Suggestion: A 6-12-24 Raiding Model?

[Zamix]

"Poor allocation" by what definition? That's what they did in vanilla and TBC and sub numbers were skyrocketing all the way through. It's only in WotLK when they started cutting corners and trying to use the same content for everyone that sub growth hit a wall, and in Cata where they further cut back on content (8 or 7 boss raid "tiers" lol) when subs started plummeting.[COLOR="red"]

The interesting thing with your comment is that went you look further into Vanilla, TBC, and Wrath. Vanilla WoW was new so of course subs are going to keep going up not necessarily due to the raiding that happened....how many people that play WoW today actually saw Naxx (40)? I would bet not a whole lot while a lot less actually got far into it.

TBC, what some consider the golden age of WoW raiding allowed for all the raids to stay current. The way the raid progression worked is that you went into raid A before you could go into raid B and then advance to raid C and so on.....therefore newly toons were always running the first raids of TBC and then working their way to the last.

Wrath introduced a model where 5 man dungeons would hand out raid gear, and if you missed out on T7-T8 raiding no worries you could get full T9 by running heroics all day....and run ToC by tonight. And then the three 5 mans that cancelled out all reason to run anything but ICC.
Lets take it a step further and go into Ulduar....
Ulduar was a MASSIVE RAID, no question, it was arguably the best raid Blizzard has ever made but at the same time it is also the biggest waste of time from a developer standpoint because so many people that started Ulduar NEVER CAME CLOSE TO FINISHING...

Why would I as a Blizzard developer make something that only less than 4% of the WoW population will see?
Better yet why would Blizzard spend the time and resources into a raid that only less than 4% of the WoW population will see their hard work?
There is no reason a business should ever spend its resources and money only to have such few people actually get a use out of their product.

It was actually during WotLK the subscription base had its biggest growth and it capped at 12 million, and after it has been falling due to now the same WotLK progression system is implemented but with an increase in difficulty and less content has now left players with not having satisfaction of raiding and not being able to do much as far as end game goes. This is because Blizzard wants people to see the content.

[Deleted]

As someone who is intimately familiar with running a 25 man guild (both recruitment and raid leading), I really don't see your point here. Two more players required here or one less there is not a fundamental difference. It might be pleasing from a theoretical point of view, but in practice 10 vs 12 and 25 vs 24 make no difference.

You realy don't get it?
Read plz my post again on the point of guild creation for scratch.
How many 25s died during Cataclysm?
How many new 25s were created?
They re not so many, i can go through old tiers and check current 25s up, one by one, to see how many where formed after tier 11 was first cleared.
But if i find over 100 of them in 15 months i ll be damned

It is not only about existing large guilds, that will survive if on cutting edge of progression you know.

It is also about, that for each "For the Horde" or "insert no name casual 25" guild, there is not a new to take the place.
Again read opening post on the point of large group creation now, and i hope you will see that i never said anywhere that team management will be less because it is 1 less person...

[Nobleshield]

A 6-man dungeon setup would work fairly well IMO especially if the classes were reworked to allow for the existence of true hybrid "support" roles, similar to in Rift. In Rift there is a fourth role called "Support" which, depending on your choice of soul (spec) allows you to be fairly competent at both DPS and healing so that you can perform as an "off-healer" if necessary while still pump out decent DPS without being a liability to the group.

This idea could work if we truly brought back hybrid classes, wherein for instance a Paladin might be specced as Ret and Holy, and can melee DPS as a Ret paladin but wait this boss has some nasty AOE so they can help the healer to heal the group without being either terrible at it or going OOM. I'm mainly thinking that the classes which can DPS and heal could be able to choose a separate "Jack of all Trades" support role that can do either decently (but obviously not as good as a pure class) and provide another dynamic to a group - they can help out where they're needed the most without suffering for it. It couldn't really be done with tanking, however.

[Deleted]

TBC, what some consider the golden age of WoW raiding allowed for all the raids to stay current. The way the raid progression worked is that you went into raid A before you could go into raid B and then advance to raid C and so on.....therefore newly toons were always running the first raids of TBC and then working their way to the last.

TBC was fun.
The majority of people that were playing the game back then had a different mindset that today’s customers.
You re an individual of a fantasy world. You re not a bunch of stats, that has to reach the ilv restriction to enter DS LFR.
As an individual, you where having challenges, and you were making your choices based on your team, and your time.
People were having fun doing things together. I am talking about social people, not those spaming /2 “LF tank for heroics”.
Those people, were ready to accept some truths.
1) That in order for the game not to become flat (as it is today) I can’t have access to everything with 4-5 hours per week.
2) That fun is more important than “seeing the content”
3) That raw, fresh content, is always available for whenever there is more time to invest
4) That all those things, “the unexplored wow”, is part of the magic in the game. The fact that me, the individual, need to be part of a great team, to meet the challenge and defeat the greatest evil.

