BEWARE OF WALL OF TEXT, BUT IT’S IMPORTANT, K? Hey, all! I would love your input on a couple of things I’ve noticed here and there, some things I (and the other officers) consider to be problems and have tried to discuss, but I really think it’s not something only a handful of people could or should try to fix by themselves. There’s a couple of different points I’d like to touch on and it might not make the most sense, but bear with me. You are very welcome to comment on one or all of these things, think along, suggest ideas – or maybe you don’t think those are problems at all, that’s fine too. (P.S. speaking mostly for myself here, if any of the other officers disagree with anything I say, a „stfu, Cayr“ is welcome).
1. „Lower level“ players being left behind and out of a lot of group content
We have adamantly maintained that ODO is not an end-game only cabal and that we welcome recruits of all levels of the game and experience. In my opinion, however, we are increasingly becoming one. If you look at Cabal chat on an average night, most calls for group content are for regionals, e7+ dungeons, E5 (and recently E10 emerging) New York Raids. It used to be a little less obvious when SWL just launched and everyone started on equal footing, but it has become more and more stratified as time has gone on. Now, I don’t think that this is entirely our fault, since the way difficulty levels are structured now does in essence break people up into small groups, nor do I mean to say that running high-level content is bad or that we shouldn’t do it.
The problem I see is that „lower-level“ players, whereas present in cabal, don’t often even ask for e1-e4 (or story) runs, mission help, etc. – perhaps stemming from a feeling that such requests are not welcome (just speculating, correct me if I’ve massively misunderstood here). I mean, really – I can’t remember who it was, but someone who needed an e1-e2 dungeon sat in a Group Finder queue for 2 hours rather than ask in cabal chat (just eventually mentioned it). What we absolutely CAN NOT do is force people to run content they don’t want to – meaning that this post isn’t meant as a guilt-trip to do content far below the level that you’d prefer to do. Rather, the question (at least in my opinion) is: how could we encourage people who need help or would like some company with story content to ask for it? How could we ensure that people get to run the group content that they need to? Do you see any other potential issues that might be causing this (I can think of perhaps a lack of tanks and healers)? Or if you happen to be one of the players that is not in the end-game grind yet – what do you think we could do to be more supportive and help? Everyone’s 2 cents is super welcome.
2. NA and NZ/AU timezone players being neglected
This is a more concrete issue and probably doesn’t need as much discussion and brainstorming than the first, but I’d still like to mention it just so we’re all on the same page.
We seem to be having difficulty with getting raids/lairs/stuffs going in NA and NZ/AU timezone evenings and, consequently, the players in these timezones probably don’t get as much of a social aspect out of the cabal as do people who are active on EU primetimes. I can see two reasons for this, both of which have feasible solutions:
a) ODO has far less (active) members in these time zones vs. the EU. It’s something the officer corps is aware of and we’re going to try to work on, namely target less populated time zones in terms of recruiting. But the issue isn’t exactly helped by the fact that just as we have fewer active players in those times, we have fewer officers and standard bearers covering that, too. So here’s where we could use a helping hand – if you’re an active NA or AU/NZ player and would like to lend a hand, ODO has a recruitment script (courtesy of Raztec, a round of applause) that you can fire off into General chat or whatever channel you wish. So if you think you could help, poke MCs or StBers on Discord and they can give you the script.
b) Lack of active tanks and healers. Again, stems from point (a), but still worth thinking about ahead of time and not necessarily wait for potential future recruits. Like it or not, but even with the powers of Anima Allocation (shakes fist), group content largely still needs people who are able to tank or heal. This one has a relatively easy fix – who volunteers as tribute? 😝 Not saying we should force people to do roles they don’t want or bear the weight of the time zone on their shoulders, but the fact pretty much all the active tanks are EU primetime isn’t really helping. Just food for thought.
3. The social aspect of the cabal
From talking to people, it seems to be a general consensus that amidst the grind of the game, the social aspects of the cabal have started to slip. So this one’s a bit of an open point really, and more to gauge interest and the general vibes, in a a two-parter:
a) In your opinion, is this a problem at all for you? Would you like to see more social events, contests, fight clubs (if Father would like to bring it back), RP (there’s also a thread about RP revival on the forums), and if yes, what events would you would like to see happen? Even if you don’t have a specific suggestion, maybe you have a more general interest in...anything at all, that could potentially inspire an activity?
b) The officers have also talked about an issue with communication (in the largest sense possible). So I pass the question off to you – how do you think we could keep everyone informed better? What would you like to see? A bulletin on the site? A sporadical „progress report“ thingy on the forums about all the stuff that is going on (e.g. if someone’s updating the website, how’s recruiting going, maybe some of our members have done something awesome somewhere, etc)? Or would you like some sort of a way to grill the officers for things you want to know? (we’ll make 1 office hour for TS, call it „Beef With The Chief“. runs Ooh, or "Teatime with Tai"). Let me know in the replies below.
I really hope all of this made a modicum of sense, but it’s late and I don’t even know anymore. Anyway. Comments, ideas, general screams into the void, all very welcome.
Ooh, and also, feel free to bring up other stuff as well - there's probably a ton of things I'm not aware of and couldn't think of, so if you have anything else that you see as a problem, be it related to any of those three things or separate, please share 🙂 .
