While it’s like that most people employing Flex Raiding will end up being guilds who face some issues with normal mode raids as well as ambitious pugs, Flex Raiding for streamers over on Twitch will become a big boon for their streams in growing their audience as I pointed out in a previous article. However, what are somethings as a streamer and potential Flex Raider that you can do to ensure the success? This post will attempt to suggest a few ideas as someone who is interested in participating in Flex Raids and is aimed at streamers over on Twitch.
I mentioned a few ideas of how Flex Raiding can be used to improve one’s stream as well as a few things to start organizing them ahead of time. Of course, Flex Raiding will be more involved in terms of the expectations between the Flex Raid leaders and the people who want to participate. So the first thing to work on is defining expectations.
Initially, I suggest that people leading Flex Raids should be lenient, especially those looking to increase their viewership. If you’re a high end raider, there’s a high chance that the people participating may not be at the same level, which is why they’re doing this in the first place as opposed to doing normals and heroic modes. The thing is that you want to create an environment where people want to continue every week. So being patient in accepting lower end type of raiders might be a requirement.
You definitely do not want to create a poisonous environment. If you have personality issues where you’re a notorious hot head and criticize people heavily for simple things, Flex Raiding honestly will not go well. Instead, those expectations will just drive people back to LFR since LFR already is infamous for having personality issues minus dealing with scheduling and other possible drama. In this regard, be encouraging and do more to re-create positive raid experiences that people reminisce from the pre-LFG/LFR era. Of course, you’ll want to screen people to make sure people have good chemistry with each other. I would emphasize this aspect over raw skill and gear since people will require the cooperation of each other.
It might be worth not diving directly into Flex Raids immediately, especially for people who aren’t as experienced with raids nor those who have tested out the PTR content. One idea is to run some tests by first completing the LFR version to get the group to learn about the basic mechanics as well as testing their ability for interacting with each other and their communication skills. Essentially, with Flex Raids you have four levels of difficulty, which simply means for levels of progress. Perhaps, the Flex Raid section might prove too difficult and that people might want to first get a feel for the fight before heading into tougher content. Also, this will hopefully reduce queue times into LFR and provide that extra gear if people miss their rolls in Flex Raids.
Right now, it’s really an unknown factor with regards to the actual difficulty of Flex Raids. Unfortunately, most of the people participating in Flex Raids are the hard core World of Warcraft players in terms of the PTR. But that may not be a true indication of the difficulty level for most players. In turn, be fair to those participating. Some people just might not be up to par and need time to adjust to the difficulty. I feel some of the more successful Flex Raids will boost many streams where the players hosting the Flex Raid events open up their resources to cultivate a great Flex Raiding environment.
I think one of the loftier goals in participating as a Flex Raider for streamers is making friends through this mechanism. I’ve seen openraid.com but I feel that it’s still too anonymous to be worth anything useful. I feel that raiding needs to have a more intimate environment to avoid the current stigmas of LFR when it comes to poisonous people. Streamers acting as raid leaders can help provide part of that by defining the type of community for their raids. For myself, I feel far more motivated and emotionally vested when I’m playing with others that I know compared to when I play by myself. It doesn’t have to be LFR but any situation in the game.
In that regards, defining the personality of the raid group will be important. Perhaps, the group is very much into lewd humor, or they’re mature working people who share other similar interests, or perhaps they want to mix up the raiding environment for the classic Friday night table top game environment. Either way, emphasizing the social aspects over the success of doing raids will more than likely go a very long way since this will carry beyond just World of Warcraft.
Another major consideration is figuring out the role of alts. As someone with 10 90s, I would love to have the chance to gear up all 10 using Flex Raids. At the same time, I realize that most people probably won’t have the time/resources to devote to each of my toons. But perhaps this is where working with other streamers can come into play so that people can better organize a schedule. In an ideal world, I would love to see the ability for people like myself to hop on a stream and say, “Hey, can I join your Flex Raid?” To me that would earn at least a follow and more consistency in terms of watching those streamers.
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