Is hardcore raiding scene declining? Let's find out

[Tennis]

So, we got about 10 days before next raid release and we have 151 Helya kills. When ToV opened we had close to 800 Xavius kills. Are we going to get more Helya kills before the next raid? Can we get at least 600 kiils in next 10 days? We'll see.

But let's look at top-100 wowprogress Xavius kills.

Out of 100 guilds that killed Xavius there are still 25 that didn't kill Helya. Do you want to know them to be sure that I'm not lying? Here's list for you, my friend:


Ok, there are actually 24 of them because of Prestige Gaming shenanigans. Huge difference.

But let's go deeper and check players of that guilds. We know 386 players total(missing ones transferred somewhere). How many of them didn't log on their character this year that took part in Xavius first kill? 87. It's 22.5% if math is hard for you. Players? We have this list:


So, is this normal state of things? Is hardcore scene lively as usual? Who is wrong? Do you have any questions that you want me to research?

PS. Want to get this data for yourself? Players: 0N6tn5ms on pastebin. Full guild list with player lists: N0V7LASj on pastebin.

If we look at the numbers it seems more than clear that the game is dying. It doesn't get more clearcut than this.

[Claynoe]

Wait until NH before you draw conclusions.

ToV was a great filler raid, but the timing was atrocious due to the christmas season. I personally think it's unfortunate that guilds write Helya off as irrelevant or pointless as I personally think it's a great, hard fight filled with decent mechanics. Also, I don't think the nerf was uncalled for as from what I've seen from top 200+ guilds they usually struggle with DPS checks even after the nerf (talking p1,p2 and somehow also p3). All the nerf did was make it killable for guilds with a horrendous setup and guilds that aren't in the purple top 100 list. The orb slicer and breath soak is still there.

[Deleted]

Wait until NH before you draw conclusions.

ToV was a great filler raid, but the timing was atrocious due to the christmas season. I personally think it's unfortunate that guilds write Helya off as irrelevant or pointless as I personally think it's a great, hard fight filled with decent mechanics. Also, I don't think the nerf was uncalled for as from what I've seen from top 200+ guilds they usually struggle with DPS checks even after the nerf (talking p1,p2 and somehow also p3). All the nerf did was make it killable for guilds with a horrendous setup and guilds that aren't in the purple top 100 list. The orb slicer and breath soak is still there.

Yeah, ToV is quiete hard, especially Helya on Mythic. That less people killed her does not really mean less are playing as the whole instance is harder than everything in EN (Maybe Cenarius could be harder at some points, but Odyn on Mythic is already a wall compared to EN)

[Deleted]

The raiding scene has been in decline since the start of cata and the equalization of 10 and 25 which killed more guilds than any change before or after ever did. Also overall sub drops.

The decline actually slowed down since WoD and that continues in Legion so far. Comparing EN and ToV completion rates is idiotic since one raid was heavily undertuned (from the get go; the one hard boss became super easy 2 IDs later with a little bit more gear) while the other was most likely slightly overtuned (and without any way of overgearing it).

[corebit]

Many progression guilds are not bothering with M Helya and even ToV in general because the loot is meh. So trying to draw some sort of conclusion right now is very silly.

[Deleted]

The community helped killing the raiding scene by the endless 25 vs 10 man debates.

[Fyersing]

The raiding scene has been in decline since the start of cata and the equalization of 10 and 25 which killed more guilds than any change before or after ever did. Also overall sub drops.

There were 1,101 guilds that completed all of the bosses of ICC 25 (H) during WotLK. This equates to 27,525 players participating in the highest difficulty.

A list of other raids, for comparative purposes:

Tier 11 | There were roughly 1350-1450 guilds that cleared it (Heroic, 10/25-man).
Tier 12 | There were roughly 5000+ guilds that cleared it (Heroic, 10/25-man).
Tier 13 | There were roughly 14,000+ guilds that cleared it (Heroic, 10/25-man).
Tier 14 | There were roughly 1,700 guilds that cleared it (Heroic, 10/25-man).
Tier 15 | There were 366 guilds that cleared it on 25. There were 4,578 guilds that cleared it on 10.
Tier 16 | There were 1,026 guilds that cleared it on 25. There were 2,792 guilds that cleared it on 10.
Tier 17 | There were roughly 1,700 guilds that cleared it (Mythic, 20-man).
Tier 18 | There were roughly 2,750 guilds that cleared it (Mythic, 20-man).

