20 Man Mythic: Success or Failure?

[GiefEpixe]

The problem is that the breakpoint for getting into a 10M raid is so much less than that of a larger raid. Even if the organisational tasks are only managed by a few players, it's still going to be a lot easier to get together the requisite number of players necessary to raid in the smaller version. As a result, there were always far more options for players to join 10M raids than there were 25Ms. Why bother trying to raid in a version of the instance where the likelihood of logistic failure affecting your progress was much higher?

If you give players an option to raid smaller, they always will take that option. The point of contention I have is that larger raids seemingly worked all the way up to T11 whereby gear parity between 10 and 25M gutted the latter. Players who prefer smaller raid sizes because of their preference of intimacy in the raid group then use this data to say that "clearly players enjoyed 10M more," where I simply ask with a bit of pragmatism if that's the whole story.

I can respect your reasoning but I'm still convinced that logistics are only part of the equation. You could argue that for larger groups the higher risk of logistic failure is countered by the decreased importance of each single member and their responsibilites, i.e. fails are punished harder in smaller groups. *duck*

[Kyriani]

Why do you need to do mythic if you only have 10-14 people in guild ? It is not needed or something. And if you need to progress mythic maybe.. try to get more people into guild ?

because, as someone else said earlier in this thread:

Basicly if you're not doing Mythic... you're either bad or on a shit server

At least... that's the mindset that's pretty rampant among those who raid. If your guild is "serious" about raiding then you're doing Mythic. If you're not doing mythic you're apparently bad at the game, and should just quit.

There are people who are very good at this game... but at the same time preferred the smaller more intimate 10 man raid environment. Sadly many of them get torn between "do I raid with my friends at a level where we can keep our intimate family intact and be considered a baddie and have my character power limited?" or "do I push my family to double in size and very possibly ruin our family dynamic just so we can access the better character power advancement option". That conflict often breaks guilds apart as some would rather stick with flex and others want access to the better character advancement.

It's not the players fault that this situation exists. They didn't make the design decision which results in this conflict.

[Relapses]

I can respect your reasoning but I'm still convinced that logistics are only part of the equation. You could argue that for larger groups the higher risk of logistic failure is countered by the decreased importance of each single member and their responsibilites, i.e. fails are punished harder in smaller groups. *duck*

In some instances, yes. If you fail in a way which results in your death (one shot mechanics), 10M is harder. However, most encounters don't one shot you unless you do something extremely stupid so the argument should instead be whether certain DPS checks are harder/easier in smaller raids. Because of the lack of expectation of all the buffs you'd get from a larger raid, sometimes the DPS checks in 10M were lesser. Also the impact of dropping a healer for an additional DPS in a 10M was usually much more pronounced than doing the same thing on 25M. (Not always mind you, just giving generalized examples.)

As for the whole picture, I again reason it's impossible for any one person to claim they know why 10s were objectively more popular. Be it the preference of raid intimacy or the logistical ease, I don't think it really matters unless you're so caught up in the idea you feel as if you need to insert your opinion as an undeniable fact. I personally raided both 10 and 25M for Cata/MoP and I really didn't prefer one to the other. However, for the same reason I enjoy the current Mythic model, I feel the encounters would have generally been a lot more enjoyable if they'd simply been tuned around a single size.

[Bookofblade]

I dont think anyone has an issue with you preferring a single raid size, the issue stems from those saying the people who prefer the smaller one are objectively wrong and are worse players because of it. Many of us just feel that if one size was to be chosen they picked the wrong one. This is likely due to differing priorities. While neither outlook is correct nor wrong it will greatly effect how one perceives Mythic. From my gathering i see Simplicity, Tightness of Tuning, and Community as the major points due to Challenge likely being something all those striving to clear mythic are looking for. Where you rate each of those things in importance will likely show you what side of the success or not fence you sit on.

otaXephon I would like to thank you, the discussion on this topic has been enjoyable and I have gotten some insight into how people on the other side of the fence from me think and I enjoyed it greatly. It was also great to see a discussion take place without the majority of people devolving into name calling which is rare around here.

