20 Man Mythic: Success or Failure?

[Trifande]

It a great idea. Lacked a few things in execution... Here's a few thoughts:

(a) Forcing 25 mans to go 20, was hard on them, but manageable. Either via keeping the extra as backups or dropping them.
(b) Forcing 10 mans to go 20, was insane, not manageable for the majority. Yes, a fair few 10m guilds either recruited or merged, but the majority* did not.
(c) Point (b) could've been alleviated in 2 ways, neither of which Blizz allowed: (i) Free realm xFers**, thereby making it easier for people to find the right guild. or (ii) Make guilds and raids completely cross-server***.
(d) Whilst the raids were fantasmic, especially most mythic encounters... I feel that more class-specific mechanics could've been utilized in Mythic modes.

* Pure assumption on my part, feel free to prove me wrong.
** Yes, there are negatives to this, but it could've been executed in a limited fashion, e.g. either by 1 xFer per month, or a gift of 5 free xFers. Also, for the benefit of those with a myriad of alts, xFers should really be account/realm-wide; i.e. a single xFer should allow someone to move all of their chars from one realm to another, in bulk.
*** I personally believe that servers should be scrapped and each region should be treated as a single player base, but I'm unsure if the tech supports that yet.

[I Push Buttons]

Blizzard's greatest mistake of all time is listening to entitled casuals and whiners.

A dedicated minority is what makes a game great, others will flock to it if these people build a great community.

Except they did the complete opposite of that... They made an expansion tailored exclusively to the ~1% of players who did mythic. And it is pretty obvious how that turned out.

[Deleted]

Except they did the complete opposite of that... They made an expansion tailored exclusively to the ~1% of players who did mythic. And it is pretty obvious how that turned out.

Nah I'm a mythic raider and I hate WoD. There's no content outside of raiding.

[Deleted]

20-man mythic raiding, it has been such a huge failure, that they are introducing 5-man raiding in legion.
It has been like one of those very expensive "artistic" amazing movies, that the great public is never interested in watching, and they end up being a gigantic business failure.
If 5-man Mythic+ works as intended, mythic raiding will be either removed, or changed into 10-man, or even less people format, raiding.

[I Push Buttons]

Nah I'm a mythic raider and I hate WoD. There's no content outside of raiding.

Which is exactly what heroic raiders bitched for during MoP. Anytime there was even a hint of something they were "forced" to do outside of raiding, they pissed and moaned. Blizzard obliged them, and then some.

[Relapses]

It a great idea. Lacked a few things in execution... Here's a few thoughts:

(a) Forcing 25 mans to go 20, was hard on them, but manageable. Either via keeping the extra as backups or dropping them.
(b) Forcing 10 mans to go 20, was insane, not manageable for the majority. Yes, a fair few 10m guilds either recruited or merged, but the majority* did not.
(c) Point (b) could've been alleviated in 2 ways, neither of which Blizz allowed: (i) Free realm xFers**, thereby making it easier for people to find the right guild. or (ii) Make guilds and raids completely cross-server***.
(d) Whilst the raids were fantasmic, especially most mythic encounters... I feel that more class-specific mechanics could've been utilized in Mythic modes.

* Pure assumption on my part, feel free to prove me wrong.
** Yes, there are negatives to this, but it could've been executed in a limited fashion, e.g. either by 1 xFer per month, or a gift of 5 free xFers. Also, for the benefit of those with a myriad of alts, xFers should really be account/realm-wide; i.e. a single xFer should allow someone to move all of their chars from one realm to another, in bulk.
*** I personally believe that servers should be scrapped and each region should be treated as a single player base, but I'm unsure if the tech supports that yet.

Of your suggestions, only cross-realm guilds has a remote possibility of happening. Free realm xfer's are not likely to happen when Blizzard can merge realms instead. The majority of players who are apposed to 20M were displaced because they used to raid 10M HC and they believe that Blizzard needs to cater to their exclusive demands. Raid participation in Mythic has never been the goal of this game and Blizzard allowing casual HC players for Cata/MoP gave these players a sense of entitlement that has yet to dissipate despite their hard line stance against catering to them.

