High end raiding in huge decline?

[Saverem]

I just looked some facts and I found high end raiding isn't as popular anymore. Is content too hard or do WoW have much less subs nowadays?

https://www.wowprogress.com/boss/kil...36#first_kills

In link above you can see about 5 and half months around 2000 guilds killed Kil'jaeden

https://www.wowprogress.com/encounte.../next/20#first

And here you can see in 5 months only ~430 guilds killed Archimonde mythic. Both are final bosses of their expansion and still gap is that huge. Should they make mythic raiding more casual friendly?

I'd say the cost to benefit to Mythic isn't really worth it any more when a casual guild can get loot with the same or higher ilvls if it titanforges.

Why spend 1000 hours wiping when you can just get your N and H done easily and potentially get the same loot?

Edit: And I say this while being in a relatively casual (3/10M) guild. My ilvl is 917 (906 equiped) and I've only killed M skorp 3 times and M chrono/trill once). Yet, I probably have around the same ilvl as most hardcore M raiders.

[RoKPaNda]

You may actually see the end of super hardcore raiding yes. I can't expect that Blizzard will care too much as they don't even acknowledge that small section of the playerbase. Nobody else is going to quit just because the top guilds quit. Blizzard has lost and gained roughly 50% of their subs in the span of two quarters before, what would they care about 2% of the playerbase that does nothing but whine? All the whines from the valid ones (AP grind, lack of legendary targeting) to the completely invalid and illogical ones (WF/TF) come from that small section of players. Game would probably be healthier and Blizzard could probably be more flexible without them.

Preach Gaming made a good video about this topic.

No, he didn't. His stats are awful and wrong and his graphs are horribly misleading. Also he's a whiner.

[Tiberria]

Pretty much this. If fights weren't tuned around having good legendaries/high traits, I don't think it would be an issue. However, with how NH fights are tuned, I think it just amplifies the problem. Helya and Guarm could be said the same. The difference between a mage with DB helm and not on Helya was strat changing. Helm gotten mostly thru spam running m+(and RNG).

This getting in to another issue of getting the "wrong" legendary after farming 100+ m+ a week. That is a huge blow to anyone. If you are missing good dps legendaries and you farm for 100 hours in a week trying to get one and it ends up being a prydaz or some shit, you will take a pretty big hit personally knowing that all your time was effectively wasted. Can you talk yourself in to doing another 100+ hours? Lets say it happens again after that 100+, can you do it again? How many times will the average raider keep killing themselves for a legendary before they just say fuck it?

Even if the fights weren't really tuned around having X traits or X% DPS from legendaries, I still think it would be problematic. Simply because, the more DPS you can get from obtainable player power upgrades, you can kill bosses faster and progress faster than your raid team otherwise would be able to. When you're stuck on a boss, it's generally due to some combination of mechanics execution and DPS/HPS throughput. Sure, you can say, well just play better and improve execution, and you'll eventually down it. However, having more damage means that you can down it faster and with less execution (and get less mechanics that you could fail on) and less of a learning curve than you would otherwise have. As long as the ability to obtain that player power exists, guilds and highly motivated raiders will feel the need to pursue it.

[Flurryfang]

I'm not sure which one you refer as mid-expansion boss but AFAIK both are last bosses of an expansion.

Also I think it matters how many is clearing mythic. If less and less people clear mythic soon there is no point for Blizzard to create hard content and WoW will lose even more raiders.

Yeah, missread the bosses

I think things have value even if you don't actively use/play content. Much like Naxx and Sunwell had value for midtier raiders in Vanilla and TBC, even though they never actually killed bosses in there while it was current. Having a thing to reach for, while maybe not even getting to do it, have its functions in WoW. It helps people get more dedicated, since the reward of higher skill raids is that much higher.

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He was comparing the end boss of WoD vs end boss of tbc though, not legion.

Wupsydo.

