A Potential Fix

[Zonex]

Alright so I've been seeing a lot of posts around the forums that describe the pros and cons of 10man and 25man raiding, and the lack of incentive people have to do 25mans; I took in all the knowledge I could find and read, and thought up a compromise between all of them (a lot of these suggestions are other peoples')

So the biggest demotivator when it comes to doing and making 25man raids/guilds is the amount of effort that goes in for the officers, and also how cut throat mechanics can potentially hold a raid of 25 back because of a handful of lesser able players. This creates more stress in 25mans than it does in 10mans.

On the other hand, 10mans are more tightly knit groups and the margin of error is much smaller, and even one person under-performing in a group of average performers will severely hinder progress. This is offset by the fact, that from a management perspective it is easier to weed out the bad players, and bring in better ones (assuming no prior loyalty to that player). 10man raiders also usually have more on their plate "per player" than 25man raiders.

So how should we reward these 25man raids that have to go through more intrinsic methods to setup a raid?

- Well there is already a system that provides them with more loot per player, 6/25 instead of 5/25 (2/10). This is good but could use a little bit of tweaking, 25mans should have 5 loot drops from the boss initially that is based on RNG, and have the 6th loot be chosen by the raid leader, so it gives a complete advantage in gearing that is not even based on RNG.

- There is also the notion of having 1/2 upgraded loot drops for them in 25mans, and 0/2 in 10mans. This is a lot trickier because it penalizes 10man raiders for something they have no control over. So what if a system was implemented that gives 10man raiders a time constraint; that is to say, for every boss 10 man raiders kill, their weekly valor cap gets raised by "x" amount. Obviously they don't get this VP for free, it just raises their cap, they still have to do dailies/ heroics to reach that cap before the week ends. Basically, it gives them the "1/2" loot but they have to work more for it (or maybe have an incentive to do dailies, since that should cap them out if done daily).

Now, there are several issues with the above system, and parameters have to be set. One such issue is that, once a player has already gotten all the loot drops they need from a boss, he can quickly hop over to a 10man, just for that boss so it raises his valor cap, and then go 25mans for the bosses that they need actual loot from. The proposed solution to this is that, every individual character has a counter that raises their VP every time they kill a boss in 10man, however this counter is completely shut down as soon as the player kills a boss on 25man mode; I will work it out in an example.

Cap raised for killing bosses in 10mans = 100 VP cap raised (placeholder)

Max kills 15 bosses on 10man
Max Kills 16th boss on 25man

VP cap raised by 1500

Alex kills first boss on 25man
Alex kills rest of the bosses on 10man

VP cap not raised at all

Jake kills first 8 bosses on 10man
Jake kills 9th boss on 25man
Jake kills the remaining 7 bosses on 10man

VP cap raised by 800


From this, you see that you get the VP cap raised until you decide to kill a 25man boss.


The final issue comes in with the buff that players get when they reach the valor cap for the week, and get a buff that grants all their other characters 50% extra VP gain. This completely contradicts 10man raiders having to work more for their upgrades. The fix to this is that this buff only lasts until the initial 1000 VP cap of the week, anything extra has to be done with no VP modifiers.

There is also the notion of how much the VP cap is raised per boss, and based on some easy math, it should be 150 VP raised. The reasoning is that 25 man raiders get 5 pieces of loot from the boss that is 1/2 upgraded, 5/25 means there is a 1/5 chance of getting the loot, and since a 1/2 upgrade is worth 750 VP, 750/5 = 150. I do not include the 6th piece of loot in this, because that is a primary benefit to 25man raids. To add to this, the 6th piece of loot in 25man raids(the chosen one) is 2/2 upgraded when looted. This gives players who already have the piece of loot they need from the boss an incentive to do it again(and not just do an entire week of 10 mans to build up VP), assuming no one else needs loot from the boss.


