How to reward 25 man raids for "logistical effort"

[CDShaidar]

When I said 10s was "easy" I was comparing the formats as wholes, including logistics. Not much reason to argue about actual difficulty when logistics alone make 10s a lot easier to do than 25s.

And unfortunately, there is currently no real choice between 10s and 25s. There are very few 25s raiding guilds left, and they're dying faster than they're being made. And this isn't because players "prefer" tens, except from a pure effort vs. reward perspective. People do 10s because it's easier to organize, not because they (or the developers) have made any sort of rational determination that it's a better format.

In the US alone, there are more than 500 25man guilds doing T14 raid content which is more than 2 per server on average. For someone who decides they want to raid it's no more difficult to join a 25 man guild than it is a 10 man guild if you remove some of the archaic things like server transfer fees etc. People don't do 10s because it's easier to organize, people organize 10 mans because they are easier to organize, there is a HUGE distinction between those two.

[Deleted]

Why would anyone be bothered doing more work for the same reward? As a casual player there's really no choise to be made, 10 man is the only way to go these days. I would like to see seperate Achievements, Mounts and lockouts(normal only).

[CDShaidar]

Why would anyone be bothered doing more work for the same reward? As a casual player there's really no choise to be made, 10 man is the only way to go these days. I would like to see seperate Achievements, Mounts and lockouts(normal only).

What is this work people keep referring to? Maybe all the guild's I've been have been were unique in this respect, but there was no more work for the raiders in our 40 mans then there ended up being in our 25s and there wasn't any more work on those 25s than there is in 10 mans.

[McTurbo]

Because that's not what people are asking for? Or at least those who still care about something even remotely resembling a challenge. If you nerf 25s into 'almost but not quite LFR', this will increase its popularity, sure. At the same time, it will completely kill off 10 mans, since you'd be offering same rewards for trivial effort. And those who wanted the difficulty to remain the same, but merely needed some help with logistics? They gain nothing, except trivializing the format they used to raid in.

people are asking for success.. for more raiders to raid with.. dying constantly because 3-4 people keep wiping your raid means dumping the baddies and going 10 man.. their just isnt the player base anymore to recruit like their use to be to replace players.. with the added difficulty that keeps going up then eventually your going to have a major split in the player base.. (which is what we are seeing now) those with experience want more and harder content.. those without just want to be able to do the content with their guilds. nerfing 25 mans till we start to see more success is one way of accomplishing that. it hurts no one if your downing bosses now then your done with the content.. if your not. this helps you that much more.. a succesful raid keeps raiders coming back.. wipe fest = no one shows the next night.

[ZakAtack]

With regards to how hard each mode is, I think we can learn a bit from the ladders. 10s are easier for the average group because it is easier to get 10 good players in general. If you're Blood Legion or Method, you can be very picky and easily find 25 amazing raiders. But if you're just in a decent 10m that wants to go 25, it's going to be very difficult to find 15 good players and keep the 10 original happy in the meantime.

It's just hard really. You can point to the top of the ladders and all the 25s there because yes, the best players in the world generally understand that 25s give them much more flexibility and ease. Paragon seems to be an exception, which I believe is due to their requirements (I think they said that themselves).

Players go for the most rewards for the least amount of effort, and I don't want to sound like I'm blaming them for this. But I disagree with claims about players preferring 10s because of the social aspect, the "close knit group" preference. Just envision this for a second. Blizzard equalizes LFR gear with 10m but you can only run once per week. Which do you honestly think most people would switch to? Even if you were required to queue with no more than 5 in a group. Players would still go LFR because it would reward the most reward for the most effort.

A somewhat contrived example, but I hope the point is made. The popularity of 10s right now is due to the combination of path of least resistance and mutual exclusiveness of 10/25.

[leonking]

25man is dying. No one can save it because BLIZ want it this way. End of the story

[Deleted]

Most players don't care about testing their mettle, they do care about improving their toon.

That's why "I am forced to do dailes" etc

Which doesn't answer Why did bliz have to move the fun family and friends format that 10 man in wrath was to the current way that it is. Only because some elitist 10 man raiders complained about them not getting enough recognition.
The wrath raiding model was better it included more people. And gave more people a chance to raid with family and friends.
The wrath model was simply better than current MoP model, with its you have to do daylies and you have to do lfr everyday every week.

