As we head into our first dual-raid week, I wanted to take some time to dive deep into our mentality with Veterans and Raider ranks within the guild.
Veterans already know
Due to Cue the Credits being around so long, we have accrued a healthy stack of players who have been with us for a considerable amount of time — upwards of 15 years. It’s a huge selling point to anyone looking to fall into a new close knit group and we’re always looking to bring more in. However for some it could come off as very intimidating given the track record of other guilds giving priority spots to their veteran core, regardless of talent. As with a lot of other things, we operate differently.
A major item to note when it comes to these Veterans, is that they are here to stay. They know how we operate, and in time everyone who’s committed to Classic and this group will too. We would not continually be so successful if we exclusively invited or gave significant priority to folks who have a history with us. While our Veteran roster is deep, the talent varies. The player you want in your farm raids cracking jokes and keeping farm content entertaining is not potentially the same person you want for a cutthroat progression run. So I fall back on one of our opening recruitment and council tropes —
Positions within Cue the Credits are merit based
And it holds true. They may get the benefit of the doubt in some areas, but ultimately they are held to the same standards as anyone else when it comes to raid invites and gear — if not higher.
Greasing for the Attrition Juggle
There are a lot of moving parts right now and if you are new to the guild that can definitely come off as weird, or scary. The leadership’s vision is extremely long term. Short term gains are meaningless, and establishing our footing within the server is going to require some big moves to combat some fairly significant hurdles. Attrition being the most obvious one.
As we’ve talked about quite a bit, the purpose of Thursday’s raid is balance out loot better, add more activities throughout the week, and recruit new players. The end goal is to balance out the two raids in such a way that they take roughly the same amount of time to kill Ragnaros. I see zero point in min-maxing a Tuesday raid that clears all content in <2 hours. I know this was a common practice on private servers, but ultimately it’s meaningless. Due to Classic’s timeline stretching to more of a marathon than a race, steps are being taken to prepare for that. BWL is going to be a battle of resources more than anything else. Private servers functioned very differently. They were dropping raid patches to match attrition, not really with a set schedule. Blizzard is clearly focusing on their mid to low end players, not the hardcore. The time between content drops is going to be rather hefty, so we have to think that way.
With a known Thursday raid that is specifically built to take in weekly pug’s from the world with some heavy hitters as buffer, the potential fallout of a particularly rough week of attendance is significantly lower. Attrition is going to set in as some realize Molten Core and alts are “it” until Phase 2. Once Phase 2 rolls out and there’s still only MC to do except with an Honor System to deal with — we imagine the churn is going to hit a big peak.
The Key Goals until BWL
- Maintain two healthy raids to combat attrition & gear more effectively
- Lock down our progression raid roster
- Break conflicting private server and retail mentalities
- Bring members together (be on Discord, people!)
- Begin selling raid gear to fund key items such as Black Lotus, general consumables and major pieces such as Lionheart Helm
Thursday’s Raid
I wanted to touch on our thinking with Thursday raids. Our end goal is to keep both Tuesday and Thursday balanced as best we can. Molten Core is very easy, so there’s a ton of wiggle room there. Slots will be available on both groups to fill with pugs and buyers. Groups will be organized based on what the council is trying to funnel that week largely, then balanced out from there. This week our focus is on caster / rogue weapons, and Priest eyes. We’re hopefully trying to sell off the leaf as well.
I think there’s a natural instinct to look at Thursday’s raid as the “trash raid”, but it really isn’t our plan. This week might be a bit ad-hoc given we had way more 60’s last week than expected, in addition a few guilds not wanting to just let go and die for us to absorb. But future weeks should be completely fine. If everyone tries to think of it as “Tuesday and Thursday” raid and less A/B or 1/2, I think that’s more how it lines up in our heads. The major difference would just be /rolling for lesser items.
Additionally, if we just threw all alts and rejects into Thursday’s raid, we would completely eviscerate the opportunity to recruit from it. An alt raid has the expectation of making it as far as it can, then moving on. Our goal with both groups it clear all content effectively.
The largest true loss with split raids is going to be the lack of cohesion with personalities. I think that’s a hit we’re just going to have to take until BWL comes out and a true raid core is developed. But we will be taking into consideration personalities when we shift around players week to week, just so everyone can get a feel for each other.
No group is set in stone, and things will change. If at any time you would prefer to raid on a different day, just let an Officer know and we will make it happen. If things are truly going as we plan, it genuinely shouldn’t be a problem. As we hit BWL the additional raid goals might change, but at bare minimum it’ll still continue to run Molten Core until the core raid has cleared out BWL a few times with confidence.
Planning for BWL+
Raider Rank and Class Leads
This week the Class Leads will be announced. Those who were interested in taking up the position have reached out and after some discussion we’ve made our decisions. The goal of a class lead is rather simple, but important. Help the council distribute loot, handle assignments and arguably most importantly — help us with locking down our Raider rank.
In Cue the Credits the rank of “Raider” sits above everything except Class Lead + Officer. Achieving Raider means your slot is 100% guaranteed for progression and early farm content. When the guild is currently sitting on 70 level 60’s and growing, handing out a guaranteed spot in anything carries considerable decision weight.
What we’re looking for in a Raider for BWL+
- Near perfect attendance
- Great performance
- Great attitude
- Noticeable effort to integrate into the guild, both in and out of game
- Raid prepared (flasks, consumes)
- Guild assistance (helping others, donations to bank)
- 4-8 Weeks within the guild
All pretty obvious stuff, but worth noting.
As it stands today we could probably promote 20 or so to Raider with some confidence, with just less than half of those being current Veterans.
Our standards for Raider are -HIGH-.
It’s important to stress this because once we hand out a Raider ranks that roster starts to become locked. In order to keep the integrity of the rank, we would need to potentially demote others to others up. That’s not fun. In respect to raid composition, we will release an ideal BWL raid comp soon. We are more likely to leave holes in the composition in terms of ranks just to provide options during invites. I don’t expect to have 40 guild members with the Raider rank, it defeats the purpose and no longer holds “100% guaranteed invite”. Expectedly, if you sit on a class that generally doesn’t slot a ton of seats in a raid (Warlock, Hunter), your spots are just that much more competitive, so we have to be very cautious with assigning raider ranks. But if one of those classes punches way above their own weight, exceptions can obviously be made.
Hopefully that helps clear up a few things with how we’re thinking. Discussions are always being thrown around when it comes to game & guild theory within Discord. We’re actively talking through every possible option and are always looking for more input. If you have concerns or criticism, definitely let us know. We’re not trying to operate in a bubble.
Here’s to a great and massive week 5!