Why can't Blizzard just admit they are wrong?

[Osmeric]

Oh, really now?

Number of 10-man guilds that have killed at least one boss in MSV normal : 27,111 (97% of all 10-man guilds, so that means there are a recorded 27,924 10-man guilds on wow-progress)

That percentage is the percentage of 10 man tracked guilds that have killed any normal or heroic mode boss at all in this tier, not the percentage of tracked guilds including those that haven't killed any boss in the tier.

Guildox lists the total number of active guilds. Something like 90% of them have not downed any boss in normal or heroic modes.

---------- Post added 2012-11-21 at 08:30 PM ----------

Problem is.... 25 man isn't harder and the idea that it is harder is pure guess work and opinion. Some bosses are harder on 25 man and some are harder on 10 man.

Even if 25 man mode is exactly as hard as 10 man, it's likely that the top 10 raiders in your raid group are better than the bottom 15, which means those 10 raiders will progress faster if they ditch the others.

[Talen]

It's pointless. Doesn't even get the point where offering more rewards for others makes it way easier than anything that could be offered to the people in charge of the organization for the lack of meaningful experience on that. Apart from still trying to argue difficulty.

No. I get that. I simply disagree wth it as a good solution because it does nothing to recognise the raid leader. It simply rewards players for standing around.

Lets not forget the fact that the harder things are the higher the reward tends to be. When 10 man raids were introduced Blizzard offered a higher ilvl to 25 man. Why do you think that was?

Because 25s were intentionally designed to be harder and more difficult. They filled the same spot Heroics do now.
Which is why heroics drop better gear.

The problem here is that

A: 10s and 25s aren't intentionally designed to have different difficulties so by the very principle you quoted, they can't be designed with different rewards.
B: You argument depeend son the assumption that 10s are easier in some meaningful way than 25s. Other than the logistical side - they aren't. Or at least, enough players find them comparable that the assertion that 25s are more difficult for everyone and so deserves betters rewards based solely on difficulty does not appear to have any standing.


EJL

[Archidamos]

What is the argument here? Incentivize 25 mans? Or give free counseling for the 15 raiders that the 10 that split probably got tired of carrying all over the place?

Yea right, the only problem with your logic is that to raid 25 you need 25.
If you give the means to 10 of them to splinter then you dont have 25 and with the rest 15 you re more likely to exclude 5 and the rest raid 10 man.

The problem with this logic is that blizzard said "to give people choice to raid the size they like", when they got us shafted with this BS.
So if their strategic idea was that...soz dude, it didnt work mkay?

[Malfecto]

25 man splits into 2 tens with a solid bench for both. I'm still confused why the 15 are out anything? They can still raid until they refill to 25 if that is their desire right? Sure, some people may have to sit some nights, but what raid hasn't had to do that at some point?

No one is really giving me a reason why the 10 leaving isn't probably caused by the other 15. If the group is performing well, and you have 25 people, then the 10 wouldn't want to leave in the first place. Commonality in social groups provides stability. Social disorder, does not. That's your problem, not the raid sizes.

[Osmeric]

No one is really giving me a reason why the 10 leaving isn't probably caused by the other 15.

It is caused by the others. That doesn't mean it isn't a problem. The game functions on a certain amount of carrying.

[Attsey]

No. I get that. I simply disagree wth it as a good solution because it does nothing to recognise the raid leader. It simply rewards players for standing around.



Because 25s were intentionally designed to be harder and more difficult. They filled the same spot Heroics do now.
Which is why heroics drop better gear.

The problem here is that

A: 10s and 25s aren't intentionally designed to have different difficulties so by the very principle you quoted, they can't be designed with different rewards.
B: You argument depeend son the assumption that 10s are easier in some meaningful way than 25s. Other than the logistical side - they aren't. Or at least, enough players find them comparable that the assertion that 25s are more difficult for everyone and so deserves betters rewards based solely on difficulty does not appear to have any standing.


EJL

The fact remains that the harder things are the higher the reward tends to be. If nothing else an increase would offer a larger pool of players.

[Talen]

The fact remains that the harder things are the higher the reward tends to be.

Which is typically the case.

So whats the problem?

EJL

[Attsey]

Which is typically the case.

So whats the problem?

EJL

So why isnt it in this case? With all things being equal people will always take the path of least resistance to get gear. If 5 mans dropped the best loot, people would do them over 10 man.

[Talen]

So why isnt it in this case? With all things being equal people will always take the path of least resistance to get gear. If 5 mans dropped the best loot, people would do them over 10 man.

All else being equal - including difficulty - they'd choose format based on how many of their friends were online and wanting to raid.