[Kazuchika]

On my alt this past week I got an 885 TF trink from LFR, 895 TF normal tier gloves from Star Augur, 910 H TF Whispers from the weekly box for the mythics and a bunch of other warforged heroic NH gear.

Why again should I put myself through the bullshit of smashing my face against mythic bosses again? Why spend 3-4 nights a week when I can spend 3 hours clearing normal and heroic and get arguably as good if not better gear? For the accomplishment? Accomplishment of what exactly other than knowing I'm king fish in a pond of ever dwindling people who even care about it to begin with?

[Flurryfang]

No one gives a shit about that idiot.

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There's many ways to make Mythic more casual friendly without compromising the difficulty. Just making it cross realm is a start. You could also make it flexible lockout but that would probably open the doors to split Mythic runs and suicide rates would increase. Neither of those would compromise the difficulty of the instance while lowering the barrier to entry.

People were so up in arms over Emerald Nightmare being undertuned Blizzard made sure Nighthold wouldn't be a repeat.

Crossrealm is actually an okay thing, but it will not really make the encounter easier, just the administrativ work outside of the raid.
Getting flex will totally change the entire instance, just as it has done with normal and heroic. Blizzard learned in MoP, that it is nearly impossible to balance for 15 different raid sizes and it reduces the enjoyment of the raid, since you have to kick and invite players depending on different bosses. You are not gonna get a happier mythic raiding community over the long run by having flex, since people are gonna feel like they are being treated unfairly when their 17 man raid has no chance agains the 21 player raid, since that raid have advantages on some bosses.

So none of the things really work to make it more friendly without ruining the experience. Crossrealm will change very little about the difficulty and FLex is gonna create chaos.

[Tharkkun]

Crossrealm is actually an okay thing, but it will not really make the encounter easier, just the administrativ work outside of the raid.
Getting flex will totally change the entire instance, just as it has done with normal and heroic. Blizzard learned in MoP, that it is nearly impossible to balance for 15 different raid sizes and it reduces the enjoyment of the raid, since you have to kick and invite players depending on different bosses. You are not gonna get a happier mythic raiding community over the long run by having flex, since people are gonna feel like they are being treated unfairly when their 17 man raid has no chance agains the 21 player raid, since that raid have advantages on some bosses.

So none of the things really work to make it more friendly without ruining the experience. Crossrealm will change very little about the difficulty and FLex is gonna create chaos.

Flexible lockout where you can repeat an instance or share lockouts. You are talking about dynamic raid group size. Something completely different. They would never make it dynamic again at the highest difficulty.

[ButterBeast]

#theskyisfalling

[Flurryfang]

Flexible lockout where you can repeat an instance or share lockouts. You are talking about dynamic raid group size. Something completely different. They would never make it dynamic again at the highest difficulty.

What would flex lockout help when it comes to makeing mythic more casualfriendly?

[Halobob87]

Yes. Encounters are becoming more and more complicated every tier. With removal of addon features like camera distance nerf, unit positions, friendly nameplates auras they should significantly reduce complexity of encounters to compensate.

Go play Hello kitty online.

[coprax]

No way this data is accurate. You're including patch 3.0 Kil'jaeden kills or something. My old realm supposedly has four kills, while I know for a fact that we were the only guild that even got past M'uru before they gutted the raid. Hell, devs themselves wouldn't complain about completion rates if there were 2000+ kills.

During that time, there were no achievements in the game, so I wonder where they got their data from. Usually trackers used gear on characters to determine when a guild had killed a boss during this time.

[Deleted]

Increasing the cost of fully automated digital services such as server transfers is not going to help us either.

[Grimnakh]

On my alt this past week I got an 885 TF trink from LFR, 895 TF normal tier gloves from Star Augur, 910 H TF Whispers from the weekly box for the mythics and a bunch of other warforged heroic NH gear.

Why again should I put myself through the bullshit of smashing my face against mythic bosses again? Why spend 3-4 nights a week when I can spend 3 hours clearing normal and heroic and get arguably as good if not better gear? For the accomplishment? Accomplishment of what exactly other than knowing I'm king fish in a pond of ever dwindling people who even care about it to begin with?