It is the difference between people that deal with the game as a MMO RPG, and those that see it as a fist person shooter, or platform game. Blizzard tried to appeal to a bigger audience, and the game was altered to meet those criteria.

Wrath introduced a model where 5 man dungeons would hand out raid gear, and if you missed out on T7-T8 raiding no worries you could get full T9 by running heroics all day....and run ToC by tonight. And then the three 5 mans that cancelled out all reason to run anything but ICC.
Lets take it a step further and go into Ulduar....
Ulduar was a MASSIVE RAID, no question, it was arguably the best raid Blizzard has ever made but at the same time it is also the biggest waste of time from a developer standpoint because so many people that started Ulduar NEVER CAME CLOSE TO FINISHING..

.

And Ulduar was the last raid, from the old wow. Those things you re describing as flaws, are for others VIRTUES!
Even those that never completed it like me, that never killed Yog in 10, and 2 out of 4 old gods, vezax, and Yog in 25.
Ulduar lasted ONLY 5 months.
And was replaced by ToC.
The streamline, fast, cost effective approach, prevailed, and the game altered for ever.
The transition from ulduar to toc is the turning point between today’s wow and past wow.
All those things though, are part of a different conversation…

A 6-man dungeon setup would work fairly well IMO especially if the classes were reworked to allow for the existence of true hybrid "support" roles, similar to in Rift. In Rift there is a fourth role called "Support" which, depending on your choice of soul (spec) allows you to be fairly competent at both DPS and healing so that you can perform as an "off-healer" if necessary while still pump out decent DPS without being a liability to the group.

6 man dungeon can be more interesting than 5. The supportive features of some classes, like you mentioned, would make it shine, in an environment that dungeon was once more a fulfilling activity rather than an endless grind.
The dungeon has to obtain it’s own set of rewards, from killing the bosses rather than from justice and valor point.
Kiling 3rd optional boss, that yields a reward, vs skipping the boss and go str8 to the last one to get your 150 valors.
Also the dungeons should be tiered like raids.
Bring 6 dungeons to begin with
Then 3 new, related to the story that blizzard is telling with the new tier, offering a new DUNGEON set each time, and weapons for all roles!
Take the latest tier of dungeons out of the luck of the draw buff, out of grinding philosophy, and give them life.
I still remember in early TBC, small guilds being formed entirely to run all the available heroics . It would be just great!

[Hoddie]

For what it's worth I do agree that changing 5-mans to 6-mans makes a lot of sense, as there are a lot more DPS characters in the queue than there are tanks and healers, so adding one to each group would help alleviate this problem.

[Brakthir]

"Poor allocation" by what definition? That's what they did in vanilla and TBC and sub numbers were skyrocketing all the way through. It's only in WotLK when they started cutting corners and trying to use the same content for everyone that sub growth hit a wall, and in Cata where they further cut back on content (8 or 7 boss raid "tiers" lol) when subs started plummeting.

---------- Post added 2012-03-01 at 08:57 PM ----------



Eh, what "gating"? Everyone's monthly fee has always bought them exactly the same thing, access to the game. How far you get in the game has been then up to only your skill and time spent. Well, until the new model where Blizzard feels that players should not be required to actually play to "see" all the content and get the gear.

Yeah, you're wrong. The reason why the numbers were still skyrocketing was because it was still a relatively new game and it was fresh. The game is 7 years old now. 7. That is a loooooong shelf life for a game and people naturally get tired of the same formula over and over. Kudos to Blizzard for trying to keep it fresh but eventually, you can try and paint over a model over and over, but it's still the same model. A lot of us are fine with that, the model works for us, but if you think the game hasn't improved in almost every single category since Vanilla, you're delusional sir. Frankly I'm kind of tired of people using the argument that subs were skyrocketing in Vanilla/BC and went down in Wrath/Cata. The game is old man. It's old. People want shinier things, as evidenced by all the new MMOs that come out that get a ton of sales the first month or two. Then people realize it's just another WoW clone, and leave it to come back to WoW, which offers a more polished experience with a much, much better end game.

Also, Tier 11 had 13 bosses. It was a fucking amazing tier as well, but at the end, 13 was a bit much. Now I agree that 7-8 feel too few but if they're balanced properly, there is nothing wrong with that number. Sunwell had 6 and was considered the best raid instance till Ulduar.

[Deleted]

For what it's worth I do agree that changing 5-mans to 6-mans makes a lot of sense, as there are a lot more DPS characters in the queue than there are tanks and healers, so adding one to each group would help alleviate this problem.

This is only one of the benefits that a 6/12/24 model offers. Such a change as I mentioned would allow a more innovative gameplay in dungeons, would preserve blizzard’s cornerstone philosophy of offering raids accessible from tight/intimate groups and larger/epic raid sizes, while doing the work of an officer in such a large guild easier, and through that the option to raid in large sizes during MoP, has better chances to survive.

