Where have all the Raiders Gone?

[Deleted]

Well. Let's look at this: hard content is interesting. But when you suddenly realize that due to having three melee classes in a 10m raid you'll have to wipe twice the number, it gets boring. Also, nobody (in our raid, ofc) loves bosses based on adds, so it just adds to boringness. I loved raiding when it was something like this: we pull, we learn what to do and how to avoid avoidable damage, we wipe as much as it takes to master boss, we kill and loot. Nowadays raid is something like that: we pull, we OMG WTF IS GOING ON for 5+ wipes, we try to remember an a4 format list of abilities of boss, while wiping and wiping, and here comes the shitty part: we have to pray that we don't get pwned by random combination of abilities which leads to unavoidable wipe. That is the crap part of nowadays raiding, which is incredibly annoying. Also, raiding based on immediate agility-based reaction of every raid member we also don't like. Also, add here a visual that almost gets people into sensory overload with all that bright shit coming suddenly outta here and there. It is boring only because it lacks its fun part, lets say that.
Its not another QQ, it is a fact. A game is changing and while some people try to adapt, some just decide that it is totally not worth it, that's why there is much less raiders nowadays. As for me, it has nothing to do with having played and semi-hardcore raided for seven years, its just the design of a new tier plus overall class balance issues and in some degree a lack of 10m tuning. I'm still loving other aspects of the game, such as CMGs, RPvP and achievement farming, lol.

Maybe blizz schould just reinstate the wrath model.
10 man normal raiding was more forgiving back then than now. Than people who want the top content and want to bang their wall against a wall could go into 25 man raiding.
10 man casual average raiding was probably more fun and on a personal level more gratifying than LFR is now a days. And LFR is what is left for casual players now a days.

---------- Post added 2013-03-19 at 02:49 PM ----------

Here's another answer to the question the thread topic asks; the congregation of the raiding population onto specific servers. For the US there's the top 10-20 servers, with a couple being super heavy population (Illidan, Area 52, and Stormrage come to mind), the rest of the top 20, then just about every server after than is a withering husk in terms of active population (when compared to the top 20). The mighty can fall quickly, too; Ysera US went from anywhere between 25-50 up until the end of Cata, then over the course of the last 6 months, all major 25 man raid guilds (the few we had remaining) left and the server has spiraled further and further down the drain, to barely in the top 100 for last tier and now 180ish for this tier so far.

That said, I don't necessarily blame other players for this congregation. Now that CRZ exists, the few advantages lower pop servers had (such as farming mats and hunting rare spawns) pretty much vanished. For anyone thinking it can't be that much difference between the higher pop servers and others...just make a friend via real ID and have them invite you to group. Did that with a friend of mine while sitting in shrine and it went from 6-8 people standing around in shrine to about 40-50. Oh, and that's not to mention the mass amount of LFG for *insert raid/achieve/pvp team here* ongoing in the trade chat. If it werent for 1. The friends I still have left on my current server all these years and 2. the fact it would cost me at LEAST $200 USD to transfer...I would be on one of said high pop servers.

I am trying to think of a positive that has come about thanks to CRZ, but I really can't. Maybe I'm jaded because I'm on a low pop server that saw it's benefits washed away.

No you are correct. The few remaining living guilds migrate to more populated realms because they cannot find any recruits anymore. Recently on my semi dead realms 2 guilds move simply stating we have looked and looked for months now for tanks or damage dealers, but we have simply not gotten any applications.
So naturally they moved to more populated realms. And then we end up with people from those realms saying look it is good here. And you can only reply yea great on 10-15 realms in the eu it is great but the remaning servers are more dead than alive.

[judgementofantonidas]

Maybe blizz schould just reinstate the wrath model.
10 man normal raiding was more forgiving back then than now. Than people who want the top content and want to bang their wall against a wall could go into 25 man raiding.
10 man casual average raiding was probably more fun and on a personal level more gratifying than LFR is now a days. And LFR is what is left for casual players now a days.

---------- Post added 2013-03-19 at 02:49 PM ----------



No you are correct. The few remaining living guilds migrate to more populated realms because they cannot find any recruits anymore. Recently on my semi dead realms 2 guilds move simply stating we have looked and looked for months now for tanks or damage dealers, but we have simply not gotten any applications.
So naturally they moved to more populated realms. And then we end up with people from those realms saying look it is good here. And you can only reply yea great on 10-15 realms in the eu it is great but the remaning servers are more dead than alive.

I have stuck it out as all the "better" guilds have transfered seeking more recruiting options. I feel that they will only find they are an even smaller fish in a larger pond. The issue is all the guilds that are left, with more forming every day that leach players from the diminishing population only to never progress when they could be used by guilds that do know what they are doing.

