I do not fully agree with the fact that getting into raiding is impossible without any raiding experience. There are however, some things that you will have to do, which might not be something that you want to do...and offcourse, will take more time...
The key element and only thing is to join an active guild. Mind you this does not have to be a hardcore raiding guild, but a casual guild should do fine. This will give you several options:
In general, when people do not have a full group, they ask in guild chat if someone wants to join, or is willing to lend them a hand. Thatas often done before the LFM cries are made. People are often a lot more lenient when it comes to taking guildies since they know who they are, know that they can be trusted (at least if you're in a serious guild, not one which takes all new players in just to grow big). So that generally bypasses most of achievement requirements and often even gear requirements.
This also gives the option to join guild raiders when they are looking for someone to go with them. At the start they will not take you because of low gear. But at some point, when the rest of their group is properly geared, and you did the best you could getting good non-raiding gear, then they will take you aswell.
In the end you get to prove yourself, get some achievements, which gets you into other pugs, which gets you into good groups, which gets you into a 'regular' raiding party etc etc...it will just take longer :)
Just the other day, while I was leveling a low druid toon, I met another guy doing the same. Only that he was an alliance player fiddling around on horde. Chatted with they guy, had some fun with him in an instance that I invited him for etc. He also said that his guild is only doing Naxx10 runns. Just by having some fun, and having nice conversations, I am almost certain that if I would have a 80 toon on ally side, I might even get an occasional spot in his raid when they are missing people.
Don't overestimate the urge to have mature, capable, and in general kind/nice players in a group...not all guilds/groups are looking for the maximum dps for the quickest runs etc....
So a question from my side: You closed the guild, and mostly only you three playing in there...what would be different if you would join a casual guild with your 2 brothers? You could still play together, get in the occasion groups, and just have your own playstyle....
Copra
· 5 months ago
Well... I can say that I have tried and done what you implied, with low or now returns. Way back after BC had launched I joined and played in a 'casual raiding' guild on Horde. With this thinking you are implying. But without the results, because a) I was newcomer, b) even though recognized in gchat I was newcomer and c) hmm, I was newcomer to the guild!
There were some of us levelling hard to get to the BC raid level, but my interest weaned due to the fact that the others, knowing the other people in the guilds from their earlier guilds, were preferred in the instances, even though I performed up to the standards -and often performed better thant them- in the few instances I was with the guild. And this is because it all comes down to the contacts: I as a 'newcomer' don't have the years of contacts within the game and I'm still trying to carve my niche in there.
And you cannot say I'm not social, now can you?
On the real question: This is something I'm planning on doing. In fact, this has been discussed and we'll see when this will materialize. Any suggestions? The majority of the wuss... noob... Ally side guilds are however more or less in the two categories you mention: either growing by all means or so high in the raid ladder that they are not interested. At least that's what you get from the Server forum and /trade.
C out
Azariel
· 5 months ago
I must say that I have been lucky enough to be in a proper guild. However, I have been in there for a good amount of time. And in that regard I can understand your 'problem'. People always tend to take the people they know. But in time I guess it will become better and better.
Also in my guild the gear issue plays a role. When two dps players respond to a party-call, me being the non-raider and the other a raider, the raider is most likely taken. However, on the other side the raiders often have less interest in the regular heroics etc and said they were willing just to help out, not because they wanted to go themselves. So then often the other non-raider guy is taken. Its all a matter of working yourself up the ladder.
One major glitch in my logic is however that I've overlooked the fact that I'm using my current experiences as 'proof'. Which means that I've been referring to a toon at the hitcap, where heroics are very frequent. You can only do a certain heroic once a day. Meaning that for the daily heroic Q's people always need new people since others simply already were there earlier that night. So even when your new you will still get your shot at going. The glitch I was talking about is that this isn't the case for the leveling period. The leveling instances aren't visited that frequent.
And regarding suggestions: Get your butt over to the horde side, and join the english speaking guild in my raiding coalition :p
Copra
· 5 months ago
You mean I would start levelling a new toon? Really?
In all honesty's sake, I just cannot imagine restarting my lowbie lv63 tauren drood, because of the fact that I don't know anything about playing that toon anymore. And at this point, power levelling another toon seems... not reasonable.
However, Tipa at http://westkarana.com gave a perfect explanation to why the situation has arisen which I wrote about. Or actually, why there are the gear resets on every expansion. To get the newcomers to the same platform as the raiding, more played people.
Makes perfect sense.
C out
Spinks
· 5 months ago
I don't know the answer to this but you're right, it's a real problem. How can you have people who've been playing a game for years and know it backwards able to play with newbies without: a) the expert players getting frustrated? b) the newbies getting frustrated?
What you really need as an inexperienced player is to easily be able to find other players of roughly your skill/experience level so you can learn together. And there's no current way to do that in any game I know. Or you need the game to somehow encourage experienced players to want to teach people (I know there are guilds in EVE which specialise in this).
