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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsOfficers' Quarters: Scorched by raider burnout
by Scott Andrews 
Oct 25th 2010 at 3:00PM
It's been more than 10 months since Blizzard introduced major endgame content to World of Warcraft, and raider burnout is at an all-time high. In times like this, hardcore players often look to casual guilds as a refuge from the demands of more serious organizations. It's not always a bad thing, as I'll discuss, but sometimes taking in these hardcore refugees can lead to major problems. This week, an anonymous officer tells his tale:
Hi Scott,
I'm currently an officer in a guild that started as a social/leveling guild, but toward the beginning of this past summer, we had some level-capped players who decided to take on raiding content. We were having a lot of fun at first whether or not we successfully downed bosses because we were finding a way to stay socially active in our social guild.
During this period, one guildie and I became de facto raid leaders because we were always there on raid night and always the two who got the groups organized. This was when I also got promoted to an officer position. The problem I'm facing now is that we ended up recruiting a couple of new members who had burned out on hardcore progression raiding and wanted to take a more casual approach to raiding.
At first, they were a big help in fine-tuning our raiding style, but they quickly grew impatient with the fact that sometimes we have to pug some slots because we're lax on attendance, that we might have to pug a tank who wants to do a fight slightly differently than what they are used to, or because we're happy with just downing Marrowgar and Lady Deathwhisper and calling it a week. Basically, their idea of casual raiding and our idea just don't match.
Apparently, one day when I wasn't online, this tension came to a head, causing the loss of three of our oldest and dearest members and apparently our GM having to take one these guys into a private chat channel to discuss his attitude. He refuses to leave, since he has a relative in our guild. Raiding started to die off as this player's attitude made people not want to participate, and the more and more people we had to pug, the worse his attitude got. It was a never-ending spiral.
The other raid leader and I don't know what to do about this guy who refuses to find a new guild. Should we jump ship or not? I've also been thinking about waiting to see what happens when Cataclysm drops, but I don't know if in the meantime I've gotten myself in a position where I'm not seen as an effective leader. Your help is appreciated.
Anonymous
As I mentioned earlier, Anonymous, these situations tend to crop up toward the end of expansions when current content becomes stale and most people have all the gear they want. Hardcore players think that by joining a casual guild, they can enjoy raiding in a more relaxed environment. In many cases, this situation works out just fine for everyone. The burned-out raiders get to step off the hardcore treadmill, and the casual guild gets the benefit of their expertise and skill.
Sometimes, however, it becomes a situation like the one you're facing now. Instead of going with the flow, these fresh recruits try to reshape their new casual guild into a proxy of their former one. They're like retired Navy SEALs attempting to turn a paintball match into a military mission. This type of behavior makes me wonder why they ever leave their old guild in the first place.
The most common result, if the officers don't intervene effectively, is exactly what you've experienced: drama leading to decreased interest in raiding, and then eventually gquits.
In hindsight
Let's look at what you could have done to prevent this from happening. You could have been more firm with these players and told them that you're going to run raids the way your guild always has, and they can either get on board with it or sit.
As the raid leader, it's your job to manage everyone's expectations, and theirs were far too high for the type of raids you were running. It should have been made clear to them exactly how things work in your guild before they stepped into your raids. Unfortunately, one of these players decided to take out his frustrations on some of your other raiders, and you lost them as a result.
The guild leader's response to this incident was too weak. A scolding doesn't fix what happened. A player can't refuse to leave if you don't give him a choice, and it sounds like what this player said was reason enough to kick him. At the very least, your GL should have asked him to apologize to the people who were caught in the crossfire. By taking stronger action, the GL might have brought those three players back and salvaged your raiding as it once was.
Three options
What's done is done, but the question remains: What are you going to do about it? The easy solution, as you propose, is to leave the guild. You can always keep in touch with friends after you leave, and if you do it before the expansion, then at least your former GL with have some time to sort things out before Dec. 7. I'm sure people will be disappointed, but it's your $15 a month, after all.
If you stay and you want to get the guild back to raiding, you'll have to confront these players. Hopefully, your GL and the other officers will back you up. Obviously, this is the more difficult path, but it's also potentially the more rewarding one. You didn't stand up for yourself before, and certainly your players' opinion of you has suffered as a result. However, you can make this right, regain some credibility and get back to enjoying the guild.
There is a third option, as you point out. You could stick around for Cataclysm and see what happens. In all likelihood, these hardcore players will either leave for serious raiding guilds or quit the game. I don't see them sticking with your relaxed pace for very long at 85. You won't fix your members' perception of you quite as quickly this way, but if you can get people raiding again -- and having fun at it -- you can gradually overcome the fallout from your current problems.
So, there you have it: three options. I can't tell you which choice is best. It's a decision you'll have to make on your own.
/salute
Send Scott your guild-related questions, conundrums, ideas and suggestions at scott@wow.com. You may find your question the subject of next week's Officers' Quarters! Filed under: Officers' Quarters (Guild Leadership)
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 3)
Eirik Oct 25th 2010 8:21PM
I would have to beg to differ, actually.