Oh I dont know, love of the game? Crazy idea I know. Maybe we can ask blizz to give you guys a transmog for a giant glowing E-Peen that lets you fly in Dalaran and knock players with glowing energy squirts from above. Your drops this week were also prett lucky, so grats on that, but I guess Mythic is still too hard even though TF is raining like Mardi Gras confetti and you must all be outgearing the instance by 10-15 ilvls already.

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Crossrealm is actually an okay thing, but it will not really make the encounter easier, just the administrativ work outside of the raid.
Getting flex will totally change the entire instance, just as it has done with normal and heroic. Blizzard learned in MoP, that it is nearly impossible to balance for 15 different raid sizes and it reduces the enjoyment of the raid, since you have to kick and invite players depending on different bosses. You are not gonna get a happier mythic raiding community over the long run by having flex, since people are gonna feel like they are being treated unfairly when their 17 man raid has no chance agains the 21 player raid, since that raid have advantages on some bosses.

So none of the things really work to make it more friendly without ruining the experience. Crossrealm will change very little about the difficulty and FLex is gonna create chaos.

Crossrealm wont make it less difficult but it will allow more players to find a close to ideal raid group match allowing them to work on it. Alot of people dont want to server transfer all the time, but would do mythic raids if they found a raid group at their playtime/schedule that needs their spec. Lag from not being from the same place would likely add additional difficulty though.

[Myztikrice]

What would flex lockout help when it comes to makeing mythic more casualfriendly?

So I can get the drops from the main Mythic group and help out the alt group or progress with my guild and then join another raid to finish out the rest of the instance

[Tiberria]

Another thing that's killing some people I've raided with this expansion is the fact that consumables costs have gone through the roof relative to other expansions. The cost of pots in particular (and augment runes if you're using them) is absolutely through the roof. I have raided with people that have legitimately run out of gold to the point they are unable to repair (let alone buy their sub with gold). Of course, for people not sitting on millions of gold from world of garrisoncraft in WoD (I was at 6m going into Legion), the only way to get the needed gold is to add even more time to the weekly grind, over and above the AP/legendary grinds.

[Flurryfang]

Oh I dont know, love of the game? Crazy idea I know. Maybe we can ask blizz to give you guys a transmog for a giant glowing E-Peen that lets you fly in Dalaran and knock players with glowing energy squirts from above. Your drops this week were also prett lucky, so grats on that, but I guess Mythic is still too hard even though TF is raining like Mardi Gras confetti and you must all be outgearing the instance by 10-15 ilvls already.

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Crossrealm wont make it less difficult but it will allow more players to find a close to ideal raid group match allowing them to work on it. Alot of people dont want to server transfer all the time, but would do mythic raids if they found a raid group at their playtime/schedule that needs their spec. Lag from not being from the same place would likely add additional difficulty though.

Love of the game? I think that we all need something more then just love of the game. Doing something extra needs to reward something extra. That is the only way you are gonna get people to do things, which may not actually be worth their time (which is what most gaming is). Enjoyment often comes from getting some type of reward and it often needs to be there for more then just a few people to give a crap

From my experience, when you come up to the level of dedication that mythic requires, realm transfer is not a huge hurdle at all. When you have finally taken out the time to do mythic, maybe even on a competative lvl, spitting out a few bucks for a realm transfer is a minor thing. I don't think there is a problem right now for mythic players to find mythic guilds. I think there is a problem with people not really finding mythic rewarding enough for them to spend the time required even without the AP grinding. Setting aside 3-4 nights of raiding needs to have some pay-off and when you see heroic raiders going around with mythic guality gear, there is very little push to go into that higher tier. Since you also really first get your mythic reward after you have cleared the entire instance, the reward is very delayed and many people are not ready to spend alot of time for a chance at killing Gul'dan and then another chance at getting the mythic only mount.