Now, more important than the number of guilds is the number of actual players represented by them. The real number of people actively completing the highest difficulty is, very roughly, as follows:

Tier 11 | 20,047 (or 11,137 players on 25, 8,910 players on 10)
Tier 12 | 74,250 (or 41,250 players on 25, 33,000 players on 10)
Tier 13 | 207,900 (or 115,500 players on 25, 92,400 players on 10)
Tier 14 | 25,245 (or 14,025 players on 25, 11,220 players on 10)
Tier 15 | 54,180 (or 8,400 players on 25, 45,780 players on 10)
Tier 16 | 53,570 (or 25,650 players on 25, 27,920 players on 10)
Tier 17 | 34,000 players on Mythic 20.
Tier 18 | 55,000 players on Mythic 20.


So what does this all mean?

Firstly, it means that the even the least participated-in raids from each expansion post-WotLK were very nearly identical to ICC 25H in terms of player participation. Secondly, it suggests that even though the game faltered in many ways post-WotLK, the bulk of the players who unsubscribed simply weren't end-game players... because not only did the post-WotLK iterations of the game increase the number of people participating at the highest-end, but it has maintained that increase for now 4 expansions. In fact, the period which saw 10-mans as viable alternative to 25-mans actually had higher average turnouts for raiding in general.

TL;DR -- The worst and least played raids of every expansion after WotLK, including those that were released during the "oh my god, 10-man raiderz R baddiez" expansions of Cataclysm and MoP, were still often twice as participated in than ICC 25H was. At least in terms of raiding, it could be argued that compared with even Cataclysm WotLK was shit.

[KampKanye]

I'd say it's fine. The problem is that ToV doesn't provide anything rewarding and the fights were designed to be incredibly punishing for bringing melee dps where your skill level needs to be much higher to survive Odyn (pre-nerf) and Helya. It's significantly easier to beat by stacking ranged, which isn't possible for many guilds.

[purebalance]

For DPS, I think it is +15% extra damage at 54 traits. For bleeding edge guilds, that is pretty darn good and would make or break gear-check fights.

Yes but the difference between each trait is so minimal that if you are missing 1 it won't matter.

- - - Updated - - -

There were 1,101 guilds that completed all of the bosses of ICC 25 (H) during WotLK. This equates to 27,525 players participating in the highest difficulty.

A list of other raids, for comparative purposes:

Tier 11 | There were roughly 1350-1450 guilds that cleared it (Heroic, 10/25-man).
Tier 12 | There were roughly 5000+ guilds that cleared it (Heroic, 10/25-man).
Tier 13 | There were roughly 14,000+ guilds that cleared it (Heroic, 10/25-man).
Tier 14 | There were roughly 1,700 guilds that cleared it (Heroic, 10/25-man).
Tier 15 | There were 366 guilds that cleared it on 25. There were 4,578 guilds that cleared it on 10.
Tier 16 | There were 1,026 guilds that cleared it on 25. There were 2,792 guilds that cleared it on 10.
Tier 17 | There were roughly 1,700 guilds that cleared it (Mythic, 20-man).
Tier 18 | There were roughly 2,750 guilds that cleared it (Mythic, 20-man).

Now, more important than the number of guilds is the number of actual players represented by them. The real number of people actively completing the highest difficulty is, very roughly, as follows:

Tier 11 | 20,047 (or 11,137 players on 25, 8,910 players on 10)
Tier 12 | 74,250 (or 41,250 players on 25, 33,000 players on 10)
Tier 13 | 207,900 (or 115,500 players on 25, 92,400 players on 10)
Tier 14 | 25,245 (or 14,025 players on 25, 11,220 players on 10)
Tier 15 | 54,180 (or 8,400 players on 25, 45,780 players on 10)
Tier 16 | 53,570 (or 25,650 players on 25, 27,920 players on 10)
Tier 17 | 34,000 players on Mythic 20.
Tier 18 | 55,000 players on Mythic 20.


So what does this all mean?