If Mr Casual is OK with not going on the raids, I fail to see the harm with letting him remain in the guild for social reasons.
While I've seen problems of the "we don't have enough warm bodies to field two raid teams, even if we have enough *characters* to do so", as long as you make sure the guild knows that the Hardcore raid gets priority, you might even get a 'casual' raid group going.
Priestess Oct 25th 2010 3:38PM
Coming from the view of an officer who has been a raid leader and who is currently responsible for guild invitations and removals, my course of action would be to talk to the guild leader and probably the other officers, lay out my plan, and if he/they are in agreement, do the following:
I would privately tell the offending parties that they have been a disruption to our guild, and their behavior has warranted their removal. I would leave time open to discuss the issue with them, but this discussion would not be likely to change the outcome, which would be that I remove them. If there is some question as the their being removed or not, I would in the very least demote this person to a non-access rank designed for this (no gchat, no guild privileges), until the matter can be further discussed with the officers.
This type of issue is clearly covered in our guild charter, so this would be done by the rules, which are set up to protect our "casual raid guild" from exactly this. I would then be responsible for handling any fall-out (in guild, coming player to player, in public chat channels, etc.). I would also then talk to the members who left, explain how the issue was handled, and invite them back if they are willing to accept this resolution and our commitment to having a drama- and stress-free guild environment.
This type of issue has occured for me before, has been handled in this way, and has had good success. It's not an easy or pleasant job for the officer heading it, but it is a necessary one to be done if the guild is to be protected from exactly this kind of issue, or other players who refuse to participate positively within the way that the guild functions. I feel that it also gives a much-needed sense of security and trust to the guild members, who know that their officers are committed to providing the best guild enviroment possible for them.
Tinwhisker Oct 25th 2010 3:41PM
Yeah, this "refuses to leave" thing sounds like a weak and ineffective guild leader who "refuses to gkick". The person in charge of the guild needs to realize that he's there to protect the majority of the guild members from people who make trouble and drive them off. Yes, sometimes it's tough to kick people but if you're wearing that cap sometimes you just have to man up and do what's best for everyone.
Cyanblu Oct 25th 2010 3:44PM
Look as a member of a somewhat progression style guild (9/12 hard modes ICC 25), I can tell you this kind of behavior would not be accepted in a serious raiding guild. The raid leader would have bounced them out of his/her raid, and the guild leader would have done the same out of the guild.
On the flip side serious raider don't always equal serious jerks. Just as casual raiders don’t equal noobs. The thing is we have different play styles and need to learn to respect those play styles.
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jfofla Oct 25th 2010 3:07PM
You can take the Elitist Jerk out of the Hardcore Guild, but you can't take the Jerk out of him.”
This kind of comment makes you look like the jerk not the Hardcore Guilds. All hardcore raiders are not jerks, many of us are very helpful to the communities we play in. How many of you use Elitist Jerks website? This is definitely a group of hardcore gamers, and they spend their time informing the community step by step on how to better play classes and specs. Please don’t let a few bad apple hardcore raiders make bad impression for all of us, and we don’t take everyone with 6k+ GS to be people who are just noobs.
Saeadame Oct 25th 2010 4:37PM
Agreed. The words 'elitist jerk' certainly have their own meaning, but by capitalizing it it seemed like a poke at the EJ guild/website and hardcore raiders in general.
Bad form sir, bad form.
Eirik Oct 25th 2010 8:29PM
The name of the Elitist Jerks site was chosen deliberately. I decline to change the label I apply to obnoxious people with elitist attitudes in deference to them. They chose the name. They can live with the resulting confusion and opprobrium or they can change the name of their site.
bennet Oct 25th 2010 3:53PM
The phrase "hardcore raider looking for more casual approach" now makes me start waving my hands in the air and running away as if my hair were on fire. My husband and I have accepted several friends of friends "just wanting to relax" and ended up having to gkick every single one after "relax" turned out to mean "give orders without challenge because my experience exceeds yours by a beeelion times, n00bs."
I'm sure some of the hardcore raiders looking to tone down mean what they say. We just haven't been fortunate enough to meet any of them.
Scooter Oct 25th 2010 3:56PM
There's not much to discuss here is there? The hardcore dudes didn't want more free time they wanted control over their raid time and expected everyone else to go along with it. It's selfish and should have been dealt with.
As for what to do now, I suggest finding/starting a new guild and doing things fresh. In the mean time sort out your life issues. Ya got a whole year ahead of you come Dec 7th get ready for it!.
Matt P Oct 25th 2010 4:00PM
This is a perfect example of when avoiding confrontation ends up causing far worse problems than just telling the guy off. Doing nothing as a leader in this situation is just as bad as saying, "I endorse what Jerk X is saying and doing." A casual guild does not and should not imply casual leadership when issues arise.
