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  1. #21
    Had this typed up then got busy so it timed out...

    We are comparing the first and second raid tiers of MoP vs. the last tiers of Wrath and Cata; the last tiers both running a span of over 8 months, vs. tiers that will last 6 months tops. Also, consider both ICC and DS had the stacking raidwide buff over time. I daresay it helped to delude people's expectations of the difficulty of heroic enounters...but this thread isn't about heroic encounters.

    Regarding ICC 10 man, before the stacking buff eroded the difficulty, you had 25 man guilds (at a time when there were as many or more 25 mans than 10s) who would divvy up members and run 1-2 10 man runs the same week, since the lockouts weren't shared. They would come in the door in what amounted to 10 man heroic gear, due to ilvl difference.

    With DS, I would think the number drop off from guilds on Marrowgar vs. Morchok has more to do with what occured earlier in the expansion, with the first heroic dungeons + T11 being very punitive compared to the lulzfest we had gotten accustomed to in ICC, with it's 30% buff and a LOT of people being in mostly heroic 25 man gear.

    Also, just because numbers are dropping off (this point applies more to ToT) doesn't mean these guilds are just vanishing. Of, say, the 5k that downed Jin'rokh but aren't account for on Horridon, that doesn't mean they aren't still logging on and trying to get him.

    I dread to see what normal mode numbers for T14 and T15 would look like had LFR not been implemented.

  2. #22
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    Quote Originally Posted by Zellviren View Post
    I look forward to seeing it.
    Imo it is something you should have done yourself. Instead of taking completely irrelevant numbers actaully looking at the numbers at the same stage of progress would atleast put some weight into your first post. As it stands it means nothing.
    Last edited by mmoc19426eb488; 2013-05-30 at 04:04 PM.

  3. #23
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    Quote Originally Posted by Kazgrel View Post
    I dread to see what normal mode numbers for T14 and T15 would look like had LFR not been implemented.
    The crash starts at tier 11, prior to the introduction of LFR, and continues into the Firelands.

    LFR is not to blame.

    Quote Originally Posted by Waterbeetle44 View Post
    Imo it is something you should have done yourself. Instead of taking completely irrelevant numbers actaully looking at the numbers at the same stage of progress would atleast put some weight into your first post. As it stands it means nothing.
    This was a very quick first attempt to take a general look at how raiding numbers have moved on, and look for possible explanations as to why (against a plummeting subscriber base). It would be meaningless if most of the commentary didn't concentrate on Mists of Pandaria... Which it does.

    Funnily enough, I'm pretty robust about criticism for the sake of criticism.

  4. #24
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    A lot of the drops in player is also to blame on the 30%/35% buff got people accustomed to easy raiding. When those buffs suddenly disappeared in the next tier, they got wrecked. Since they had to play a lot better to be at the same level. People were clearing the raid only thanks to the buff, and expected the same result in the following tier. Same effect that we had with Cata 5HCs. They were not really harder than WotLK HCs. But people got used to running WotLK HCs with ilvl 264 gear. Far above what they were tuned for, then they get into level appropriate heroics and suddenly it gets to hard. It was not because the HCs was harder than before, just that people are suprised when they get the appropriate content.

    So what you are seeing as a "drop" in normal mode raids, can just as easily, and probably more likely, be explained by:

    30/35% nerfs
    The addition of LFR
    New expansions making 5 HCs on-par with gear level again
    The shifted focus in MoP to grind daily quests instead of raiding
    Loss of subs

    All of which has pretty logical reasons to why raiding participation dropped.

    There is actually far more evidence of this as there is no evidence supporting that normals got harder if you look at normals in the appropriate timeline. In reality, what you would see is ToT being an outlier being far 'easier' than the other raids, after that, raiding has been pretty much on the same level, T8, T10 and T11 being amongst the harder and T12,T13,T14,T15 being on the lower end of the pool.

  5. #25
    "No matter how you slice it, LFR is the best thing to happen to hardcore raiding in the history of WoW. LFR lets a lot more people see the raids, which means you can justify spending more resources building it. And I'm not talking the ecounter design - that's the easy and cheap part. LFR pays for new models, expansive zones, new spell effects, new ability types (extra action button, wind, etc). Because of LFR it now actually makes financial sense to pour the effort into heavy raiding."