The reason why the numbers were still skyrocketing was because it was still a relatively new game and it was fresh. The game is 7 years old now. 7. That is a loooooong shelf life for a game and people naturally get tired of the same formula over and over.

The numbers were skyrocketing in Vanilla and TBC cause the game was fresh, but also because it was much better than the contemporary competition.
The problem was that numbers, with a small break kept going fast up during wrath as well. And kept going up even during the first 20 or so days in Cata.
The game back then was also 6 years old, and peaked at 12 million subs. Now it is only 14 months older and lost 1.7 millions at the last check point, 2 months ago.

Thus, this part:

Kudos to Blizzard for trying to keep it fresh but eventually, you can try and paint over a model over and over, but it's still the same model. A lot of us are fine with that, the model works for us, but if you think the game hasn't improved in almost every single category since Vanilla, you're delusional sir. Frankly I'm kind of tired of people using the argument that subs were skyrocketing in Vanilla/BC and went down in Wrath/Cata. The game is old man. It's old. People want shinier things, as evidenced by all the new MMOs that come out that get a ton of sales the first month or two. Then people realize it's just another WoW clone, and leave it to come back to WoW, which offers a more polished experience with a much, much better end game.

has good points, but also does not factor into the equation, that choices that company did, to keep the game fresh, during Cataclysm, failed to deliver.
The game overall has way more features and functionality than the Vanila WoW. In the process though, especially during Cataclysm, it lost it’s magic, It became a bit too streamlined, a bit too flat, a bit too accessible, like we re talking about a market place or an entertainment park, rather than an MMO RPG.

[Nestoras]

6 man dungeon is not a bad idea.
Multiple raids sizes in MoP is not a good idea though.
I understand why you re suggesting it, i saw the link, but i still don't think that various sizes for same content and same rewards, is the way to go...
Still would prefer one size, 15 is getting my vote (18 max with 6 man groups)!

[Daverid]

I think there's alot of options that would work ...

15man being the ONLY raid size seems to fit ... This would allow that medium size group where it's not extremely hard to get all 15 players and manage it ... But it doesn't feel like some teeny tiny Group. I think the top end players would still bitch about loosing 25's but it would be the best system.

Also with the addition of Monks I think the 12man Raid Group also makes ALOT of sense ... I understand that as it stands most 10man groups will generally double up on a class here and there anyway and not make use of all 10 ... But there are some that do, and if the Monk class brings a really awesome way of DPS,Heal,Tanking .. Someone either has to re-roll, or start sitting out even more on fights because you recruit a monk. I think we have to face facts that we are in No way going to see 12 or 24 man raid groups in MOP, it's to close to release/beta for that to be changed I think, however it WOULD be a extremely viable option and would make alot of sense.

Thirdly the whole concept of taking 5 man groups and Multiplying it to create a raid size DOES works for 10 .. But doesn't for 25 ... And that disappoints me ... Like Blizzard have been in the raiding game long enough now that surely they could create boss fights that require 4-5 tanks (Or 3 if raids went 15) and still make it interesting for the tanks AND the DPS AND healers ... They did it for a number of 25m Encounters All the way back in TBC ... Why can't they now?

I think they've just reached a point now where 25 and 10 are staple raid sizes ... They've gotten so used to creating raid encounters designed for the classic setups of only 1 or 2 tanks in either raid size ... X DPS and X Healers that they really can't be bothered changing it ... It's probably one of the extreme FEW cases where Blizzard have actually used the, "If it ain't broke don't fix it" ... Because in reality the system as is isn't broken, however silly it can seem sometimes, it still works.

[Deleted]

6 man dungeon is not a bad idea.
Multiple raids sizes in MoP is not a good idea though.
I understand why you re suggesting it, i saw the link, but i still don't think that various sizes for same content and same rewards, is the way to go...
Still would prefer one size, 15 is getting my vote (18 max with 6 man groups)!

Mentioned many times why i suggested a model with small and large raiding size.
1) Because many guilds would have to let members go
2) Because blizzard implied that they plan on offering small and large raid model in MoP as well.

Otherwise one size raids(any size between 15-20), sit's very well as an idea with me too.

I think there's alot of options that would work ...

As you said it. Many options could work well. An excact duplicate of cataclysm model though is not going to work well

15man being the ONLY raid size seems to fit ... This would allow that medium size group where it's not extremely hard to get all 15 players and manage it ... But it doesn't feel like some teeny tiny Group. I think the top end players would still bitch about loosing 25's but it would be the best system.

What I am saying right above. I would be perfectly fine with one size raids, between 15 and 20.
It is one of the things that could work miracles, if (some) people get over the initial shock.

