Friday, December 2, 2016

How to Build a 20-man Raiding Team

Every Warcraft expansion we see the same complaints on the forums.
BLIZZARD Make Mythic Flex or 10-man again!
I think you really have different kinds of players. Type A and B.


  1. 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.
  2. 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.