[Trifande]

Blizzard's greatest mistake of all time is listening to entitled casuals and whiners.


A dedicated minority is what makes a game great, others will flock to it if these people build a great community.

Except they did the complete opposite of that... They made an expansion tailored exclusively to the ~1% of players who did mythic. And it is pretty obvious how that turned out.

Two extremist points of view. Unsurprising how they both fail to see Blizz' error and instead blame each other's ideologies for their frustrations with the game.
Blizz ffed up by not catering to 'content'...

Neither an untoward focus on hardcores (least # raids in an expac), nor a disproportionate focus on casuals (least # of patches/dungeons in an expac) is to blame for the problems of WoD. Legion 'seems' to be addressing all of this, but only time will tell :/ ...

[Deleted]

Raid participation in Mythic has never been the goal of this game.

Yep i agree, but making people get away from any previous difficulty of raiding, because mythic is 20-man only, it is a side effect blizzard never took into account when designing 20-man mythic.
It is not that previous 10-man groups stayed in heroic or merged for mythic, as i would dare guess blizzard thought, it is that they left the game, or at least abandoned raiding, something that blizz was not for sure aiming at.

[Trifande]

Of your suggestions, only cross-realm guilds has a remote possibility of happening. Free realm xfer's are not likely to happen when Blizzard can merge realms instead. The majority of players who are apposed to 20M were displaced because they used to raid 10M HC and they believe that Blizzard needs to cater to their exclusive demands. Raid participation in Mythic has never been the goal of this game and Blizzard allowing casual HC players for Cata/MoP gave these players a sense of entitlement that has yet to dissipate despite their hard line stance against catering to them.

If Blizz had invested in making the transition easier, the community would've been better for it as a whole. Unfortunately, Blizz decided to leave the labors of transition wholly in the hands of the community, without ANY additional tools/assistance.

Not maintaining 10m Mythic is/was an appropriate decision. Ignoring the desires of a significant minority portion of the community, which would have close to no negative impact on the rest of the community was a failure on Blizz' part. Given, in the short term the monetary/personnel cost of implementing tools/support mechanisms might not have appealed to the 'business', but the improved customer satisfaction should've made the investment feel worthwhile.

Also, increased participation across the board in all avenues of 'content' (whether that by Mythic, PvP, raiding, pet battles, professions, etc.) has ALWAYS been the goal of the game and Blizzard. Being blind to that shows an acute lack of understanding of not only the business model, but also of the philosophy of Blizzard (accessibility being a core focus) and the desires of any large community.

[I Push Buttons]

Two extremist points of view. Unsurprising how they both fail to see Blizz' error and instead blame each other's ideologies for their frustrations with the game.
Blizz ffed up by not catering to 'content'...

Neither an untoward focus on hardcores (least # raids in an expac), nor a disproportionate focus on casuals (least # of patches/dungeons in an expac) is to blame for the problems of WoD. Legion 'seems' to be addressing all of this, but only time will tell :/ ...

Well I mean there is actual evidence for my extremist view...

They bitched that their guilds "forced" them to grind reps to buy gear from vendors... So Blizzard removed all gear from vendors.
They bitched that their guilds "forced" them to run LFR to get sets and trinkets early in a patch because the new tier was much stronger than the previous tier... So Blizzard removed sets and good trinkets from LFR.
They bitched that their guilds "forced" them to run dungeons to get valor to upgrade their gear... So (for a time) Blizzard removed gear upgrades and valor.
They bitched that they needed to reforge their gear... So reforging was removed.
They bitched that they needed to gem and enchant their gear... So jewel crafting was curb stomped and only a few pieces of enchants any more.

That Paladin Tank streamer who partakes in the world first races... Trekkie... He said it best... "If there is a way to improve your gear outside of raiding then the best guilds will force their players to grind it." (Paraphrased-ish)

[Toppy]

Absolute failure in that it failed in the greatest purpose a game mechanic can have: retaining people.

It alienated an already shrinking playerbase. It should never have made it past the testing that SoO went through, since from the very start raiding guilds were saying its going to tear them apart which is exactly what happened. The only thing WoD did right was raiding, but even that was a fuck up when it comes down to it due to the attrocious way they handled the mythics.

