Blizzard will let 25 mans die?

[Modzy]

If you look at any decently progressed server it's loaded with 8/8 H 25 guilds

Sargeras, 3rd ranked US Realm, and we are the ONLY 8/8h 25m guild. Maybe U.S 3rd isn't "decently progressed" by your standards? I don't know.

[Fenixhart]

This is entirely a community problem.

25 mans were run more when they were outright better, but now they're relatively equal in terms of reward.


The result? The Playerbase has gravitated towards what they wanted or could only do, and we are left with this result.

This is the same boat as World PvP and RP-it's player-driven and player-managed. Blizzard gave us the option and we followed suit-got no one to blame but us.

[Trainwreck]

25 man guilds have been killing themselves, it has nothing to do with Blizzard. As is stands today 25 man raids get gear faster (because the drops actually go to people rather than getting De'd when no one can use it) and get legendaries faster. The reason they fail is because it's very rare to find 24 other random people on the internet you actually want to spend 12 hours a week with. I love my 10 man raids because we all get along, know each other, and enjoy each other's company. The fact that Blizz made 10 man raiding viable is probably the major thing keeping this game alive.

[TheViper]

25 man guilds have been killing themselves, it has nothing to do with Blizzard. As is stands today 25 man raids get gear faster (because the drops actually go to people rather than getting De'd when no one can use it) and get legendaries faster. The reason they fail is because it's very rare to find 24 other random people on the internet you actually want to spend 12 hours a week with. I love my 10 man raids because we all get along, know each other, and enjoy each other's company. The fact that Blizz made 10 man raiding viable is probably the major thing keeping this game alive.

well thats countered by the fact that 10man gets their teir faster. So gear wise it works out aproxx the same.

Correct on the legendaries on a per guild basis, however in a x month period the same amount of "people" from 10mans will have their legendaries than 25's, so thats not really a reason.

Your exactly right, its hard to find 24 other people. So hard theres only 2 25man guilds left on the server, 1a 1h.We all get along very well and know each other by name, have bbq's bla bla, just as well as any group of 10's could be, probably better, but then again, the core of the guild has known each other for over 4 years with very little turnover.

10's are easier i know that now, but theres just no incentive to put in the extra work for a 25, so why should people bother? The majority dont!

[lakhesis]

There is absolutely nothing inherit about the fact that you have 25 or 10 people that makes either raid harder. There isn't a single person that would claim Sarth +3 was easier on 10 than it was on 25 and I think most people would say the same about hagara and possibly madness as well some would also say Zon. Hopefully that clearly illustrates that it has nothing to do with raid size but blizzard's tuning that affects if one difficulty is harder than another.

To reprint an example I've seen elsewhere (Anafielle on 10vs25, parts 1 and 2, who in turn is using Theck's example from here:

Say I fill a raid with copies of myself. Naturally, I'm incredibly pro (just run with me here, it's my imagination, 'k? ) so I have a 98% chance of performing Hour of Twilight correctly. In H-10, 2 of the me's need to do it right. In H-25, 6 of the me's need to do it right. This means that in 10 man, I have 0.98^2 or a 96.04% chance of doing each cycle right. On the other hand, in a 25 man we're immediately down to a 0.98^6 or 88.6% chance.

When you start taking that down to a 50/50 chance of doing it right, we're talking a 25% chance in 10 versus a 1.56% chance in 25.

Obviously that's rather simplistic, but I it underlies a very easy counter example which does have a feather to fly with.

Personally I liked the 10s tuning of t11, but I've been called a masocist. I think they've flubbed too many of the numbers check elements on the last tier or so... Ultraxion is a prime example of what I mean. I much prefer a 10s style which actually pushes against the weaknesses of 10s (lesser number of GCDs) in the same way that most content still pushes against the weaknesses of 25s (range/positioning, i.e. h-baleroc, red+green on yor 25, h-al'akir, et cetera).

And as a final aside, we really should put any the "you can afford to lose someone in 25s" to bed alongside its "but the damage intake is lower and the gear's the same" counterpart for 10 man. That's just another element of the poor tuning displayed on DPS checks like Ultraxion. If you can do a progression kill while operating 1 person down, or if the raid DTPS vs HPS potential doesn't match across sizes, then it's just a case of under-tuning whichever format that applies to.

And my bias: I run 25s still because cutting the raid team down would involve permanently benching too many friends (my guild had this discussion back in T11), but my personal preferred content is actually a T11-style 10 man. I like the tighter & more focused group, and fights that play to that style.

