"Just join a guild" is dumb and tone deaf

WoW Classic Season of Discovery
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TLDR at the bottom.

I don’t think the developers understand some players like to play this game casually, as much as they say they do. It’s mainly because everyone has different definitions of casual play. What does casually actually mean and how does everyone interpret it?

Committed play vs. Uncommitted play

Playing this game really boils down to the two points above, are you currently playing the game with committed attention, i.e. raiding or group pvp, or are you playing with uncommitted attention, i.e. questing, farming, pug content. Committed play can also include future date scheduling, i.e. joining a raid group and telling people “Sorry, I’m unavailable every Tuesday and Thursday evening 7-11PM.”

Typically your casual players aren’t committing time to the game. Blizzard usually tries to alleviate this creating more solo content or reducing entry cost to the content that requires the most committed play. While this allows those with the uncommitted time to experience all the content, it sometimes minimizes the time investment those that played with put in.

Why am I even explaining this all when the title is about guilds?

Guilds want committed play. If you can’t commit to a schedule typically you’ll find yourself out of a raid spot. Whether that’s in the form of a bench or out indefinitely, sometimes a guild is not the answer for people who still want to engage with the community but aren’t trying to overcommit their play time.

As a prior raid lead, it’s always a double edged sword with the committed play. Do I expect everyone to show up to every raid? No. But how much do I over recruit and when we have to sit people how do those conversations go? People want to play the game, and “just finding a guild” isn’t the answer for people aren’t trying to raid every week. You can’t expect to just have a raid spot for being in a guild either, that’s dumb too. If you want to have a spot in the raid, the team usually likes to know ahead of time since they’re already committing that time.

Having a strong pug scene is very healthy for the game. I can now commit a few hours to a raid when I have the opportunity, versus planning ahead days of the week. Gnomeregan is getting really boring. But if I take a break for a week or two I’m massively hindering my guild and the current roster. And if I take a break, that implies I’m coming back, how does the raid leader manage my return along with a roster that he had to fill in order to continue raiding? God forbid he would decide to have the group take a break, as any raid lead knows that’s a death sentence usually for future endeavors.

TLDR; Just joining a guild is not the best option for an mmo. The community should thrive even outside of the small internal cliques.

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Good thing the pug scene is doing well.

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Then you miss the point of MMOs.

Join a guild. Make friends.

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Or even just join a server discord and make friends.

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I’ve argued my point on this. This game is an MMO, it is meant to be played in a way players interact. While I’m a “Casual” more so solo player myself. I understand I am not the catered to audience, that is why I have a group and run Mythic+ and whatnot.
To expect anything else from an MMO is much. WOW is kind as it is, very lenient on the concept of an MMO. But it should not be expected to be more so.
And the fact this is a classic linked complaint is kind of funny. Classic is the True MMO Wow once was. Presenting content one oft could not surpass on their own, a game where you had to directly interact with others. You can do it alone, but it’s like how in the Hitman Game Franchise, Silent Assassin and Suit Only Challenges were added without a way being made for them to be directly possible. There was no kindness expected, nor offered. You go it the hardest way, you are going to suffer. Casuals though expecting a casual experience will suffer because though it is possible, that doesn’t mean it’s easy.
Perhaps if things had been different in the past and solo players asked for solo things more instead of a RDF or so, we might’ve been able to do instances in a solo mode, like some in LOTRO. but it was not so, and shall not be so because they’ve made the game so easy to interact and not interact to offer anything else is a kindness we just don’t deserve to be honest.

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There’s a few things to address here. I’ll start with the most obvious, joining a guild is both for casual and die-hard players. I play casually, and I am in a “first come first serve” style raiding guild. We put out signups, and you can just sign up for the one that work best for you. We do have set groups, but looking at my discord now, we have ~20 raid group signups for the next week.

Let’s address the elephant in the room regarding the PuG scene. It’s a very healthy scene if you are good at what you do. If you don’t know your class, frequently mess up on a very basic rotation, and haven’t bothered to learn the mechanics, then you’re going to have a bad time. I have never been in a group where we are dropping people because they parse green. I’ve rarely been in a PuG where we are even checking logs. We mostly just take people at the word. I have absolutely been in groups where we are dropping people ~100 dps after the first fight. No one is going to carry you in this game, be it a PuG or a raid.

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The game is so easy right now that you don’t have to join a guild if you don’t want to. Nothing is so hard that a pug can’t down it. Guildie and I found a group that they were on their like 3rd alt run for the night and we were on our freshly dinged 40 druids and we went 6/6 with 0 wipes. I was healing in mostly “of the Owl” gear too.

That said, there are a lot of guilds that run 2-3 groups that have rotating members that show up when they can. It’s really not hard to get into groups and do the content.

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Yeah, because you were healing.

Honestly, if folks really want to get instant invites then all they need to do is roll healer. There’s such a shortage right now, especially in the pug-scene. I know some folks might not like it, but this many people can’t all roll DPS and all expect to easily get invited.

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“What do you mean we have a healer shortage? All we did was tell them their achievements are worthless because they healed it.”

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Honestly expecting to have access to all content as a father working 4 jobs, 9 children, a wife, a mistress and a girlfriend…

  • is tone deaf also. You’re playing a game that is built on playing with other people.

Go play Raid Shadow Legends.

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IMO you can either join a guild and often they will accept whatever class you come as once you all get to know each other a bit… OR you can specifically play a class/role to make pugging life easy.

Right now if you’re a shaman tank, you’ll get a gnomer in 5 minutes… you can’t both play a “bad” class and also expect to be successful pugging. I’m not saying this is how it should be… but this is how it is. (and I don’t even think the classes are that bad, but it’s the perception and culture the game has developed over time).

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Literally saying, “don’t fill the intended role to help out the community and change the narrative I am putting forth.”

Not to mention, nearly every group last night was looking for DPS.

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Subby, have you considered joining a guild?

I think it would solve your problem.

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Pugs don’t treat healers well at all.

Seriously join a guild.

PS - stop using “tone deaf” to describe advice you don’t like. Tone deaf is talking about beach front property being great in Gaza… Not joining a guild.

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if you want to play in an “uncommitted” way that’s fine :expressionless: just don’t expect the best rewards the game has to offer. that’s how classic works.

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Being part of a guild is the best option for THIS version of this MMO. If you don’t like it, there are a hundred other MMOs you can play instead, including Retail WoW where you can get all the rewards for solo play and never have to interact with a single other human being.

In SoD, you have to be part of a guild/group of friends to have the best experience possible. Personally, I hope Blizzard never changes this.

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If the game does not provide a way to play casually then you quit. That’s it that’s your only option end of story

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If you read between the lines what the OP and “the bad side” of casuals want is the ability to have people willing to play with them any time they need a group for anything no matter how much effort they put into their character.

Which limits them to just people like themselves…

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I’ve had no issues pugging as a healer. And anytime I’ve rolled as a DPS, bad healers are usually given a pretty long leash since folks know how difficult it’s gonna be to replace a healer mid-raid.

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You also probably don’t want 40 man content either.

I’m more for the community as a whole being the group, rather than individual cliques.

I really enjoy my guild and have a fairly large network of players I can play with. The statement just join a guild is still tone deaf.