But I don't think it's just a WoW issue.
Copra
· 5 months ago
I'm quite sure it's not only WoW issue, but in WoW this issue is very much more prominent than in EQ2 for example, in which the mentor system gives the higher level, more experienced player both the capability and in certain cases the incentive to come down and help the lower level character. As far as I've understood the mentor system is available also in CoH/CoX, of which I have no experience.
WoW has been designed to be very much level cap heavy, without any meaningful reason for the capped players to venture to the midst of the lowbies. The artificial 'necessity' of AH visits is easily circumvented by using AH mules. So the issue is in fact a design based problem, and cannot be mended in the game itself.
That mending and resolving of this kind of separation and 'categorizing' of the players is the challenge of the next generation MMO's. Or the one to replace WoW at some point.
C out
mer
· 5 months ago
If you don't have raiding experience and want to learn how to raid, start your own raiding guild with a bunch of other new people. I was part of a guild that did this, it was in many ways all kinds of unsuccessfully. We didn't know how important the addons where. We watched the tactics but had no familarity with how to do them.
However most of those raiders went from there to other raiding guilds in a low rank role where they could be mentored. Several of us ended up in one of the top raiding guilds on the server because, 1 we had some experience, 2 we were willing to learn, 3 we knew our roles from 5 mans and the begininer bosses.
Copra
· 5 months ago
Well, still being below the level cap, I'm not in a position to discuss about the actual raiding. However, it seems from this point of view that there is pretty little you can do to get into the instances, even the 5-man heroics, without the contacts and knowledge of people. The LFG is now very selective, especially in the farm status and achievement hoarding, so the 'casual PUG's' are not a viable solution.
We tried the 'own your guild' approach in the levelling, but sadly a guild is just as active as the guildmaster and officers are. It wasn't enough to keep helping the people to level and level yourself, I should have been able to organize their passtime, too.
So I'm now stuck to the fact that you have to get to the level max as fast as possible -which IMO is a complete waste of great questing- and then commit to the raiding grind -which is complete waste of time because it's repetitive to the max.
But I'm going upwards, anyhow. Only to return to the lowbie areas to complete the Loremaster Achievements.
C out
Kel
· 5 months ago
I got into a raiding guild through RL friends, though I had done close to no raiding beforehand. Later on, I got an invite for a friend of mine whoi I'd met in heroic 5-man PuG. We added eachother to our friends lists, and did several runs together. I didn't know anything about his raiding experience, but he seemed skilled, and his attiitude impressed me.
It is possible if you make the right friends. Don't underestimate 5-man heroics. Filling up the friends list with skilled and social players, and then "stalking" them (in a friendly non-creepy way) does help. I'd suggest going for the social guilds that raid. After than, I think you would be well off following the advice Azariel gave you.
I can understand the part about being the newcomer. But if you have a friend on the inside already, you can ask him to drag you along so you can get to know people. There's at least one person in any social guild who's willing to do that. Don't be afraid of asking directly. This would include 5-man heroics for the most part. Also, try to be the helpful guy. Your goal would be to make them notice you and remember your name.
Copra
· 5 months ago
Like I said in my response to Azariel, I'm not the least social person on the server: in fact, I sacrificed majority of my time in the guild I lead to helping others. And I'm doing that still: I doubt people will remember that later on.
It seems to come to the issue of finding a proper guild in which to grow as casual player to the raiding team. Even more so, the guild should have several raiding teams running, from the training cadre to the high end raiders, from the farming to progression, to keep the system going. I just wonder how many there are on a server...
Thanks for the tips, I'll report on how they work whence I ever get into the level cap.
Which - it seems - will not take long with the quest exp rewards in Northrend...
All Comments
The key element and only thing is to join an active guild. Mind you this does not have to be a hardcore raiding guild, but a casual guild should do fine. This will give you several options:
In general, when people do not have a full group, they ask in guild chat if someone wants to join, or is willing to lend them a hand. Thatas often done before the LFM cries are made. People are often a lot more lenient when it comes to taking guildies since they know who they are, know that they can be trusted (at least if you're in a serious guild, not one which takes all new players in just to grow big). So that generally bypasses most of achievement requirements and often even gear requirements.
This also gives the option to join guild raiders when they are looking for someone to go with them. At the start they will not take you because of low gear. But at some point, when the rest of their group is properly geared, and you did the best you could getting good non-raiding gear, then they will take you aswell.
In the end you get to prove yourself, get some achievements, which gets you into other pugs, which gets you into good groups, which gets you into a 'regular' raiding party etc etc...it will just take longer :)
Just the other day, while I was leveling a low druid toon, I met another guy doing the same. Only that he was an alliance player fiddling around on horde. Chatted with they guy, had some fun with him in an instance that I invited him for etc. He also said that his guild is only doing Naxx10 runns. Just by having some fun, and having nice conversations, I am almost certain that if I would have a 80 toon on ally side, I might even get an occasional spot in his raid when they are missing people.