[-Superman-]

On Topic: I think raiding has slowed down for many life related reasons. I can see that there is certainly a lot more to do in MoP, but I am not sure I would blame the over abundance of content and dailies on the reduction of raiders.

Off Topic: This was just too funny to pass up -

[Vaelorian]

On Topic: I think raiding has slowed down for many life related reasons. I can see that there is certainly a lot more to do in MoP, but I am not sure I would blame the over abundance of content and dailies on the reduction of raiders.

Off Topic: This was just too funny to pass up -

I loved that one

I think it is very much like raids especially people that are very much LFR material.

That said I always played a healer until recently. I try to do dps on my warrior etc. I do get tunnelvision... Perhaps I belong in LFR ^^

[invader]

after raiding for ages i feel its just boring ole shizle now. nothing new except the artwork.... i stopped raiding after firelands pretty much. gone from being a 3/4 night a week Hc raider to just occasional logging on etc.. i just do PvP now instead. i do LFR once per new raid and thats enough for me ;p wow has lost its appeal it seems on the raiding front. my realm is pretty dead now raid guild wise and the No.1 guild on my realm since time began has also called it a day ;p sad times idd.. but hey hoo thats life i spose

wow is too old, too samey..

bring on some fresh new Blizz MMO... (all other MMOs suck ;p)

[schwank05]

In Wrath my guild was Top 5 on the Server for most of the first 2 tiers, But as time went on we lost a lot of people. IN Cata we had trouble in T11 and never finished NOrmal, in Firelands we were top 8 on server with a good heroic 10 man group. In DS we were Top 10 for a while them many got sick of DS and quit. We now have had issues with most of MOP raids and were only 8/16 last tier and are now 1/whatever this tier. I for one am quite sick of a schedule to play a game and quite enjoy the Raid finder its quick easy and lets me do the raids. Funny the 1/ whatever this tier is good enough to put someone in like 8th on our server. Best guild on Runetotem has killed like 9 bosses on normal.

[Deatheryn]

Less ppl raiding due to the fact that you cannot gear as quickly as in past tiers. When the time sink increased to gear toons alot of ppl that don't have endless hours to play have just opted for LFR for their raiding fix and gave up on organized raiding.
You cannot just jump into the newest 5 mans and get gear to raid current content, limiting the number of raid ready alts ppl have or are willing to make. This has drastically reduced the pool of geared players to recruit from.

[Ridesdel]

Honestly, most, if not all, of the current raiders in my guild would be happy to be what we where back in BC, the one guild that EVERYONE on the server knew you could run the first tier, have it go quickly and smoothly, gear up, and become able to move on. My guild was a well known stepping stone in BC, and wouldn't mind becoming one again, as in my experience, it's the, well, experience, not the loot that defines raiding.

[Vaelorian]

On my realm (shadowsong EU) there are almost no 25 mans and almost no real 10 mans either. I mean sure there are 10 mans but you can count the nr of guilds actually getting to heroic and those that do heroic almost none of them will ever even complete the heroic sequence.

Where have all the raiders gone? I think they went LFR, cause it was a lot less hassle then to commit to a raidingschedule. No pressure.
That is the good part about LFR. The bad part is no skill involved and meeting a lot of socially inept people. But as long as their guild exists, they (the real exraiders) will be happy.

[icausewipes]

Where have all the raiders gone? I think they went LFR, cause it was a lot less hassle then to commit to a raidingschedule. No pressure.
That is the good part about LFR. The bad part is no skill involved and meeting a lot of socially inept people. But as long as their guild exists, they (the real exraiders) will be happy.

This is pretty much spot on with ppl in the lower guilds.

[schwank05]

Well. Let's look at this: hard content is interesting. But when you suddenly realize that due to having three melee classes in a 10m raid you'll have to wipe twice the number, it gets boring. Also, nobody (in our raid, ofc) loves bosses based on adds, so it just adds to boringness. I loved raiding when it was something like this: we pull, we learn what to do and how to avoid avoidable damage, we wipe as much as it takes to master boss, we kill and loot. Nowadays raid is something like that: we pull, we OMG WTF IS GOING ON for 5+ wipes, we try to remember an a4 format list of abilities of boss, while wiping and wiping, and here comes the shitty part: we have to pray that we don't get pwned by random combination of abilities which leads to unavoidable wipe. That is the crap part of nowadays raiding, which is incredibly annoying. Also, raiding based on immediate agility-based reaction of every raid member we also don't like. Also, add here a visual that almost gets people into sensory overload with all that bright shit coming suddenly outta here and there. It is boring only because it lacks its fun part, lets say that.
Its not another QQ, it is a fact. A game is changing and while some people try to adapt, some just decide that it is totally not worth it, that's why there is much less raiders nowadays. As for me, it has nothing to do with having played and semi-hardcore raided for seven years, its just the design of a new tier plus overall class balance issues and in some degree a lack of 10m tuning. I'm still loving other aspects of the game, such as CMGs, RPvP and achievement farming, lol.