Also with the addition of Monks I think the 12man Raid Group also makes ALOT of sense ... I understand that as it stands most 10man groups will generally double up on a class here and there anyway and not make use of all 10 ... But there are some that do, and if the Monk class brings a really awesome way of DPS,Heal,Tanking .. Someone either has to re-roll, or start sitting out even more on fights because you recruit a monk. I think we have to face facts that we are in No way going to see 12 or 24 man raid groups in MOP, it's to close to release/beta for that to be changed I think, however it WOULD be a extremely viable option and would make alot of sense.

It would be a pity not to have the option all the classes to be represented in a raid, regardless of the size.
Weather it is possible for a 12/24 raiding model to happen or not now, I would say that ideally Blizzard is checking the posibilities for this to happen as we speak
Even if they don't though, the only thing that can complicate things is the UI change, which I still find fairly easy.

Thirdly the whole concept of taking 5 man groups and Multiplying it to create a raid size DOES works for 10 .. But doesn't for 25 ... And that disappoints me ... Like Blizzard have been in the raiding game long enough now that surely they could create boss fights that require 4-5 tanks (Or 3 if raids went 15) and still make it interesting for the tanks AND the DPS AND healers ... They did it for a number of 25m Encounters All the way back in TBC ... Why can't they now?

It doesn't work since the day one of their creation, back in TBC.
It is not only tank scaling, or to a minor degree healer scaling.
It is also the act of upsizing and downsizing that is problematic.
6 man groups will lessen the amount of tanks needed for the large raid to 4, for direct scaling from a single group with 1-4-1 setup. Even from that aspect, this model works better.

I think they've just reached a point now where 25 and 10 are staple raid sizes ... They've gotten so used to creating raid encounters designed for the classic setups of only 1 or 2 tanks in either raid size ... X DPS and X Healers that they really can't be bothered changing it ... It's probably one of the extreme FEW cases where Blizzard have actually used the, "If it ain't broke don't fix it" ... Because in reality the system as is isn't broken, however silly it can seem sometimes, it still works.

The system might work for them regarding proper design of encounters.
But Cataclysm model does not work for the game, and the community (at least a large part of it). If it is broken, it needs fixing.
1 size raids?
Direct scaling dual size with seperate achievs?
A variation of older model?

Anything! just don't leave things as they re now pretty plz

[Deleted]

If you raid 10 you have to:
1) Form a 10 man group
2) Raid

If you want to raid 25 you have to:
1) Form a 25 man group
2) Raid

Worthless idea, wont even bother commenting why because i'd be here till christmas. The current raid models are FINE as it is, the only thing Blizz needs to balance out is the difficulty in encounters.

[Deleted]

Worthless idea, wont even bother commenting why because i'd be here till christmas. The current raid models are FINE as it is, the only thing Blizz needs to balance out is the difficulty in encounters.

So you basically
1) did not read a thing
2) Still hoping that the imposible will happen based on?

Anyway, thanks for stopping by.

[Deleted]

So you basically
1) did not read a thing
2) Still hoping that the imposible will happen based on?

Anyway, thanks for stopping by.

Do you truly believe that the lost of raiding interest and the major issues with raiding is the stupid comparison people do with 10v25? You are very delusional. As a high end raider (Which i'm sure you are not, due to your claims, so i think i have a bit more experience in this department), my expectations of raiding is that the encounters are finely balanced, dont favour stupid class stacking (Hello Spine , nice to meet you) and are above all a pleasant game field (Both progress and farm).

People who prefer 25 will NOT drop to 10 just because you get the same rewards for probably less effort (Managing less people while dealing with the limitation of buffs/personal player power). Those who do are people who, in my honest opinion, should not label themselves hardcore raiders.

But, enough about my opinion, let's analyze each and every one of your points individually.

"During Cataclysm, we saw the raiding community divided and finally weakened from the endless 10vs25 debate." - Wrong. Or well, this might be true. Most people will advocate that their prefered raid mode is the one that involves the most skill/capability. Without proper judgement of both modes or good analyzing skills, you cant make such comparisons, and as i'm sure the majority of the 10v25 whiners are just tossing random claims arround, their opinion is to be discarded as it's no more valuable than a child's fairytale. The raiding comunity was divided by an inexistant wall that formed into people's minds.

"A recent blue reply, regarding future plans for raiding, openly declared that this dual approach is the way we will raid in MoP as well.
If the system remains unchanged, unfortunately it will lead to the extinction of large raiding teams, and the reduction of interest in people to raid." - Your last comment is right. If the system remains as it is, most people will lose interest in raiding. Check out the movies of all high end guilds for madness and compare their excitement to stuff like Ragnaros for example. See the difference? The lack of challenging content and the downwards spiral that raiding is taking is what's costing players the interest to raid.