EJL

[Staticus]

I don't get why people say that going to 15-man would cause trouble...given how many 25-man guilds are struggling to get 25 people online for every raid except Wednesday, they could just ditch the fair-weather players and have a working roster of 15-20 without trying. 10-man guilds who are struggling in a similar fashion could just merge with each other and bingo, working roster of 15-20.

It's much easier to gear 10 people than it is to gear out 25 people.

Not when the bosses drop so little loot, that's often for a class/spec that isn't in the raid.

[papajohn4]

So what you are saying is: 10 mans are more fun... but you want to be forced to do 25 mans?

no he is not in the best 10, he want the others forced to take him

[Torty]

well i prefer 10 mans as a healer a lot. I have been doing 10men strict since icc.

Why 25 man guilds are way more progressed than 10s on average? not because its harder or easier or what ever.

Because that said 25m raids more or raids better. Rank 2 10m guild - CrushTest - raids 5-6 days a week for 5 hours. That's equal to rank 12 25m guild. All other 25m guilds raid way more: somewhere around 7 days a week, 6-12 hours a day. Do you need further explanation why those 25m are progressing through content faster? There's an awful lot of 5 days/week 10m guilds in top20 10m (at least 7, some are not listing their raid times). There's even a 3 days/week guild in top20 10m. For a reference, best 25m guild that raids 3 days a week is ranked 77 in that format.

Yes, you read it right. You can end up in top 20 10m raiding 3 nights a week. You can't end up even in top 40 25m if you raid 3 days a week. That's just not possible with current amount of competition. You can hardly land into top 20 with 5 days a week even. There are just so many uber hardcore 25m guilds compared to 10m. If you add twenty 7day/week guilds into 10m, this 3day/week will be pushed down. That's how it works.

This doesn't make 25m harder than 10m or 10m harder than 25m. Don't misinterpret me. If you've ever done hardcore raiding, you realize that one of the main things (not only) that make encounters difficult are numbers. Make Elegon enrage 1 min lower and suddenly next week only handful of guilds will kill it. Increase AoE passive damage on WotE by 10% and you will see the same results, just not in the same scale. Even minor things like 3-5% damage increase on X ability will reduce the number of guilds that kill the boss.

People that claim either format is easier because 'logistics', 'spreading', 'harder to heal', 'tighter enrage' or whatever else are just clueless. If Blizzard decide to make another Baleroc, 25m will have 'tighter enrage'. If Blizzard decide to make another Beth'tilac, 10m will have 'harder to heal' They can also make XXXHOGGER2000 that will do 200k pulsing aoe and have 300 mil hp in 25m with 3 min enrage timer, or same XXXHOGGER2000 will do 25k pulsing aoe and have 1 bil hp in 10m with 3 min enrage timer. Numbers are exaggerated out of proportion, but you get the point. Which format is harder now? No fucking clue. Same with current 10m and 25m. Whatever numbers Blizzard put into bosses, you can't affect it. Just raid whichever you prefer and race against same format. That's what I'm doing.

[chocobo606]

as long as 10 mans exist I'll do 10 mans, because I'd rather raid with my close friends that are all great players, than have to go back to a 25man guild and have those 10 players carry the other 15

That being said, gear has to be relevant to the challenge. You can't reduce the ilvl of gear in 10 mans without making 10 mans easier, but essentially what you'd be doing is then forcing 10 man guilds to merge into 25 mans, just like how they made it more appealing to break 25s into 10s.

There is no easy solution, but something has to be done aside from gear to make 25 mans more appealing. But like I said, personally I'll never join a 25 man guild because of cliques and unfairness, and horrible players and favoritism and assholes and it's just easier to mesh with 9 other people and become close.

[Elvispen]

The best thing in my opinion would be to take back what was before.. Having 10m raids easier than 25m.

[Zeverin]

Blizzard will never admit any mistakes or apologize for them. There seems to be a mindset in most corporations and even in singular individuals that if you are excusing yourself or admitting an error and backtracking something you have done, you're showing yourself off as weak and unable to make decisions (correct ones, at least).
Some call it commercial prudence, I call it arrogance.

Some people might say Blizzard should not listen to player's qq; I say Blizzard should start listening more to the top raiders and top PvP players.
The players just know better than devs how the game feels, and what tweaks the game could/should have.

[Osmeric]

I say Blizzard should start listening more to the top raiders and top PvP players.

This would be a ridiculous and stupid thing for them to do. The top players are a tiny fraction of the player population, and their preferences do not reflect the preferences of the average customer.

[Kerinsky]

Actually spread dmg events do more dmg in 10s than in 25s on several encounters (for example arcane debuff bomb on feng hc, hits for the half in 25s).

