Where have all the Raiders Gone?

[Freia]

Exactly this.
I have operated my guild for six years now. We always succeed at clearing all normal mode content prior to nerf.

You downed Sha of Fear post patch. That isn't succeeding to down all normal content post nerf. Even the 10m guild I was in before I switched to 25m downed half of the heroic content pre-patch and we were definitely carrying 2-3 people in that group. For instance, we had a resto druid who lacked raid awareness, wouldn't use hots and constantly OOM(i would more than double her healing); a monk tank who die within 2seconds because he let shuffle drop; and a mage RL who would die to everything. Your posts and others posts claiming that 10m is so much harder than 25m are misinformed. You can carry people in 10m normal content just as much as 25m. Getting far in heroic mode is when the carrying has to be at a minimum, and that is the case in both formats. And I don't understand why you need to bring this debate into yet another thread.

[Deleted]

100% agree with this.

Ive been the top geared Rogue on my realm more than once over the years and yet i couldnt care less about gear... I was all about downing as many bosses as possible and competing against all the other great raid teams on my realm. I havent ever used transmogging cos i genuinely do not care one bit what my toon looks like...

Its all about downing the content and having fun in a great group of people to me... always has been and always will be.

Since Wow has managed to dismantle their own community over the past couple of years its obviously going to have an effect on the amount of raiders out there. It appears to me like only the guys who crave for loot r still playing Wow and us players who played for the teamspirit and community left the building a long time ago...

I'm rich and I don't care about money. I only like having a lot of money so I can enjoy the challenge of investing and making even more money. If I was poor, I'd still invest only for the challenge because I really can't imagine what it is to not have a lot of money.

Im guessing your analogy is comparing money to gear... i think u should read that again but comparing it correctly.

I compare money to community.

Being rich in community is more important than being rich in gear...

[Millie]

I don't have to. Ultimately, I don't care if any of you see it as I do. But I've been confirmed in this view by not just a post on EJ, which was kind of a reference back then even if it died down nowadays somewhat, but also by a ton of fellow raiders who realised this to be right at the core when I spoke to them about it. They all had an epiphamy regarding this. But feel free to be the know it all that can't acknowledge someone else being right.

Haha. I love how you make a completely asinine claim, then someone rebukes it and your only responce is "Oh, go right ahead, it doesn't even matter, EJ agrees with me"

---------- Post added 2013-04-08 at 02:43 PM ----------

Hmm,

has Blizzard ever told how they target the different raid levels? Without knowing anything about WoW you could expect something like:

- Heroic raids for top 10%
- Normal raids for the above average raiders so 40%
- LFR for the rest of the raiders 50%

But it seems that distribution is more like (note that this is my subjective view):

- Heroic raids for top 1%
- Normal raids for top 10%
- LFR for the rest of the raiders

Then they are happy because so many players do LFR.

The problem stems from the shift in philosophy regarding normal vs heroic.

Blizzard always promoted Heroic raiding early on as raids for those who want the extra challenge. Most guilds would progress over all tiers on normal and that was it, only the Blood Legions or the Methods would do exclusively heroics.

But these days, you're expected to do them all. Finish normal? You're not allowed to wonder when the next tier is because you still have heroics to do!

Have an opinion on a bad mechanic? Your opinion means nothing, you're not cleared heroic!

Then a new tier launches and the first few bosses on normal are ridiculously tightly tuned, because it appears that it was designed with your raid having downed and got gear from at least a few heroic bosses last tier.

[Glorious Leader]

The problem stems from the shift in philosophy regarding normal vs heroic.

Blizzard always promoted Heroic raiding early on as raids for those who want the extra challenge. Most guilds would progress over all tiers on normal and that was it, only the Blood Legions or the Methods would do exclusively heroics.

But these days, you're expected to do them all. Finish normal? You're not allowed to wonder when the next tier is because you still have heroics to do!

Have an opinion on a bad mechanic? Your opinion means nothing, you're not cleared heroic!

Then a new tier launches and the first few bosses on normal are ridiculously tightly tuned, because it appears that it was designed with your raid having downed and got gear from at least a few heroic bosses last tier.

I agree and this situation is exacerbated by their inability to tune raids properly for different raid sizes. 25 man is a JOKE compared to 10 man. Once you switch between the two you see how EASY and how much more gear you get for raiding 25 man.

[Freia]

I agree and this situation is exacerbated by their inability to tune raids properly for different raid sizes. 25 man is a JOKE compared to 10 man. Once you switch between the two you see how EASY and how much more gear you get for raiding 25 man.