[Eapoe]

As far as the reason behind mythic 20 man being the default size, it was a success. Blizzard is able to maintain the difficulty and balance numbers accordingly to it (one of their reasons, balancing mechanics).
Intimacy is a bizarre reason. I understand that people feel like a closer group with 10 people, but what people that use this arguement fail to realize, I have this same intimacy in my mythic raid guild, but only with about 5 other people. Consider this, you are in school P.E. You might have to play baseball with 8 people you don't know and aren't close to, but you still have friends that play as well and you talk to outside of the majority.
With balancing issues, everyone should be able to freely admit that 10 man and 25 man each had their fights where the raid size made the encounter completely easier than the other raid size had it.
20 man raid size is a fair compromise as well in the fact of how many classes there are now. While not every class will still be represented (hell, we still have no ele shaman), it's still more bound to happen than a smaller group. 10 mans make it harder to be able to bring a diverse raid comp in the sense that you need certain things, and where a 10 man might not want to bring more than 1 melee, 20 man allows for roughly 4-5 before most raid leaders say something like (we have too many damn melee!). This allows for more diversity.

[Teebone]

You see, this type of attitude reeks of jealousy, greed, entitlement, and quite frankly is why the game has suffered so much in terms of sub losses.

Honestly, are you trying to bait me? Did you fully read my post [nope]? Oh wait, I forget: you always read posts you disagree with and pick them apart for not being you! I don't care there's a topographical difficult chart, or that they get exclusive content or loot or anything. IN FACT I DON'T PLAY YOUR SHITTY GAME ANYMORE. Mythic was not designed for the masses, it was designed for a select few. That was a logistical failure. Let me emphasize this again since you have a tenuous grasp of English and an obvious mental illness for doing this for so many years [seek help]:

Down to brass tacks: it was a logistical failure, it was predicted to be and always will be. Its not that it isn't nice to have something to aspire to; it's just another damn difficulty level with an excuse to create exclusive content for those few able to dedicate themselves to it.

And I conclude after my rant against a man who truly IS an entitled piece of shit;

Games are not meant to be jobs to most people.

I play other games now because I feel like the time I spend on one character or game I miss out on a lot more. And I did. But keep calling me entitled, greedy or whatever. Not that you have any credibility on this forum other than to a select few [who are also mentally ill].

[Shinv]

I think it would have been fine if there weren't so many raid difficulties causing burnout before you get to it.

If you need more then one difficulty to get to it as a raid then you aren't the target market for it.

I don't think you understand what I'm hinting at as the problem with the raiding situation. There is nothing wrong with 20 man groups as a one sized hard content group. I never found playing though normal to get to heroics (mythics) in the past to be much of an issue. But some groups of people just have less time to play and the extra time it takes to clear another wave of the same content combined with new recruitment efforts involved with changing raid sizes was bad for community imo.

I never found lfr to be a must do piece of content during MoP during the first two tiers of raiding for tier pieces. It wasn't until SoO I felt a little forced through LFR for the legendary questline to be effective with my alts time. I'm a player very happy to take on the role the guild needs I'm exactly what mythic guilds want. I don't quite get your response as how burnout relating to my time available to play disqualifies me as part of the market for would be mythic raiders.

[GiefEpixe]

No matter how people try to twist it and turn it, purely speculating or giving biased opinions on why it's a success and not a failure, the numbers are there and they paint a perfectly clear picture.

MMO-C posted data on raid participation four months into Siege of Orgrimmar and Blackrock Foundry. I would have preferred comparing last tiers, but for some reason the respective data doesn't seem to be available for four months into Hellfire Citadel:

This one was posted 4 months after the release of SOO:

http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/...Tweets-Fan-Art

On average, 3.277% of all active players killed the respective bosses on the hardest difficulty.
The three access bosses were killed on average by 6.29% of all active players (Immerseus, Norushen, Protectors).


This one was posted 4 months after the release of BRF:

http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/...metra-Gameplay

On average, 2.834% of all active players killed the respective bosses on the hardest difficulty.
The three access bosses were killed on average by 4.58% of all active players (Beastlord, Oregorger, Gruul).


That's 28% less players that were active killing the first three bosses and 15% less players that were active clearing the respective raid after four months.

I'm not at all convinced that this is the result of the intended "tighter tuning" but rather the result of artificially gating content accessibility behind the improved attendance boss.

And let's be clear: If we had the same data for Hellfire Citadel, things would look even worse. Naturally, participation rates decline the longer an expansion is out (see here: http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...ghout-Warlords). I'd assume we're talking 25% less active players clearing the hardest difficulty in the same timeframe compared to previous expansions (general raid participation drop BRF to HFC was roughly 40%, see thread above).