[Alvito]

Then you do the 10 man raid. The fundamental problem that killed 25 man raiding is that the rewards for 25 man raiding were not inline with the effort. If there were different raids for different sizes, 25 man guilds could do their raid and be rewarded with seeing that content, while people that just want to play with a few friends can do the 10 man raid and get their rewards there.

---------- Post added 2012-03-19 at 05:51 PM ----------



What you think should or shouldn't matter is meaningless. The reality is that it does matter on many levels. If it takes me twice as much effort to run a 25 man guild than it takes you to run a 10 man guild, yet you get the same rewards, then I'm not going to be enjoying myself. That's just how the human mind works.

You get slightly more loot, if there are legendary wpns like there were the last 2 raid tiers you pump them out at almost 3 times the speed. How much effort it does or doesn't take to run depends on the ppl you run with, your guild and server. Many ppl enjoy running in 25 mans over 10s so you get a group of ppl that are just inclined to run 25s just like some ppl would rather do 10 mans. Really though if you dont think its worth it or dont want to then dont do it. If you want to make it happen it really is that simple.

---------- Post added 2012-03-20 at 07:56 AM ----------

There are nine 8/8H guilds on Illidan. http://www.wowprogress.com/pve/us/il...ting.tier13_25

There are four on Mal'Ganis, four on Zul'jin, three on Kil'Jaeden, three on Blackrock etc.

On the EU Side, theres six on Ravencrest, five on Kazzak, five on Свежеватель Душ etc.

25 man guilds dying is a perception, and most of the people that say it is dying are stuck on server's that do not really have a raiding community.

Bad 25 mans are dying off, but guess what bad raids come and go. Ppl wont put in the effort to be 1/2 done when thousands of others have finished it all months ago. The 25 mans are dying threads are a lot like the ppl that bitch about lfr loot threads. Both are filled with middle or the road raiders that think they are amazing for some reason, the ppl below them in progress are garbage and the ones above them have cheated somehow or are only their because of things outside of their control.

[mixerii]

People like 25 and 40 man raids because they feel more epic and feel like it's not just 10 hobos killing the Lich King.

Ahahah, if people like it than it's not dying and this topic is moot. Problem is most people don't seem to like it and you'd like them to be forced to do it.

[Deleted]

Yawn, something "unscripted" in a "scripted code" is a bug you know?

Is life scripted in your opinion? Can you predict your whole life?

Is AI scripted?

RNG is scripted, but cannot be predicted with enough accuracy that you can fully assign roles before it happened. That is why it is called RNG. If you can predict it enough, it is "weak" RNG. Now, "weak" is relative. A good game, in my opinion, has good enough RNG that it isn't predictable. Loot drops, for example, is RNG, but have a small sample size. It can only drop X amount of items.

No worries though, you seem reasonable. I admire that.

Well, you don't. You sound ignorant, and neglecting crafted points.

Did you kill Baleroc HC pre-nerf without voice chat?

I say the following though "sheeps wonder around in packs". If something is working it must be "the only way" right? (Long sigh)

That is not what I argue. I argue it is the most efficient way, and I know of one guild which is trying to prove the opposite is true: The PuG. Their accomplishments: patch 4.0: 12/12 normal, 2/13 HC (Halfus pre-nerf, Maloriak post-nerf), patch 4.2: 6/7 normal (Alysrazor and Majordomo post-nerf, only killed once, "the dance was too hard"), 1/8 HC (Madness & Morchok pre-nerf). Rated battleground rating of ~1400. Sorry, I am not impressed. Virtually no HC experience, as soon as some kind of RNG and performance is required they fail to achieve kill.

Why I argue it is the most efficient way? Because A) I observed this in other sports B) all hardcore raiding guilds -people who compete and try to do everything most efficient- are using the tool vchat C) the people who try to disprove it are not getting far.

There are legio analogies available where in sports tools (vchat is a tool related to communication) are being used by most teams or players. F1, ice skating, tennis. Why do they use these tools? Because they are the most efficient for them. If they wouldn't be efficient, they wouldn't use them. If they're not efficient you're free to disprove by not using them or using different tools. I don't see evidence of that though. The only other example we have is Nihilum although being passee, and later offsprings do use vchat.

As for the insulting one, well thank you. Do your thing now, you are right and I am wrong. You are smart and I am dumb OO You are the master and I am the newb.

Out of arguments, I see. Good you know your place, slave.

