Proposed 10m vs 25m Raid Changes

[mordale]

now guess why? because many people are not quite happy with how it is now.

they're happier now then how it was in wrath, which is what the op is proposing.

frankly i think were going to end up going to 1 set raid size eventually, 15man.

[clevin]

I would say normals, if anything, are far too easy. 12/12 clear in a week, and I don't think we've wiped on any of them after the first week. Lei Shen a couple times but that's it. "Brutal" is not a word I would use to describe them.

You're in noway representative of most raids if you went 12/12N in a week. It's useless to judge things by the experience of a top guild as it's one edge of the bell curve.

[tyrindor]

You're in noway representative of most raids if you went 12/12N in a week. It's useless to judge things by the experience of a top guild as it's one edge of the bell curve.

It was just an example of how you can't please everyone. Read the other line that you so cleverly removed from the quote. If they tuned everything based on how a casual plays, lots of people would quit... and if they tuned everything for a top guild even more people would quit.

People are complaining about X being too hard or too easy, and it's funny because everyone's opinion on these topics vary greatly. The game is in a pretty good state and the fact you have people complaining that normals are both too easy and too hard means they are probably right in the ballpark.

[Ericprydz]

What about combining all the resources used to do 3 sets of 25m (LFR, normal, heroic) and 2 sets of 10m (normal, heroic) and just making a 15man raid. Surely they would be able to better balance LFR, Normal, and Heroic raiding more appropriately while not spreading themselves to thin. They might even have extra time to make a new friends and family difficulty between LFR and normals with how much time they would save.

This would solve all the problems everyone would have and there wouldn't be anymore 10v25 threads or arguments and the balance in the raid from healers vs tanks vs melee dps vs ranged dps would be ideal.

[Talen]

10 man normal - slightly easier than 25 man, lower ilvl, few "TF" drops, low chance for 3 drops per boss
25 man normal - harder than 10 man, higher ilvl, more "TF" drops, 6 drops per boss
10 man heroic - similarly tuned as 25 man heroic, reduced ilvl gap between 25man heroic and 10man heroic gear
25 man heroic - slightly higher tuned than 10 man heroic, highest ilvl option

Won't work. You give 25s a higher iLevel, players will go for it. The fact that the gear is identical is what makes the system work.

There are issues. There is NOTHING in place to support the 25 man raid and that has much higher logistical requiements. GCs feeling is that they've continued to decrease - and that doesn't really surprise me.

But thats an issue thats inherent in the system itself. No matter how equal the raid itself is, organising 25 players is going to be a lot more difficult than 10.

The other is one of Blizzards own making. With the changes they put in place - e.g. LFR - they made 10s harder than they used to be. But this also makes them harder and less fun for the semi-organised 10 man group. The group of friends who get together, say just for a blast. Of course, there are ways to fix this, it just really depends on what consequences you are prepared for or are ready to accept. Restoring 10s, for example, to their former level of difficulty would aid that group at the expense of the 10 man group who relish that challenege. Provide better gear for the harder format and you may as well not change a thing. And so on.

EJL

[Dasani]

I'm happy with 10-man being about on par and a lot of times more difficult than 25-man as it is now. There is no reason to make it easier and give it trashier loot, 25-mans should be optional because you choose to raid that way, not because you have to in order to get the best gear. That is, was, and always will be a terrible model.

Only changes i'd make to raiding currently is allow you to do normal raids as many times as you want, and just treat the loot like LFR style. So you only get loot once per boss, but you can go back in as much as you care to for fun, for practice, or whatever. I realize blizzard will most likely never do this because it would allow guilds to just sell gearing runs to people, or intentionally gear up alts and things with your mains, etc. But it would still be nice. Raiding is the only fun I have in this game and once TOT is cleared every week (which we can do in a single night) there really isn't much reason to login and play.

[tyrindor]

What about combining all the resources used to do 3 sets of 25m (LFR, normal, heroic) and 2 sets of 10m (normal, heroic) and just making a 15man raid. Surely they would be able to better balance LFR, Normal, and Heroic raiding more appropriately while not spreading themselves to thin. They might even have extra time to make a new friends and family difficulty between LFR and normals with how much time they would save.