"There are many variables that define this equation, more specifically blablabla.
By ignoring (4), Blizzard assumed that by equalizing (1), (2) and making (3) shared, they will achieve (5), thus people will select the size they prefer, and that they won’t feel “forced” to raid both sizes same week to maximize loot." - This was a pretty good idea. I cant agree with sharing Titles/RF's, as the two modes should be clearly distinct and each have it's own reward, but the objective at hand ( Stopping people from taking raiding as a forceful grind by doing both 25 and 10) was pretty well tought of.

"The result was not the expected (or the one stated as expected), and the debate 10vs25, is the immediate result of that failure." This once more was caused by the sillyness of people. While i do agree that throughout Cata (Bar T11), 10 mans have always been easier and the people that raid such mode have gone from nobodies to pseudo-elitists, this is a community flaw, not a flaw on Blizz's end for the majority of it.

As for your "How to raid 10 and 25" part of the post, i've already discussed how wrong it is. That's not the way 25 man works. You grab 25 people, raid with them, and then move on. You dont do all this "Raid 10 man 3 times then exclude 5 people" BS. I fail to even see how this tought even went through your mind.

Your proposed change to 5 mans is negligible. Your change to 10 mans would allow a better balance of classes and setups by adding in 2 extra slots, which would be a good plus. Your proposed change of 25 man to drop a member to make management easier (Einstein's got it! The solution to fix 25 vs 10 is giving 10 extra 2 people which they'd gladly welcome and removing one person from 25 because most guilds dont have 30/40 raid capable members!.....) is beyond ridiculous. Dropping one more member out of a 30/40 man roster will fix nothing. You talk about exclusion, yet you're all for further exclusion of people for one mode. If you havent seen how wrong you are up to this point (With the exception of your 10 man suggestion, that still holds some valid points) then you should sincerely stop posting. The last thing the forums need is more ideas from a pseudo-visionary who wants to completely revamp and fix raiding with this ideas that are based on mere assumptions since said visionary probably does not indulge in meaningful raiding himself. Pathetic.

Also, for your last point of "2) Still hoping that the imposible will happen based on?" - I'm not waiting for the impossible to happen. I'm more than conscious that Blizzard knows what it takes to fix the mistake they made, they just dont want to implement it based on the sheer ammount of whining and outcry it would cause to this degraded community. To fix the bigger problems, you first have to sort out the smaller problems, which in this case is almost impossible to apply.

No matter what you do, there will always be a group of people who arent happy with change and will cry and bash the company until their wishes are fulfiled. Had the difficulty peak dropped at a steady pace in the transition between TBC and WoTLK rather than the huge decline it had, the majority of the community problems would have been eliminated, and then you could start working on Raiding Balance. As it stands now, the teeth are beyond repair, and the only solution is to pull them out and toss them in the trash can.

TL;DR: Community needs to be fixed before Raid Balance can be fixed. We dont need visionaries tossing their baseless opinions left right and center. Cookies.

[Deja Thoris]

...

You need to learn how to debate without throwing in words like "delusional" and "cookies". First you make a post to say "lol im not even gonna tell u how stupid that is!" (on a debate forum). Then you come with that language to make your point. The idea he proposed has merit and scales nicely. I disagree that you could go back and balance old content easily again but meh.

Anyway, I guess what I'm saying is you can make your point without being a dick.

[Deleted]

You need to learn how to debate without throwing in words like "delusional" and "cookies". First you make a post to say "lol im not even gonna tell u how stupid that is!" (on a debate forum). Then you come with that language to make your point. The idea he proposed has merit and scales nicely. I disagree that you could go back and balance old content easily again but meh.

Anyway, I guess what I'm saying is you can make your point without being a dick.

There's absolutely no problem with stating the truth and cookies are always nice. He indirectedly called me delusional aswell on his post by stating that i'm "waiting for the impossible". You reap what you sow.

The reason why i didnt even want to debate this is that i knew it would just turn into a wall of text stating the obvious. The idea was so bad to begin with that i didnt see any need to point out how bad it was (Except the 10 man part, that's got some credit to it). Apparently i'm wrong.

Also, i did not use incorrect or offensive/vulgar language. I posted my opinion, as did he. Just because his opinion is all pinky and fluffy and mine's straight to the point, doesnt mean you should try to crucify me based on your personal opinion/vendetta.

I eagerly await for the OP's reply on this.

