You do not form a team working towards a common goal, you are forced to group with others who are also competing for individual goals.Samus brings up an interesting "fundamental" flaw in endgame raiding. He is referring to the way a group or guild must work together; but more often than not, individuals spend time without any reward for their efforts. DKP schemes are only a player band-aid for a faulty reward system design. Flaws in gear stats design can compound this, for instance when I was locked out of a loot roll in Ice Crown Citadel as a healer because the item had increased "hit," but there were no items that had a stat exclusively for healers. Occasions like that caused me eventually to forsake raiding altogether in every game I've played since. And it's a factor in my hesitance to run Nightmares in TSW, despite that they're smaller affairs.
Samus in a comment on Sheep the Diamond
I just finished reading Stubborn's post "A Resolution" about an ongoing situation in his now-former guild that probably didn't end when he quit the guild on Monday. In fact, it spilled out onto his blog repeatedly. The short version is that a small group of more hardcore/elitist members of the guild were conducting raids that, because of lockouts, ended up interfering with scheduled guild runs. Officers in the guild (apparently the GM is absent) did not handle the issue to Stubborn's satisfaction.
One of the clique of self-styled elites commented on an older post, "Our guild is like a big family. There is dysfunction at times. . ." Laughably, the commenter also took issue with Stubborn "airing out our dirty laundry" on his blog. Frankly, any time someone starts talking about "family" and "dysfunction" in a guild, it's probably time to go. But I refer you, Dear Reader, to my statement at the top of the right hand column. A bloggers blog what they want, and sometimes results are only obtained in the public eye and the light of day, rather than back rooms and closed fora. Now the dirty laundry has spread even further. If I still played WoW, I would be very interested in the name and location of this guild, so I could avoid it.
I've been part of guilds that had a certain elite group that pushed to do things that excluded others, but their numbers were usually insufficient to fully break off. A progression-oriented clique in a larger casual guild is a cancer that will only lead to trouble. Not that being progression-oriented is wrong, but they should find a guild that fits their needs rather than ruin it for everyone else. I think that progression guilds don't attract this sort of drama (though there's other drama) because casual players are rarely part of progression guilds, but progression players are often part of casual guilds.
If you want to raid, find a guild that’s serious about raiding to the level that you want. Anything else is just asking for drama.Stubborn lasted longer in that guild than I would have, I think. He also has advice for guild leaders seeking to prevent this sort shenanagins.
Gazimof, commenting on Stubborn's post
"He is referring to the way a group or guild must work together, but more often than not individuals spend time without reward for their efforts"
ReplyDeleteFunny thing: when people look at a guild, they don't care about the gear of the members. They care about how many bosses the guild has killed.
Can you imagine saying "Yeah, we're 8/14 in Siege of Orgrimmar but we have 3 more ilvl each than the guild who is 12/14!"
Partly because that is what is advertised. But the average or combined ilvl of a Guild is not a relevant stat. On the other hand, can you imagine a new or potential recruit talking about how many boss kills they'd been part of, as opposed to their individual ilvl?
DeleteThanks for commenting. :)
"Partly because that is what is advertised. But the average or combined ilvl of a Guild is not a relevant stat."
Deletehttp://www.wowprogress.com/guild_ilvl/
Plenty of discussion of ilvls on world first kills as well:
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/10160426331
"On the other hand, can you imagine a new or potential recruit talking about how many boss kills they'd been part of, as opposed to their individual ilvl?"
Absolutely. That's exactly what we ask people about. We'd take a person with 10 less ilvl but better experience and skill, no contest. Hell, we even particularly look for good past raiders with worse gear who want to raid again and are interested in our guild.
Well that's fascinating, but I can certainly understand your interest in players with skill and experience.
DeleteYeah. The thing is, ilvl is fairly irrelevant to us. Sure, sometimes we need someone who can contribute RIGHT NOW, but that means they need both current experience and current gear. We have no interest in someone with 550 ilvl (full flex and legendary cloak) who's never done a heroic mode.
DeleteAnd we could easily, if we needed/wanted to, get a person from fresh 90 to 540+ ilvl in two weeks or less. Probably higher but that number assumes they don't get any normal SoO items from an alt run or something. We don't *WANT* to do that in most cases, but it's far preferable than someone with 550 ilvl who doesn't have the skill or experience we need. And by "far preferable" I mean "we'd never accept the 550 ilvl guy with lack of experience anyway."
Exactly. I simply cannot play games with need/greed loot systems where players end up competing with each other for the one desirable piece of loot. It just ends up boiling down to lots and lots of drama.
ReplyDeleteGive me a City of Heroes or GW style you-gets-your-own-personal-loot and no one knows what you got unless you choose to link it for them any day.
"Give me a City of Heroes or GW style you-gets-your-own-personal-loot and no one knows what you got unless you choose to link it for them any day."
DeleteExcept that eliminates part of the raiding meta-game -- which is how you distribute your loot effectively to maximize progression. Let's say there's two cloth boots in a raid and person A wants boot 1 and person B wants boot 2. With personal loot, if person A wins boot 2...tough luck. They have to use it even though they don't want it and would rather B have it.
With WoW raid loot, you can funnel the gear to the people who need it the most and can use it the best.
Which leads us back to Samus' contention that Raid members are essentially in competition with each other. Because Person A wants boot 1 and person B wants boot 2, fine. But if person C wants boot 1, too, now someone has to decide:
Delete- "who needs it more?"