[Deleted]

To those claiming that people have an 'option' between 10man and 25man atm and they actively select 10man so that is the reason 25mans are dying:

Your argument is like saying that in Wrath people had the 'option' of selecting to raid 10man-only.

i.e. it is nonsense

[Brett Skullcrack]

You get slightly more loot, if there are legendary wpns like there were the last 2 raid tiers you pump them out at almost 3 times the speed. How much effort it does or doesn't take to run depends on the ppl you run with, your guild and server. Many ppl enjoy running in 25 mans over 10s so you get a group of ppl that are just inclined to run 25s just like some ppl would rather do 10 mans. Really though if you dont think its worth it or dont want to then dont do it. If you want to make it happen it really is that simple.

It really isn't that simple. People don't just make their decisions based on raid size, that's incredibly simplistic and naive. They look at a variety of things. After working very hard and spending most of Cata trying to keep 25 man hc guild with a long history alive only to see it die, I find it funny when people with no clue tell me to "just get a group of people that want to do 25 mans". It shows complete ignorance of reality. And I wasn't the only one, my server had over ten solid 25-man guilds all the way from TBC to Cata, now there are none left even though officers in all of them worked very hard to keep them alive.

[Deleted]

Ahahah, if people like it than it's not dying and this topic is moot. Problem is most people don't seem to like it and you'd like them to be forced to do it.

Just because some people (like me) are not doing it, doesnt mean we dont like it or we wouldnt be doing it if we could. We are forced to raid 10man on my server and on many others I know of. What don't you understand?

[ANewStart]

It's too late to save 25 man raiding now. Most servers are lucky to have one 25 man guild left, and the people who built and ran those guilds are gone. I highly doubt there's anything Blizzard can do to bring back those people who had to watch all their effort go to waste as Blizzard let their 25 man guilds die.

This is the main reason for the loss of subs, not just because of 25 man raiding dying but rewards don't equal the skill/effort you put into your char.

So may aswell not waste your time playing and do something else more rewarding.

[Hightotem]

It really isn't that simple. People don't just make their decisions based on raid size, that's incredibly simplistic and naive. They look at a variety of things. After working very hard and spending most of Cata trying to keep 25 man hc guild with a long history alive only to see it die, I find it funny when people with no clue tell me to "just get a group of people that want to do 25 mans". It shows complete ignorance of reality. And I wasn't the only one, my server had over ten solid 25-man guilds all the way from TBC to Cata, now there are none left even though officers in all of them worked very hard to keep them alive.

He speaks the truth.

[Advent]

The very moment that 25-mans actually do die and Blizzard stops supporting them, I honestly see myself and quite a few others quitting. To me, and quite a few of us (I'm sure) feel that 10-man just isn't the avenue we signed up for.

[ANewStart]

The very moment that 25-mans actually do die and Blizzard stops supporting them, I honestly see myself and quite a few others quitting. To me, and quite a few of us (I'm sure) feel that 10-man just isn't the avenue we signed up for.

I already quit in december after realising there was no going back. The playerbase has changed and what people want out of wow has changed. It's not about the challenge anymore but about social networking and letting everyone enjoy the content at there own leisure. Right now there is only heroic mode raiding that is a challenge and there is far less bosses then before in the last 2 patches. Shared lockouts also means u can't experience the same challenge on 25 and 10man in the same week.

The philosophy has also changed from having one hero to having no heroes but a bunch of decently geared alts that you don't really care about as much. No one is a hero in wow anymore and therefore there is not much to motivate players to becoming better.

[TheViper]

The philosophy has also changed from having one hero to having no heroes but a bunch of decently geared alts that you don't really care about as much. No one is a hero in wow anymore and therefore there is not much to motivate players to becoming better.

i agree. Personally i have just one alt, that i use just to change things up a bit every now and then. Our gm has played the same toon, since 2004 with no lvled alts. Thats dedication for you! A single toon at the lvl cap for 8 years, gotta respect that.

[Deleted]

well thats countered by the fact that 10man gets their teir faster. So gear wise it works out aproxx the same.

How so?

If you are smart in tier you hand out tier not with DKP and such (unless people are mature and smart with that) but by giving first person A their tierset and then person B depending on who's it best for. Well guess what, it is ace for tanks, so you got easier your raidwall in 25m and things like that really add up in 25m. Same with healing mace Madness.

In 10m a tier token can go to OS whereas in 25m it'd go to the MS of a player. Where in 10m it'd go to the OSOS of a player (wasted IOW) it'd go to the OS of a player in 25m.

