Friday, June 20, 2008

Progression vs farm raiding and laziness

Throughout the history of the DB guild Jez has always been in progression raids. By that I mean that from the moment we started Kara way back when it has always been a new content experience for Jez along with the rest of the raiders in the guild.

Not so long ago due to having enough Aussie time zone folks in guild we were able to start running a week night Karazhan. Initially Jez went on this raid, primarily to help out and then when 2.4 came out, for badges as well. Several of the people in that raid were/are T4/T5 geared which really helped out the other 'Kara entry level' players. Now that Sephiroh is 70 I am running her rather than Jez for these groups.

One of the things that several people have noticed about some of the members of our Kara raid is that they don't seem to bother to get their gear enchanted, or gemmed, or even work on gearing up outside of Kara. Since I'm now taking a newer 70 through Kara I'm wondering whether the fact that these people were able to pretty much get carried through Kara as they geared up hasn't given them a sense of urgency or feeling a requirement to do this. On Jez I do everything I can to make sure I can perform to the level the content demands - gems, enchants, consumables etc. On Seph I haven't felt this pressure because the raid group is already strong.

It's got me thinking. If a player experiences their own progression via farm raiding does this lead to a tendency towards laziness in terms of gear itemisation and etc?

I'd just like to point out that I'm definitely working towards getting enchants and etc on Seph hehe. I put good blue level gems into the epics she has and I use armour kits since I don't have enchants yet, which I'm working on farming the mats for. One symptom here is also that once I levelled her I took her straight into Karazhan and therefore I'm still working on the rep I need for things like the shoulder and head armours etc. The other people who I'm talking about though have been 70 for months now.

It's just a different experience for me to have a second 70, perhaps other people have different experiences? Perhaps it's also a playstyle thing, perhaps these people just aren't interested in progression style raiding?

In terms of the regular Kara group it is somewhat frustrating for me since I would much prefer to be doing ZA rather than Kara but I'm concerned that the group will not have the chops to succeed there - and part of this is definitely due to the sort of apathy I'm talking about here.

13 comments:

Typhoonandrew said...

I think playing with good players and well geared toons will make anyone a little slacker; but thats no excuse to not have the basics covered.

I blogged a small rant about this, as slack players really get under my skin; especially when I'm tanking and is often dying in every "bad" event.

Get 'chanted, prep'ed, and stay focused - or get the hell out of the raid. :)

And knowing Jez's attitude toward gear I in no way suspect her as being slack; this is a way to spread the word of playing so the everyone has fun, not just gearing a slacker.

Linkage: http://typhoonandrew.wordpress.com/2008/06/20/gearing-attitude/

Anonymous said...

I have a suggestion, though it sounds a bit unconventional. Our guild currently runs 2 or 3 Karazhans a week, depending on the week.

You said you are helping make Karazhan easier by bringing T4/T5 geared members to put the raid as an official farming status. I first started raiding when Karazhan was already on "farm status". The reason I put this in quotes is because even though we farm Karazhan, we often do not use our best geared characters to farm them.

Make Karazhan a semi-challenging raid once again. Keep your T4/T5 participation to a minimum. We have one Karazhan that is usually used by our mid-geared characters for badge farming. You may use your best or second-best tank for this to make it more likely to one-shot bosses. This group can usually complete the raid in 2.5 hours.

The other is usually for members/alts that have entry-level gear for raids. Even the tank is an alt (not used for 25-mans) character of one of our main members. This group will usually take longer to go through the entire raid. I believe it will inspire people to start gearing their characters so that they may also get badges faster.

Waiting on reputation for enchants and inscriptions is understandable because I did that. I believe the concern that people often have is why would you spend money enchanting an item if you will more than likely get an upgrade from a dungeon that's already on farm status?

Typhoonandrew said...

I think the point is that people wait far too long to apply buffs, enchants, and tweaks to their gear. I've seen people using gear without gems, and they cry to expensive when asked why.

I'd rather not run with those people, and would prefer if they transferred to a new server (called Nooblet).

If its an alt there is no excuse, because it is so easy to get 30-40 gold for the cheap upgrades.

Jezrael said...

Thanks for the comments guys :)

The reason we had T4/T5 geared ppl in the Kara run was to make up enough people to do the run (since it's aussie time zone that we are running it within a US based guild in the main). As soon as I levelled my druid to 70 I immediately started raiding Kara with her. Of our current raid make up there are mainly alts or mains who aren't part of the T5 raid.

I would like to see us progress to ZA and maybe Gruuls/Mags if we can get enough regular quality people - but like I said in my post, it feels like we are a bit stuck on the Kara treadmill and I think part of that is this apathy of not wanting to push further and prepare enough to succeed.

I'm a proactive person so I won't just moan in my blog hehe I'll be grousing at everyone in game too :P

Anonymous said...

Ah, I missed the part where you were running it within a US-based guild.

To encourage enchanting and gemming, see if you are able to find a (guild) jewelcrafter who would be able to craft green gems for those ungemmed people. I know it will cost the jewelcrafter some, but perhaps the guild can reward him/her for it.

We used to have a resident jewelcrafter (before she stopped playing due to family commitments) who would be able to make gems for people like me who had just reached 70 and was without gems and had no idea how gemming worked.

