I don’t know when it was people stopped being friends with their guildmates. Maybe people got tired of leaving their friends to join another guild? Not sure. Every once and awhile I still find those guilds. They’re great, people help each other out. It does seem to be far rarer than I remember it being in the past.
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You are in the vast minority on that then. The game systems changed a long time ago and the need to be in a guild is not coming back.
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We have no source for this, as we don’t know anything about what the millions want or do or feel.
You seem to think there’s only one way to play and one type of gameplay, which isn’t true at all.
I understand you only see your side of things, but try relating to other styles of gameplay and other people, instead of closing off the conversation and being dismissive. There’s still a lot to talk about with this.
Remember when communities were released and they broke guild permissions? Remember the post Ion did where he said they’re looking into it and are working on a fix? Yeah, that was 3 years ago and look where we’re at; same broken permissions, same issues between the guild/communities tab and the /guildroster window.
The recruitment in-game sucks rear too, the best thing I’ve found for finding guilds is this discord community since they keep things pretty neat in there: https://discord.gg/vN2sWsB
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Thanks for that link! I’m going to bookmark it. I may create a new thread later on some time that goes through the tools and options we have and maybe a list of what we need, based on what we’ve gleaned in this thread. See if we can help each other out.
I seem to remember that the Guild perks came in with Cata, and because a guild would get a small percentage of everything a member looted (1% or so) then some people realized that just by having lots of people in the guild would mean that they would get lots of gold.
So the big guilds really pushed membership until that perk was taken away. I remember getting lots of random guild invites. I just leveled a toon to 60 and didn’t get one.
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I think they do. Solo players like me are already hated and spit on enough in this game, there’s no need to ostracize them further.
No, they really aren’t. Lots of people play solo. There’s nothing wrong with that and a few bad seeds on the forums don’t reflect the entire game.
It’s a mix of bad seeds being haters (yes I’ll give you that they’re mostly on the forums here) but it’s also the game design itself. We’re relegated to the lowest end gear, our “place” on the “hierarchy” is at the bottom, all the worthwhile stuff is locked behind group content, the game actively makes you feel bad if you don’t have a loyal cadre of friends at your beck and call, and so on.
The problem id had and why most of SL I pugged was due to guilds dying first. Then it became difficult to find one that had a schedule on my off days. Just now finally found a weekend night guild so hoping for the best.
Sometimes you pug due to things not in your control and still want to play that content…im just mad I didnt get to mythic raid thus far feels like I wasted most the expansion…
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A gearing ladder isn’t reflective of you as a person of your enjoyment in the game.
I don’t have that on most servers I play. Even on my main server, my guild is quiet right now because everyone is busy with life. So this doesn’t exist for me.
I don’t feel bad about it.
But it does sound like we need to get you into a social environment that’s supportive of you. You seem to be the type that would be happier within that and I understand that.
Kinda is, when a large part of the game (PvP) is essentially locked out to you because you’re not allowed to get gear you need to survive.
It’s all the group stuff that you run across in the game that makes me feel bad as a solo player. Even as something as little as that stupid altar in Bastion that requires three people to activate, I feel bad when all I can do is stand there because I don’t have the kind of friends that would come over to help tap it.
Then there was the time I was trying to get the Gurubashi/Darkmoon arena chests, and having to face guild groups of folks backing each other up by my lonesome. Never been able to get into the kind of guild that would put me on that side of the table, but somehow others are.
It would be nice, but after 20+ years of MMO gaming I don’t have much hope of finding one. I’ve just concluded that I’m not really meant to have friends.
It is an incentive for being in a guild, there is no hate involved. If you don’t want to be in a guild what purpose would a guild hall serve you? Now you can create your own guild and work on getting a guild hall. But you are choosing to be a non guilded player and the consequence of that choice is not having something optional.
When I was in a couple big guilds i did like that you could ask someone to help with something and there was always someone willing to. I do miss that since I quit.
Didn’t say a non-guilded player needed a guild hall. I’m just saying it would be cool for a non-guilded player to have access to something too if they don’t happen to have a guild at the time.
I’m a recruiter and guild leader of an inclusive guild and might be able to offer some guidance.
A vast majority of my recruiting happens on the wow recruiting forums, though I’ve also used raider.io recruitment (unsuccessfully, no one actually responded when I reached out), wow progress, logs sites, etc). A vast majority of the people who stick around are people I reach out to or unicorns who find us through passive recruiting because of what I’ve written in my pitch.