This would solve all the problems everyone would have and there wouldn't be anymore 10v25 threads or arguments and the balance in the raid from healers vs tanks vs melee dps vs ranged dps would be ideal.

25man guilds have to kick people.
10man guilds have to recruit people.
Lots of people prefer larger groups.
Lots of people prefer smaller groups.

I don't raids 10mans because they don't feel like raiding. 15man would not be much better, I prefer the epicness of 25man. I think if they removed 25man I would probably quit.

I'm happy with 10-man being about on par and a lot of times more difficult than 25-man as it is now. There is no reason to make it easier and give it trashier loot, 25-mans should be optional because you choose to raid that way, not because you have to in order to get the best gear. That is, was, and always will be a terrible model.

Only changes i'd make to raiding currently is allow you to do normal raids as many times as you want, and just treat the loot like LFR style. So you only get loot once per boss, but you can go back in as much as you care to for fun, for practice, or whatever. I realize blizzard will most likely never do this because it would allow guilds to just sell gearing runs to people, or intentionally gear up alts and things with your mains, etc. But it would still be nice. Raiding is the only fun I have in this game and once TOT is cleared every week (which we can do in a single night) there really isn't much reason to login and play.

You are already clearing 13/13H in a single night?

If your just doing normals, then find a new guild that wants to progress and do heroics? That sounds awful just clearing 12/12N in a day then having nothing to do for another week.

[clevin]

It was just an example of how you can't please everyone. Read the other line that you so cleverly removed from the quote. If they tuned everything based on how a casual plays, lots of people would quit... and if they tuned everything for a top guild even more people would quit.

People are complaining about X being too hard or too easy, and it's funny because everyone's opinion on these topics vary greatly. The game is in a pretty good state and the fact you have people complaining that normals are both too easy and too hard means they are probably right in the ballpark.

Actually, I agree with you on difficulty. But when you say normal is fine coming from a top guild perspective, you have no real idea what it's like for people more in the middle of the curve. The thing is raids like yours at one end of the bell curve have a difficulty level tuned for you - heroics. The fat middle of the bell curve, we have normals which are fine as is. The only part of the curve that doesn't have a difficulty level for them are the people at the other end of the curve, the folks who need an easymode (and still want organized raids). That's why the only possible change I'd make is a 10 Easy for the F&F very casual people who want to raid together just for something to do. LFR doesn't work for that since the goal is to raid as group together, normal tends to be too hard to carry someone (for most raiders) and due to the friends and family nature of the raid, sitting someone isn't OK because they're a friend/family member. So clone the existing 10s, nerf them say, 25%, make them a new difficulty level of 10Easy. Have them drop LFR level epics and no legendary token stuff. Leave everything else, including 10Normal, as is.

[Deleted]

Make LFR a tag-able difficulty, so people can cherrypick bosses in normal.

Or teach people what are raid CDs and how to use a basic rotation, make it so all mechanics can be performed by fixed members instead of random ones in normal, and there you go, everyone can clear normals and carry 1-2.

Really, you don't want to go into the clusterfuck of separing ilvls again on 10v25.

[vigoss]

Add 10 man "LFR version" and make it share lockout with 25 LFR; leave this 10man "LFR" version for f&f type group - require premade group rather than using the LFR tool. We can even add a little incentive to do 10man "LFR" - maybe low chance of TF lfr gear to reward the organizing effort.

Imo bringing 10 man gear into the same line as 25 is a great change, however it comes with the expense of f&f type raids. 25man LFR was supposed to be a replacement for old 10man, but bliz failed to recognize the negative effect. The difficulty of 25man LFR is certainly similar(if not much easier), but the social aspect is not, which makes LFR expenience much worse. Lots of ppl get into lfr just for gear, they afk for loot. We've seen all kinds of bad behaviors in LFR which doesn't happen very often in the old days because you have to worry about your reputation.

Personally I love 10man over 25man, especially as a healer, because it's more organized rather than the chaotic 25man. You have a sense of what's going on with everyone (since you can see it on your screen rather than looking at all the health bars on your interface) and you can feel the impact of your decision making process. You can feel that you are healing the tank, rather than spamming heals and hoping your target take some dmg before you heal lands.

Another thing I'd like to point out is, the existence of a big casual player base is not only the source of revenue for blizzard, but also a source of the feeling of achievement/superiority for those hardcore raiders. If most casual players quit the game, do you hardcore players feel good about being 13/13 in first week? Probably not because nobody appreciate it.