[Deleted]

Which doesn't answer Why did bliz have to move the fun family and friends format that 10 man in wrath was to the current way that it is. Only because some elitist 10 man raiders complained about them not getting enough recognition.
The wrath raiding model was better it included more people. And gave more people a chance to raid with family and friends.
The wrath model was simply better than current MoP model, with its you have to do daylies and you have to do lfr everyday every week.

Strict 10 man in wrath was nails, matey.

Everyone remembers Naxx 10, ulduar 10, ToC 10 and ICC 10 being a doddle because they did it in 25 man gear, with the best out of the 25 man raiding group they were in.

[Daggyz]

Strict 10 man in wrath was nails, matey.

Everyone remembers Naxx 10, ulduar 10, ToC 10 and ICC 10 being a doddle because they did it in 25 man gear, with the best out of the 25 man raiding group they were in.

Yes I do. But speaking for the person you quoted, it was enough for that type of crowd (which honestly made up most of the 10 man atmosphere) and enjoyable enough for them. I truly think this is a result of Blizzard catering to the few who complained. It needs to be simply like it was in WotLK. Ok great there is 10 mans now so people who aren't hardcore can raid too. Oh what's that? You want better gear and more recognition? Join a 25 man and work for it. It's honestly as simple as that and not giving in to demanding lazy people who want more for less. People in the best gear in 25 man guilds on the server was actually a feat and something one could look up to in awe and aspire to become, and if they put hard work and effort into their playing and character, they too could join a 25 man guild and be amongst the best. I found it disheartening and completely disregarding my efforts when I saw players who pug 10 mans with the heroic weapons or few pieces of gear that I would have being in a top 25 man guild.

All in all, there is no way 25 mans will survive with the state 10 & 25 mans are right now and were in Cata. Either do it like so in BC, having some raids 10 man only, and others 25 only. Or WotLK style which let the less hardcore/casual players a chance at raiding, while still keeping the hardcore players happy.

[Deleted]

What you just said here is that 25s are very unpopular with most people, and that the only reason they were ever as popular as they wer was because of the "carrot".

That being said, why should we provide a 25 man raid if we can provide players with a 10m format for which they don't need a carrot?



10s. You get to run with ALL your friends. You get more interesting mechanics in the fight. The logistics are about as hard as 5 man but much easier than 25s. You get a more interesting social dynamic. About the only reason for you to run a 5 man would be if you didn't have enough friends online sometime throughout the week.

Why is there still a debate on this? Sure, you want to make a point - but its a lousy example for the point you want to make.

EJL

Did I just read that? YOU are complaining as to why a debate which you repeat yourself a billion times is still going on? Your life would be pretty empty if it didnt.

[Deleted]

Strict 10 man in wrath was nails, matey.

Everyone remembers Naxx 10, ulduar 10, ToC 10 and ICC 10 being a doddle because they did it in 25 man gear, with the best out of the 25 man raiding group they were in.

Are you claiming that 10 man raids where more difficult in wrath than they are now...

In my opinion the 10 man format in wrath was simply a better format for family and friends. It was easier and more fun. And it did make it easier for not so skilled players to experience real raiding.
But well some elitist 10 man raiders didn't get enough recognition so woops there went the wrath raiding model down the drain.

[Talen]

the argument of forced content is quite weak, ppl are saying that with the 25 man having its own tier or any reward forces ppl to do it. no it creates desire to do it, you choose to go and do it, the same way you choose to MOVE INTO RAIDING FROM 5 MANS its a choice your not being forced but if you don't make that choice ofc you will miss out.

Gearing up is the name of the game. You put better loot somewhre, the nature of the game is that you go get it.

fact remains, if they gave 5 mans the ability to gear up the same as 10s and 25s, you would see the same thing happening to 10s, sure ppl would still run them but it would cause the same devoid.

THIS is the "debate" I was talking about. This talking point that keeps getting raised. 5s vs 10s is NOT the same as 10s vs 25s.

5s vs 10s: The 10s offer a lot the 5s can't provide. The additional logistics costs are negligbile.
10s vs 25s: 25s offer little or nothing 10s cannot also provide. The additional logistics costs are substantial.

With 5s vs 10s, you'd end up in a situation where the format you chose best suits your current needs: in this case, because the costs are the same, - how many friends you have online wanting to run the content.

With 25s vs 10s, you'd end up in a situation where the format you chose best suits your current needs: in this case, because the costs are so much greater for the raid leader, he likely reconsider running it in the first place so it doesn't get going at all. He forms a 10.

