World of Warcraft Raiding Lengths by Expansion

[Elvine]

[Deleted]

They should release more raids/content now than ever. Cause its so easy to go trought them and see it all. But, they are doing just the opposite. Dunno why...

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

I'm gonna ignore Vanilla because there was no clearly defined tier structure in that day.

BC also didn't have a tier format, but it had 4 clear raid levels. It's also the one that was most balanced overall.

Wrath looks more balanced, but consider that Ruby Sanctum was filler and suddenly ICC looks about the same as DS.

Cata wasn't so bad, just the final raid was a horrible raid.

Then MoP. MoP failed in two ways. First, the starting tier was too short. Second, the final tier lasted way too long.

[ReleaseDay]

This really makes MoP look bad. Should've had more raids and shorter SoO.

Btw, no way Naxx 40 pre was out for 210 days ??

[Zagnut]

Wrath looks more balanced, but consider that Ruby Sanctum was filler and suddenly ICC looks about the same as DS.

At least they bothered to give people filler back then.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

At least they bothered to give people filler back then.

Yeah at least they threw us a bone.

Not much of one, though. But hey, they tried.

[Deleted]

Yeah at least they threw us a bone.

Not much of one, though. But hey, they tried.

And every year they apologize and promise us yearly expansions. The pattern is quite obvious ;D

At least their profits are up, that's something I suppose.

Inb4: RUBY SANCTUM SUCKED BLIZZARD IS PERFECT!!! OMG!!!

[aziras]

TBC tier 4 was a mess. With a mix of 10man and 25man raids. And mashed in together with T5.

MoP tier 14 is a little flaky too. I didn't play during that time, but if they crammed leveling 10 levels, dungeons, reps, and tier 14 into a 5month period it seems they were a little too much in a hurry to get things moving. And that also explains why people got sick of doing dungeons and reps, because it must have felt like a chore in order to get to "endgame" as quickly as possible. In hindsight, with the 1year SoO it seems even more strange. As in, MoP got stretched at least 6 months longer than initially planned, being the only plausible explanation.
Personally I enjoyed ToT bigtime. The island is great, the raid is decent and it takes a while to really get sick of it.
Felt a little like ICC in wrath, where the content around the raid added value as well.

[Zka]

This really makes MoP look bad. Should've had more raids and shorter SoO.

BC also looks bad Hardcore guilds had nothing to do in ZA except for a few fun bear runs. So they basically had T5+T6 for almost one year, then SWP for 2/3 year.
Casuals could not really cope with SWP so they were stuck with T5+T6+ZA for about 500 days. IF they could progress there at all - there was only 1 difficulty level which was between the current normal and heroic. It was too hard for a lot of people and they had to wait a lot until it got gradually nerfed.

Every expansion's raid release cycle so far has been an utter failure to be honest. Good tiers like Ulduar lasting 3 months, last tiers lasting 1+ year and I could go on.

[DeleteThisUser]

Casuals could not really cope with SWP so they were stuck with T5+T6+ZA for about 500 days.

Many guilds couldn't cope with SWP. Those who were "causal" were stuck on Archimonde or couldn't get passed Gorefiend. Many couldn't get passed T5 content, either. Others struggled to recruit for 25-mans as well.

[Deleted]

The pattern of the last three expansions is clear:

1) We start the expansion with a lot of new content, while Blizzard is already working on and finishing the next Tier. Although a small vocal minority on forums is yelling (as always) for faster, better and more content, the silent majority is still enjoying and working on the initial expansion content, when Blizzard releases the next Tier.

2) The next Tier contains a lot less content of course, but lasts about as long as the first one, which is strange, considering that in the first tier we had a lot more stuff to do (levelling and gearing up from scratch, a lot of new dungeons, etc). Still, the length of this tier is usually about right.

3) The last Tier comes out and by then Blizzard finds that the expansion will take at least 6 months longer to release than expected.

TLDR: Pattern: first Tier always too short, second Tier about right, final Tier is lasts 6 or more months too long.

Solution (apart from better expansion planning): make the first Tier last a few (2-3) months longer (even if the next Tier is finished already).

[fixx]

So many fails on OP's chart that it proves once again the immortal quote of "lies, damned lies and statistics". It's just propaganda tool misquoting data to make last two expansions seem abnormal.