To summarize all the points above:

- 25 man raids drop 5(1/2 Upgraded) loot per boss based on RNG

- 25 man raids drop a 6th piece of loot(2/2 upgraded) per boss, that the raid leader can choose directly from the loot pool of the boss

- 10 man raids drop 2(0/2 Upgraded) loot per boss based on RNG

- All raiders at the beginning of the week gain a permanent Aura, that increases their weekly Valor Cap by 150, for every 10man boss they kill. This Aura (for the week) is removed when a boss is killed on 25 man mode by that player.

- When a player reaches the "1000 VP Cap" for the week, they are given a buff that increases the VP gained by all other characters on that realm by 50%, this buff only works up to the original "1000 VP Cap" all additional VP does not benefit from this buff


Let me know what you guys think, I put some thought into this, and it looks like everyone comes out a head, it just a few tweaks need to be done to the system, but not the bosses and their abilities per se. This retains a subtle level of equality in both gear (sort of) and difficulty between the two modes.

[Harsesis]

I like a few points of this idea. Something I do like is the part about 25 mans dropping items with upgrades already on them. As a 10 man raider I do not find this unfair as I could also get an item like that but I would have to spend some VP. I like the idea of increasing the valor cap for raiders but I would make it similar to how the conquest system works. Instead of on a per boss basis you make it go off of instance clears. So clearing Heroic MSV could be compared to reaching a rating in PvP that would increase your cap. I would say you should only have to do this once. Your last bulletin mentions something that is already in the game. It's called the Valor of the Ancients buff and it works almost exactly how you describe but since there is only the 1000 point cap it stops there.

[Zonex]

Yup i was talking about the Valor of The ancients buff, but if this idea was implemented, people could abuse it; Get this buff on their alt, and so getting say... 3000 VP would be much faster on their main. The way I mentioned, even if you have the Valor of the Ancients buff, it will only give you the extra 50% VP boost to the normal 1000 VP cap, everything else past that point would not benefit from the buff.

[Mirri]

Some good points there but some problems too.

There is nothing to stop 25-mans from selling runs for loot specifically while 10-mans have no such advantage. "Pick and Choose whatever you want from any boss for 30k gold/item".

Secondly, I see nothing there which actually compensates raid officers specifically in 25-man for the effort they put. As it seems, the raiders are the ones who are getting the most benefit with free 1/2 upgrade loots in addition to an extra 2/2 loot without having to do extra dailies and dungeons.

Honestly, the main problem i feel is the lack of capable and dedicated officers who can actually run a 25-man guild successfully. If you can think of ways to reward capable people for stepping up to the plate and taking up officer level roles, then that might help with making 25-mans more attractive. But that is seriously tricky and honestly lots of people have thought about it and not come up with a good answer *yet*.

As it stands right now, 25mans get more loot for having a bit more difficulty in administration. Seems like fair enough compensation and incentive to me ...

[Deleted]

i think that 1/2 upgrade idea might have been mine and i recon it would work, with the adjustment that it doesn't for tier meaning raiders only get it for 12/16 slots instead of the full slots,

it works to ease the "mediocre raiders dps" by making it slightly more and reduces the time it takes to "upgrade everything" by the time it takes you to grind 12*750 = 9000 Valor, so knocks several weeks of time it takes to get max upgrades,

items recieved via bonus loot( elder token) would stil be 0/2 so most raiders would only get the free upgrade in a selection of slots.

alternatively that could be the minor way to buff -> bonus loot items in 25 man are 1/2 upgraded but all others are 0/2 although i stil think tier should be 0/2 as that keeps the slots with the most stats per upgrade ( chest/head/legs) on the 0/2 level.

[Deleted]

So

Because 25man already gets more loot / player - and has a higher chance of someone needing the item instead of turning it into a sha crystal.

You want to give them even more loot?


Terrible 'fix'.

[Zonex]

@Miri, I see what you mean, a lot of the things i mentioned affect the entire raid group but the officers are still getting only a little. Coming up with a solution to that is quite difficult truth be told...