I've still never seen a good arguement on why flex couldn't apply to mythic as well. Blizz said they wanted class specific mechanics to make that set 20m worthwhile, but this never happened.

[Deleted]

20 man mythic only made the world first race more important, with all the guilds going against each other instead of having 2 different world first races.

[Relapses]

Yep i agree, but making people get away from any previous difficulty of raiding, because mythic is 20-man only, it is a side effect blizzard never took into account when designing 20-man mythic.
It is not that previous 10-man groups stayed in heroic or merged for mythic, as i would dare guess blizzard thought, it is that they left the game, or at least abandoned raiding, something that blizz was not for sure aiming at.

I mean, this is the point of contention that causes a lot of problems when discussing this topic. I've gone into great detail on this subject in other threads but the tl,dr of my opinion is that 10M HC being introduced with gear parity in Cata was a mistake from the beginning. Blizzard devs have often commented that they prefer designing encounters for larger raids and 10M class representation is always going to be a problem in a game with as many classes/specs as WoW has currently. They tried for two expansions to level the playing field by catering to both 10 and 25M HC groups (with the impetus clearly leaning towards 25M on Blizzard's side as evidenced by the enticements they added [increased WF'd chance/more loot]). It resulted in raids which were, imo, not as well balanced and tuned as the ones we've seen in WoD.

Granted, this is an opinion but because of it I'm glad Blizzard has decided not to kowtow to the playerbase which was displaced since I believe raid design functionality should always usurp participation.

[Delekii]

I'm ok with 20 man Mythic. Might aswell be 25 though.

- - - Updated - - -



Blizzard's greatest mistake of all time is listening to entitled casuals and whiners.

A dedicated minority is what makes a game great, others will flock to it if these people build a great community.

Lol, if you say so.

When there is a large pool of casuals and whiners (otherwise known as everybody except the 1%), some of those casuals and whiners eventually become raiders, and some of those eventually become hardcore raiders.

When there is nobody below hardcore raiders, there is nobody to become hardcore raiders.

Nobody whined and moaned for LFR, I don't think anyone conceptualised it until Blizzard made it. It was a response to a lack of participation in raiding, which is where Blizzard wanted people to focus.

The same is partially true of 10-man raiding. For whatever reasons, people used and loved 10-man raiding. Blizzard tried to force them into 20man to increase their design space, but unlike LFR which had massive uptake, 20man raiding has coexisted with the least-used hardcore raiding content since BC. It isn't about Blizzard listening to whiners and casuals in the sense of people on the forums whinging about stuff. It's about Blizzard interpreting the actions of the playerbase and realising that it isn't what people want out of the game. Of course, they are within their rights to say bugger off and continue pushing the 20man path; they can choose to have less people take part in the content again if they feel that is more important than the number of people actually playing the game.

Personally, I am hopeful (but not naive) that the new dungeon system may in some way fill some of the hole that 10-man raiding filled. It has the potential for semi-competitive progression on a small-man scale, and cannot be outscaled by gear. On the same note, it isn't as intrinsically repetitive as challenge modes were, nor does it have as limited a scope of reward system. Of course, it's extremely likely that if it is successful, Blizzard will neuter it, or they may just chicken out in the first place. I had the same hopes for challenge modes in the first place, and they turned out to be very disappointing on this front.

[Azalar]

It sounds good from the point of view of balance and tuning, but in all other areas it was a complete failure in my opinion. In my case, not only had we to recruit around 15 extra people, but also manage them. Sure we cleared until Velhari, but the essence we previously had raiding in 10 man was completely lost. Raiding felt pointless.

Needless to say, after all this time trying mythic, attendance is the true boss here. Sure it still happened in 10 man, but it was more manageable. I'd rather have 10 man with 1 or 2 extra flex spots. Flex is just too good both conceptually and in the practice.

Another major issue is the philosophy underlying each mode. The gap from heroic to mythic is just too wide, it is a completely different story.

