Will Heroic Raiding Eventually Be Eliminated?

[Constraint]

No. The amount of people raiding Heroic is more than you think. They are also subbed longer than the casual scrub who subs for 2 months and gets bored. So Blizzard will never eliminate heroic raiding.

Heroic Raiding is also an end game goal for a large amount of players.

Heroic raiding is also very very popular in europe.

Fair points - I simply think there has to be something just out of reach for most players to work towards. There's a lot less motivation to remain subbed when you've already reached the ceiling. Carrot on a stick.

[Osmeric]

Fair points - I simply think there has to be something just out of reach for most players to work towards. There's a lot less motivation to remain subbed when you've already reached the ceiling. Carrot on a stick.

Most players reach a ceiling, and it doesn't involve heroic (soon mythic) raids at all. Inclusion or removal of that raid mode doesn't change the position of their ceiling.

The apologists for heroic raiding are saying that the presence of heroic raids inspires these people, EVEN IF THEY NEVER DO IT.

My suggestion for these people is that Blizzard add a massive raid mode with a first boss so tough that no one can do it. They can then describe the rest of the raid in glowing terms, inspiring everyone, yet save on all that pesky art and encounter design because no one will ever actually be able to reach it. But that's ok; players don't have to be able to reach raid content for it to keep them subscribed, we are told.

[Richardbro]

Most players reach a ceiling, and it doesn't involve heroic (soon mythic) raids at all. Inclusion or removal of that raid mode doesn't change the position of their ceiling.

The apologists for heroic raiding are saying that the presence of heroic raids inspires these people, EVEN IF THEY NEVER DO IT.

My suggestion for these people is that Blizzard add a massive raid mode with a first boss so tough that no one can do it. They can then describe the rest of the raid in glowing terms, inspiring everyone, yet save on all that pesky art and encounter design because no one will ever actually be able to reach it. But that's ok; players don't have to be able to reach raid content for it to keep them subscribed, we are told.

Let me put the worth of Heroic raiders in simple terms for you.

Out of all the 200k heroic raiders that have killed at least the first boss on heroic, lets assume that 100k of them stay subbed the entire expansion because of trying to down heroic bosses / farming gear.

This translates to 100k x $15 (monthly sub fee) x roughly 20 months (An expansion length) = $30 million dollars in revenue from heroic raiders from sub time.

Now lets compare this to 1 million casual players who stay subbed 2 months in an expansion.

1mil casual players x $15 x 2 (months) = 30 million.

This alone shows that the heroic raiders worth is far more than you think and Blizzard very well knows this.

[Sparky_b]

Let me put the worth of Heroic raiders in simple terms for you.

Out of all the 200k heroic raiders that have killed at least the first boss on heroic, lets assume that 100k of them stay subbed the entire expansion because of trying to down heroic bosses / farming gear.

This translates to 100k x $15 (monthly sub fee) x roughly 20 months (An expansion length) = $30 million dollars in revenue from heroic raiders from sub time.

Now lets compare this to 1 million casual players who stay subbed 2 months in an expansion.

1mil casual players x $15 x 2 (months) = 30 million.

This alone shows that the heroic raiders worth is far more than you think and Blizzard very well knows this.

That's not a very comparable size difference. There are far more casual players than 1 million, we all know that. Of the 200k Blizzard just picked up, less than 5% of them will go on to be Heroic raiders, the rest would fall somewhere in between. With the number of people that don't fall into that 5% model, would be more people than those who actually complete a Heroic instance, total, throughout the entire world, including Asia, several times over.

When I say all this, I'm not anti-Mythic/Heroic, quite the opposite. But we need to get it out of our heads that we're in any way important to Blizzard. Casual players are footing the lion's share of Blizzard's profit, not us. We should be happy they've kept Heroic/Mythic this long, and we should thank a casual player every day for paying more than us for content they never see. Sometimes I chuckle when I see a post about Blizzard being a business, because if they were that shady, we would've lost our harder content after Sunwell.

[Kernel]

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

We have daily stats with amount of players that killed at least one normal/heroic boss in Tier15 and Tier16:
http://www.wowprogress.com/stats

Current numbers:

Total amount of unique players that killed any boss in Tier 16 Normal: 610,322
Active unique players that killed any boss in Tier 16 Normal: 560,630 (91.86%)

Total amount of unique players that killed any boss in Tier 16 Heroic: 239,854
Active unique players that killed any boss in Tier 16 Heroic: 228,375 (95.21%)

[Gondlem]

Why should I trust you, when you present no evidence, and the point you are arguing seems to be very self serving?

Why shouldn't an argument about what content should be in a video game be self-serving? The purpose of World of Warcraft is entertainment. We're not talking about a budget stimulus package here. Heroic raiding entertains me, hence I'd like it to remain in the game, and of course any argument I present for why it should remain in the game would be self-serving. What possible other reason could I have for wanting something to be in the game? What an utterly asinine point. Would you enter a thread about pet battles and dismiss the opinions of people who like pet battles because their argument is self-serving?