- or "who deserves it more?"
- or "what's better for the Raid as a whole?"
- or leave it up to a loot roll among "eligible contestants."
Someone is going to lose, and know they lost. If there is any favoritism involved, it compounds the potential for hurt feelings. Whether there are hurt has nothing to do with maturity; someone can "suck it up" and still be hurt by the roll. And for a part-core raider like Stubborn, saying they'll get the piece "eventually" is little consolation with so much scrutiny on ilvls in the first place. the raiding meta-game is only "fun" for those in a position to affect it.
I much prefer token systems to random loot drops. because then my personal progression is in my hands, not the hands of some raid leader that may be playing favorites. I'm not going to say I never won loot rolls in large raids, but there were plenty of nights where I went to bed with nothing but a repair bill to show for my evening. On top of which, I have been burned a couple times by outright unfair distribution or mistakes. My swearing off PUG raiding was one quick result.
You'll notice I rarely speak of raiding on this blog. If you're a hardcore raider, I certainly wish you and your group the best and that you get all the drops you hope for. For me, it's too much time (and sometimes drama) repeating something I'd rather do just once, for the story.
"Someone is going to lose, and know they lost."
DeleteIsn't there a similar feeling of losing when you don't win an item from personal loot and someone else wins the item? Or how about the hurt feelings when you see that same person win that item you wanted a SECOND or even THIRD time when you still don't have it?
I mean, I understand what you're saying to some degree -- but I think what you're talking about will happen in some form regardless.
"I much prefer token systems to random loot drops. because then my personal progression is in my hands"
Except then you eliminate part of the excitement of loot dropping that is random and it becomes simply another grind. There's a reason games do random as the main source and guaranteed as a secondary source.
"I'm not going to say I never won loot rolls in large raids, but there were plenty of nights where I went to bed with nothing but a repair bill to show for my evening"
What makes you think that doesn't happen to heroic raiders? I got one item last week -- a neck -- and that was only because I coined it. But you know what? I don't care -- because we progressed and my expectation each week is that I *don't* get loot.
I mean, even in your token system, wouldn't you often go to bed with nothing but 1/5 of an item progressed or something? Are you complaining about the randomness of gearing or the rate of gearing?
How long do you think it should take to gear up?
"If you're a hardcore raider"
Not really -- only raid two nights a week and often only play about 9-10 hours total a week.
"Isn't there a similar feeling of losing when you don't win an item from personal loot and someone else wins the item?"
DeleteIn the case brought up by Jeromai, the personal loot is not revealed to other player, unless you do the revealing. Then it is no different than if you go into a solo area hoping for loot that might drop.
"What makes you think that doesn't happen to heroic raiders?"
I think I've made it fairly clear what I look for in an evening of gaming. I don't raid because it is not worth the time and effort to me. I am sure that heroic raiders often get nothing for their evening of gaming, but they have a different motivation, or at least a different way of measuring their enjoyment. Ending a raid empty-handed was a major de-motivator for me, because the raids were not otherwise engaging.
"Are you complaining about the randomness of gearing or the rate of gearing?"
The randomness. When I'm questing or progressing in ways not related to gearing, a new piece is a pleasant surprise. Everything else is vendor trash. In end-game raiding, the only progress is gear-based (especially if you're a guide student, not going in "blind" to learn the fights). So every session that you expend resources with no reward is a disappointment.
You may not be an "always-on" hardcore player, but you clearly find enjoyment in doing different things in game than I do. And that's OK. I don't generally enjoy PvP either, but I don't mind that games offer such options to those who do.
"In the case brought up by Jeromai, the personal loot is not revealed to other player, unless you do the revealing. Then it is no different than if you go into a solo area hoping for loot that might drop."
DeleteExcept we're talking about a social group, right? Where you know what gear others have? And can see that some of their gear has changed? I mean, unless you have no inspect or no armory type system people will be able to find out -- it works in LFR because there's a 95% chance you'll never see those people again and if you do you won't remember.
You will remember what your guildmates have, though (especially if you notice that they recently obtained an item you want).
"The randomness."
So let's say the current averages you at 0.5 items per boss killed and you will, on average, get your ideal set in 50 boss kills. Would you prefer a system where each time you kill a boss you get 0.1 items and you're guaranteed to get your ideal set in 250 kills? You'd always make progress toward your goal...but you'd make it more slowly.
"Everything else is vendor trash. In end-game raiding, the only progress is gear-based (especially if you're a guide student, not going in "blind" to learn the fights)."
I think you're seriously underestimating the difficulty of execution. Even something like "Dodge the lightning orbs on Heroic Jin'rokh" -- that's a lot harder to actually do than it is to read in a guide.
"You may not be an "always-on" hardcore player, but you clearly find enjoyment in doing different things in game than I do. And that's OK."
I'm mainly curious in what's making you tick here since game design is something that interests me and I admit I find many of your desires perplexing. They make sense from an individual perspective but they would seem to be terrible game design -- hence my questions to probe at the heart of the matter.
The "airing of dirty laundry" aspect is what bugs me, specifically the opposition to it. In a real family or friendship cluster, such a thing may be important to protecting the group and its members. But a guild that recruits is not a family, it is an organization directed toward a goal, and composed of players working toward their own goals. It is only fair that they should know the functioning of the guild, to determine if they will fit in well. Maybe some players would even be attracted to a guild that has such a determined group in it.
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