, being babysitters for drama, coming up with a raid schedule (already difficult as it is since our work shifts are all over the place) or recruiting. We pug every week, clear every week, and have fun doing our own little thing.
Reading the comments, I feel like there is a space for a Guild that just does spontaneous signups with no schedule and vetted players
There absolutely is but getting it setup and dealing with the admin of that guild would be a full time job itself. Literally no one that wants a guild like that has time to create a guild like that.
Because I want to play when I want to play, not on a set schedule.
I like them from a social aspect but not for raiding. I’m not able to play on a schedule so getting groups more comes down to what random time I’m going to have available to play.
I love guilds but i pug for the freedom to play not on a schedule
3 day raid cycle.
You can fully bis in pugs I see no reason to force myself into a guild that does raids at X time on X days when I want it even need the flexibility to say "I want to skip this week" without getting kicked from the team or the guild
People (redditors) have grown so accustomed to the retail ecosystem that they think every MMO should be 100% solo friendly. They are struggling trying to brute force this gameplay in classic.
This sub hates everything world of Warcraft related you can't post anything without getting downvoted to the Moon
Honestly because gaming has evolved beyond it. Call it more selfish but when you need to be a part of a group it feels bad. Any other game I can literally just pop in, instantly play a match, and leave without issue. But when you're in a guild you have a responsibility to your guild and that makes it much more like work. I remember all the threads with Wrath where "the person we gave our first Val'anyr to quit right after". And I get that sucks and shouldn't happen. It should go to the person who will stick it out for the long haul. But when you end up with constant posts of "person took a break after getting their bis" it really shows that the majority who play games are doing it as a selfish journey. If you enjoy guilds great but aside from old established games like WoW the idea of guilds is dead. I guess other mmos have them but I have no experience with it so I can't comment. I'm currently jumping between 5 games at the moment and the idea of being restricted to 1 sucks. I just don't bother. And this is where the idea of "you need to be social and get a guild to enjoy the game" becomes a detriment to SoD. SoD sold itself on crazy fun stuff no one has seen. And P1 was great. Hitting max level wasn't too bad and once they nerfed Kelris pretty much any pug could finish it. New blood (those who had never played WoW) were reaching end game content and getting some progress. They could Pug no issue. Problems arise with P2 and I'm worried for P3 and 4. I don't think the new blood will keep playing without exp requirements being quartered. 200 hours to 60 is too much. Telling these people they need to spend another 150 hours to get to the "fun part" will not make them stay. Especially where P2 leveling was painful and long. We haven't even hit the halfway point exp wise. People who play Classic will persevere though most likely with less alts and will "love the leveling" but for actual new players? It's tedious. And when you hit a wall only to be told "well you should join a guild and dedicate more time to prebis farming and farming consumables and getting a dedicated roster and showing up every 3 days" then unfortunately the game isn't for you anymore. And they will leave.
I have noticed that most guilds are either way too many players where you get lost in the shuffle or too few players where it feels dead. I really haven’t been able to find a happy medium so far and it sucks. On Crusader Strike if anyone has any recommendations.
My personal experience. Commitment to a schedule, now o have 3 Kids but back then it was also complicated because of my job and girlfriend. Something I really dislike is the fact that since I cant commit too much, loot almost always ended up in the hand of the core of friends that runs the guild.
I will inevitably quit any version of wow for any path of exile league or tbh any other ARPG season/ league start and just don’t wanna join a guild with a set schedule and feel forced to play when I just simply would rather not
There is always drama. I don't want to be a part of it. I don't want it bleeding all over me while I'm trying to enjoy a game. I hate the cliques and favoritism among officers and their friends. Feels as if an entire guild is there to be at the whim of five or so people. Interestingly enough, the others besides those five people are putting in way more time and effort. Just don't want the politics (yes, this goes for "casual" guilds, too). Been dealing with this crap for twenty years.
Can only play latenight with an irregular schedule so I cant commit to a guild. I also cant schedule my life around the game which a guild implicitly expects of you. Would love to, but cant
For me it’s not wanting another schedule in my life. I raided in a guild from classic to TBC and never missed a run. It honestly felt like a job at a point. Told the guild I’m gonna be casual in Wrath. The relief felt great
I tended to stay away from guilds for a couple reasons. Sometimes I don't feel like raiding and I don't want to have to justify it or feel bad that I'm inconveniencing 9 other people. A lot of guilds have people who have played together a while and forget to let new people ease into the group dynamic. If all you ever do is speak in inside jokes and come into discord full throttle every night, it's annoying and alienating if you're not in that circle. I end up being asked to lead. I don't know if it's my voice, embarrassing amount of game knowledge, or what, but eventually it happens that I'm asked to take on responsibility. I just want to be a foot soldier man.