    Where's your statistics to prove this? LFR isn't generating population. People aren't subscribing to wow as a new user because they hear about LFR. Actually, LFR is using a great deal of the same population that were typically excited about normal raid content and have now returned to isolation thinking they still have some attachment to raiding because it happens to include the word 'raid' in the feature. I use LFR absolutely and frankly it sucks, but I'm a casual player that is looking to restructure my 10m core and as soon as that happens I can't wait to throw it behind me. LFR should not be incorporated into the numbers because it's a different game all together. It isn't a raid, as raids take a planned group effort and approach, it was one of the key elements of Blizzard's creation here.

  6. #26
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    Quote Originally Posted by Zellviren View Post
    The crash starts at tier 11, prior to the introduction of LFR, and continues into the Firelands.

    LFR is not to blame.
    Or you know. With a bit of reasoning you can probably find the reason for that.

    1. The split of 10/25 lockout, meaning less pugs, less guilds running multiple difficulties.
    2. The split of the 10/25 lockout shattering guilds making people make new guilds. New guilds has never made up the same % of the raiding guilds as it did in the start of Cata. There were new guilds EVERYWHERE. But what happens with new guilds? The split up. A lot of people quit in the early weeks of an expansion, they level up to new level cap and realise, fuck it, not for me. So many guilds split their 25 man groups in 10 man groups, and a lot of those guilds didnt last. They were not well thought through and had bad dynamics. So having so many new guilds was a big part of the "crash".
    3. 30% buff in ICC that had been out for 12 months. People were not used to raiding anymore, they had not had serious raiding content for like 9 months.
    Once they got actual raiding content they got shocked.

  7. #27
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    Quote Originally Posted by Waterbeetle44 View Post
    A lot of the drops in player is also to blame on the 30%/35% buff got people accustomed to easy raiding.
    You need to concentrate on what happened from Mists of Pandaria and onward, as you start to see the dramatic drop off happen there with none of the lack of acclimatisation you're attributing all this to. A significantly higher number of people killed Lord Marrowgar early in his life than did the Stone Guard, and a significantly higher number of people stuck with organised raiding than has done in this expansion.

  8. #28
    Quote Originally Posted by Zellviren View Post
    The crash starts at tier 11, prior to the introduction of LFR, and continues into the Firelands.

    LFR is not to blame.
    Starts at T11? Again, what about Ulduar? What about BC raids? Your numbers may be accurate but they lack context.

    T11 was an amazing tier with a good difficulty level, in my opinion. It was interesting, and provided multiple avenues for progression, since their were 3 raids to be completed simultaneously.

    T14 was not terribly fun, for me, but that's because I didn't like the fights, not because they were too hard, just not fun.

  9. #29
    Very interesting read, well done OP.

    I do believe the following:

    5 mans are way too easy.

    Raiding could be more simplified in some aspects. Each raid instance should ease into the difficulty as the players advance to end boss. Many fights now have too many phases at times. People want (I believe) to have to put out some numbers (dps/healing/tanking) to succeed but not necessarily have to move 20 times per minute to counteract phases/abilities. Some movement is ok, and perhaps more so on the last 2-3 bosses in an instance. Less gimmicks but more solid teamwork between the three (dps/heals/tanks)

    Instead of early to mid bosses have so many phases, make it more so the three can mesh better with less moving but more areas that show off the need to play your character well and how the team aspects play a big part. I like hard but then there is just annoying hard where you need to jump through hoops at a certain time way too many times.

    Sometimes people just want to play their class well, put out the numbers and wearing the right gear. Yes phases are needed but sooo many movement fights now a days. It's a difficult balance I am sure but there could be more hard fights where the fight concept is easier but the difficulty remains harder.

    Not sure I explained that well enough.

    Again, 5 mans really need to harder.

    and...less char homogenization.

    ---------- Post added 2013-05-30 at 04:17 PM ----------

    Clarification a bit:

    So less phases but the 2-3 phases needed on earlier bosses can still be hard. The last 2 boss can have a shit ton of phases and be hard.