[syrant]

At some point Blizz will see the light and make one raid size, probably 15. The cost of the current system is more than just a fragmented player base, with a fair amount of strife between the sides due to their differences. I'd say Blizz could balance for at least 2 more difficulty levels and probably design a couple more bosses per tier if they didn't have to consider the raid differences. Could one of those difficulty levels be an easier normal/puggable and allowed more casual guilds success? This is an issue, like the former buff system, that is a long term instability and has to be addressed with systematic changes.

[Deleted]

now guess why? because many people are not quite happy with how it is now.

It's because 25 man raiders are biased, and 10 man raiders are biased.

If you're not happy with whatever size you're raiding, then raid the other one. Applying to a new guild is not hard.

And there are far more people who are perfectly fine with how the raids are, than there are complaints about them.

[Nairobi]

Add 10 man "LFR version" and make it share lockout with 25 LFR; leave this 10man "LFR" version for f&f type group - require premade group rather than using the LFR tool. We can even add a little incentive to do 10man "LFR" - maybe low chance of TF lfr gear to reward the organizing effort.

This is what I suggested in the other thread, minus the "TF addition" to LFR10. I think that'd be a really fun thing to do with alts or as a beer league, and I raid heroics (10/13, not anything super srs) FWIW. As if MoP grinds didn't kill the alt raid enough, it's getting harder and harder to field our alt raid because people just CBA to level/rep up their toons and show up for an alt run where they have to think too much. Personally, I enjoy struggling to overcome obstacles, but I know that I'm likely in the minority on that. I raid 10s now and I'd hate to see 10s relegated back to second class citizens, simply because realm pops are so FUBAR now that creating/fielding a mediocre 25man is damn near impossible. Our 10 is just what's left of our old heroic 25 thanks to attrition.

Another thing I'd like to point out is, the existence of a big casual player base is not only the source of revenue for blizzard, but also a source of the feeling of achievement/superiority for those hardcore raiders. If most casual players quit the game, do you hardcore players feel good about being 13/13 in first week? Probably not because nobody appreciate it.

Not that I think that less "casuals" has any impact on what Method/BL/Paragon/whoever do or think, but this is a good point. Currently we are 10/13hc, and the next guild on our server is like 4 or 5/13. We don't really have any competition or drive to keep pushing. Obviously we will, and are continuing to progress, but looking back at WotLK, Cata, or even t14 there was always a fun and tight race for things like Algalon, Yogg0, HLK, and other server firsts. Even if your server was month behind top guilds, it was still a fun race FOR YOU because of the competition. Less competitors makes the game less fun for those that still compete, and it's a shame that we've basically got an "all or nothing" raid model where you're either 13/13 or you may as well be in LFR.

---------- Post added 2013-05-21 at 07:10 PM ----------

At some point Blizz will see the light and make one raid size, probably 15. The cost of the current system is more than just a fragmented player base, with a fair amount of strife between the sides due to their differences. I'd say Blizz could balance for at least 2 more difficulty levels and probably design a couple more bosses per tier if they didn't have to consider the raid differences. Could one of those difficulty levels be an easier normal/puggable and allowed more casual guilds success? This is an issue, like the former buff system, that is a long term instability and has to be addressed with systematic changes.

I'd really support a 15man size. It'd be so much less to worry about for Blizz in terms of tuning and balance, and it would resolve so much turmoil, turnover and vitriol amongst the 10v25 crowd. No more "this is harder" "no THIS is harder" crap, no more ilvl arguments or gear "balancing" to prop up one size or another. Just make an even field, and give it 2, 3, 4 difficulties to allow everyone to participate.

Heroic 15, Normal 15 (-13 ilvl from HC), "Beer league" 15 (-20 ilvl from HC), LFR15 (-26 ilvl from HC). First 3 can all drop TF and/or have "elite" mode options once in a while to guarantee higher stuff. First 3 ONLY can allow progression of any future "legendary" questlines/creations.

[stgeorge78]

The biggest problem casual 10-man raids face today is the constant absences from people who literally don't give a crap if they show up on a given week. It used to be easy to replace those people, but sometimes it is very difficult to find qualified pug raiders and sometimes those people are "important to the guild".