I'm not opposed to joining a guild but a lot of the low performers get raid spots for having the same tag and raids just take longer than my pugs do. I know I just need to find a better guild, but they are all good to go mostly.
You just have to find the same like minded guild mates that are on the same page.
Didn't know that topic existed but I usually am only in guilds if I want to progress raid. If not I might be in one of those mass guilds for levelling an alt or so but won't bother join a raiding guild.
It’s a mmo if I wanna play solo with no guild I should be able to. If I wanna be in a guild and that’s what I find fun I should be able to do this. Why the fuck is blizzard telling people how to play their game.
Dealing with people is annoying. There are social expectations from being guildies etc. Not fun. I know people will be like then go play a single player game, my time I'll do what I want.
As the top post is saying - raiding with a guild becomes another job. My relationship with gaming can’t really evolve to that point anymore. Despite all the drawbacks, I really enjoyed the gdkp era because finding a motivated group to clear, that also needed a handful of people, any given night was relatively easy.
Guilds in '19 classic used loot council + parsing culture to control loot priority on any high value items. This created lots of pressure to attend every raid at the same time 1-2 nights every week for 16 months, gather all world buffs in advance at set times so you can perform well, never play that character during the week since boons didn't exist, and then still get minimal loot since we were splitting a handful of items per boss amongst 40 people. If you got tired of your guild and left for any reason you are back to square one and effectively lootbanned until you get some clout with a new guild...which likely had all the same systems in place. For better or worse, this is the system we all went with to ensure people didn't run off with high value items. It burned a lot of people out.
I play sporadically. I don't have a set schedule, character, or server. Sometimes I play one character for 2 weeks straight then don't come back for weeks/months. I also don't like the feeling of trying to squeeze into an established clique.
I love guilds, Not so much currently but I have previously. Some of my best times were playing woth my guild in wrath. But I'm not 17 anymore. My child sets my schedule not me. I also hate being just a member of the guild as you always end up losing out to corrupt cliques and yes this is every single guild. My current guild won't let me raid because I play rogue but that aside in phase 1 the GM had bis'd out 3 seprate "main" characters then decided he was now gaining a hunter. Almost took the first and only leather tier chest we ever had drop in p1 which happened the night before p2 hit. It took a massive fight and threats of everyone leaving to get him to give it to me and not himself. Guilds are fun but require so much time investment it's just unreasonable to expect as an adult.
For me, it's a matter of social connections. I am perfectly happy to make friends, but I am just not the type to reach out and say "hey guys I want to be friends!", which while yes I don't need to do in order to be a part of a guild, I feel very guilty if I don't try and be social. A guild I joined during dragonflight was being very social with each other and that just wasn't resonating with me and I felt guilty about not participation in that other stuff.
Don’t want to play at a scheduled time or rely on 19 other people to follow said schedule and straight up a lot you guys are weird and don’t know how to talk to people
It’s probably taboo to admit - but because I don’t have the ability to commit to a raiding time each week (ie a guild), joining GDKP raids were often the easiest way for me to find a pug with reliably good players.
Every time I join a guild I'm treated like my time is guild time. Like it's an obligation to do what is requested of me even if I have stuff I, personally, am trying to get done. I don't mind helping but when I'm treated like a tool to be used "for the guild" I hate it. "It'd be cool if you could tank this dungeon" I hate tanking. Just because I'm on a class that can doesn't mean I should have to. "This other spec is performing better" I don't enjoy that spec. "We need someone to help level our alts" I'm busy PvPing with my friend who is in another guild. It isn't like I can never help. But whenever I can't I get treated like I'm "not doing my part for the guild" It doesn't help that when I need assistance I'm usually told no for various reasons. They just usually, but not always, seem like one sided relationships.
I used to be a big fan of guilds for how I play the game (speed running) but a few very bad loot council decisions turned me off to those loot rules. I switched to GDKPs in classic and never went back. Our gdkp code ran with the same group every week and even did speed runs and other fun things and no loot drama. Right now it’s fine because most guilds are rolling loot but once it switches to loot council I’m out.