To add, you can also easily do LFR in 25m to get your tierset. Which is what many top hardcore raiding guilds did, even went so far to exploit. A 10m guild cannot make a LFR 100% premade unless they have many socials willing to sacrifice or work together with 2 or 3 other hardcore raiding guild. In 25m you have luxary to do that internal, and as I will argue also makes alt runs gearing up easier.

Hmm , Pally tank, DK tank, Hunter, Mage, Lock, Lock, Rogue, Pally(healer/dps), Pally healer, Shaman Healer.

This was week to week, both with the 10% nerf. Ok we knew the tactics for 25man, but as we found with hagara, they arnt always the same, and infact varied quite a bit.

Ok heres some math - heroic ultraxx since its the easiest to use pure math.

Fights are much more complex than just required DPS and pure math, but OK. As someone else argued already if you have a 98% of not failing on heroic will (one shot) and you have 25 people of having 98% the chance of a wipe death is higher in 25m than in 10m if everyone has the same uptime of 98%. In this sense, yes, 25m is harder. However, you also have more battle resurrection available. Another issue 25m raiding has more than 10m is requiring better hardware.

25man HP - 250mill - enrage 6mins = 5healer/2tanks contributing 45k dps total =16million hp = 18dps to contribute 234million in 6mins =36100 dps
10man HP - 80mill - enrage 6mins = 2healers/2 tanks contributing 35k dps total = 12.5million hp = 6 dps to contribute 62million in 6mins = 31250dps

So there are some factors you neglect:

1) Tank DPS. Tho vengeance should be equal it should stack up quicker in 25m, and since in 25m you have full buff/debuff this is potentially higher in 25m. More about buff/debuff in point #3.

2) The healers are also able to DPS in the start (pot + tree on start for example) which counts for both groups. However the chance of you having an atonement disc priest or sniper resto shaman in your 10m is how much compared to the chance of you having one of those in 25m? HoT stacking druids. Chance of that happening in 10m? Not viable in 10m. If you force your healers to heal better you can replace one healer easier with a DPS. If you need for example 4,8 healer in a 25m the other healers need to make up for that 0,8 healer divided by 4 people (20% extra healing from all) which might mean you wipe more due to RNG or lack of healing but once the healers are more skilled and used to fight the extra DPS counts. In 10m if making up for 0,8 healer is unrealistic. This is further made easier by mitigation healers as well (disc priest especially), making debuff mechanics like infest a complete joke. Being able to raid 25m also allows you to not take talents like dispelling magic debuffs which improves your overal performance (a resto druid can pick more viable talents, for example). Speaking about healing: you should check the amount of healing done by Maw of the Dragonlord on a static fight like Ultraxion in 25m versus 10m.

3) You made a composition which provides most buffs (I looked it up on Raidcomp, and you got nearly all) and as I've observed had some I find rare in 10m. You have 2 heroism/BL/TW classes allowing you to pop heroism twice: once for DPS with healers phased out, once after 5 min for healers only. Perhaps it hasn't occured to you but not every 10m has this luxary. Someone died? Pop heroism for them again. Your setup includes 3 paladins which isn't great (but better than 3 druids). It also includes a hunter (very flexible buff & debuff wise), shaman (idem), and 2 warlocks (2x DI, demonology is the best DPS for Ultraxion). Since demonology is the best spec for Ultraxion we have to assume one of the locks was demonology. I don't know if it occurred to you but warlock is not exactly a popular class to play these days. My 10m guild hasn't had a warlock ever since we went 10m, and we've been actively looking for one. We had trials, they were worse than I was on my warlock alt. In fact, many guilds on my realm have been looking for ele shaman and demo lock: 4% DPS for the casters, as well as extra healing from healers (and in case of Ultraxion extra DPS in start). In 10m, demonology is bad on ship, so the only viable way to get 10% SP buff is from ele shaman. Which isn't exactly a good DPS here either (see my next point).

4) Class stacking (legendaries, farming them). Does this require an explanation? First of all you're going to have more legendaries which are still BiS. Second, Spine in mind, you're not able to class stack 5 arcane mages with legendary or tons of sub rogues in 10m (who rotate on CDs) or have your shadow priest's RNGish orbs deal with the stun. With careful planning you're able to min-max more than 10m where you need certain classes for buffs. This flexibility I believe is what attracts hardcore raiding guilds into 25m raiding. If 10m was easier, would lead to world firsts, people would've switched en masse towards it and Paragon would'be become a 3x10m guild so that they could be world first. Because that is all what matters; we don't see that though. Occam's Razor applied, the most plausible explanation is that 10m and 25m are indeed competitive. Funny thing is Blizzard has legio data to analyse. Had 25m been significant harder on certain fights, they'd have nerfed those in patch 4.3.2. Again, it is more plausible that yes some fights are slightly harder on 10m and some on 25m, but not significantly warranting action from Blizzard.