I have done both. Some fights are easier on 10m and some are easier on 25m. 10m N Lei Shen was easier than 25m for instance. Twin Consorts as well.

[Glorious Leader]

I have done both. Some fights are easier on 10m and some are easier on 25m. 10m N Lei Shen was easier than 25m for instance. Twin Consorts as well.

We've found most are much easier on 25 man and we can "carry" some of our raid members who aren't as geared or whos dps isn't up to par. Horridon for instance is utterly trivial in 25 man. Things aren't as "tight" on 25 man. On 10 man every fight feels extremely restricted both in terms of who you can bring from a skill perspective but also class balancing. Like we can take 3 monk healers on Horridon and cleanse the crap out of poison. Only get one of those in 10 man.

Their one size fits all approach to encounter design is poor. They need to rethink it.

[judgementofantonidas]

I agree and this situation is exacerbated by their inability to tune raids properly for different raid sizes. 25 man is a JOKE compared to 10 man. Once you switch between the two you see how EASY and how much more gear you get for raiding 25 man.

you are exactly right. and yet there will always be someone who feels that just because they cleared it and you didn't that they can ignore simple math and lay claims to 25 man ever being harder since cata.

[Glorious Leader]

you are exactly right. and yet there will always be someone who feels that just because they cleared it and you didn't that they can ignore simple math and lay claims to 25 man ever being harder since cata.

I honestly don't care except in so far as the developers listen to these people. I'll gladly raid 25 man, although 25 mans in and of themselves have all sorts of barriers to entry. Well now you know why lfr is so popular. Your 10 man raid with your pals couldn't cut it and instead of bbuildling up a 25 man which is a huge hassle your 10 man raid just said fuck it and went to lfr.

[Noorri]

They did decide to force people into 25 man in 5.2, so the difficulty thing is probably part of it.

[Shahad]

I don't understand what all the people clamoring that raiding is dying because of difficulty are going on about. I started playing pretty recently, and raiding even more recently and I do just fine. In my opinion, if you don't have the mental capacity to do T14 and T15 encounters, something is bloody wrong with you.

[Glorious Leader]

I don't understand what all the people clamoring that raiding is dying because of difficulty are going on about. I started playing pretty recently, and raiding even more recently and I do just fine. In my opinion, if you don't have the mental capacity to do T14 and T15 encounters, something is bloody wrong with you.

As far as "mental capacity" is concerened their was a rather interesting thing I read today on the ghostcrawler (and even he acknowledged this was a fair concern)

http://www.restokin.com/2013/04/the-...tion-overload/

ToT is off the fucking chart.

[Shahad]

As far as "mental capacity" is concerened their was a rather interesting thing I read today on the ghostcrawler (and even he acknowledged this was a fair concern)

http://www.restokin.com/2013/04/the-...tion-overload/

ToT is off the fucking chart.

It's still not particularly hard. I consider T14 to be easy sauce, with ToT being just right. And, again, new at raiding. So people who have been playing the game longer really have no excuse.

EDIT: Also, I don't watch videos or read guides on encounters. Heck, I barely listen to my RL when he explains the strat and just learn as I go.

[Glorious Leader]

It's still not particularly hard. I consider T14 to be easy sauce, with ToT being just right. And, again, new at raiding. So people who have been playing the game longer really have no excuse.

EDIT: Also, I don't watch videos or read guides on encounters. Heck, I barely listen to my RL when he explains the strat and just learn as I go.

It is indeed hard, in fact if you bothered to read the link you would see it's off the fucking scale. That is of course subjective but can you give me any evidence that suggests it isn't to hard other than "I feel it isn't"? I see a dwindling player base for normal raids and a raid that's just off the chart in terms of complexity. Amount of time playing the game isn't really an excuse. Normal raids have never been this mechanic loaded and "tight" in terms of gear checks. Particularly for 10 mans.

[Millie]

It's still not particularly hard. I consider T14 to be easy sauce, with ToT being just right. And, again, new at raiding. So people who have been playing the game longer really have no excuse.

EDIT: Also, I don't watch videos or read guides on encounters. Heck, I barely listen to my RL when he explains the strat and just learn as I go.

What you consider hard is completely irrelevant. As mechanics started exponentially rising in raids, the raiding population, as tracked by things like wowprogress, plummeted faster than general population did, even before LFR. The fact that LFR needed a stacking buff because of wiping, the fact that Cata's launch heroic 5 mans needed a massive sweeping nerf just goes to show what the majority are capable of.