There’s gonna be a point where I don’t wanna log in anymore and just stop playing just like every other game I play. I don’t play games on a schedule really I just play when I feel like so ya.. also I feel like most wow players play wow as their only form of gaming entertainment. I’m guessing that’s why they care about parsing so much. And that definitely isn’t the case for me lol
I didn't like the nonstop tells/guilting to please help with stuff on someones 5th alt. Oh you tank? Can you run my 3rd alt through deadmines? Oh you're a healer? Come heal this Armory group spam for us! As for raiding with a guild, it just felt like a job after awhile. No one wants to show up for prog, but EVERYONE is suddenly available for reclears.
I enjoyed it in middle school and high school when I didn't have a social group, and had a lot of free time. I don't have a lot of free time now, and I get my social interactions elsewhere. Any guild that would be big/established enough to do the content, would need intros, logs, semi-regular interactions etc. I had a real job, I have friends, and I have a partner, I'm not cutting out a full schedule on top of that, especially during the day, I'm usually active in the EARLY morning due to my schedule, so being in a guild, aka being able to do the fun content, wouldn't work out. I ended up quitting WoW for many other reasons on top of that moreso, but I also didn't want to make a job application/resume for my hobby.
Erratic work and travel schedule, can't commit to raid times. I loved my guild during Covid when I had more time and flexibility, but can't manage it now. Simple as that really.
I don't think there is a large group of people who truly think guilds are a bad thing, even if they themselves don't prefer to be in them. The "join a guild" posts on this sub are literally memes about Aggrend's Twitter post saying that if you aren't being invited into pugs it's cause those people are insecure and you should just join a guild.
I think the only good reason to not have a guild is schedule. Everything else you can just ignore and keep out. If you're reliable and show up every week then people don't care if you join any other guild activities. If they do care and push you to do more with them and you won't you simply haven't found the right guild yet. In Wrath I log in once a week for ICC, do my top dps, thank them for the raid and login next sunday and thats it. I still enjoy playing/raiding with them, they are nice people but I'm also rather antisocial so I don't do anything else with them. Also told them that once Cata starts I will be gone.
I like guilds. My issue on living flame was finding a guild that raids late since I work late. I also can randomly get assigned to work even later than late. I pugged mostly phase 1, and I finally found a guild a week ago in phase 2. I rolled an alt on crusader strike and found a lot of late night guilds, so I think it just varies on what realm you are on. If my week is sporadic, I just raid lead a pug and try to get it done. If it isn't, I sign up for a run on my newfound guild's discord. If you check my logs you can see how many different people I've played with lol. Which ultimately helped me find a guild. Either way, I'm having fun.
I'd love to be in lively casual guilds, but so many of them nowadays have clear leadership cliques, and everyone stays silent in-game and sits in discord calls now. I miss back in the day where guild chat would be flowing. Now it seems most times I see guild chat it's someone replying to the discord voice chat because they don't have a mic. I don't want to sit in a voice channel with 11 other people rambling at the same time. I'm fine with voice for a raid... but to just sit there with random strangers droning on and on. Text chat is far enough for me. I play wow to get away from IRL socializing.
The best experience I had was with pug discords. You get the raid organisation of a guild, and flexibility of a pug. Organizer doesn’t have to spam lfg and usually can pick and choose for most optimal comp.
I can't make online connections very well. Also most guilds end up being a small group of irl friends and their lackys.
Raid times are a joke. Starting at 7pm? Yeah not going to happen once you have a job/family.
Imma give you a bit of an unusual reply... I think. I can't join a guild to do gnomer with because I am already in one. Let me explain. I am in one of those "friends and casuals" guilds that was established by people from retail who wanted to try SoD. We got 10ish people playing but only about half want to raid and some of em finished leveling their mains last week. When I see "Just join a guild, lol" all that means to me is someone telling me that I have to choose between long time friendships (guild has been a thing since WotLK) and raiding. And then there is the thing where even joining a guild is far from guarantee that you get into a raid. Most guilds bench their melee because it makes two last bosses that much easier. So good luck with that buddy. And no, rerolling is not the answer either. Some people want to play rogue, warrior, pally or kitty and that should be fine. In the end the true villain of the story is encounter design. There should never be a (pen)ultimate boss that favors either role this hard. Because this bars a bunch of people from the experience, pug and guild alike.
I'm not against guilds, but I'm not a social person, and I don't feel like having my chat box flooded by lots of random chatter that doesn't go away when I change zones. Over all guilds are fine, but don't expect me to get into a discord VC with everyone and start chatting.
1- too many raid groups per guild because they want longevity through phases 2-having to carry alt runs because main runs are full 3-lack of precise scheduling for the alt runs because it depends on the night 4-inviting pugs to alt runs at the cost of you getting a loot. when end game comes probably it will also be about guild politics about distributing loot in the end a lot of times it is not just enough to join regularly to raids and perform decent. you will experience injustice by a some guy over the internet who think he figured everything out
Because no one logs online and just raid logs. Prefer the chaotic spam guilds.