5) During progress the loot drops from 25m are better distributed to off specs whereas they're sharded in 10m. This is especially valid in start of new expansion (tho a 10m guild would've gotten more maelstrom crystal for enchanting this is of economic value only). After you progressed in 25m you take the geared characters and go do 10m, of course it will be faceroll. Since your off specs are better geared, it is viable to use them using the best class/role combination for the fight as long as you got the raid buffs. A 10m raiding guild does not have this flexibility unless they bench people (who also gotta be geared up). Furthermore, having an alt does not mean it is viable to replace the main with the alt. Since in 25m you got all buffs anyway it is more realistic to perform class stacking, and it is also easier to form 10m alt runs in your 25m guild. When we do 10m alt runs we also need to get socials in. Most of them are good players, but they do not have gear or heroic experience.

6) Buffs like DI, FM always go to the best class/player. You have simply more flexibility in that sense. Your Honor Among Thieves proc is more reliable. Small things like these add up.

Now, lets see if the difference is too much. Lets assume the 10m group lacks 8% magic damage taken and 4% spell power. That'd increase the DPS by 112,3% for casters. 112,3% of 31250 comes awfully close near 36100 (the difference is 1k). Well well, guess what, the arcane mage buff / retri pala buff / BM hunter buff would make up exactly for that.

However I do agree with you that having a group of 20 good players with a few tossers who cannot execute the dance or combine with performance making 25m raiding unpleasant and will keep you from progress. Because hardcore raiding guilds don't have tossers like that longer than 1 day in guild they don't suffer from this issue; which is why taking above into account (!!) a fully buffed, skilled group of 25 players will perform better than best 10m guilds except for specific fights which is OK as long as the difference isn't too much. Well, that is why the DPS requirement is lower. Now you understand, congratulations.

So, TheViper, as a final thought what do you think is more accurate: your skewed sample size of 1 (your experience) furthermore skewed by echo chamber effect of your guildies ("I agree, it was faceroll) with all the shortcomings I posted before and with an analysis on your (lack of) buffs and several important details, or -as argued by an other poster- Wowprogress which is unbiased in their analysis which takes all raiding guilds and compares those? Or Occam's Razor applied on top 25m hardcore guilds not switching to 10m (don't say "cuz we freidns!!"; that does not apply in competitive raiding). For me the answer is simple and crystal clear.

[Deleted]

I still see enough 25 man's having fun and enjoying their game, so no, not really

[CDShaidar]

Ummm....
Anyway, generally when people start degrading the conversation with attempted insults you know you have them on the ropes.

I think Blizzard is definitely forcing 25mans into oblivion, most likely through ignorance. I hope they don't drag it out to long because it is quite painful for 25mans with recruiting and stuff. I think 15man raids all round would be the perfect solution.

You are time and time again proving my point by going to tuning arguments to justify why 25 is harder than 10 man and thus why there should be more reward. Blizzard is doing nothing to "FORCE" 25 mans anywhere. They've simply allowed people to choose what raiding format they prefer and it's beyond insane to me that you think people should be enticed to run 25 mans through extra rewards that would actually rather being running in a 10 man group.
In this thread we have people, in the same breath, claiming that 25 mans have a higher completion percentage than 10 mans because the player base is more skilled and has been weeded down to only good players and then turning around and saying it's harder to find skilled 25 man players than it is to find skilled 10 man. It's asinine. My opinion is and always has been that 10 an 25 mans need to be as equal as possibly in all things that grant rewards so that in the end the player is choosing based on what size they enjoy, not what size rewards them more.

[Benea]

Totally wrong. It all comes down to whether Blizzard wants to support 25men raiding or not. If they'd offer 3 man raids with the same loot and achievements, players would run that and 10 mens would die. Don't fool yourself in thinking 10-men raiding is great because it's 10-men raiding. It's great because it offers the best risk/reward ratio. That's all there is to it.

If they want to see a thriving 25men raiding community,they just need to provide the proper framework (raid-design philosophy) to make it happen. It's not at all about what "players want". Players would swim around stranglethorn for hours if that would yield the shiniest things ingame. Doesn't mean swimming around stranglethorn is a great hing.

This is probably the best post on this whole thread