10 mans do have a carrot. It's the ability to get the same rewards for less effort and skill. Look at WotLK, the only reason 10s are popular today is the "carrot".

A carrot many players do not feel exists. There is a heavy debate on how successful Blizzard balancing has been. Some feel it is off, but other feel it is about right. There is an issue with logistics, but that is also an aspect that doesn't concern most raiders.

So people don't really want to raid 10s and would do 25s instead. Why should 10s then be artificially propped up instead of just left to die?

They shouldn't. By the same token, neither should 25s. And we all know what happened when 25s lost the better gear and access to exclusive content that kept that format popular.

A nice Freudian slip.

He's also right. You should read some of the horror stories of how some of the top guilds and players mess up, never mind everyone else.

The same dynamics that cause people to choose 10s over 25s now would cause people to choose 5s over 10s if that was an option.

The dynamics are not the sme. That's the point you keep overlooking with this point.

Your counter-argument - 10s would allow people to run with "all" their friends, have more interesting fight mechanics, and allow more interesting social dynamics - rely on arbitrary assumptions and could just as easily be used to argue that 25s should be more attractive than 10s.

No....because 25s are too big. The logistics costs goes from negligible to significant and the pluses turn into minuses - you are no longer raiding with just friends, but with guildies and PuGGers and so on; in short people other than their circle of friends. You keep the more interesting fight apect, but the costs have increased dramatically.

And because the dynamics are very different, the result will be very different.

This is a lousy example for the point you want to make because it relies on total ignorance of the factors which affect 25s.

And the whole "Path of Least Resistacne" argument is a poor one at best. Its oen that applies to riad leaders, but by applying it to the entire raiding spectruim of 10 mans, you essentially are saying anyone who runs a 10 man is lazy, good for nothing, and bad simply because he runs 10s...irrespective of the actual difficulty of the raid.

Which doesn't answer Why did bliz have to move the fun family and friends format that 10 man in wrath was to the current way that it is.

You mean, from a size perfect for family and friends but which was regarded as a joke and relatively unstable because 25s kept poaching the players to a size perfect for family and friends but which is regarded as an equal of the 25 man format and worthy in its own right?

Can't think what Blizzard were thinking of with that one.

The wrath model was simply better than current MoP model, with its you have to do daylies and you have to do lfr everyday every week.

Neither of which are actually part of the raid model.

Ok great there is 10 mans now so people who aren't hardcore can raid too. Oh what's that? You want better gear and more recognition? Join a 25 man and work for it.

And Blizzard decided 10 mans should be just as viable instead. That 10s needed to be equal to 25s. That the old model, with all its flaws and issues needed to go. No more would Blizzard have to try and adjust content around two or three gearing speeds. No more would 10s be seen as feeding grounds for 25 man guilds. No more would players be "forced" to abandon their guilds and friends because the 25 man offered them a better deal.

People in the best gear in 25 man guilds on the server was actually a feat and something one could look up to in awe and aspire to becom

Maybe...and now we have the heroic guilds filling the same role.

Or WotLK style which let the less hardcore/casual players a chance at raiding, while still keeping the hardcore players happy.

Which happens now:

let the less hardcore/casual players a chance at raiding - LFR and Normal.
still keeping the hardcore players happy - Heroic.

EJL

[Nakkí]

It might be harder to find more people, but 25s are much, much easier to execute than 10s. That is how they were designed.

It certainly felt this way to me.

I raided 25m Heroics from T8-T11 and 10m Heroics from T12-T14 and my own role in 25s felt decidedly simpler to fulfill in most cases. It certainly wasn't more complicated in any of them. The encounters also felt more forgiving to individual mistakes up to a point due to 3 brez and increased raid cooldowns & utility. Only getting peeps to come to the spot on time was more challenging sometimes.

[Deleted]

You mean, from a size perfect for family and friends but which was regarded as a joke and relatively unstable because 25s kept poaching the players to a size perfect for family and friends but which is regarded as an equal of the 25 man format and worthy in its own right

And Blizzard decided 10 mans should be just as viable instead. That 10s needed to be equal to 25s. That the old model, with all its flaws and issues needed to go. No morewould Blizzard have to try and adjust content around two or three gearing speeds. No more would 10s be seen as feeding grounds for 25 man guilds. No more would players be "forced" to abandon their guilds and friends because the 25 man offered them a better deal.

let the less hardcore/casual players a chance at raiding - LFR and Normal.
still keeping the hardcore players happy - Heroic.