[Prokne]

to me it actually deals with the scale of things better. for instance, kara is a perfect example of a 10 man raid designed to be a 10 man raid. it's a castle effectively, with narrow corridors and regular sized bosses with the odd dragon thrown in as a challenge (both nightbane and netherspite were challenging fights). but with something like deathwing, where it's a great big fucking dragon aspect, you'd almost want it to be a 40 man raid to really amplify the fact that he's a planet-fucking dragon aspect. being able to take him down with 10 men strips away from the roleplay of that experience (not that i am a roleplayer, but in a roleplay game things like this can make or break the immersion)

honestly, i think they need to stop with the 10 Vs 25 man choice and have specific 10 man raids with ilvl relevant to the difficulty and 25 man raids with ilvl relevant to the difficulty. the balancing act they are trying to pull off by having multiple dificulties AND multiple raid sizes just doesn't work. it's one thing to give multiple difficulties, but a combination of the 2 has caused more headaches than it is worth.

with the introduction of LFR getting 10 people or 25 people together for a raid is much simpler, but the balance of 10 Vs 25 in terms of difficulty and mechanics is an impossible balancing act. i honestly think they'd be better off with:

MoP - tier 1. mogu raid - 10 man. LFR, NM + HM - ilvl 150, 155, 160 (example ilvl's)
MoP - tier 1. Sha raid - 25 man LFR, NM + HM - ilvl 150, 155, 160
MoP - tier 2. mantid raid - 10 man. LFR, NM + HM - ilvl 160, 165, 170
MoP - tier 2. old god raid - 25 man. LFR, NM + HM - ilvl 160, 165, 170
MoP - tier 3. bad monkey raid - 10 man. LFR, NM + HM - ilvl 170, 175, 180
MoP - tier 3. super bad sha raid - 25 man. LFR, NM + HM - ilvl 170, 175, 180

giving every raid an LFR option makes them so much more accesible than trying to balance 10 Vs 25 just seems stupid at this point in the game, it also gives players more variety each tier and the ability to encourage 25 man raiding guilds again that can easily break down into 10 man raids if they have raid roster issues. oh noes, 5 people haven't shown for our 25 man raid, well lets split into 2x 10 mans and try again later in the week.

edit: appreciated 10 mans aren't on LFR, but i think they'd be better off working on a 10 man LFR and to separate the 10 and 25 man raids, than they would be trying to balance 10 and 25 man difficulties for the same ilvl's of gear off the same bosses. as long as they can provide a 10 and 25 man raiding experience each tier, i think they'd be onto a winner.

I agree that raids should be designed for and only be for a single size raid, but they cant be 10 and 25. The raid sizes should be multiples of each other(10&20,12&24) so that 2 groups that run the small raid can join together for the big one. If its 10 and 25 you have the problem from Kara that people get left out when forming the larger raid unless you have lots of alts in each 10man. If they go to all raids only being the same size it should be 20man. This way to preserve the epic feeling of many people in the raid and you allow 10man guilds to merge instead of forcing them to find 5 new players while 25mans are kicking 10ppl. 25mans could probably easily shed their 5 lowest performing raiders.

[Deleted]

It is amazing how narrow minded and closed to himself a “hard core” raider can be.
You re not the first, and certainly you re not the last that I encounter through the forums, who, when they decide to open their mouth and tell smt more than the typical, one sentence “cool” aforism, they re just saying “if I manage you could manage but you are not so good”.

Then when it is their turn to crumble they cry like babies that lost their dolly.
When you re on top branches of the tree, and smt underneath is chopping that tree, you re also going down smart guy.
And also when you cut the top of a tree and plant it on the ground, even while it looks healthy still before dry out from not having roots, it looks small and insignificant.
25 man top end progression guilds were not the matter of this thread, you made it one.

Who told you in the first place that I was talking for the hardcore raiders? 10 or 25 for the matter.
It is the casual part and the average part of the 25 man teams that suffered and went down.

Anyway lets take the parts of your thoughts on the matter, although you will not change your mind, for you 25 is fine since 200 guilds around the world can still do them without (many) problems.

Do you truly believe that the lost of raiding interest and the major issues with raiding is the stupid comparison people do with 10v25? You are very delusional. As a high end raider (Which i'm sure you are not, due to your claims, so i think i have a bit more experience in this department), my expectations of raiding is that the encounters are finely balanced, dont favour stupid class stacking (Hello Spine , nice to meet you) and are above all a pleasant game field (Both progress and farm).

This is an entirely different story. I amsaying “it would be nice if we had sunshine” and your answer is “but we don't have hdmi connection”.
Have I talked about the quality of the content at all?
Have I voiced an opinion on the matter?
I agree with you, and yes, it is another reason for the decline of interest in raiding.
Yet, even if you want to stick to that, 10 and 25 balancing, and especially development of LFR in the last tier is heavily related with tier 13 quality.
Still, 25 man guilds were dying when you were having your epic ragnaros 25 man moments and no new guilds were replacing them.

People who prefer 25 will NOT drop to 10 just because you get the same rewards for probably less effort (Managing less people while dealing with the limitation of buffs/personal player power). Those who do are people who, in my honest opinion, should not label themselves hardcore raiders.

I am not after that label, and I assure you many others aren't either, yet, they like to raid. And they even prefer to raid 25s like me. And you know what? If we re able to raid in larger raid so will you other wise start looking for another game to raid in large groups. It is as simple as that.

