BLIZZARD Make Mythic Flex or 10-man again!I think you really have different kinds of players. Type A and B.
- Type A (Tortoise) Mostly play WoW and rarely unsub and guilds active and going doing various activities. May play side games but don't leave. Tortoise.
- Type B (Hare) Episodic and get bored quickly/easily and come and go based on the latest new game release. Hare.
The problem guilds face is a social contract conflict between Type A and Type B players.
The Type A player wants to believe that guild or group is always there and they are a part of something.
The Type B player sees it more like a pick-up basketball game with strangers. You play a bit and then you are gone and you may or may not see them again.
Guilds will have a mix of both A and B players.
Guild Leaders can also be of type A or type B.
Type A led guilds keep on trucking. They may have some type B players in their guilds, but the type A's keep the lights on, create a foundation, make a home.
Type B led Guilds come alive with the expansion. A few of their Type A friends might flock to them to join in the pick-up game. But, each expansion, less and less Type A's will be fooled by the allure of the fleeting team.
Type B Guilds will most likely struggle each expansion. They have significant amount of flucuation of players. They start raiding as soon as they reach the quorum minimum 10-man mark. And even if they have a strong core and complete the heroic raids quickly, they only have their wow-progress numbers to convince others to make the move. Many will hit a wall to reach mythic raiding.
Type A Guild never left. When the Type B guilds hares are flitting away to Dark Soul 35 or Skyrim 13, those that remain in the Type B guild see only the type A guilds still standing. Time to move to a stable home even if it's not as fast, light, brash and powerful.
I think, unless you are a VERY WELL led Type B guild, these guilds will compete with other Type B guilds. They consume each other as transient players "guild upgrade" based on the wow-progress until they can't any more. The lower type B guilds collapse.
Players that tire of the expand / collapse cycle either quit guild raiding or hope to find a guild that's more stable (Type A).
Some of the Type A Guild players might guild upgrade if their more tortoise-like players aren't as fast as the Type B counter parts, but many, having seen the expand/collapse before know better.