[Delekii]

I mean, this is the point of contention that causes a lot of problems when discussing this topic. I've gone into great detail on this subject in other threads but the tl,dr of my opinion is that 10M HC being introduced with gear parity in Cata was a mistake from the beginning. Blizzard devs have often commented that they prefer designing encounters for larger raids and 10M class representation is always going to be a problem in a game with as many classes/specs as WoW has currently. They tried for two expansions to level the playing field by catering to both 10 and 25M HC groups (with the impetus clearly leaning towards 25M on Blizzard's side as evidenced by the enticements they added [increased WF'd chance/more loot]). It resulted in raids which were, imo, not as well balanced and tuned as the ones we've seen in WoD.

Granted, this is an opinion but because of it I'm glad Blizzard has decided not to kowtow to the playerbase which was displaced since I believe raid design functionality should always usurp participation.

You can enjoy your masterfully designed raid encounters with the handful of people left doing them!

[Littleraven]

I don't even raid anymore so I can't really speak from personal experience but I 100% understand why they stuck with a single size. It is easier to balance that and tune it. When you throw in another size you end up having to find a way to make sure one is not easier or harder than the other.

I feel for the smaller guilds that this locked out but at the same time I remember this not really being a huge problem in BC as smaller guilds would be locked into 10 man anyway if they didn't team up with other guilds. Back then you literally had no choice because the first raid was 10 man and then everything else after that until ZA came out was 25 man. The game has changed significantly since then though.

Either way I would say I like the idea of them keeping a set raid size. I have always liked bigger raid sizes anyway though. Raided 25 man all through Wrath and it was a blast.

[Relapses]

Also, increased participation across the board in all avenues of 'content' (whether that by Mythic, PvP, raiding, pet battles, professions, etc.) has ALWAYS been the goal of the game and Blizzard. Being blind to that shows an acute lack of understanding of not only the business model, but also of the philosophy of Blizzard (accessibility being a core focus) and the desires of any large community.

I don't understand how you can complain about the accessibility of raids when there's literally 3 other raid difficulties Blizzard has implemented for players who don't want to commit to Mythic. If anything, that's too many raid difficulties. It's this idea of entitlement that people who prefer smaller raids that's the core issue when discussing 20M Mythic. Blizzard doesn't owe you anything, if you want to hold strong and refuse to raid the hardest difficulty because of your own personal preference, that's not on Blizzard, that's on you.

[Magnosh]

Of your suggestions, only cross-realm guilds has a remote possibility of happening. Free realm xfer's are not likely to happen when Blizzard can merge realms instead. The majority of players who are apposed to 20M were displaced because they used to raid 10M HC and they believe that Blizzard needs to cater to their exclusive demands. Raid participation in Mythic has never been the goal of this game and Blizzard allowing casual HC players for Cata/MoP gave these players a sense of entitlement that has yet to dissipate despite their hard line stance against catering to them.

It is not about self entitlement but it is displeasing when you see that the recruitment boss is harder than the raid itself. With comments like that what I see is someone leaving on wonderland, good server population, probably not even having to recruit just loging and raiding and that is the kind of self entitled players on my eyes because everything comes to them on a silver plater.

If we assume the number of players droping from World of Warcraft is a serious problem then we should probably stop with that kind of mentality because in the end more players will stop as they can't get into Mythic Raiding despise having enough skills to do so. In game friends is probably something that keeps players subbed even on terrible expansions and when you deprive players from enjoy the game with their friends odds are those guys will stop playing this game and find another one and sooner or later what will happen is that less and less guilds will get fresh recruits due to the decrease of game population.

If you don't care about the loss of population then keep going your on the right path.

[I Push Buttons]

I don't understand how you can complain about the accessibility of raids when there's literally 3 other raid difficulties Blizzard has implemented for players who don't want to commit to Mythic. If anything, that's too many raid difficulties. It's this idea of entitlement that people who prefer smaller raids that's the core issue when discussing 20M Mythic. Blizzard doesn't owe you anything, if you want to hold strong and refuse to raid the hardest difficulty because of your own personal preference, that's not on Blizzard, that's on you.

I enjoy how people keep throwing around the word "entitled" to describe people who want 10 man in the same breath that they drone on about how theirs is the chosen difficulty, above the rest and not at all sounding "entitled."