@ Vigilante, tbh yea that would make it less of an absolute upgrade for 25mans, and much less additional coding for Blizzard. It also retains the prestige and usefulness of tier items. Having this system, makes it so EVERYONE in the 25man guild has less to do, because of the upgraded gear, this includes officers which dont have to spend that extra time farming dailies or heroics like 10man officers have to. The downside is that the regular 25man raiders get to freeload off of this, but the officers gaining the benefit should be a step in the right direction.

@ Larrabee

Well the thing is even though 25mans "theoretically" have better loot/player 10mans still vastly out number them; This comes down to the problem of officers not being able to gather enough players or administer all of them sufficiently. However their life gets easier if there are a plethora of 25man enthusiasts applying which makes it easier for them to manage (yes maybe more work, but still easier with a bigger roster pool).

It isn't necessarily giving them more loot, just more choice in loot, because lets face it more loot/player still isn't incentive enough. Giving them 1/2 upgraded gear is still justified in the ways i illustrated. The main point of the system, is that it gives raiders "more" to do. Their valor caps get raised which means they can do more to get their gear. That is not to say, if you dont want to do all that extra work, you always have the choice of looking for a 25man guild good for the officers) or just not upgrade your gear to its maximum potential per week. It also adds purpose to the VP all these dailies dish out that gets wasted after the first few days of the weekly reset.

[Anjerith]

Giving more loot drops to 25 man raids doesn't give them more loot - it is all still RNG. Increasing the number of drops per kill just increases the chance of getting duplicate items. As you increase the number of drops you increase the duplicates in a way that will become increasingly debilitating to raiders after they have seen the same items drop 2-3 times per week for a month. "But that's just bad RNG!" you say. To that, I say "That is my point".

The fix for this would be, of course, some sort of attempt to remove rng from the loot system. It won't happen.


Honestly, my idea for 'fixing' 25 man raids is for the people that want to participate in a large-scale effort to get into guilds with each other and enjoy playing in a way they like to. Thats why 10's have become prolific, because people don't like 25's.

You can't fix a situation that was fixed by 10's being equalized. The illusion of people enjoying 25 man raids has just been revealed as the deception it actually is.


(Note: I prefer 25 man raids, just saying it like it is)

[Deleted]

it seems also they did something like my system in Korea/TW/Asia ( it was somewhere there excuse my ignorance i am using thirdhand at best info here) when they put in the can run 10 and 25 at same time thing where the 25man drops partially upgraded gear( 2/4 i think i read) so 10 and 25 have the same gear "eventually" but 25 gets their quicker.

[Enosh]

fun fact: it isn't how much loot 25 man drops why people don't give a shit about 25 man anymore
it's simply because it is easier to coordinate and people simply prefer 10 mans

the only way you will force people back into 25 mans is by making 25 man and only 25 man drop better loot, to which i can say, good luck with doing that given the current situation
the market has spoken, people don't give a shit about 25 mans unless forced into them by better loot, it's time to let it die and either go 10 or 15 man only

[Deleted]

wont fix a damn thing but
25 man raids drop a 6th piece of loot(2/2 upgraded) per boss, that the raid leader can choose directly from the loot pool of the boss made me laugh...
ofc rl can choose anything from the bosstable muaaah....
YOu dont like RNG, do you? ^^

[Deleted]

The single demotivational issue you list for 25man raiders is there is a possibility of a higher quantity of bad players. The amount of effort raid leaders and guild masters put into setting everything up has little to no effect on the raiders short of possibly raising the chance of getting yelled at by the raid leaders because their fuse was shortened by having to set everything up for 15 extra people.

How does what you suggest go any way to fixing this? I would compare it to putting a bow on a turd and calling it pretty. If anything it is just a distraction or cover-up for the big stinky underlying problem.

Whenever I've asked one of the "25man is harder" people why it is harder the most frequent answer I'm given is something along the lines of "they're so difficult to set up and lead". While I would never argue against that it really has no bearing on the people who just show up to raid (other than the possibility of what I suggest in the first section of this post). It isn't as simple as 25man is harder, or 10 man is harder. So much changes with each patch, each boss room, each mechanic and a whole myriad of other things that no answer can be given that sufficiently answers which is more difficult.