What I recommend for people who have something like anxiety or PTSD (like I have) is to look for a disability friendly guild and/or search for things you might want to see. For example, of yelling causes anxiety or distress (I deal with this), search for “no yelling” and ads for guilds who have a no yelling policy as a selling point will come up. It’s the same for other things, like if you aren’t down with racist slurs, or are an LGBT+ player who doesn’t want to deal with gross behavior, search using appropriate keywords.
Guilds that serve niche needs like being inclusive, nontoxic, and whatnot do exist but they do get lost in a flood of people recruiting and may take use of a search function to find.
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No, it really isn’t. That’s a personal mindset, not a game design.
My server helps each other. So solo players get the help from general chat. Perhaps that’s something else we need to think about: how we can get the community to actually want to be helpful to each other through general zone chat.
I’ve honestly tried. Basically every guild recruitment ad I come across just talks about rating, or progression numbers, or raiderio key levels. It doesn’t give you insight into what kind of people they are, whether they’re inclusive and welcoming, etc etc.
It just gives me the feeling that people don’t view each other as people in this game anymore, but as numbers or stats.
There are a few guild ads I’ve come across too that actively brag about “needing a thick skin” and “anti-PC”, and I am honestly kind of thankful they’re at least upfront about that. Sadly I have yet to run into any guild ads that are the opposite of that lols.
I honestly do doubt their existence at this point but I’m totally discounting it.
I mean, am I wrong there? The kind of gear I’m allowed to have as a solo player is only going to get me trashed in a random BG or in warmode. It’s why I haven’t turned on PvP at all in SL, and that plays a big part in why I’ve lost interest in this expansion and may quit soon anyhow.
Would be cool. I’m just tired of dreading group content and cursing Blizzard for putting those roadblocks in place.
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<<< Mr Casual here.
I have played solo from about 6 months into WoD until December of 2021.
During that time I have been primarily interested in story, pet battles and LFR. Up until SL I would pop in and out on time cards. Playing the first couple of months of each expansion, and then sporadically until the last raid was released. Then I would sub for the last bit to clear LFR and participate in the prepatch events for the next expansion.
This was my choice. I have never felt “held back” or discriminated against for my choice of playstyle. I am trying to see things from the perspective of other people posting in this thread… and I just can’t understand where folks are coming from.
During each of those expansions I wasn’t time gated, because I came in after everything was unlocked. Gear was readily available through AH [1], Heroics, World Quests and LFR to allow me to easily clear all the content available to me as a solo player.
In BfA I tracked time played on a new char. ~3 days played to start from zero, reach max level and clear all the bosses in LFR. Did the same thing in SL. Wasn’t working in December. Rolled a new Paladin. Took more time. Leveled from Exile’s Reach to max level. Cleared all of SoD LFR. Made it to an iLevel of ~215. All of that in 3 1/2 days played time. (Also built out my WoD Garrison and leveled SL mining/fishing/herbalism to max.)
That was without a guild. No Mythics. A few heroics, some callings and world quests, plus what I got in LFR. I didn’t really go into Korthia until after I was 10/10 LFR.
World quests in SL weren’t as beneficial as BfA, true. But I felt there was enough gear to allow me to do what I wanted to do. I can fly around the zones mining/herbing/fishing. If mobs attack they pretty much melt.
In Prot I can handle about anything in the open world, the Maw or Korthia. Torghast? I just ran level 3 or 4 to get enough ash to get my legendary.
I didn’t start playing until end of WoTLK. My subjective recollection is that it is supremely easy to get to the point where you can solo carelessly through everything in the open world. With a trivial amount of time and effort. Compared to the “old days”.
This is just my opinion.
If what I get out of patch 9.2 allows me to play the way I have been through 9.0, 9.1. I’ll be a happy guy. Would I like Heroic/Mythic stuff? Sure! Who wouldn’t? Is what I have now good enough? Absolutely! No way am I going to invest the time and effort to clear Heroic/Mythic or high Mythic+ runs for better gear.
I’m fine with raiders getting higher iLevel stuff. Doesn’t make any difference what so ever to the way I play. I believe they earn it.
[1] I am not an AH goblin. I’ve never had more than 130k gold on any char this expansion. Mining/Herbing/Fishing have provided more than enough to get, first, a 190 Legendary, then a 210 and then a 225. Along with enchants, flasks, and strength potions.
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That’s a cool story and I relate to a lot of what you say. I do much of the same.
The key thing is though, do you PvP at all?
I used to PvP quite a bit. I used to be able to earn decent gear on my own. I would play random BGs all throughout every expansion. In SL I felt like that was taken away from me.