  10. #30
    ToT is easily among the hardest normal raids. Really unforgiving for mistakes on quite a couple encounters and tuned for definitely more gear than usual. Furthermore they removed the gradual nerf/buff system and let itemlvl fix it. Add to that lfr being really time consuming I am not terribly astonished that it developed as it did.

  11. #31
    Quote Originally Posted by Waterbeetle44 View Post
    Or you know. With a bit of reasoning you can probably find the reason for that.

    1. The split of 10/25 lockout, meaning less pugs, less guilds running multiple difficulties.
    2. The split of the 10/25 lockout shattering guilds making people make new guilds. New guilds has never made up the same % of the raiding guilds as it did in the start of Cata. There were new guilds EVERYWHERE. But what happens with new guilds? The split up. A lot of people quit in the early weeks of an expansion, they level up to new level cap and realise, fuck it, not for me. So many guilds split their 25 man groups in 10 man groups, and a lot of those guilds didnt last. They were not well thought through and had bad dynamics. So having so many new guilds was a big part of the "crash".
    3. 30% buff in ICC that had been out for 12 months. People were not used to raiding anymore, they had not had serious raiding content for like 9 months.
    Once they got actual raiding content they got shocked.
    While I don't necessary disagree with you, a lot of the points you bring up are unsubstantiated claims. OP's examples have their holes too, but I think the numbers do a decent job of illustrating the point that OP is trying to make - raiding is seeing a trend of becoming more difficult...or at least seeing a higher rate of attrition than we've seen in the past.

  12. #32
    Quote Originally Posted by Zellviren View Post
    You need to concentrate on what happened from Mists of Pandaria and onward, as you start to see the dramatic drop off happen there with none of the lack of acclimatisation you're attributing all this to. A significantly higher number of people killed Lord Marrowgar early in his life than did the Stone Guard, and a significantly higher number of people stuck with organised raiding than has done in this expansion.
    Your numbers don't show what happened early in Marrowgar's life. They show what had happened by the end of the tier.

  13. #33
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    ofc normal content numbers are dropping. the only ppl running it are pugs. the vast majority are just doing LFR because there is no incentive to do normal mode at all. gear looks the same, and no commitment needed.

  14. #34
    Quote Originally Posted by kingpinuk880 View Post
    ofc normal content numbers are dropping. the only ppl running it are pugs. the vast majority are just doing LFR because there is no incentive to do normal mode at all. gear looks the same, and no commitment needed.
    I don't think you read his post all the way through. Do so and get back to us.

    He is NOT talking about the number of people CURRENTLY running normal modes. He's talking about those who have cleared them, at any time, during the tier.

  15. #35
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    Good work. But I'll Doubt you'll be much agreement on these forums. To many people with with a vested interest in keep the current failboat system in place.

    Blizzard have said themselves, failing 25's can go to 10's then perhaps back-up. When 10's fail, they usually stop. They don't see LFR as an 'engaging' format, unlike actual raiding.

    Yet despite the obvious fact that destroying 95% of 25 man Guilds in Cataclysm caused a massive drop in raiding, most people will still try to claim that the 10/25 split was good for 'the game' (e.g. good for them personally).

  16. #36
    when looking at statistics you MUST look at variables in which these graphs in no way do unfortunately. there is much more to it then just simply throwing up kills. For starters as others mentioned, the numbers for DS and ICC are AFTER nerfs were in place NOT progression only. 2 HIGHLY DIFFERENT things. That alone nullifies everything about those charts. Also you must take into account the decline in subscribers during this time which limits the amount of guilds which limits kills. Its not a simple post numbers thing and compare as it makes this argument VERY subjective. This in no way proves the point of raiding being too hard. You have to go back to PRE-Nerf kills in each tier and base off the percentages.

  17. #37
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    Quote Originally Posted by Thirtyrock View Post
    Your numbers don't show what happened early in Marrowgar's life. They show what had happened by the end of the tier.
    No, mate, they weren't supposed to. I'm speaking from a quick check.

    Quote Originally Posted by elyetra View Post
    Yet despite the obvious fact that destroying 95% of 25 man Guilds in Cataclysm caused a massive drop in raiding, most people will still try to claim that the 10/25 split was good for 'the game' (e.g. good for them personally).
    That's a bigger topic, but I think the whole endgame model needs a rethink. Too much effort is being expended on too few people, and I don't see how that helps the game in the longer term; especially when players are disappearing so quickly.