Add on top that raiding has been the only real endgame for WOD and you just can't deny the fact that 20m Mythic has been a failure—at least if the goal wasn't just to make it more exclusive with the help of a lazy logistics barrier.

[Lilija]

No matter how people try to twist it and turn it, purely speculating or giving biased opinions on why it's a success and not a failure, the numbers are there and they paint a perfectly clear picture.

MMO-C posted data on raid participation four months into Siege of Orgrimmar and Blackrock Foundry. I would have preferred comparing last tiers, but for some reason the respective data doesn't seem to be available for four months into Hellfire Citadel:

This one was posted 4 months after the release of SOO:

http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/...Tweets-Fan-Art

On average, 3.277% of all active players killed the respective bosses on the hardest difficulty.
The three access bosses were killed on average by 6.29% of all active players (Immerseus, Norushen, Protectors).


This one was posted 4 months after the release of BRF:

http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/...metra-Gameplay

On average, 2.834% of all active players killed the respective bosses on the hardest difficulty.
The three access bosses were killed on average by 4.58% of all active players (Beastlord, Oregorger, Gruul).


That's 28% less players that were active killing the first three bosses and 15% less players that were active clearing the respective raid after four months.

I'm not at all convinced that this is the result of the intended "tighter tuning" but rather the result of artificially gating content accessibility behind the improved attendance boss.

And let's be clear: If we had the same data for Hellfire Citadel, things would look even worse. Naturally, participation rates decline the longer an expansion is out (see here: http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...ghout-Warlords). I'd assume we're talking 25% less active players clearing the hardest difficulty in the same timeframe compared to previous expansions (general raid participation drop BRF to HFC was roughly 40%, see thread above).

Add on top that raiding has been the only real endgame for WOD and you just can't deny the fact that 20m Mythic has been a failure—at least if the goal wasn't just to make it more exclusive with the help of a lazy logistics barrier.

You do realize that the downfall of raiding started in Cataclyms? The amount of top raiders is dropping at the similar rate as the whole raiding scene.

You talked about biases but obviously have no idea how to read statistics. There is much mor factors to everything than fits your narrative.

[Gorgodeus]

I'm kinda stunned by you genuinely thinking this way, its as if you've never managed a guild before or have any concept of what social structures are like.

and I say this as someone in a guild transitioned through this change without a hitch.

7.5 years leading a raid guild. The simple fact is, it just is not that hard to go from a 10 man to a 20 man raid team, if the team is dedicated to raiding. When Blizzard introduced 10 man raids, I knew it would come back to bite them. Everybody and their brother suddenly thought they could make their own guild and raid, and we ended up with way too many guilds, and a dilution of talent.

- - - Updated - - -

"The design was fine; it was the customers who were defective. "

This is the philosophy of successful product design, right?

The design went from 20 and 40 man raids down to 10 and 25. Allowing a 10 man raid caused too many raid guilds to spring up. Increasing the size to 20 means many of those guilds needed to simply go away, by joining other guilds, merging etc. Casual raid guilds can still do 10 mans, but lets face it, end game guilds should be able to evolve and thrive under the current model. If they can't manage to do that, they simply were never that much of a guild to begin with.

[GiefEpixe]

You do realize that the downfall of raiding started in Cataclyms? The amount of top raiders is dropping at the similar rate as the whole raiding scene.

You talked about biases but obviously have no idea how to read statistics. There is much mor factors to everything than fits your narrative.

Please point me to the statistics showing that raid participation is declining more quickly than the general population of the game and back up your claims.

[Baconeggcheese]

7.5 years leading a raid guild. The simple fact is, it just is not that hard to go from a 10 man to a 20 man raid team, if the team is dedicated to raiding. When Blizzard introduced 10 man raids, I knew it would come back to bite them. Everybody and their brother suddenly thought they could make their own guild and raid, and we ended up with way too many guilds, and a dilution of talent.

Doubling the size of your roster is no easy task, especially if you want to keep the structure and atmosphere your guild once had.

There's been plenty of guilds I've seen that just churn through players and mass recruit and have them mass burn out and its some of the shittiest environments I've ever seen, but if you want a quality guild needing to recruit an extra 13ish people is not exactly a breeze by any stretch of the imagination. It's not impossible, but it requires a level of management that most people simply don't have or apply to games.

[araine]

Good points. One thing I have found as I've raided the 20 man format, is it feels pretty tight knit still.