In vanilla ZG was not part of the real raid progression. It was first attempt to make raiding more casual so red and orange slices should be the same. Also most guilds still farmed MC while progressing in AQ for the legendaries so you can count MC lasting until end of AQ.

In TBC ZA was not part of raid progression and again red & orange slices should be the same. Black Temple lasted half of the expansion and was the first big content drought for all high end guilds.

In WLK Ruby Sanctum wasn't considered to be part of raid progression (only one boss) so the green and purple slices should be one and ICC lasting half of the expansion.

[Serissa]

So many fails on OP's chart that it proves once again the immortal quote of "lies, damned lies and statistics". It's just propaganda tool misquoting data to make last two expansions seem abnormal.


In vanilla ZG was not part of the real raid progression. It was first attempt to make raiding more casual so red and orange slices should be the same. Also most guilds still farmed MC while progressing in AQ for the legendaries so you can count MC lasting until end of AQ.

In TBC ZA was not part of raid progression and again red & orange slices should be the same. Black Temple lasted half of the expansion and was the first big content drought for all high end guilds.

In WLK Ruby Sanctum wasn't considered to be part of raid progression (only one boss) so the green and purple slices should be one and ICC lasting half of the expansion.

Oh, someone can use brain. Too bad I can't "+1" you.


Edit:

Considering not every raid was a "proper" tier in early expansions/classic, and "tiers" were not separated so strictly I fixed this graph for you.



Doesn't look so rainbow now. Does it?

[Elvine]

Content is content regardless if it was higher tier or not. A lot better than how we have it now.

[Deleted]

In BC the game launched with Karazhan, Gruul's Lair, Magtheridon's Lair, SSC, and Tempest Keep. You also had two world bosses you could kill as well. When I changed servers at BC start my guild use to kill the world bosses then go Gruul and Magtheridon one night then SSC and Tempest Keep the rest of the week and we had Karazhan on Friday's. Your raid week was pretty much booked the entire week.

Then Mount Hyjal and Black Temple came out and we switched entirely to learning these two instances and dropped the other raids. I think it was almost a full year after BWL came out before Sunwell and ZA came out and we did Sunwell then BWL and Mount Hyjal each week (because Sunwell was gated) and ZA as filler.

[fixx]

Content is content regardless if it was higher tier or not. A lot better than how we have it now.

And that is twisting the facts to suit your agenda. Instances that have lower difficulty and lower level gear are not raid content in the way you depicted those. Zul'aman didnt last 113 days for people farming Black Temple for glaives, it lasted about 2 hours and was worthless apart from boosting alts and farming bears.

In BC the game launched with Karazhan, Gruul's Lair, Magtheridon's Lair, SSC, and Tempest Keep. You also had two world bosses you could kill as well.

In theory yes, in reality no. All of those raids were very buggy and mistuned and nobody outside world top100 list set foot into SSC/TK or killed Magtheridon for months after launch.

When I changed servers at BC start my guild use to kill the world bosses then go Gruul and Magtheridon one night then SSC and Tempest Keep the rest of the week and we had Karazhan on Friday's. Your raid week was pretty much booked the entire week.

World bosses were irrelevant, Gruul was farmed until end of TBC because of Dragonspine Trophy, there was nothing else in that raid for people in SSC/TK. Magtheridon was farmed because it was Bagtheridon... Raw epic gems and 18 slot bags from every kill. Some did Karazhan later in the expansion (after halfway) once it became the fastest way to farm badges and people tried to speed clear it, but until then no 25man raid guilds did it on raid time, only for bored drunken alt runs.

[Spotnick]

And now you see why Ulduar is still seen as best raid ever.. because people never had time to get bored of it lol.

[Deleted]

In BC the game launched with Karazhan, Gruul's Lair, Magtheridon's Lair, SSC, and Tempest Keep. You also had two world bosses you could kill as well.

What's with the world bosses argument? Ordos, the Celestials, Nalak, Oondasta, Sha, Galleon... world boss wise MoP has been absolutely top-notch. Especially Oondasta was awesome. World bosses are a great way to implement 40 man content without necessitating 40 man raid guilds.

[Pabzi]

wow Dragonsoul was that loooong? 0.0

[Intropid]

Nice graph.

Original Naxx lasted way longer than I would've guessed.