Firstly, it means that the even the least participated-in raids from each expansion post-WotLK were very nearly identical to ICC 25H in terms of player participation. Secondly, it suggests that even though the game faltered in many ways post-WotLK, the bulk of the players who unsubscribed simply weren't end-game players... because not only did the post-WotLK iterations of the game increase the number of people participating at the highest-end, but it has maintained that increase for now 4 expansions. In fact, the period which saw 10-mans as viable alternative to 25-mans actually had higher average turnouts for raiding in general.

TL;DR -- The worst and least played raids of every expansion after WotLK, including those that were released during the "oh my god, 10-man raiderz R baddiez" expansions of Cataclysm and MoP, were still often twice as participated in than ICC 25H was. At least in terms of raiding, it could be argued that compared with even Cataclysm WotLK was shit.

The "casuals" who spend hours upon hours in game which is the opposite of casually playing are going to sit and claim that they pay for the game when in reality it is and has been for a good while(probably not in Vanilla though) raiders who pay for the game. They'll then claim that since in their twisted heads they pay for the game the game should be twisted for their needs rather than raiders. They took the idea from when Blizzard decided to be lazy and have LFR instead of making new dungeons for those who wouldn't raid as some sign with the bullshit lie blizzard gave them.

Your numbers pretty much prove that even with subs declining, raiding is staying up.

[Deleted]

Tier 11 | There were roughly 1350-1450 guilds that cleared it (Heroic, 10/25-man).
Tier 12 | There were roughly 5000+ guilds that cleared it (Heroic, 10/25-man).
Tier 13 | There were roughly 14,000+ guilds that cleared it (Heroic, 10/25-man).
Tier 14 | There were roughly 1,700 guilds that cleared it (Heroic, 10/25-man).
Tier 15 | There were 366 guilds that cleared it on 25. There were 4,578 guilds that cleared it on 10.
Tier 16 | There were 1,026 guilds that cleared it on 25. There were 2,792 guilds that cleared it on 10.
Tier 17 | There were roughly 1,700 guilds that cleared it (Mythic, 20-man).
Tier 18 | There were roughly 2,750 guilds that cleared it (Mythic, 20-man).

You do realize that wowprogress continues to count kills even after a new tier has been released (that goes for first and second tier). Til the 23 of June only 895 guilds killed blackhand (instead of your reported amount of 1700), check for T11 and firelands (1740 instead of your reported 5k - and 10m ragnaros was easier than LK 10m - speaks for itself really), your numbers couldn't be off any further.

Also your player partizipation count is way off. 10m guilds had rosters of around 12 people, 25m guilds often had rosters including 35 people. Account for this and you will see a clear and severe drop in organized raiding partizipation, which was at an all time high in wrath (btw even after prepatch(!) LK was a decently hard boss whereas archi was already free with valor upgrades - compare bosses 1-12 of HFC with 1-11 of ICC for better comparability, and then realize that at that time 10m was the more popular format by a huge margin and add LK 10m kills which was harder than most mythic non endbosses today).

tldr: There has been a clear and severe decline in organzied rading partizipation since wrath. The equalization of 10m and 25m severed this milieu more than anything else.

If you haven't realized yet, we are basically back to wrath raiding system (because blizzard understood that it was best to cut their losses):

20m -> 25h
flex/heroic -> 25n/10h
flex/normal -> 10n
lfr -> an anachronism that serves no purpose anymore since the addition of flex but blizzard can't get rid off

[Fyersing]

You do realize that wowprogress continues to count kills even after a new tier has been released (that goes for first and second tier). Til the 23 of June only 895 guilds killed blackhand (instead of your reported amount of 1700), check for T11 and firelands (1740 instead of your reported 5k - and 10m ragnaros was easier than LK 10m - speaks for itself really), your numbers couldn't be off any further.

The initial assertion is that ICC was more popular than any other period, in terms of raiding turnout. The period between T10 and T11 was nearly as long as the period between T11 and T13, which completely makes your attempt at negating all of the statistical data moot.