20 people only is 4 5 man groups. And when it comes to guild management, we have noticed that with a reduction to 20 or an increase from 10, it hasn't been too difficult to keep an active roster. And for the most part, everyone seems to know and like eachother.

I see the merit in 10, but now that the lower difficulties are a flex format, you hardly ever see 10 people anymore. It's more like 14+

Cause a lot of fights are harder with 10 ppl than when you have 15. the fact that you dont see 10 man runs often in the flex format is due to them being a lot harder in general for no more rewards.

[feellucky]

In WotLK I was in a top 200 25M guild (world) on my server, which was at that time a medium pop server with many decent guilds. This has slowly eroded over time but many of us from that guild came back for WoD. Try as we might we could never get 20 for mythic and our guild died at the release of BRF, almost all of those 17-18 players quit the game because of being unable to do mythic without having to transfer. The top guild on our server is 9/13 mythic but they aren't raiding, no one is raiding mythic on my server now.

Also, my server was merged with another server that had even more guilds than we did and it still wasn't enough. There isn't a single player on Horde side on my server that has cleared 13/13M, not one. Even with cross-realm mythic being an option, no player has actually finished mythic raiding.

It became mandatory to transfer and for many that was just too much to ask. I'd actually say for 99% of players that was too much to ask. I only know of a handful of players who actually transferred from our raiding scene. Most either quit or just don't raid much anymore.


So was this a success? Or was it another reason, maybe one of the main reasons, why so many people quit the game shortly after release?

[Riistov]

heres the thing - there isnt anymore - most of them straight died- there is very few mythic guilds on mega populated servers which has extremly high recruitment requirements most of which are 13/13 mythic and there really isnt anythin behind them because almost all of hc mode guilds died and people moved hc progress to cross realm pugs - it may look good on paper but unless you are able to produce really outstanding logs atm you cannot raid mythic anymore on casual level as there arent any casual mythic guilds left.

There are tons of casual Mythic guilds out there! Just look at the recruitment threads on any WoW fansite.

[Shinv]

Try as we might we could never get 20 for mythic and our guild died at the release of BRF, almost all of those 17-18 players quit the game because of being unable to do mythic without having to transfer.

It became mandatory to transfer and for many that was just too much to ask. I'd actually say for 99% of players that was too much to ask. I only know of a handful of players who actually transferred from our raiding scene. Most either quit or just don't raid much anymore.

So was this a success? Or was it another reason, maybe one of the main reasons, why so many people quit the game shortly after release?

Yeah server transfer costs are definitely another big reason people quit now in today's gaming market. I mean it costs $50 to transfer one toon and switch factions. I mean when weighing your options in what you can do with that money just in gaming its very hard to justify transfer costs. For $50 bucks and $12.99-15 a month you can try to stay competitive with the highest quality gear for no other benefit then to keep clearing the same content faster. Or you can leave and buy 3+ new games triple AAA quality games with that time. Its been a really good year for gaming in 2015-2016 hard to justify sticking with wow at those prices.

I think transfer costs need come down hard especially with so much crz going on.

[Paula Deen]

It only killed guilds that were incapable of expanding or refused to merge with others. The issue is too many guilds thought they were special and were unwilling to disband and join with another guild. Common sense that there should have been fewer guilds when the hardest content went to strictly 20 man format.

Considering I was one of 7 recruiters constantly (I mean 5 hours a day) looking for new blood and we still died. No. You are simply wrong. This was on a High Population Realm too. We even at one point merged with another guild, almost all of them left. There is no special snowflake shit here. The shit stinks. Quit making excuses for a design choice that should have been the number 15 instead of 20.

[Ebalina]

After all these years I've still yet to hear a valid argument supporting this. 25man had more loot, it later got more bonuses on top, it was the most profitable raid setting and T11 was anything but 10man friendly... yet everyone went 10man.

So what caused all the established 25mans to die?

After all these years i would think that you can answer that question your self.
10man - the easy way out logistics and all.

T11 was the 1st tier this was to be tested therefor it was obvious that there will be problem with the 10man mode, but there were great problems with the 25man mode as well.

Lets not kid our self's please.

[Deleted]

because Mythic is the only thing that offers any real challenge?

So why not get this extra 10 people ? too hard or you are on such a low pop relm that it is impossible ?

[Lorianus]

Its not a question if it was a sucess or a failure when we the players lost choices at the gain of nothing, the only ones who profitted from the 20 man change are blizzard themselfs with less balancing work, and even that is not reflected in 20 man encounters.