[Glorious Leader]

What you consider hard is completely irrelevant. As mechanics started exponentially rising in raids, the raiding population, as tracked by things like wowprogress, plummeted faster than general population did, even before LFR. The fact that LFR needed a stacking buff because of wiping, the fact that Cata's launch heroic 5 mans needed a massive sweeping nerf just goes to show what the majority are capable of.

It also doesn't hurt that the mechanics themselves aren't always clear or explicit or even being explained in a thorough manner. I never thought I would need 6 stacks to get through an LFR boss but Durumu is the worst.

In my opinion mechanics (especially lfr mechanics) should be intuitive enough that a dungeon journal isn't necessary.

[Deletedaccount1]

I think it is just a total decrease in player activity in general, not something that is exclusive to raiders.

[namelessone]

I don't understand that thirst of more loots, more gears that people casually call character progression.

My philosophy in MMOs is this

Gear are means to an end, not the end itself.
I feel (and that's just me, everyone is entitled to their opinion) that looting better gear just to collect gear and up your stat is pointless in itself. Ultimately, in a few month, the gear will become outdated anyway, it will end up in the bank and a few years later being sold for a handful of gold.

Let me explain. Players need some kind of goal to play the game. Usually this goal is content. You play SP games because you want to see where story goes - for example. You gain levels in MMO because you want to go to next zone and see what kind of quests and enemies and whatever is there. When you reach endgame, there's no more levels to gain. So a player needs some kind of different goal to pursue to continue playing. We have LFR, but it's gear-gated in a similar way levelling zones are level-gated. You try to get better gear to be allowed to new raids, and so on. You see, the point where a player had reached the limit of character advancement, he stops playing - and paying subs. So it is in blizzard's interest to keep players supplied with more and more new raids gated with higher and higher gear requirements.

EDIT: Also on topic - the difficulty of Normal raids rose significantly because they are no longer designed with PUGs in mind, like in Wrath/early Cata. Before, they had to make sure Normals would be doable by pugs, because they didn't want guildless people to be left behind. But now that there is LFR, they just said let pugs do LFR, Normals would now be targeted at organized groups only.

[Freia]

We've found most are much easier on 25 man and we can "carry" some of our raid members who aren't as geared or whos dps isn't up to par. Horridon for instance is utterly trivial in 25 man. Things aren't as "tight" on 25 man. On 10 man every fight feels extremely restricted both in terms of who you can bring from a skill perspective but also class balancing. Like we can take 3 monk healers on Horridon and cleanse the crap out of poison. Only get one of those in 10 man.

Their one size fits all approach to encounter design is poor. They need to rethink it.

You can carry people in normal mode 10m as well. I did with the guild I raided 10m all last tier. Saying otherwise is false. And so you would rather bring 3 monks to blow their big raid cooldown because you can't interrupt 1 add. You are grasping for straws there. For every fight you say is harder on 10m there will be other fights harder on 25m.

[Glorious Leader]

You can carry people in normal mode 10m as well. I did with the guild I raided 10m all last tier. Saying otherwise is false.

No you can't. Saying otherwise is false. Now all of this of course depends on your definition of "carry" (like i'm sure your raiders are actually good but you just think your naturally better and thus they get carried) but the simple fact is that 25 mans have much more leeway. Having 2 people die in 10 man normal is generally speaking a wipe. Having 2 people die in 25 man normal is another day at the office. Having 2-3 shitty dps in a 10 man is an enrage timer. Having 4-5 shitty dps in 25 man is a loot parade. Saying otherwise is false for ToT especially. It was less so in the previous tier but it still applied on some bosses (garalon, elegon). No straws needed. It's not just monks. It's pretty much every raid cool down you can think of stacked. Every megara rampage soaked up by all those cooldowns. Your tanks getting all those external cooldowns on horridon. Hell take a 3rd tank with you and you cheese that fight as far as tank healing is concerned. And every interrupt you can think of stacked. 25 mans are a joke relative to 10 man especially when you want to take friends who aren't up to snuff.

Their one size fits all approach to raiding is stupid and bone headed and people are leaving normal raids in droves.

[Seefer]

What you consider hard is completely irrelevant. As mechanics started exponentially rising in raids, the raiding population, as tracked by things like wowprogress, plummeted faster than general population did, even before LFR. The fact that LFR needed a stacking buff because of wiping, the fact that Cata's launch heroic 5 mans needed a massive sweeping nerf just goes to show what the majority are capable of.

Because most of the good players bailed out when everything started going super easy mode and everything was just handed out, proof is in the pudding, subs started dropping more and more each expansion..........and anyone who tries to tell me Cata was hard is very mistaken.