Also your player partizipation count is way off. 10m guilds had rosters of around 12 people, 25m guilds often had rosters including 35 people. Account for this and you will see a clear and severe drop in organized raiding partizipation, which was at an all time high in wrath (btw even after prepatch(!) LK was a decently hard boss whereas archi was already free with valor upgrades - compare bosses 1-12 of HFC with 1-11 of ICC for better comparability, and then realize that at that time 10m was the more popular format by a huge margin and add LK 10m kills which was harder than most mythic non endbosses today).

I find it hard to believe that almost every guild and every officer in the world complains, beginning in Cata and continuing up to the current expansion, that it's become largely impossible to maintain even the requisite amount of players and yet here you are telling me that all of them run 30-35 people.

It's like you genuinely believe that every guild in the top 100 puts in 12 hour raids, 5-7 days a week. There are guilds in the U.S. top 100 right now that raid 12 hours... per week. The vast majority of guilds barely have a full roster, let alone a bench.

You con-artists need to get your stories straight about why so many people raided 10-mans, because the prevailing theory among those who get red-faced and frothy in favor of larger raid sizes is that they only raid 10-mans because recruiting was hard; if that isn't the case, if recruiting is so god damned easy that every 25-man guild routinely fielded a 30-35 man roster, well, hey, I'll accept that because it means that the reason people raided 10-mans was because they enjoyed it.

tldr: There has been a clear and severe decline in organzied rading partizipation since wrath. The equalization of 10m and 25m severed this milieu more than anything else.

You can claim it all you like, but if you don't substantiate it with anything then as far as I'm concerned you're about as worth listening to as this guy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mt3VI943xhI

If you haven't realized yet, we are basically back to wrath raiding system (because blizzard understood that it was best to cut their losses)

You're looking at the published product and making assumptions about the thinking that went into creating it -- at the end of the day, Blizzard is a business. The cutting of costs (i.e. shortening the amount of time that was, previously required to tune and balance multiple difficulties) was absolutely considered and recognized as an antillary benefit of a single raid size and is certainly something they mulled over long before anything was even remotely designed and/or implemented; if you genuinely believe that a company that was losing potentially hundreds of millions of dollars per year wasn't thinking of ways to either a) increase their revenue stream or b) cut their existing costs, then you are living in the same reality as the man in the previously cited video.

[cFortyfive]

because recruiting was hard; if that isn't the case, if recruiting is so god damned easy that every 25-man guild routinely fielded a 30-35 man roster

Now, now wipe off those 10s tears - someone with such an illustrious raiding career like yourself should be aware that while you obviously can pick up every bit of trash it really doesn't mean you have a functioning raid. It doesn't even mean you have a stable enough roster to get a composition that makes sense for every scheduled raid. Recruitment requires constant effort and even if you put in the time it doesn't always lead to success.
The guild I was playing in for most of my time in wow usually had an around 30-32 roster but still had enormous recruitment issues later on which were the reason why it all ended like it usually does read it starts with losing rankings, adjustment of expectations and in this particular case a disband.
Out of those 30 in the end easily 10 had no business raiding at that ranking for reliability or skill related reasons and had to be constantly and were eventually replaced with what often enough happened to be just new trash.
You also need a somewhat fitting compositions - you can't just stack 12 melees like tons of lower end guilds do and still expect progress that makes somewhat sense unless you really have that much fun and time you aren't worried about ending up like any of those four days raid guilds in the 2k rankings.

[Ulfric Trumpcloak]

Nobody gives a crap about ToV. Just this week my guild decided to make a push for it, and i can see us killing Odyn but that will probably be it. With Nighthold opening next week, we'll probably wait to overgear the hell out of ToV and just roflstomp the last 2 bosses.

[Deleted]

tldr: There has been a clear and severe decline in organzied rading partizipation since wrath. The equalization of 10m and 25m severed this milieu more than anything else.

You can claim it all you like, but if you don't substantiate it with anything

Oh I did, check penultimate boss partizipation rates. You will find that while current no tier had higher rates than ICC, at best pretty close to that, BUT now factor in that ALL the kills in ICC were 25m hc while 3/4 of kills in later tiers were 10m.

ICC had at least twice the partizipation rate in highest difficulty content compared to ANY tier afterwards in regards to player count.
The equalization of 10m and 25m was a total disaster and single-handedly nearly killed raiding in WoW.