So player access is not the problem in my opnion, but the reward/carrot on a stick for entering mythic difficulty.

[NihilSustinet]

I quit raiding recently, because WF/TF and encounter design in NH is very unrewarding. for spending dozens of hours progressing in mythic, i dont get anything you cant get in heroic/normal/lfr with a little luck. my toon has all mythic level tier pieces, even though i only went 5/10 M. gear progression is just almost nonexistant in mythic. they need to get rid of TF, make each difficulty only WF up to 5 ilevels below the next difficulty, set WF cap for previous raids to one below the current raid (IE M EN would be able to WF up to heroic NH levels, etc.. its stupid how many people still have to farm M EN every week hoping that insane 925 BTI drops...) and cap m+ rewards at heroic level or so (+15 mythics i would say are about on par with heroic NH). give mythic raiders a reason to raid again. right now it is pointless.

[Flurryfang]

So I can get the drops from the main Mythic group and help out the alt group or progress with my guild and then join another raid to finish out the rest of the instance

Sure it could help some, but i doubt many people are tired that they can't run more then just their own mythic raid I think most people have their hands full with just one .

[Grimnakh]

Love of the game? I think that we all need something more then just love of the game. Doing something extra needs to reward something extra. That is the only way you are gonna get people to do things, which may not actually be worth their time (which is what most gaming is). Enjoyment often comes from getting some type of reward and it often needs to be there for more then just a few people to give a crap

From my experience, when you come up to the level of dedication that mythic requires, realm transfer is not a huge hurdle at all. When you have finally taken out the time to do mythic, maybe even on a competative lvl, spitting out a few bucks for a realm transfer is a minor thing. I don't think there is a problem right now for mythic players to find mythic guilds. I think there is a problem with people not really finding mythic rewarding enough for them to spend the time required even without the AP grinding. Setting aside 3-4 nights of raiding needs to have some pay-off and when you see heroic raiders going around with mythic guality gear, there is very little push to go into that higher tier. Since you also really first get your mythic reward after you have cleared the entire instance, the reward is very delayed and many people are not ready to spend alot of time for a chance at killing Gul'dan and then another chance at getting the mythic only mount.

So player access is not the problem in my opnion, but the reward/carrot on a stick for entering mythic difficulty.

You get a much larger reward for doing mythic raid content, the only problem is mythic raider's whos imagination tells them some herioc raider is getting better gear overall than a 5/10 mythic raider, which just isnt happening. If someone is chain running +15s dozens of times a day than sure, maybe theyre there, and they deserve to be there.

[unbound]

I just looked some facts and I found high end raiding isn't as popular anymore. Is content too hard or do WoW have much less subs nowadays?

https://www.wowprogress.com/boss/kil...36#first_kills

In link above you can see about 5 and half months around 2000 guilds killed Kil'jaeden

https://www.wowprogress.com/encounte.../next/20#first

And here you can see in 5 months only ~430 guilds killed Archimonde mythic. Both are final bosses of their expansion and still gap is that huge. Should they make mythic raiding more casual friendly?

The primary problem is that you are running the same content over and over again with only minor tweaks to the fights...and that gets, quite frankly, old after awhile. Sure, it was fun the first 20 times you ran it, but the next 20 times gets rather boring.

I don't think the whole concept of artifact power helps either. When about 3/4 of the rewards is just artifact power, you get hit over the head pretty hard that this is just a grind fest. And a good chunk of the remaining rewards for high-end raiding is the same gear you already got, just with better stats will make you happy for about 5 minutes...and back into the grind you go.

Furthermore, gear elevates characters too much anymore. Doing a daily heroic dungeon with even moderate gear becomes a joke and feels more like a chore. It becomes even more of a joke when you have high-end geared characters. And Blizz's answer to this problem is to run that same content over and over again with a health slider (aka Mythic+) with a few gimmicks thrown in...which also gets old after 40 or 50 runs...