10 man raiding was not a joke it was a fun format for family and friends in wrath and you could very well still raid in it with family and friends even if you did some 25 man raiding on the side.

And the only reason 10 man had to be pushed was because a vocal minority of elitist 10 man raiders did not feel appreciated enough.

And the current model is more like
family and friends casual players-- LFR
medicore raiders-- normal raiding
hardcore raiders-- heroic raiding

Casual and family and friends are more or less excluded from the fun social interaction of normal raiding.
And sure i know there are some very good casual players but there are also a lot of not so good players in that segment. Whose skill level was good enough for normal raiding in wrath but are now damned to do lfr.
Personally i probably schouldn't care because i am sitting pretty in my own raiding guild but maybe blizz schould care.
I do remember a post earlier in this thread where someone had posted numbers of the decline of the amount of people doing normal raiding from wrath to now.
And i think that a lot of those good old customers simply can't get into normal raiding anymore.

[Maleric]

It certainly felt this way to me.

I raided 25m Heroics from T8-T11 and 10m Heroics from T12-T14 and my own role in 25s felt decidedly simpler to fulfill in most cases. It certainly wasn't more complicated in any of them. The encounters also felt more forgiving to individual mistakes up to a point due to 3 brez and increased raid cooldowns & utility. Only getting peeps to come to the spot on time was more challenging sometimes.

Any effect that requires the entire raid to do something correctly is much harder on 25s because there are 2.5x as many people to screw up. If a fight has a mechanic that causes a wipe if someone screws up on it, that mechanic is harder because there are more people to screw up. If a fight has an enrage timer or other mechanic that requires everyone to be up for most of the fight (and newsflash, many hard modes do), then it's going to be much harder in 25s. The extra battle resses do not compensate because the risk that someone will screw up on any given effect is multiplicative, not additive. And nevermind that Blizzard can tune enrage timers, HPS checks, and DPS checks to be much, much tighter in 25s.

Of course, there are ways for Blizzard to counter the above, so I'm not necessarily saying that 25s are harder than 10s (although certain fights definitely have been). But the conventional 10s forum warrior wisdom that 10s require "greater responsibility" is total BS.

[KaPe]

10s always been easier to 'break', since class stacking is much easier and encounter design doesn't assume using multiple immunities, knockbacks, high power aoe's etc. Of course, it also works in reverse - poorly set up groups can have much bigger issues than 25s, which generally have access to everything (and are balanced accordingly). And that's why we get those "but you have 3 combat reses and every single buff" thingys.

[Granyala]

Agreed. 10man can be cruel if your combo sucks for that fight.

[Arbs]

Three words: Sanctified Gear Returns

[CDShaidar]

The extra battle resses do not compensate because the risk that someone will screw up on any given effect is multiplicative, not additive. And nevermind that Blizzard can tune enrage timers, HPS checks, and DPS checks to be much, much tighter in 25s.

Of course, there are ways for Blizzard to counter the above, so I'm not necessarily saying that 25s are harder than 10s (although certain fights definitely have been). But the conventional 10s forum warrior wisdom that 10s require "greater responsibility" is total BS.

Firstly, they aren't multiplicative. The only case where it behaves that way is if you assume zero mistakes can be made in either raid type, then, you can just multiply the correct probabilities. Let's ignore the fact that what you said is wrong, and just address the issue that what you seem to be arguing actually proves the opposite of your conclusion for most fights. If we take, as a measure of individual skill, the frequency which an individual makes a mistake, the fact that you have 10 man raids taking the same order of magnitude in pulls to kill a boss would mean that the skill required is higher of each individual in the 10 man.
Unfortunately it's very rarely the "skill" of an individual that determines how many pulls it takes to kill an encounter but much more likely it's how long it takes your slowest learning player to learn the encounter. That is something that depends only on your "weakest link" so to speak and if you're assuming 25 and 10 people of equal skill and learning abilities, you have the same value for your weakest link.

Also, battle resses are not the only thing that is more "relaxed", let's take two examples from HoF. On Zor'lok, and the Noise Cancelling Zones, in 10H you get 4 zones, each can only hold 3 people. In 25H you get 4 zones, each can only hold 7. In 10 man you have 2 zones with 3 and two zones with 2, in 25 man you have only one zone with 7, the rest all have 6, thus allowing more "error" and yet still not causing a failure to that mechanic.
Let's take another example, on Blade Lord and his Unseen Strike, if you have all 10 players or all 25 players in the cleave they all take 450k damage on heroic. Let's say each raid has one player not make it in, the damage taken becomes 500k on 10 man but only 469k on 25 man.