[Aureli]

My guild stoped raiding at point when nighthold was announced.
In wednesday we farm raid, other 3 days our raiding time is used for farming m+.

When nighthold released 54 trait gonna much more important then any item you gonna replace first week in Nighthold.

[Volitar]

There were 1,101 guilds that completed all of the bosses of ICC 25 (H) during WotLK. This equates to 27,525 players participating in the highest difficulty.

A list of other raids, for comparative purposes:

Tier 11 | There were roughly 1350-1450 guilds that cleared it (Heroic, 10/25-man).
Tier 12 | There were roughly 5000+ guilds that cleared it (Heroic, 10/25-man).
Tier 13 | There were roughly 14,000+ guilds that cleared it (Heroic, 10/25-man).
Tier 14 | There were roughly 1,700 guilds that cleared it (Heroic, 10/25-man).
Tier 15 | There were 366 guilds that cleared it on 25. There were 4,578 guilds that cleared it on 10.
Tier 16 | There were 1,026 guilds that cleared it on 25. There were 2,792 guilds that cleared it on 10.
Tier 17 | There were roughly 1,700 guilds that cleared it (Mythic, 20-man).
Tier 18 | There were roughly 2,750 guilds that cleared it (Mythic, 20-man).

Now, more important than the number of guilds is the number of actual players represented by them. The real number of people actively completing the highest difficulty is, very roughly, as follows:

Tier 11 | 20,047 (or 11,137 players on 25, 8,910 players on 10)
Tier 12 | 74,250 (or 41,250 players on 25, 33,000 players on 10)
Tier 13 | 207,900 (or 115,500 players on 25, 92,400 players on 10)
Tier 14 | 25,245 (or 14,025 players on 25, 11,220 players on 10)
Tier 15 | 54,180 (or 8,400 players on 25, 45,780 players on 10)
Tier 16 | 53,570 (or 25,650 players on 25, 27,920 players on 10)
Tier 17 | 34,000 players on Mythic 20.
Tier 18 | 55,000 players on Mythic 20.


So what does this all mean?

Firstly, it means that the even the least participated-in raids from each expansion post-WotLK were very nearly identical to ICC 25H in terms of player participation. Secondly, it suggests that even though the game faltered in many ways post-WotLK, the bulk of the players who unsubscribed simply weren't end-game players... because not only did the post-WotLK iterations of the game increase the number of people participating at the highest-end, but it has maintained that increase for now 4 expansions. In fact, the period which saw 10-mans as viable alternative to 25-mans actually had higher average turnouts for raiding in general.

TL;DR -- The worst and least played raids of every expansion after WotLK, including those that were released during the "oh my god, 10-man raiderz R baddiez" expansions of Cataclysm and MoP, were still often twice as participated in than ICC 25H was. At least in terms of raiding, it could be argued that compared with even Cataclysm WotLK was shit.

You aren't taking things like time the raid was out into effect. Dragonsoul which was out for a crazy long time and was 10manable and pugable obviously has a lot more people killing it.

[Mlz]

A lot of those who were trash players during previous expansions have climbed to raid top tier now and are saying that raiding is better than ever, dno what to make of it

[Finbezz]

Raiding scene has been dying since the end of Cata. Expansions are only small bandages on bullet holes.

I too like to make wide, over-generalized shitposts in an attempt to sound pithy.

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...nknasty/simple

sick progression dude

[Deleted]

Honestly, i've never wanted to skip a raid as much as i have with ToV, Mythic Odyn pre-nerf was a fucking 11 minute wall of anything but fun (playing dk, fuck you bliz) Guarm is boring and Helya is INSANE.
-> All of this for shit rewards when i could just do 5 Maw of Souls and get better gear/AP ? No thanks, i'm nowhere near the top 100, but it's easy to see why they dont want to clear this raid.

Also, aside from the motivation and reward problems, Helya is insanely hard compared to Xavius or even Cénarius.

[Polarthief]

Nighthold is going to be tuned around having 54 traits. How do you get them without playing?

Mythic might be; there's no way in hell they expect Normal/Heroic raiders to hit 54 traits though, so I hope you mean just Mythic.

I mean, fuck, they're not increasing trait cap til 7.2, so I doubt they'd tune NH to really be for 54 points (for N/H).