Why is WoW moving away from raiding?

[Alilei32]

I know majority of players dont raid but I dont see why the people who do raid are now being punished. To me the game just seems to be moving away from raiding. I will try not to make this too drawn out but theres a few points Id like to hit on.

First of all why cant Blizzard accept that theres different levels of skill and commitment people are willing to put into raids. Not everyone is going to be in a cutting edge guild with complete mastery of their class. During Vanilla and TBC there were raids designed around that. I didnt raid much during Vanilla so I will just discuss TBC. The lesser geared people started out doing Gruul/Mags/Kara, then moved into SSC/TK, then into Hyjal,BT, and finally Sunwell. Also you had ZA as well. But the great thing is none of those raids were ever made obsolete by heroics like raids are today. People raided Kara until the day Wrath went live for example.

What was so wrong with progression raiding? I know the main thing was having to get new recruits attuned as well as people guild hopping to guilds doing higher tiers but if they did away with attunements but still had gear progression would people be for that? I mean theres always going to be drops that no one needs so gearing recruits shouldnt take that long when they can pick up they stuff that would otherwise get DE'd.

But today it just feels like Blizzard is almost trying to get rid of raiding altogether. They have combined 10/25 man lockouts which has basically killed 25 man raiding. Even during Wrath most raids I did were 25 mans. I hardly ever did 10 mans unless it was for gearing a new alt in order to do 25 mans. Also during each patch they make the previous raids 100% useless. You can argue "Well they are still there nothing is preventing you from doing them" Actually there is something preventing you its called no one bothers when easy mode 5 mans offer better gear. Why raid BoT or BWD for 359s when in 20 mins you can finish a HoT and get 378s?

Also JPs/VPs should not be rewarded for completing 5 mans. JPs should drop from lower tier raids and VPs should drop from higher tier raids. So you farm lower raids until you are geared to start the higher ones. Which brings me to another point. Why do we even need multiple difficulties of the same raid? Does Blizzard think that that means theres more content or something? 3 difficulties of Dragon Soul is not 3 raids just to let you know. Just have lower tiers act as normal modes and be the entry level raids and as people get geared they move into higher tier raids which are harder. I dont see why we need 3 difficulties for each raid (Hard, Normal, and lolz free loot).

Also if you dont raid you shouldnt care about anything that I proposed because it doesnt relate to your playstyle. Like I said raiders are only a small % of the total WoW population so I dont see how people who dont raid would get mad over some small changes that make raiding better and more fun. Also if you dont raid why do you fell the need to be walking around in raid quality gear? During Cata people who never raided should still be in 346 heroic gear as we speak and not 378s and with 397 VP gear. Someone who spent a lot of time clearing Firelands should not see some scrub walking around in the same level of gear because he can do HoTs. Why do you need gear that you wont ever use?

TLR: New raiding system sucks. We have no actual gear progression anymore. We dont need multiple difficulties of the same raid we just need easy raids that progress into harder raids as we get geared for them. We need 10 and 25 man guilds again with 10 man raids dropping lower quality loot and 25 mans dropping better loot. No one enjoys doing the same raid for 6-8 months with no other alternatives why cant we have 2-3 raids per tier?

[Chonar]

Baker: "In addition to loafs of bread and cake, we're now selling donuts! They're smaller than either but also tasty."
Normal Customer: "Yay!"

Baker: "In addition to loafs of bread and cake, we're now selling donuts! They're smaller than either but also tasty."
Herpaderp: "Why are you moving away from loafs?"

[Kisho]

TL;DR: Blizz, your way of doing stuff sucks. My way is much better, listen to me.

It may surprise you to realise that your opinion is not automatically the best solution to everything.

[Klasis]

Baker: "In addition to loafs of bread and cake, we're now selling donuts! They're smaller than either but also tasty."
Normal Customer: "Yay!"

Baker: "In addition to loafs of bread and cake, we're now selling donuts! They're smaller than either but also tasty."
Herpaderp: "Why are you moving away from loafs?"

This sums it up. I enjoy this response. It made my day, but it is only the morning so maybe other things will make my day too.

[Adam Jensen]

I know majority of players dont raid but I dont see why the people who do raid are now being punished.

You answered your own question in your first post. It doesn't make sense to cater to the few, when the many pay your bills.

And you aren't being punished.

[Alilei32]

TL;DR: Blizz, your way of doing stuff sucks. My way is much better, listen to me.

It may surprise you to realise that your opinion is not automatically the best solution to everything.

Feel free to add to it then. Like how we can get away from the crappy idea that Blizzard thought up where One raid per tier that we have to do for 7 months with nothing else to raid because they also added some lame 5 mans that drop better loot than the old raids so no point in doing those old raids anymore..

[DreamCast]

Raiding is still going to be fine, just in a 10man format which will be where the real competitive raiding scene will be. 25 mans raids will be something not many people care about going fwd since there is under 3000 now compared to over 45000 10 man raiding guilds. With paragon also doing 10mans it's now the pinnacle of raiding in wow.

[Alilei32]

You answered your own question in your first post. It doesn't make sense to cater to the few, when the many pay your bills.

And you aren't being punished.