    Of course, that's NOT to say that the lost subscriptions are purely because of harder raids. I just think too much effort is being spent keeping happy too small a percentage of the player base.

    ---------- Post added 2013-05-30 at 05:36 PM ----------

    Quote Originally Posted by pallyopness View Post
    when looking at statistics you MUST look at variables in which these graphs in no way do unfortunately. there is much more to it then just simply throwing up kills. For starters as others mentioned, the numbers for DS and ICC are AFTER nerfs were in place NOT progression only. 2 HIGHLY DIFFERENT things. That alone nullifies everything about those charts. Also you must take into account the decline in subscribers during this time which limits the amount of guilds which limits kills. Its not a simple post numbers thing and compare as it makes this argument VERY subjective. This in no way proves the point of raiding being too hard. You have to go back to PRE-Nerf kills in each tier and base off the percentages.
    I've tried to be clear about the problems with the first two graphs, and that they are in no way perfect.

    Concentrate on what's discussed from Mists of Pandaria onward and you'll get much, much more out of the debate.

  18. #38
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    Quote Originally Posted by Zellviren View Post
    You need to concentrate on what happened from Mists of Pandaria and onward, as you start to see the dramatic drop off happen there with none of the lack of acclimatisation you're attributing all this to. A significantly higher number of people killed Lord Marrowgar early in his life than did the Stone Guard, and a significantly higher number of people stuck with organised raiding than has done in this expansion.
    Didnt the 35% buff happen in the last tier of Cata? ^^

    Also daily quests, LFR. Yes, this all existed in Cata. But it became a much bigger factor in MoP.

  19. #39
    Quote Originally Posted by Zellviren View Post
    That's a bigger topic, but I think the whole endgame model needs a rethink. Too much effort is being expended on too few people, and I don't see how that helps the game in the longer term; especially when players are disappearing so quickly.
    Doubt that. This game specifically always actually had too many players for the type of content it provided. I don't see how you would want to change that. The problem with players disappearing faster isn't really helped if you have no reason at all anymore for social contacts within the game.

  20. #40
    Quote Originally Posted by elyetra View Post
    Good work. But I'll Doubt you'll be much agreement on these forums. To many people with with a vested interest in keep the current failboat system in place.

    Blizzard have said themselves, failing 25's can go to 10's then perhaps back-up. When 10's fail, they usually stop. They don't see LFR as an 'engaging' format, unlike actual raiding.

    Yet despite the obvious fact that destroying 95% of 25 man Guilds in Cataclysm caused a massive drop in raiding, most people will still try to claim that the 10/25 split was good for 'the game' (e.g. good for them personally).
    Wait, What?

    Ok, I like the current tier of raiding. I enjoy it being challenging, I want it to stay that way.

    Now, I want the current system, in the sense that I get challenging and fun content, to stay in place.

    Do I want fewer people raiding? No, but only because I want the game to continue, and for me and my guild to continue to get content, which is one of the reasons I like the existence of LFR, because it gets more people raiding and helps me get more content.

    I dont' know that your "obvious fact" is, in fact, a fact. We know that tons of 25s split up, but I haven't seen anything to suggest that there was a correlative drop in raiding numbers. It IS a fact that more people are seeing content through LFR than ever saw it through normals and heroics. So that could be considered an INCREASE in raiding, but many don't consider LFR to be raiding in any sense of the word.

    The 10/25 split happened, It was good for me personally. These are two things that are true, at htis point. I preferred raiding in 25 man, but couldn't' do it with my current guild, few of them have the patience and the officers don't have the organizational skills. I do know that in Wrath in order for me to do 10 & 25 I was raiding 5 days a week and that's not ok for me. That's my biggest problem with the 10/25 thing, is the time commitment, and the burnout from raiding the same place twice a week to get optimal loot.

    What do I, personally, want to see happen? A good enough incentive to run 25s that my guild decides it is worth the effort, but not something that requires me to run both each week. I'd also like to see some way to make it easier to get good recruits. I'd also like to win the lottery.

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