.

"During Cataclysm, we saw the raiding community divided and finally weakened from the endless 10vs25 debate."

- Wrong. Or well, this might be true. Most people will advocate that their prefered raid mode is the one that involves the most skill/capability. Without proper judgement of both modes or good analyzing skills, you cant make such comparisons, and as i'm sure the majority of the 10v25 whiners are just tossing random claims arround, their opinion is to be discarded as it's no more valuable than a child's fairytale. The raiding comunity was divided by an inexistant wall that formed into people's minds.

Your opinion is biased by the fact that in your team, apparently all people are of similar (high) skill. Good for you! What you missed in your “analysis” is that 90% of those 25000 teams that killed lord marrowgar in ICC25 the first 2 months it went live, had huge differences between the most potent and the less potent member of their team.
Also what you missed to see in your “analysis” is that even those teams, had players at your skill level, many of them enough to form a 10 man great team when blizzard created this new model. Those in short are the reasons that "your" raiding format has now so few teams to support it.
You re closed in a bubble and you fail to see what is going on around you, and then you acuse others for “lack of proper judgement” and “not good analysing skills”.


"There are many variables that define this equation, more specifically

blablabla.

By ignoring (4), Blizzard assumed that by equalizing (1), (2) and making (3) shared, they will achieve (5), thus people will select the size they prefer, and that they won’t feel “forced” to raid both sizes same week to maximize loot."

- This was a pretty good idea. I cant agree with sharing Titles/RF's, as the two modes should be clearly distinct and each have it's own reward, but the objective at hand ( Stopping people from taking raiding as a forceful grind by doing both 25 and 10) was pretty well tought of.

Speechless, I am just speechless. What about the forced LFR grind then, with multiple teams at the start of the tier? Or you guys were so pro that you topped ranks without it?
It was a good idea in theory, but very poorly implemented, based on a shallow (not to say smt more offending) analysis of a static picture of the raiding scene, that managed to pretty much deconstruct it..

"The result was not the expected (or the one stated as expected), and the debate 10vs25, is the immediate result of that failure."

This once more was caused by the sillyness of people. While i do agree that throughout Cata (Bar T11), 10 mans have always been easier and the people that raid such mode have gone from nobodies to pseudo-elitists, this is a community flaw, not a flaw on Blizz's end for the majority of it.

So, you admit that there is no balance, yet, you re saying that it was deliberate cause people are silly?
Why? We had the right balance in tier 11 and because 10 man raiders whined they changed it?
We didn't have the right balance back then and I can recall at least 3 fights for each size that they were heavily unbalanced!
If they had a balance achieved in tier 11 you would have a point, they didn't, so you are basically calling people idiots for nothing!

As for your "How to raid 10 and 25" part of the post, i've already discussed how wrong it is. That's not the way 25 man works. You grab 25 people, raid with them, and then move on. You dont do all this "Raid 10 man 3 times then exclude 5 people" BS. I fail to even see how this tought even went through your mind.

Hmm care to count for me how many 25s are formed DURING cataclysm???
And if you find one how they did it???
Or 25s are fine as long as your team is still able to do it?
It is not TBC, it is not Wrath. Think with today terms rather than saying “gather 25 people and raid”. Things have changed mr!

Your proposed change to 5 mans is negligible. Your change to 10 mans would allow a better balance of classes and setups by adding in 2 extra slots, which would be a good plus. Your proposed change of 25 man to drop a member to make management easier (Einstein's got it! The solution to fix 25 vs 10 is giving 10 extra 2 people which they'd gladly welcome and removing one person from 25 because most guilds dont have 30/40 raid capable members!.....) is beyond ridiculous. Dropping one more member out of a 30/40 man roster will fix nothing. You talk about exclusion, yet you're all for further exclusion of people for one mode. If you havent seen how wrong you are up to this point (With the exception of your 10 man suggestion, that still holds some valid points) then you should sincerely stop posting. The last thing the forums need is more ideas from a pseudo-visionary who wants to completely revamp and fix raiding with this ideas that are based on mere assumptions since said visionary probably does not indulge in meaningful raiding himself. Pathetic.

Oh you have 30/40 man roster? How nice! I am glad YOU guys are fine, keep it up!
In the bottom line you wright those lines to point out how nice YOU re doing!
Based on your previous baseless remark about HOW EASILY you gather 25 people and raid, you ignore all my post and calling me einstein like I ever implied THAT THE ONE PERSON LESS is what makes 12/24 functional. Great trolling!

Also, for your last point of "2) Still hoping that the imposible will happen based on?" - I'm not waiting for the impossible to happen. I'm more than conscious that Blizzard knows what it takes to fix the mistake they made, they just dont want to implement it based on the sheer ammount of whining and outcry it would cause to this degraded community. To fix the bigger problems, you first have to sort out the smaller problems, which in this case is almost impossible to apply.