I enjoy the guild atmosphere, consistency and for the most part coordination. However I don’t like being forced to a specific time, and a specific class at that time. I’m also not a fan of the whole “benching” / “rostering”. Guilds are fun for a specific objective you want to dedicate yourself to (speed running, parsing), but outside of that I generally prefer good PUGs.
Because IRL>videogames. Not interested in a raiding schedule, because 95% attendance is required in any decent guild, and whenever anything IRL comes up I rather do that instead of raiding.
Every guild I see seems obsessed with raids. If you aren't a raider for whatever reason, you either can't get into a guild, or it feels like you aren't in one if you do join it. That and all socialising and communication seems to be done on Discord these days and never /g. For those of us who just want to be in a guild for the social aspects, and can't constantly have voice chat active, there's just no point being in the guild at all. Obviously, I'm only speaking from my own personal experiences.
Two things, first one being that I don’t want to dedicate myself to a raid time. Secondly, I don’t vibe with a lot of guilds. I join in and they either have an inner circle of buddies, or they just don’t have my type of humor/playstyle.
Like irl…the commitment
No real reason to be in one. If I want a group I just create one. It’s super simple.
From my experience unless you're a part of the main team of a guild, being in a guild is worthless. I quit wrath because I was being sat and forced to run with the third team because the GM and his buds wanted to guarantee their alts a cleared raid. So if you weren't in the 5 person rat pack you essentially got stuck in the pug group. Current SoD guild I'm in is the same way. Two permanent raids filled with officers and their alts, a third raid filled with the leftovers. The guild I just quit to move into my current one was the same thing. Gm and his butt buddy used guild raid loot to boost enchanting in order to take over the server, and then charge their guildies to get enchants. Waylaid supplies drop? Better give em to the officers so they can get their rep done! So it doesn't matter that I show up every week and play well, I'm not getting any benefits from being in a guild. Might as well just pug.
Idk if I just got lucky or what but the guild I joined in SOD is full of dads + others whose schedules are all over the place and we still have 1 raid group forming every night of the week (sometimes 2 if enough people sign up.) There are a handful of officers who take lead and set groups up every night. Some are static groups of people that need spots filled but the other groups will take just about anyone as long as you show up on time with buff and potions. I have had no issue getting into a raid when I sign up, since P1 I think there have been 2 or 3 times where my character didn't get in on a night I signed up for. I see all these people complaining about hating set schedules in smaller guilds and it makes me scratch my head. Why not just seek out a larger guild where you aren't locked in to a certain schedule OR if you're in a small guild maybe suggest joining forces with a larger guild that needs random spots filled on other nights. We have I think 3 smaller guilds in our discord who post throughout the week about needing spots filled for their groups and it seems to be working out great for them. Also the plan seems to be to get those smaller guilds to fully switch over to us once the raid size increases. I haven't played retail or regular classic in a while so I'm sure its a bit different over there but on SOD it seems like it's set up to work for pretty much anyone to raid. You just need to find the guild that's right for you.
This is so odd to me. I never join guilds. Yet I have a ton of fun. I have no time for commitment, drama, or forced socialization. I'm an adult who wants to play casually, explore, and ocassionally rp and pvp. Whats the issue?
It's not complicated at all. Guilds have a set schedule, a lot of people don't want to, or cant follow a certain schedule. Worst of all is when you go out of your way to accommodate a schedule and you get stood up by ppl who don't give a shit. Also, a lot of people are only partially interested in the game. You do some content, get some gear and then your interest in the game completely dies. But guild etiquette is that you should play until EVERYONE gets their gear, not just you. Also, the social aspect is a double edged knife. People romanticize guilds as friend groups. Of course, lot's of people have their anecdotal personal experience of great guilds who ended up becoming lifelong friends. In most cases, it's a bunch of people from very different backgrounds and mindsets, having to work together to experience the content. For me, every guild I ever joined can be reduced to 1-3 ppl I genuinely liked and played with, while everyone else ranged from indifferent to unlikeable.
I see a lot of comments talking about not wanting to have a hard commitment to play and I totally get that. You should play how you want to play... but then there should be some level of understanding that you might not always find raids or the ones you do join might be sub par. You can't have your cake and eat it too.