In short(ish) 25mans neither deserve or need any extra benefits than they already receive. If people want to stick to the antiquated idea that they are harder (which may or may not have been true at some point in the past) and therefore the only raid size they're interested in then that's fine. But please realise your reasoning behind it. Or think about it a little. And stop downplaying the accomplishments of those that raid 10man with no actual evidence that the difficulty was any different.

[Deleted]

So you wanna take 25man's that already gear 2-3 times faster and let them choose whatever loot they want?
Can you spell biased for me ?

Worst...Idea...Ever...

I've seen lootwhore's before but OP kinda takes the price, you start off with saying its harder on the GM and officers yet you wanna reward the raiders...

Just scrap both formats and make one raid. ~15 man or whatever.

[Spotnick]

When you need to put incentive for people to do stuff they don't really want to do, it's not good game design.

Just like the daily grinding is a good example of that.

There is only one solution to this problem.. free server transfers, or make a unique raid format.

[Khargol]

I'm gonna have to disagree with the OP here. I've run all this tier in both 25 and 10 at this point. 25 man is much easier on several of the fights and the amount of loot is good. The only other 25 man guild on our server is on the other faction and when I compare my gear to that of people in 10 man, even those with similiar progression I'd say i'm somewhere in around 5 ilvls higher and that it would hold true for all our core raiders.

I will say the hardest part of 25 is finding the 23 people it takes to actually run the content. Its just not possible to do 25 man with more than 1 or 2 people under performing/dying to avoidable damage etc.

[Deleted]

Don't forget the number of kills is unrelated to the actual progression stage, but more to the progression speed. Example #1 : when guild A has been 6/6H MSV for 4 weeks while guild B has been 6/6H MSV for 1 week, they both have the same progression but guild A will have many more actuall kills, and as such more higher-ilvl loot. Then there's the second fact : you don't disenchant as much in 25 than you do in 10, so you don't waste higher ilvl loot.

That's why you can't directly compare gear to progression, because there are other factors in play. It's not faster, it's more efficient.

[Mirri]

That's why you can't directly compare gear to progression, because there are other factors in play. It's not faster, it's more efficient.

Err no. You get 6 pieces of loot in 25-man and 2 pieces in 10-man. You gear up faster assuming same number of boss kills.

[Deleted]

Err no. You get 6 pieces of loot in 25-man and 2 pieces in 10-man. You gear up faster assuming same number of boss kills.

I don't usually patronize, but if you actually read the first paragraph of my post instead of replying to its concluding line, that might have prevented you from adding a meaningless reply

[Mirri]

I don't usually patronize, but if you actually read the first paragraph of my post instead of replying to its concluding line, that might have prevented you from adding a meaningless reply

I'm perfectly capable of understanding your post. It however doesn't change the fact that 25-mans get more loot/person than 10-mans. Unless you wish to argue with my math.

25-man : 6/25 = 0.24 loot/person
10-man: 2/10 = 0.20 loot/person

Which leads to my conclusion that you do gear up faster in 25-mans. Unless you wish to argue that getting more loot/person in 25-mans does not translate to faster gearing up. Nowhere did I mention about how long a guild has been on a boss and such. Just raw facts - 25-mans gear up faster. And that helps in progression.

[Kanadei]

- 25 man raids drop a 6th piece of loot(2/2 upgraded) per boss, that the raid leader can choose directly from the loot pool of the boss

I understand the amount of effort you put into this and I appreciate it, but the above will never happen.

Being able to choose what drops goes completely against the design of the game, and Blizzard has said many times that they support the RNG loot system that this game is based on. They aren't going to put in a system that allows all of your melee dps, for example, to get weapons first because that has the largest effect on performance so you can clear faster.

Getting certain drops is special, as is the randomness of what drops, and this isn't something they are going to jeopardise in order to make 25 man raiding more appealing when there is really no solid argument that it needs to be more appealing.

Do I miss 25 man raiding? Yes.

Does that mean the game needs to invent reasons to switch back to it? Unfortunately no.