I cant stress how much I fully agree with this post. I miss the wrath model, we had a great 25 man and 3 10 mans back then and had a lot of fun. I think Heroic's were one of the worst things blizzard has ever done, I liked the activated Hard modes, but aside from that go back to 10/25 normal raids that were tough but not impossible and I will once again have a blast raiding. The main issue I have is that I only really like Raiding, and Dungeons, and the newly released wowkemon but only the catching rare's part not so much the battles.

[fangless]

Content became difficult again, and they gave up. It's the current WoW era thought process.

I think Heroic's were one of the worst things blizzard has ever done.

People basically want things easier, which has been the tune players have sung all the way back to BC. Blizzard has responded EVERY time too. This expansion they slightly stuck to their guns, and people can't handle it.

[Vaelorian]

This is pretty much spot on with ppl in the lower guilds.

Well it is a domino effect ain't it? Lower guilds provide recruits (unwillingly) to higher guilds. When there are no more lower guilds or people interested in that kind of raiding (schedule) - there are less recruits overal

[melodramocracy]

LFR = least effort required, gear is 'good enough' for the next tier of LFR, so you find many players who feel that dealing with a set group and scheduling isn't worth it.

Don't expect a change in the trend anytime soon.

[Royalite]

Couple of things LFR and second is the current alt unfriendly raiding environment.

3rd the raiding in normal T14 and T15 is more challenging than certain teirs.

My realm used to pug all of wrath but the increase difficulty in the first raiding teir of cata killed the pug scene. It recovered a bit with firelands and got a lot strong after the DS nerfs.

Most pugs couldn't get past garalon or elegon, which again just killed pugging and even some guilds.

[Deleted]

Blizzard decided that thay have LFR now for casual and bad players so normals and heroics can be harder this time. Of course the amount of raiders drasticly dropped, but the content is much better for people who enjoy challange.

[-Superman-]

you find many players who feel that dealing with a set group and scheduling isn't worth it.

Don't expect a change in the trend anytime soon.

I agree with this portion of your statement. I think LFR is probably more convenient for people's schedules. Not everyone has the time they had 6-8 years ago to invest in being a part of a heavy raiding guild. Don't get me wrong, it would be nice to have that kind of free time to play a video game for hours a day, but most folks have full time jobs (sometimes 2 jobs) and real life responsibilities that just impede the efforts of standard raiding. Is LFR an AFKLOLStoodInTheFireLAWLFest? Yes. Does it allow individuals to raid around their schedules? Yes.

I don't know that this feature will ever go away, nor am I positive regular raiding will ever again be what it once was.

[Osmeric]

I'm wondering if Blizzard really thought through the implications of higher raid difficulty on normal and heroic modes.

I see difficult raids going the same way as difficult 5 mans: into challenge modes that give only vanity rewards.

[Crym]

More people are raiding now than ever. They're just raiding through the LFR tool where they don't have to adhere to a specific schedule or commit to more than they feel they want to. Guilds still exist and it's still most fun (and rewarding) for social players to raid with a guild, but for those who only joined guilds because it was the only way to raid there's a way to do it with random people on your own schedule and as often or little as you want.

Are you really surprised the number of raid teams in guilds and the number of raid guilds in general have dropped? I've joined (and quickly left) a few guilds who were ENTIRELY people who treated interacting with other guildies like a necessary chore to get the shiney raid loot. Of course LFR is going to be a better choice for them.

[Firecrest]

The focus of the game, from the perspective of the majority of the playerbase and the devs themselves, seems to be actively and increasingly moving on from guild-oriented raiding towards other things like dailies, pvp, 5mans, LFR, pet-battles, etc etc.

You can only play the game you love a certain way for a limited amount of time after which you either seek another way to play it or just out and out seek a new game.

I for one am glad that this is happening and is resulting in the devs working on other parts of the game that have long needed attention but never recieved enough of it to matter, such as pvp.

I am all for this new direction of the game, and if a few raiding guilds must die to make room for this new breed of players that will be taking the game forward then so be it. Why not?

So what you're saying is that they're taking the "multiplayer" out of MMO because we've been there, done that? You say that's a good thing, but I suspect a lot of people would disagree with you. WoW without guild oriented activities is no longer an MMO. At that point, it basically becomes Fable with PvP.