You're kidding right? The point of the debuff is it hits more for each person it hits, in 25 you have 2.5 time as many people to hit, and it goes out on a higher percentage of the raid, and oh yeah, in 10 you could 2 heal it the first week with all your heals and ranged not even moving, just spread out at min range which is not even remotely possible in 25 and accounted for about 99% of our wipes on the fight. Having done all 4 modes that mechanic is the hardest in the fight on 25 man (normal or heroic) and a total joke on 10 (normal or heroic)

10s are extremely tight on enrage timers. 25s leave way more room for error and variance , an encounter can still be beaten with one dps that is 20 k lower than the theoretical requirements, as 16-17 others can compensate. This is way harder to achieve in 10s.

Eh, nope. See previous examples of 25 man guilds 4 healing Garajal heroic first week, think of Baleroc, think of Ultraxion (lord Ultraxion was a joke in 10 H). Every fight is seperately "balanced" in all 4 modes, but the evidence is out there that 25's aren't just loose on dps timers compared to 10's. If you want to actually pull out math and numbers feel free, but this handwaving isn't proof of anything.

A weapon drop on a hunter will enable the ability to kill garalon.
The same Hunter without the weapon meant 3 % wipes 5 times in a row, with near perfect execution and no mistakes.
The hunters dmg increased by 15 k dps from one drop, after we switched to mogushan. No other loot was usefull, as only disenchanting /secondary spec stuff dropped.
That was our garalon kill story form 3 weeks ago.

Calling BS on a 15k dps upgrade from one drop, on my hunter femaledwarf.com says going from a blue heroic weapon to the heroic sha-touched gun would be just over 10k. You know what helped me do 15k more dps on my hunter at Garalon though? Practise.

But Garalon is a great fight I want to talk about for 10 vs 25. I'm in a 25 man guild and on our server we've been back and forth with a 10 man guild all this tier on progression (I'm talking our 25 man kills vs their 10s) We do get to go in on weekends with 10 and mess around more. The week heart of fear came out hurrican Sandy knocked out power for 4 of our main raiders and kept another late. We 24 manned vizier with 3 casuals in raid the first night, got wind lord to 7% and that was it for 25's that week, we couldn't even field 24 again with casuals for a second night. So we went and worked on Garalon. We got sub 15% with all up at enrage in a couple pulls, then we adjusted, we upped dps, we pushed, and finally we 2 healed, then I sat for a warlock just so we could get healthstones and we killed it. Then we looked at the logs for our 10 man competition. They just happened to have a warrior and rogue as their best geared players. They 3 healed it, their other 3 dps each did at least 10k less than our 6th worst dps, but they got carried by having the right melee that night. If our best dps had even been able to do the dps of the other guild's 2nd best, then we could have sat any of our dps, even our 2nd best, for a 3rd healer and kill it. I have no doubt that if their melee had been any two between ret pally, monk, DK or feral it would have cost them kills that week, their healers didn't have the pressure of 2 healing it and non of their kiters had dps pressure on them.

In 25 man this will *never* be the case, that 2 players being the right class will make that much of a difference, let alone one player. In 10 man 1 player doing double the dps of another lets you bring 50% more healers, in 25 man you get 14-20% more.

This isn't to say that 25's are *harder* but by the nature of numbers they're more balanced. Beyond the fact that it's poor design that 2 specs are such dps outliers, the 25 can be balanced around assuming a guild will have say 3 dps rouges+warriors and without class stacking 90% of guild will be from 2-4 and even with stacking 95% will be from 4-5. On 10's if you balance around one and tightly tune then guilds with 2 breeze through without working and guilds with 0 don't get a kill.

10 mens are really brutal for dealing enough dmg, in 25s this limits are easier to achieve, as more gear is available, and the higher probability that drops are useful. This factor has not been accounted for in balance of raid sizes.

How do you know that factor hasn't been accounted for in balance of raid sizes? You could actually list the health difference % wise between 10 and 25 man bosses in normal and heroic and have evidence for your point, but you don't. And you're missing the entire point. Even if what you say is true, it explains only differences in difficulty over time. The real issue with what you bring up, and it's a valid point that I've been making since ICC, is that if 10 and 25 are balanced the first week, then 25 gets easier over time faster. If they're balanced over time then 25's are harder at the start.

Now we know from interviews and tweets that each boss has an average raid ilvl that it's target balanced around and that they rise throughout an instance, what blizzard could do is skew how fast that ilvl rises in 25s or 25 heroics compared to 10s to attempt to balance this out, I haven't checked if that's the case or not so I keep my mouth shut about if it's actually happened or not.

Of course all this ignores the buff and debuff suites 10 and 25's can bring. 25's are balanced around bringing all 8 major buffs and all the debuffs I'm sure. What about 10's? If normal 10's aren't then a group that brings them all gets an easier boss for some logistics that 25's can't gain. 10 man heroics the problem gets more noticable, is it fair to balance around all buffs? Is it fair not to?