Don't overestimate the urge to have mature, capable, and in general kind/nice players in a group...not all guilds/groups are looking for the maximum dps for the quickest runs etc....
So a question from my side: You closed the guild, and mostly only you three playing in there...what would be different if you would join a casual guild with your 2 brothers? You could still play together, get in the occasion groups, and just have your own playstyle....
There were some of us levelling hard to get to the BC raid level, but my interest weaned due to the fact that the others, knowing the other people in the guilds from their earlier guilds, were preferred in the instances, even though I performed up to the standards -and often performed better thant them- in the few instances I was with the guild. And this is because it all comes down to the contacts: I as a 'newcomer' don't have the years of contacts within the game and I'm still trying to carve my niche in there.
And you cannot say I'm not social, now can you?
On the real question: This is something I'm planning on doing. In fact, this has been discussed and we'll see when this will materialize. Any suggestions? The majority of the wuss... noob... Ally side guilds are however more or less in the two categories you mention: either growing by all means or so high in the raid ladder that they are not interested. At least that's what you get from the Server forum and /trade.
C out
Also in my guild the gear issue plays a role. When two dps players respond to a party-call, me being the non-raider and the other a raider, the raider is most likely taken. However, on the other side the raiders often have less interest in the regular heroics etc and said they were willing just to help out, not because they wanted to go themselves. So then often the other non-raider guy is taken. Its all a matter of working yourself up the ladder.
One major glitch in my logic is however that I've overlooked the fact that I'm using my current experiences as 'proof'. Which means that I've been referring to a toon at the hitcap, where heroics are very frequent. You can only do a certain heroic once a day. Meaning that for the daily heroic Q's people always need new people since others simply already were there earlier that night. So even when your new you will still get your shot at going. The glitch I was talking about is that this isn't the case for the leveling period. The leveling instances aren't visited that frequent.
And regarding suggestions: Get your butt over to the horde side, and join the english speaking guild in my raiding coalition :p
In all honesty's sake, I just cannot imagine restarting my lowbie lv63 tauren drood, because of the fact that I don't know anything about playing that toon anymore. And at this point, power levelling another toon seems... not reasonable.
However, Tipa at http://westkarana.com gave a perfect explanation to why the situation has arisen which I wrote about. Or actually, why there are the gear resets on every expansion. To get the newcomers to the same platform as the raiding, more played people.
Makes perfect sense.
C out
a) the expert players getting frustrated?
b) the newbies getting frustrated?
What you really need as an inexperienced player is to easily be able to find other players of roughly your skill/experience level so you can learn together. And there's no current way to do that in any game I know. Or you need the game to somehow encourage experienced players to want to teach people (I know there are guilds in EVE which specialise in this).
But I don't think it's just a WoW issue.
WoW has been designed to be very much level cap heavy, without any meaningful reason for the capped players to venture to the midst of the lowbies. The artificial 'necessity' of AH visits is easily circumvented by using AH mules. So the issue is in fact a design based problem, and cannot be mended in the game itself.
That mending and resolving of this kind of separation and 'categorizing' of the players is the challenge of the next generation MMO's. Or the one to replace WoW at some point.
C out
However most of those raiders went from there to other raiding guilds in a low rank role where they could be mentored. Several of us ended up in one of the top raiding guilds on the server because, 1 we had some experience, 2 we were willing to learn, 3 we knew our roles from 5 mans and the begininer bosses.
We tried the 'own your guild' approach in the levelling, but sadly a guild is just as active as the guildmaster and officers are. It wasn't enough to keep helping the people to level and level yourself, I should have been able to organize their passtime, too.
So I'm now stuck to the fact that you have to get to the level max as fast as possible -which IMO is a complete waste of great questing- and then commit to the raiding grind -which is complete waste of time because it's repetitive to the max.
But I'm going upwards, anyhow. Only to return to the lowbie areas to complete the Loremaster Achievements.
C out
It is possible if you make the right friends. Don't underestimate 5-man heroics. Filling up the friends list with skilled and social players, and then "stalking" them (in a friendly non-creepy way) does help. I'd suggest going for the social guilds that raid. After than, I think you would be well off following the advice Azariel gave you.
I can understand the part about being the newcomer. But if you have a friend on the inside already, you can ask him to drag you along so you can get to know people. There's at least one person in any social guild who's willing to do that. Don't be afraid of asking directly. This would include 5-man heroics for the most part. Also, try to be the helpful guy. Your goal would be to make them notice you and remember your name.
It seems to come to the issue of finding a proper guild in which to grow as casual player to the raiding team. Even more so, the guild should have several raiding teams running, from the training cadre to the high end raiders, from the farming to progression, to keep the system going. I just wonder how many there are on a server...
Thanks for the tips, I'll report on how they work whence I ever get into the level cap.
Which - it seems - will not take long with the quest exp rewards in Northrend...
C out