LynMars Oct 25th 2010 4:01PM
Sit them from the raids, if they "refuse to leave" and the officers are too weak to kick. Their attitude is terrible and will just break members of the guild from raiding entirely. If they won't change their attitude on their own, but won't leave to find a more suitable raid group than yes, they need removed forcibly. Relatives in the guild or not (and hopefully, said relation understands why this is problematic).
I've had disagreements with my fellow raiders, or been frustrated with progression, but I grit my teeth and deal with it, likely venting with my roommate but keeping it out of guild channels as much as possible. We've had little raid drama because the officers are proactive, listen to people, and work to keep issues lowkey so they don't blow up and drive folks away.
kunukia Oct 25th 2010 4:06PM
Weak guild leader.
Rob Oct 25th 2010 4:24PM
Gkick, gkick, gkick. We've had issues like this in the past, and they have destroyed the guild. But remember, a guild is like a sink with the faucet on, there are always people coming and going. You can rebuild. You can do whatever you want; form a hardcore band, etc.
And the guy who said you can kill LK naked...I know what you mean, it is really easy now, but its still not to the level of the average player, only the guy who's spent some time on each boss and really knows how to do them. That just doesn't happen over night. So, yeah most players are going to have problems on putricide, or blood council, or sindy, because they haven't seen them before. Most fresh pugs only get 5 bosses down or so. Continuation pugs are the answer if you want to see more content, particularly nowadays with the flexible raid lockout.
Grovinofdarkhour Oct 25th 2010 5:06PM
If you join a guild with the idea of changing it to suit your needs, you've failed even before you've begun.
CVSoprano Oct 25th 2010 5:34PM
Two issues:
1) Spineless GM needs to refresh his memory on the /gkick button. The only person who can squat is the GM; definitely needs a session on the therapist's couch with R. Lee Ermey barking at him (a la GEICO commercial).
2) "They're like retired Navy SEALs attempting to turn a paintball match into a military mission."
Disparaging references to servicemen, especially Special Forces who voluntarily take more risk than any other member, will get you nowhere (and leaves me less inclined to be sympathetic to your position).
Toothy Oct 25th 2010 5:51PM
Calm down, he didn't make a remark about servicemen, just about another form of individual jerk. Could've just have easily said cop, but a military reference is more of an apples=apples comparison of the situation.
Brett Porter Oct 25th 2010 6:11PM
What Toothy said. I come from a military family, and didn't even come close to taking what you took from his analogy. There wasn't anything disparaging there.
Groth Oct 26th 2010 7:29AM
having played paintball with ex-special forces, it's strange. They like to conserve ammo, so end up getting shot by people who fill the air with as much paint as possible.
transientmind Oct 25th 2010 6:14PM
"They're like retired Navy SEALs attempting to turn a paintball match into a military mission."
I don't actually see any negative words in that sentence. Any negative implication you find there is yours alone. It's an analogy that purely provides recognizable identifiers of skill and aligns them against an activity with a recognizably disproportionate skill requirement.
Your objection probably stems from the fact that this stereotyped hypothetical individual DOES exist, and that they are being compared to the cited individual problem-maker who you perceive as a jerk. It's called Transference. You'd be fair in expecting the average netizen to be unaware of the phenomenon and its effect on their perceptions, which you can absolutely call the writer out on if it were deliberate. I doubt it is. If anything, in an attempt not to demonize the player, I'd suspect the article of an almost fond sort of pity. The most negative thing that he's even said about the =player= is that his expectations were too high and that he appears to have taken his frustration out on the other guild members. It's hardly a lambasting.
If you've ever played more than two games of paintball, you've probably encountered the veteran who takes the game too seriously. Should we respect them for their heroic contributions to our safety? Absolutely. Should we respect what they are attempting to do to a friendly, non-competitive game between friends? Not so much.
Personally I'd have gone with the ex-pro athlete coaching the little league and making the kids run til they puke as an analogy, but the glove fits.
rkaliski Oct 25th 2010 9:15PM
The fear when you get a high end raider in a casual guild is that your performance will suffer without them. In reality, unless you plan on turning casual to hardcore, you can always find someone who is skilled but undergeared then teach them the fights and gear up. My guilds warrior tank who quit between the pressures of school, job and girlfriend agro. I had tanked on and off for all of WoW so I was asked to fill in. It took a little time to get used to full time tanking rather than hitting the boss in the ass with your two big swords but we did well.
Kick the sucker out of the guild. I've seen so many of these types who would quit to find greener pastures. What they are looking for is for the regular guildies to be in awe of their uberness. They will wreck your guild or possibly worse, change it from casual to hardcore by "recruiting" more of their friends and taking over.
Nandini Oct 25th 2010 7:28PM
"... and raider burnout is at an all-time high."
How is raider burnout measured? Exactly how high is it? When was the previous high point, and how high was it then?
By introducing your article with this particular phrase, I expected it to present evidence supporting that claim, not with a single anecdote. I know the typical format of this column is to respond to a reader's letter with advice. However, starting it out with such an absolute and extreme statement seems a little too alarmist.