In your case, I believe gemming should take priority over enchantments until these people have run Kara several times. Tap into the guild bank a bit if you are able to afford it to help enchant the more committed people.

But of course make sure they don't free-ride on it. Keep them accountable on being able to supply some of the gemming and enchantments themselves in the future. I'm sure you'll figure out how to do that part. :)

Jezrael said...

Thanks for the suggestions Lor :) As it so happens I am a JC and am always happy to craft gems for guildies. The thing is, these people have been 70 for ages, have been running Kara for ages. It's not like they don't know about gems and enchants and stuff - that is easily remedied :)

That's why I put it down to either laziness/apathy or simply that they don't feel the drive to get into further content. Which is fine I guess, not everyone wants to raid. As long as people don't expect a free ride it's all good.

Anonymous said...

Since you stopped by and took the time to comment on mine, I felt it fair to return the favor on your post.

I struggle with this issue a lot in my guild. Recently I've sort of become the raid leader, and we have a lots of people who "want" to raid and who don't spend time getting gear, they don't enchant, they don't necessarily even know *what* they should be looking for, and they don't care. As long as we carry them through, they won't do anything about it. If we stop holding their hands, they stop raiding, and we end up with too few people.

But I never have a problem taking fresh 70s or undergeared alts of people who I know are working on it. The only time that is an issue is if it's a tank, for anyone else I'll work around weaknesses as much as I can.

For me, it just comes down to whether the character can fill their role to the level I need. If they can without enchants or gems with a terrible spec and in gear with bad stat allocation, so what. If they can't and they can be fixed, great. If not, I'd rather not work with them. For the level I raid, I generally don't bother with consumables at all. For progression I do. I guess I just think about it as getting the job done.

Anonymous said...

I very much agree Jez, our aussie raid should really be pushing *and* succeeding in much more difficult content than kara.

I have had brief discussions with some people involved in the raid as to their point of view, and the impression I received from some was that they see it as a free 20 badges each week and nothing more.

The lack of motivation to see new content from these people astounded and offended me really... but it seems we've managed to build up sopport for the ZA push finally. And with the likely subbing on of Sphen and Dwarven when the others are non-attending we should easily fill 10 people or ZA each week.

My thoughts are that we should start hitting the problem at the source, I love the people we raid with, but the attitudes of a few need to change.

If you want to discuss it further send me a tell in game :) I'm fairly passionate on this topic and could write for hours I think.

/rant off

Anonymous said...

An after thought... when speaking with Tiffi he ways saying something similar too, our raids problem is we've always been accomodating the minority.

I had a feeling there was a secret message in there and that events have occured behind the scenes. We won't get anywhere if we're to afraid to step on someones toes.

I know the core of the raid are a real bunch of mates, but should that really be reason enough for our slope of progression to remain lateral?

Anonymous said...

Tough state to be in when the folks who are good people can't also be the progression raiders. I don't envy this situation; especially as I've been in guilds with this problem before.

The both times this happened to us we had to draw a dedication line, and challenge folks to meet it. Those who didn't were (gently) replaced, and I was one of the people who was swapped out.

The reason was that the guild was focused on progressing, and casuals don't facilitate this. The guild also recruited more focused players; and continued to drop bosses.

Good friends will hopefully understand that it is about the friendships, but also about getting satisfaction during your online experience, and for many players that means pushing through as a "progression player".

Good luck and happy killing!

Darkhorse said...

It's a curly one, but I have a pretty hard attitude towards people being slack in my raids.

I am making the effort, there are plenty of people willing and able to make the effort, so why should someone have a spot in my raid if they can't afford to spend 20, 50 or even 500 gold in order to do their best?

"Can't afford it" = "too lazy to earn the gold to buy it" in my book.

That type of player has no place in a progression raid. It might be fine in a casual Kara run, but to get anywhere through new content, everyone needs to be committed.

I have explored the issue a bit further in my last post on automagica, here

Cheers,

Zupa

Kyrilean said...

Obviously by the comments, you're not alone. Our guild is currently experiencing the exact same problem. My main has been lvl 70 since last November and only started raiding in February. During the inbetween times and since my friends and I have run heroics til the cows came home.

Now we're in a guild where we're the elite and are babyfeeding others through Kara. We try to run heroics at times and invite people who are not yet honored with the appropriate faction. We cannot figure this out. Since when has been getting to honored just through questing been an issue except with Sha'tar rep?

One friend last night needed one badge, so before our Kara run we went to SP real quick just to kill the first boss. The tank and two dps hadn't ever been in SP before, regular or heroic... /sigh

Anonymous said...

When I got to Outlands on my hunter, I went insane researching as much as I could on how to get ready for Kara, to help pull my weight as best I could. I ran instances, got rep up, pugged and pugged and even pugged some heroics without my usual instance group.

Along this gearing journey, I have found addon's and tips on how to become a more raid-friendly hunter with consumnables, etc. and I've gotten much better at DPS, trapping, etc.

Since I've turned 70, I've guild hopped a bit and am now I settled in one.... one with a lot of 70's and I see that most of them don't even show up on the IMBA site. It's distressing as you've mentioned that they only wait for Kara to happen to "gear" for raids. So what I end up seeing is a whole lot of people in epics pumping out mediocre DPS because they never experienced grouping prior to Kara where most of us are geared past it... :(