My personal experience of World of Warcraft has been that the existence of challenging raid content that I couldn't see without finding a raid guild and working towards it turned my casual interest in the game into a more substantial one, encouraged social interaction I otherwise wouldn't have bothered with and formed a close connection with the game that has lasted years. That was in TBC and much has changed since then, but if anything the gradual siphoning off of challenging content from other parts of the game into smaller sub-sections of it has made raiding even more important to my enjoyment of the game. If heroic (or Mythic, come WoD) raiding was removed from the game I'd quit immediately and so would everyone else I know who plays the game. That of course only speaks for me and my immediate circle of fellow hardcore raiders that I regularly interact with, but it's my experience nonetheless.

Utterly self-serving, of course.

[Deleted]

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?

You're looking at the endboss of a heroic raid, which should be the hardest boss ingame at some point. Perhaps you should look at the easiest heroic boss to see how many people we interested and killed a heroic boss? And this is is only the people that managed to kill one, not the ones that tried but didn't make it!

Looking at Jinrok numbers that's: 15971 guilds that have killed it and countless pugs! So I wouldn't call that a "waste of resources"

[willemh]

Even if only 0,6% of the players kill the hardest boss, many more have fun watching top guilds kill this hardest boss and have something to look forward to doing some day. The game would loose allot of dept if heroic raiding was removed.

[Bullettime]

Probably not. Blizzard relies on both the social players and the top end players to sustain a playerbase.

Social players don't raid or do LFR/flex and make up the bulk of the sub money.
The top end players are far fewer but are generally the ones making the guides, doing the theorycrafting, and making the add-ons that the social players rely on, and are server and community cornerstones that players rally around.

If they stopped giving content to the social players, the game would lose tons of subs and cash.
If they stopped giving content to the top end players and guilds, the game's knowledge base would largely up and leave.

[nekobaka]

When I say all this, I'm not anti-Mythic/Heroic, quite the opposite. But we need to get it out of our heads that we're in any way important to Blizzard. Casual players are footing the lion's share of Blizzard's profit, not us. We should be happy they've kept Heroic/Mythic this long, and we should thank a casual player every day for paying more than us for content they never see. Sometimes I chuckle when I see a post about Blizzard being a business, because if they were that shady, we would've lost our harder content after Sunwell.

Besides a number of the developers partaking in the more "hard core" aspects of the game from PVP to PVE the majority doesnt want all the same things. WoW is a game that offers a wide and an increasing variety of things to do for different people. There is some features out there that dont attract much players, but Blizzard still spends resources on them. Part of the identity that Blizzard has placed for WoW PVE is raiding at the pinnacle including that of challenge. Even without the upper heroic mode traditional raiding isnt a thing for everyone.

While not so much the case anymore, the "hard core" namely those in the upper end of PVP and PVE played a large role in social marketing for the game and continue to do such even those who are not actually that good(swifty). It wasnt just that top sliver that offers word of mouth, but those sociable players who jump into games and make friends and bring in their friends. And who are the sociable, the ones who participate in group based content to tackle challenges. They might not be the top challenges like the many who bash things like MC, but it is still something that many didnt do and at its time was the top. Social media is a powerful thing that can be hard to measure and is often overlooked.

There was a tiny sliver that did sunwell and they dont represent the majority of those who raid and Blizzard could have not created heroic mode while leaving the normal mode at a lower levels. So it is nice that those players do get something they enjoy in the game.

Personally I would have gotten bored if there was no heroic even though I was not in a heroic guild. It is nice to have something to always look forward to. I am not sure if I could handle being in one of those guilds who cleared everything and then just wait for the next tier.

[Deleted]

Can we also remove all future Challenge Modes because only a select few were able to get Goldmode done, also can we remove Hero of the Alliance and stop anyone from queueing in RBG's past 2.4k.

No, because that would be dumb. Alot of people would laugh if heroic raiding was removed; think of it this way. Every mod that you use for PvE. BigWigs. DBM. WeakAuras. Were all designed with heroic raiding in mind. The entire community would suffer if it was removed. It's a staple point, and one of the core differenting factors between WoW and other cames. Check SWTOR. SWToR had faceroll endgame. Nothing to entice people to stay in the game. This question rears its head every month, generally supported by mongoloids who believe that heroic raiding somehow means they don't get new content in a certain fashion, or don't wish to bother with any form of heroic raiding. Remove heroic raiding, remove Gladiator, remove Hero of the Alliance, remove Goldmodes please. Most of what makes/made 'wow' the game that it is is that it is quite popular to watch, and to view. A look at Twitch's viewing figures during progress tells you this. Edine (Our paladin healer)'s stream had over 1500 people watching when we were streaming Siegecrafter heroic - a stream that used to attract 50 or so.

[Deleted]

No, they are not gonna remove hardmode raids simply because everybody cant clear them.

That would be pretty pointless wouldnt it? If more people used common sense now and then...

[Omega10]

n 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

You perfectly make the economic case for why heroic raiding should be removed. It is probably more a question of when rather than a question of if. The math just does not add up for continuing it.