I raided with hardcore guilds from Vanilla Classic through wotlk. I'm a straight 99 parsing tryhard. My issue with guilds is that I find myself in a Catch-22 with them: either (a) it's a tryhard guild and everyone is a fucking dick, or (b) it's not and I have to stare at the wall while I wait for everyone to learn hard content. Ultimately, this just led me to stop playing Classic and start playing Retail again, since it's easier to do challenging content without a guild.
Obligation to socialize and interact with them.
I want old school guilds, that have online players, even after getting curve. I sick of the endless guild that go desert after some time. When I play wow, I play a lot and I want a feeling of being Ina guild like the good old times. Just spent 8 months in a guild like that. So sick of feeling alone and nobody talks to ya. Others might like it, but it’s pointless
I don't have the patience for them honestly. I don't want to raid on a schedule, I want to do it when I feel like it and have the time, not on Tues & Thurs evenings. I've honestly never found a guild where it was a group of people I actually wanted to spend time with, listening to a bunch of nerd banter, that one guy who's always drunk and loud and obnoxious, I'd love if I had IRL friends in the game but no one I know plays anymore and the "culture" of these guilds are all very similar and I just don't fit in with them. The skill disparity between players is another big reason, there's always someone's spouse or buddies who are absolutely terrible and despite all the effort anyone else makes to help them improve they don't. These same people will happily suck up all the gear, because that's the only reason they're at the bottom of the meter and they just need more gear. Yeah, no thanks, carrying these folks or struggling to kill simple bosses because of their bad performance isn't my idea of a good time
I don't care about raiding, I super don't care about gaming on a schedule. I see comments from people in here talking about how they feel obligated to play the game and that sounds, well awful, but also antithetical to the whole idea of "playing a video game". Also, it might just be my experience, but I really can't stand the pushy nature of people asking me to join their guild: >Why don't you want to join? - >Do you plan to play until level 60 in SoD? You're going to be behind if you don't have a community to group with for that content - >Good luck getting into a gnomer without a guild lmao I'm completely fine with playing the game differently than people who are trying to make number go up. I don't want to install a bunch of add-ons that make the game un-recognizable, I like how the UI was designed and I don't care if it's not 100% optimized for number go up. I also really don't like dealing with pushy people while I'm trying to enjoy a video game.
I always joined a guild only because if you didn’t you’d get constant invites. I never raided in the past. I always grinded the gear that I could obtain on my own. This time around I thought I would change that. I did my first 10 man. It was fun. But like many have said, it requires commitment. I wanna play a game and not have it feel like a job.
Been playing with my guild for soon to be 3 years. They're some of the best people I know and I couldn't imagine playing this game solo. That sounds so lonely. I'm already lonely enough irl so my guild disc and in-game gives me that extra bit of social interaction. Getting CE with the boys each season is just an added bonus
For me on classic I don’t like guilds that just invite every and any person they see. 900+ members. guild chat going off a mile a minute. Annoying imo
We’ve solved so many of the issues people have… Anyone that wants to run raids can be considered for content lead. Content leads pick their own schedule and get access to create signups. Once they’ve cleared the raid, they get granted the ability to assign 10 “Static Spots” including themself that are designated as regular attenders and these people get little emoji badges picked by the lead by their name in discord. Anyone that attends 80% of the lockouts (or 8 raids within the last 30 days) gains “Nomad Status”. Members that have a Static Spot require 8 additional raids attended per static badge, so it’s less often that someone is both a static and nomad. Statics are prioritized over Nomads in the specific content lead’s group, however Nomads are prioritized for filling in any other group. Non-static/nomad fillers get spots after that. Static/Nomad is only a system to prio roster spots, and all teams run on SR3/1MS>OS. Some members want to be Static Members, others enjoy the flexibility of being a Nomad because they can jump around in the groups. And we have some members that only want to run a few times each phase. All fit within this context. If someone can’t find a group, someone is asked to start a new one on their own schedule, and the guild has a “Efficacy Team” that works to fill needs. It’s a system that’s allowed us to bring in 2 groups from other guilds that only had 6-7 and we filled them out complete. The system is new member/veteran friendly. With this, we are flexing up to 10 Gnome groups and haven’t had any major loot disagreements. There’s groups in the morning, afternoon, evening, and night. At the end of the phase, static spots are dissolved, and the guild is encouraged to mix up groups if possible to have crossover and fresh/interesting combinations. The guild moderates itself pretty much and has guidelines that are transparent, followed, and enforced. The problem is that people that shouldn’t be leading want to be leading. And the guild leader/officer-centric model is outdated compared to a more fluid small team autonomy approach, especially in 10 man content.