The only thing that is wrong, is that 25 raiders dont see and realize that they have more gear and more room for errors in progression.
And of course they dont see that their more advanced gear and choosen setup is what makes them steamroll 10mens. It would have been harder for them, if they would only have had the resources from a 10 men raid to this fight. But they did a 10 men fight with resources from 1 1/2 mont of 25 man.

But u can check the top 100 in wol. Its mostly 25 men raids. U can check the top 20 of any class on your realm. it is mostly 25 mens guys.

So actually there is a big benefit of 25s, but people tend to not see it.

I prefer 10mens, and i am personally very happy , that 10 men are not considered a tier lower , but a similar tier.

Or it could be that people who run 25's sometimes or often have alt 10's on weekends and do fights even more undergeared than their mains and realize how much experience, familiarity and just plain skill play into kills. I've done tandem characters in 25's and 10's since you first could in naxx, I've played in bottom 90% and top 1% guilds 25 man and I've done 10's in every single tier from one extent to another from being the only person in a weekly group that raided outside that group, to being with 9 friend's alts all of who were clearing heroic tiers weeks or months ahead of me. When I compare a boss on 10 and 25 I've either killed it on 10 man with an alt that only did 10's and undergeared my main when he got the kill, killed it with my main on 10 with less gear than I had when I killed it on 25, or most likely both.

From personal experience, analysis and interviews with friends heroic progression tier 10 ranged from harder to much harder in 10's except for Al'akir, Sindragosa and Council (Twin dragons was probably harder on 10 if you couldn't get a good rogue, but way easier if you could) Firelands was more balanced, beth'tilac was probably harder on 10 at the start but was outgeared quickly, baleroc and rag were harder on 25 by far (and fandral was a bit harder too but if you could get past baleroc it didn't matter). Dragon soul was a mixed bag, hagara was harder on 10 along with gunship while Ultraxion was much tougher on 25 and spine a slight bit. Madness was comp dependent on 10 and thus a bit harder I'd say. For tier 14 Vaults is much easier 10, heart is easier 25 and I can't compare terrace yet. In detail stone guard, feng, garajal and will are so easy it's sad on 10 compared to 25 while elegon and kings are about the same (haven't seen kings 25 heroic yet, I'm guessing it will be harder to get through the volley/anhilate/flanking combo with qiang/subetai up as well as pining/flanking with 25 but then easier overall after that). For Heart Vizier and 2nd boss are a little harder on 25 in my experience, but garalon (unless you have warrior+rogue in 10) 4th boss (first phase is easier on 25, 2nd is easier on 10, overall I found 25 man simpler though), amber shaper and empress are all harder on 10, particularly the last two.

Comparing and contrasting Will vs Empress though is illustrative of why a lot of analyses at a distance, instead of fight by fight, fails. 25 man Will has twice as many adds to handle as 10 man but the adds don't really do anything interesting. 10 man Empress gets the same number of adds, and the same number of them need to be watched for interrupts! On our 10 man will kill the working strategy was "bring 10 non stupid people and have them be non stupid for 10 minutes", on 25 man we had to give out specific step by step assignments to about 11 people (and further anti-assignments to most everyone else, eg let the assigned dps do that job, don't ever try to go "help" them), on 10 man the only discussion was which tank would get which boss, it was a night and day difference. Will should have been the same number of adds with more health on 25 and Empress should have been the twice as many adds fight to require more people (thus close to the same % of the raid) to be on the ball with interrupts and kiting.

[Attsey]

All else being equal - including difficulty - they'd choose format based on how many of their friends were online and wanting to raid.

EJL

I think someone has answered this weak statement before,so to save me time Ill repost.

That's not convincing, at all. The same dynamics that cause people to choose 10s over 25s now would cause people to choose 5s over 10s if that was an option. Your counter-argument - 10s would allow people to run with "all" their friends, have more interesting fight mechanics, and allow more interesting social dynamics - rely on arbitrary assumptions and could just as easily be used to argue that 25s should be more attractive than 10s.

I'm sure you'll respond by quoting this post sentence by sentence and/or continuing to repeat the same ridiculous argument ad nauseum until I lose interest (which will be fast), but it really should be blindingly obvious. People will usually choose whatever raid size gives them the easiest access to good loot and achievements. And "player preference" for easy loot and achievements obviously shouldn't dictate long term game design. Game design should be dictated by what provides players with long term enjoyment. If that's 10s, fine, if it's 25s, also fine, and if it's both 10s and 25s, that's fine but unlikely. But the fact that most players currently choose 10s is not relevant evidence, at all.