So what other things are they doing during with their time when developing a major content patch? Is it really hard for them to give us 2-3 raids per tier rather than 1 raid? Are they trying to make raiders quit? What else would there be to do at max level then if you dont PvP? Without raids there is nothing other than PvP.

[Kevyne-Shandris]

Also if you dont raid why do you fell the need to be walking around in raid quality gear?

Until Blizzard offers things like gear lockers (for forcing players to play in different spec to even quest) and tuning the world mobs for even healers to take down in dungeon gear, there will be always players seeking raid gear...to even quest.

[sulfuric]

The majority of players don't raid? Everyone raids in world of warcraft now. Everyone

[Yig]

First off, you have made a mistake in thinking Blizzard made this game for raiders, namely YOU and your raiding.

Raiding was never intended as the thing everyone should want to do in this game, and this is why only a small percentage of the player base has ever raided. In fact with the new changes to raiding, many many more people than ever before are trying it out.

Secondly, the amount of raid content is not going to shrink just because there are now more options for people that don't want to raid.

It's really a shame you typed all that in your OP.

[Darsithis]

Baker: "In addition to loafs of bread and cake, we're now selling donuts! They're smaller than either but also tasty."
Normal Customer: "Yay!"

Baker: "In addition to loafs of bread and cake, we're now selling donuts! They're smaller than either but also tasty."
Herpaderp: "Why are you moving away from loafs?"

Absolutely correct. This is the view I've been seeing lately, and it's frustrating. More in the game =/= your favorite things being taken away.

[grexly75]

Last I heard MoP is coming with 3 raids being gated over a month with Mogu Shan Vaults being first and will be something like Tier 13.5 or so, as there are no gear tokens as it is a step up raid for the other two. Those Heart of Fear and Terrace of Endless Spring being Tier 14 due to higher Ilevel loot and gear tokens.

[Crazyjoe]

Raiding is still going to be fine, just in a 10man format which will be where the real competitive raiding scene will be. 25 mans raids will be something not many people care about going fwd since there is under 3000 now compared to over 45000 10 man raiding guilds. With paragon also doing 10mans it's now the pinnacle of raiding in wow.

True, the 25 man raiding scene is dead and I am sure more top end guilds will realise hey we only competing with 3000 other 25 man raiding guilds doesn't actually mean we good. Lets drop down to 10man where we competing with over 45000 othere guilds.

Makes sense to me.

There was a post on the official forums where most players agreed that 10man raiding is the premier format to compete in.

[Hanto]

Baker: "In addition to loafs of bread and cake, we're now selling donuts! They're smaller than either but also tasty."
Normal Customer: "Yay!"

Baker: "In addition to loafs of bread and cake, we're now selling donuts! They're smaller than either but also tasty."
Herpaderp: "Why are you moving away from loafs?"

Thanks for this. It saved me a lot of nonsense reading! Too bad the logic path of half the posters on this site follows the logic described in your summary. xD

[Adam Jensen]

So what other things are they doing during with their time when developing a major content patch? Is it really hard for them to give us 2-3 raids per tier rather than 1 raid? Are they trying to make raiders quit? What else would there be to do at max level then if you dont PvP? Without raids there is nothing other than PvP.

Pet battles
Dailies
5 mans
Battlegrounds
Lower level content
Professions

They try to do something for everyone. No, they don't want you to quit (well, maybe you specifically, but not raiders in general.) They aren't going to cater to a minority group. Sorry, but that doesn't pay the bills. If the majority of the game doesn't raid, Blizzard isn't going to focus solely on raiding.

[Wildtree]

Baker: "In addition to loafs of bread and cake, we're now selling donuts! They're smaller than either but also tasty."
Normal Customer: "Yay!"

Baker: "In addition to loafs of bread and cake, we're now selling donuts! They're smaller than either but also tasty."
Herpaderp: "Why are you moving away from loafs?"

roflmao.. One cannot say it any better.... two thumbs up.

I was like W.H.A.T.? away from raiding? What am I missing.... /scratchinghead

[Elpalmo]

TLR: New raiding system sucks.

oh man i laughed when i saw the smiley

[Liara]

So what other things are they doing during with their time when developing a major content patch? Is it really hard for them to give us 2-3 raids per tier rather than 1 raid? Are they trying to make raiders quit? What else would there be to do at max level then if you dont PvP? Without raids there is nothing other than PvP.

Do you think they develop the raid over a month, then sit on their asses for the remainder of the time until they release it?
I doubt that very, very much.

[Deleted]

People raided Kara until the day Wrath went live for example.

Not by choice. It's like saying DS for 9+ months is fine, because people still raid it... It wasn't fun being stuck in Kara forever because you had to go back and gear new recruits all the time.

I mean theres always going to be drops that no one needs so gearing recruits shouldnt take that long when they can pick up they stuff that would otherwise get DE'd.

You don't want to go BACK and do that raid again, while you're already raiding 1 or 2 tiers higher for a few days a week, just to gear new recruits. It made the 'higher' (more progressed) guilds poach members from 'lower' guilds, so that those higher guilds didn't have to run OLD content and it condemned lower guilds to forever farm OLD content in a desperate effort to gear enough to move forward.

Bad idea, all of it. You should be able to step in to raiding at any point in an expansion, and not only at the start.