Yep keep saying that to yourself, balance is achievable, but the idiots don't let good blizzard to make it happen...
45 normal and hard modes in 10 and as many of those in 25. There was not A SINGLE one 100% balanced. Yet, it is achievable, only the stupid community prevents the miracle from happening!

No matter what you do, there will always be a group of people who arent happy with change and will cry and bash the company until their wishes are fulfiled. Had the difficulty peak dropped at a steady pace in the transition between TBC and WoTLK rather than the huge decline it had, the majority of the community problems would have been eliminated, and then you could start working on Raiding Balance. As it stands now, the teeth are beyond repair, and the only solution is to pull them out and toss them in the trash can.

The fish smells from the head m8. The community is the body and the tail.
If you have a flawed model, this model will make the community worse. Stop blaming the people already! The volume of complains for cataclysm raids is by far bigger than it was in wrath while the people that are actively raiding are less than 60-70% of the people that were raiding in Wrath.

TL;DR: Community needs to be fixed before Raid Balance can be fixed. We dont need visionaries tossing their baseless opinions left right and center. Cookies.

Community cannot be fixed with flawed malfunctioning systems. The game deteriorated, the community followed, not the opposite. The same has to happen for the community to get better! For me it is not too late, for you it is, and you prefer enjoying in your bubble for as long as it will last, that is the difference, plus the lack of arrogance from my side and the lack of manners from your side.

[Deleted]

"It is the casual part and the average part of the 25 man teams that suffered and went down."

"and as i'm sure the majority of the 10v25 whiners are just tossing random claims arround, their opinion is to be discarded as it's no more valuable than a child's fairytale. The raiding comunity was divided by an inexistant wall that formed into people's minds."

The rest of your post is just mumbo jumbo with personal attacks that are absolutely uncalled for or "NO YOUR WAY'S WRONG, MY WAY'S RIGHT" without any proper justification. Think i hit a nerve somewhere. Your claims of lack of balance are again, discreditable, as i'm pretty sure you do not indulge in end-game raiding. Hence your whole wall of text is nothing more than a rant of spite against a point of view from someone who actually knows what he's talking about.

25 mans are dying, but most meaningful 25's are holding their weight. It's easier to build a 10 man guild than it is to build a 25 man guild out of the ground, hence why most people arent making 25 man guilds to replace the ones who fall. However, as i stated before, if you're talking about "RANDOM BILLY'S GUILD OF WIN" that went from 25 Man to 10 Man, then you might be right, those guilds might be having a downfall. But as true raiding revolves arround HM's and not faffing arround in Playgrounds, what happens in that bracket is of no relevance to me. This is further proved by the majority of the good 25 man guilds remaining 25 man, and the people who found 25 man much of a challenge (Be it due to lack of members or lack of capability) going down to 10 man. To each his own, but both modes arent comparable.

Come back when you can argue properly.

[Deleted]

So you argued?
You just used baseless aforisms and THAT was uncalled for!

I didn't say that this is the only way even, wheen i was replying to guys supporting the one single size idea.

If you find good a system that only the strongest 25s can keep up doing what they prefer, then ofc even cataclysm model is working JUST fine.
Your epeen is boosted, just a few remaining and thats all that matters!

I knew it ever since i ve red your first post with what i am dealing with here, nevertheless it is nice that i gave you the chance to prove how right i was.

You are an arrogant and unpleasand fellow, you shouldnt bother to post at all but you needed your "look all how good i am" mentality polished.

[Deleted]

So you argued?
You just used baseless aforisms and THAT was uncalled for!

I didn't say that this is the only way even, wheen i was replying to guys supporting the one single size idea.

If you find good a system that only the strongest 25s can keep up doing what they prefer, then ofc even cataclysm model is working JUST fine.
Your epeen is boosted, just a few remaining and thats all that matters!

I knew it ever since i ve red your first post with what i am dealing with here, nevertheless it is nice that i gave you the chance to prove how right i was.

You are an arrogant and unpleasand fellow, you shouldnt bother to post at all but you needed your "look all how good i am" mentality polished.

I dont give a rat's ass about what randoms like yourself think of me, like me or hate me, so your last phrase is completely wrong and is once again a flame that's uncalled for.

Also, Gz Einstein, you managed to use all the arguments i used against you and just implemented it into your spiteful phrases. You are nothing more than just another ordinary MMO-C poster (Which i wont describe because someone might call the Whambulance about how offended they are and report me), a clueless pest that does nothing more than rant. If you spent that time actually becoming GOOD at the game, you'd do both of us a great favour.

Think i've fed the troll enough, peace. Also, you should chill on the use of exclamation marks. It doesnt make you look cool, infact, it makes you look like someone who was given Adherol for 24 hours straight.

Infracted.