Will Heroic Raiding Eventually Be Eliminated?

[Therec]

I was bored today and decided to look at the number of guilds that have cleared H Throne of Thunder up through H Lei Shen since it was released 11 months ago. Sadly WORLDWIDE it's only about 3200 guilds, including both 10 and 25 man guilds. Doing the math, and adding another 10-15k from PUGs that's only 50k players who have cleared the raid, or 0.6% of the 7.8 million current subscribers.

They've already combined 10 and 25 man next expansion into mythic 20-man, as the amount of resources it took to balance/design fights for both 10 and 25 man appears to have been not worth the cost. My questions is, with burnout, what seems to be a smaller recruitment pool, etc. does anyone think there will be a point 2-3 expansions down the road where Blizzard decides that the time spent on bonus bosses/mechanics/phases for heroic modes is no longer worth pleasing 10-20k people when they better focus their resources on Normal/Flex/LFR and please the vast majority of the raiding subscribers?

[shokter]

Plenty of people raid Heroic modes without ever fully clearing the raids...

[Count Zero]

Nope. Blizz even added LFR and Flex to justify their development time/costs devoted toward raids. It's why Firelands and Dragon Soul had 14 bosses between them, which is how many SoO has by itself.

[clevin]

3 expansions down the road? Maybe. It's hard to see WoW both sustaining the sub losses per expansion for another 3 expansions and continuing to develop at the level they are now. So, yeah, if 3 expansions from now (6 years) the subs were at 2-3 million, I can see heroic going away if the percentage of the player base remains the same.

HOWEVAH... Shokter makes a good point that some people who clear normals then go on to heroics and there might be a lot of people who never clear a tier on heroic but who still play because the heroic mode is there.

Finally, I don't think the time since H ToT was released works here. Yes, it's been 11 months... but 5 of those have been while SoO is live and the guilds who were partly done with H ToT almost certainly just bailed on it and started Normal SoO. After all, we could look at how many completed, say H MSV and say "but it's been 18 months (or whatever)..." but no one raids MSV anymore.

[Orcindauh]

Currently there are 11,749 guilds(EU/US) who have killed at least 1 boss in heroic SoO. So obviously a lot of people are/have been interested in heroics, alot more than "10-20k"

[Kuruption]

If they want to lose quite a bit of subs, sure.

[Babylonius]

In order to look at the number of people using heroic raids you can't look at the end boss, you have to look at any heroic bosses. If you've killed even one then you've made use of the heroic bosses. 1500 25man and 15,657 10man guilds have killed at least one boss of Heroic ToT. This means:

(1500 x 25) + (15657 x 10) = 194,070 people

Obviously some people cleared it with more than 1 guild and some guilds cleared it with more than the minimum people, but you're looking at 200,000 players who experienced some form of heroic raid last tier which is a lot more than 10-20k.

This tier the numbers are 1939 25m guilds and 11076 10man guilds or 159,235 people roughly. That's almost 3/4 of the number of last tier and we're no where near done with SoO. The numbers, by my interpretation, have actually risen.

[Tenjen]

it's less "not worth the cost"

and more "better streamlined fights without having to constantly tweak both over and over and still maintain a resemblance over all"

it wasnt about worth, it was about giving it better attention through better efficiency

[Nexii]

I doubt it. The populations of Flex and Normal raiders is no larger than that of Heroic raiders (of course, excluding lower difficulties). LFR population is about equal to Flex+Normal+HC. Most of the work in a raid I imagine is not so much in the tuning as in the general design. If it was, we wouldn't see Flexi modes.

[Inthislzon]

In order to look at the number of people using heroic raids you can't look at the end boss, you have to look at any heroic bosses. If you've killed even one then you've made use of the heroic bosses. 1500 25man and 15,657 10man guilds have killed at least one boss of Heroic ToT. This means:

(1500 x 25) + (15657 x 10) = 194,070 people

Obviously some people cleared it with more than 1 guild and some guilds cleared it with more than the minimum people, but you're looking at 200,000 players who experienced some form of heroic raid last tier which is a lot more than 10-20k.

While 200k is indeed more than 20k, does it REALLY justify it? I mean, i remember blizzard saying "we don't want raids to be experienced by <1% of the entire community" and while 200k sounds like a "big" number is just 2-3% of the player base. And that is assuming that noone ever raids on more than one char (as the 7.8M number means ACCOUNTS and not characters.

[The Yeti]

While 200k is indeed more than 20k, does it REALLY justify it? I mean, i remember blizzard saying "we don't want raids to be experienced by <1% of the entire community" and while 200k sounds like a "big" number is just 2-3% of the player base. And that is assuming that noone ever raids on more than one char (as the 7.8M number means ACCOUNTS and not characters.

Raids aren't just experienced by 2-3% of the base. They aren't completely changing the fights in heroic modes, just adding new elements to them. A lot more simple than a completely new set of models, animations, background, etc...

[Deleted]

Maybe you should do something a bit fairer and look at how many guilds have killed at least say 3 heroic bosses.

I imagine the number would be a lot higher then.

./sigh

I really hate the way people use only extremes for trying to get the point across.

[Allarius]

If raids were linear in their difficulty then you might have something. Otherwise specific bosses for specific groups could be preventing them from continuing further into the instance, or the fact that 12/14 bosses is a lot to clear. Those are the largest tiers we've had since wrath. No other instance had more than 8 bosses in it for almost 4 years.

[Orcindauh]

OP you seem to know alot about how much effort and resources is put into designing heroic encounters compared to LFR/flex/normal.

[Inthislzon]

Raids aren't just experienced by 2-3% of the base. They aren't completely changing the fights in heroic modes, just adding new elements to them. A lot more simple than a completely new set of models, animations, background, etc...

Ah indeed, not really sure how could i miss that considering i've been raiding for 7+ years already XD

[Kryos]

Mythic will improve todays heroic raids. Finally a single format for endgame. Finally heroic trash and better competition and better ways to fine-tune encounters.

[Vakna]

If they remove heroic raiding then they should just remove raiding all together. Normal modes and below are just too mind numbingly easy to justify spending months developing. You go and do them for like 2-3 weeks and then its over till next tier.

It wont happen.

[Krazzorx]

No, the effort of adding it is tiny. Just add a few mechanics and have players tune it.

What takes the most development time is art assets, which out of over 40 bosses they had 3 bosses with them.

[Catblob]

The move to a single 20 man version of heroic raids is probably what will keep heroic raiding alive.

[Therec]

Currently there are 11,749 guilds(EU/US) who have killed at least 1 boss in heroic SoO. So obviously a lot of people are/have been interested in heroics, alot more than "10-20k"

True, but how many of those are 10 man guilds. The 20-man mythic also made it much harder for those normal mode guilds to kill a few heroic bosses each tier. I think looking at the numbers around 10X the 10 man guilds have ventured in vs 25 man. There is no longer an option for casual 10 man guilds. If you want to set foot into mythic raiding you need 20 people. How many of those 10-man guilds who are 1/13H or 2/13H are willing to recruit 10 people just to continue that trend in WoD. Not nearly 100%.