In the end it all comes down to blizzard's tuning as to which fights are harder on 10 vs. 25 man but it is their goal that they are equally difficult and if you take that as their goal then if that goal is achieved, the only thing that needs to be addressed is a way to handle the logistics of getting 25 people together every week vs 10 people. This is a burden that falls only on the raid leaders or guild masters and I think we can all agree that these people shouldn't be rewarded more than a "normal" raider. This means that the only real solution for this problem is for blizzard to make it easier to gather together people who want to do the same type of content so that the difference between having to find 10 vs 25 are negligible.

[Maleric]

Firstly, they aren't multiplicative. The only case where it behaves that way is if you assume zero mistakes can be made in either raid type, then, you can just multiply the correct probabilities. Let's ignore the fact that what you said is wrong, and just address the issue that what you seem to be arguing actually proves the opposite of your conclusion for most fights. If we take, as a measure of individual skill, the frequency which an individual makes a mistake, the fact that you have 10 man raids taking the same order of magnitude in pulls to kill a boss would mean that the skill required is higher of each individual in the 10 man.
Unfortunately it's very rarely the "skill" of an individual that determines how many pulls it takes to kill an encounter but much more likely it's how long it takes your slowest learning player to learn the encounter. That is something that depends only on your "weakest link" so to speak and if you're assuming 25 and 10 people of equal skill and learning abilities, you have the same value for your weakest link.

Also, battle resses are not the only thing that is more "relaxed", let's take two examples from HoF. On Zor'lok, and the Noise Cancelling Zones, in 10H you get 4 zones, each can only hold 3 people. In 25H you get 4 zones, each can only hold 7. In 10 man you have 2 zones with 3 and two zones with 2, in 25 man you have only one zone with 7, the rest all have 6, thus allowing more "error" and yet still not causing a failure to that mechanic.
Let's take another example, on Blade Lord and his Unseen Strike, if you have all 10 players or all 25 players in the cleave they all take 450k damage on heroic. Let's say each raid has one player not make it in, the damage taken becomes 500k on 10 man but only 469k on 25 man.

In the end it all comes down to blizzard's tuning as to which fights are harder on 10 vs. 25 man but it is their goal that they are equally difficult and if you take that as their goal then if that goal is achieved, the only thing that needs to be addressed is a way to handle the logistics of getting 25 people together every week vs 10 people. This is a burden that falls only on the raid leaders or guild masters and I think we can all agree that these people shouldn't be rewarded more than a "normal" raider. This means that the only real solution for this problem is for blizzard to make it easier to gather together people who want to do the same type of content so that the difference between having to find 10 vs 25 are negligible.

Regarding mechanics that require the entire raid to do something correctly, the risk of failure is obviously multiplicative. If a mechanic will wipe the raid if one person fails to it, and x is the chance that any given raid member will fail to it, then the risk of failure is (1-x)^10 on 10s and (1-x)^25 on 25s. I guess you could call that exponential instead of multiplicative, but I think the point stands either way. Not sure why you're blathering on about mechanics that - don't - require the entire raid to do something correctly, as that isn't what I was talking about in the paragraph that you (partially) quoted and were apparently responding to.

Regarding mechanics that don't require the raid to do something correctly - so like survivable raid damage or whatever - I think those fall in to the category of ways for Blizzard to counter the above effect. Potentially. Obviously whether a given effect is harder on 10s or 25s is specific to that particular effect. And it's hard to discuss whether these effects are harder on 10 or 25 objectively, highlighted by the fact that you seem to think having 12 noise cancellation spots for 10 people on Zor'lok is somehow more challenging than having 28 spots for 25 (if after re-examination you still need this explained to you, let me know!).

Your reference to unseen strike, again, is based on poor math and poor overall comprehension of the subject. Yes, obviously one person missing it in 10 is more problematic than one person missing it on 25. But that's comparing apples to oranges. Given equal groups, one person missing it on 10s is as likely as 2-3 people missing it on 25s.

And, of course, you tellingly totally ignored the part of my post about enrages, DPS checks, and HPS checks being much tighter on 25s.