So I think there just needs to be a way for a group of 8 or 9 people to just say "fill in these last two spots" and get raiders. This could be managed from the existing raid panel where people can tick off the raids they are interested in and are automatically "available". Then they would get a prompt "raid X is 0/12 and needs 1 DPS - Join?"

[Tehterokkar]

From what I have experienced, 10m is so much easier than 25m for ToT at least. So many bosses use trivialized tactics for 10m that make the encounter a complete joke, and to add up if you have a Paladin tank for 10m, you have 7 DPS for some fights.

Joke fights on 10m:
Ji-Kun
Dark Animus
Iron Qon
Twin Consorts (<- Didn't even feel like a boss, just trash)

Fights where you use 1 Paladin tank, 7 DPS and 2 Healers:
Durumu
Iron Qon

My main raid is on 25m(2/13Hc atm yay), and I pugged 10m ToT for the week, the bosses were laughable in comparison, spreading mechanics are so much easier to deal with on 10m, DPS requirements are beaten by having 2 healers only.

[Deleted]

From what I have experienced, 10m is so much easier than 25m for ToT at least. So many bosses use trivialized tactics for 10m that make the encounter a complete joke, and to add up if you have a Paladin tank for 10m, you have 7 DPS for some fights.

Heroic modes are a whole other story. Normals are a joke on both 10 and 25. And news flash; you can solo tank all those fights with a paldin on 25 aswell.

[Deleted]

Don't fool yourself, they never do perfect tuning. This time, they did it on 10. Then, they nerfed it heavily (the version you pugged).

[Nairobi]

From what I have experienced, 10m is so much easier than 25m for ToT at least.

My main raid is on 25m(2/13Hc atm yay), and I pugged 10m ToT for the week, the bosses were laughable in comparison, spreading mechanics are so much easier to deal with on 10m, DPS requirements are beaten by having 2 healers only.

Here we go...

Aside from the fact that normals are pretty bad measuring stick, 25's have their fair share of easier fights as well. HC Council, HC Megaera, and even HC Horridon all say Hi. 25 has the ability to adapt to and/or cover most important moments with raid-wide CDs, be it offensive or defensive, far more fluidly than 10s, whereas 10s have more room for stack/spread mechanics than 25s.

It's almost like, and stick with me here, the different raid sizes have different pro's and con's.

Mind = blown. Keep that crap out of the thread.

Oops...

Heroic modes are a whole other story. Normals are a joke on both 10 and 25. And news flash; you can solo tank all those fights with a paldin on 25 aswell.

Don't fool yourself, they never do perfect tuning. This time, they did it on 10. Then, they nerfed it heavily (the version you pugged).

Beaten to the punch already

[Tehterokkar]

Heroic modes are a whole other story. Normals are a joke on both 10 and 25. And news flash; you can solo tank all those fights with a paldin on 25 aswell.

But the extra DPS helps so much more when compared to 25m.

Getting a ~16% Raid DPS increase in 10m is much more significant than a ~5% Raid DPS increase on 25m.

[Belloc]

10 man raids are popular because its easier to manage 10man raids, not because ppl like 10 man more. If they added a 4man raid, wouldn't it be more popular than 10,25man raids, if 4-man droped same ilvl as 10 and 25?

10-mans are popular for more reasons than that and you know it. Allow me to list some of the reasons:

Easier to raid with friends: In 25-man raids, you have a more people that don't really connect with the rest of the guild but are still required to fill in the vacant slots. In a 10-man, the other 9 people in the group are more likely to be your friends.

Less loot hassle: You generally don't even need to master loot it, since you typically know the 9 other people well enough that you can safely turn on group loot and not have ninja issues.

Less drama: In a 25-man raid, you will inevitably run into issues with certain people supporting the raid leader and certain people supporting opinions of other players. These contrasting ideas and opinions cause a separation to form. How often do you see examples, on the forums, of 25-man guilds splitting apart and forming separate 10-mans because of guild drama?

And, really, that's all the reason you need. 10-man guilds tend to be groups of friends, they tend to have less drama, and, even when they have bad progression, they still tend to get along.

Yes, it's easier to manage 10-man raids and, yes, that is one element of their popularity. It is not, however, the sole reason.