Raid size a deal breaker in Legion? [Poll]

[Trapped]

My fiancee and I have both agreed that if they don't bring back strict 10-man raiding, that we're not buying Legion. 20-man raiding, while looking good on paper, was the ultimate nail in the coffin for many guilds this expansion, even ones that already had a large, active roster. I despise larger raid groups because it's easier for people to get carried, and you lose some of the tight-knit, social aspects that you can only find in smaller groups.

Also, as the game continues to bleed subs, it will be even harder for 20-man Mythic guilds to find decent recruits.

[FuxieDK]

10man was always more intimate than bigger sizes...
10man was, for the most part, signifigantly harder than 25man..

10man was always better than bigger sizes..

[Irian]

I wouldn't call it a dealbreaker for me, but it is a dealbreaker when it comes to raiding.

I like 10m. When 10m as an alternate raid size came out in WotLK I loved it and played it exclusively from then on. It was so much more personal and finding 9 other good players on a small server is fairly easy compared to 19.

I know 20m involves more large-group management and that's a difficulty of raiding, and I know 10m is technically possible with raiding, but I'd honestly rather they ditch flexible and just bring it back to 10 and 25(20?) again. I don't care if it awards less loot or whatever, I just seriously doubt I'm ever going to give a shit about raiding again if they insist I do it in a giant 20-30 man clusterfuck.

20 man mythic feels like it was designed by people who don't understand or haven't noticed the pretty gigantic problem that is running rampant through previously medium-population servers where essentially every good player/guild is migrating to the larger servers because Mythic has no CRZ and good luck finding 19 competent mythic-level raiders on a medium population server. If they don't bring back a small-size raid difficulty then I don't doubt that Mythic raiding will become even more rare as time goes on, either they need to make a 10m option or they need to make it crossrealm.

[Xeones]

It's bad enough they got rid of 40 mans. I don't understand why people are so obsessed with turning raids into dungeons instead of raids.

[papajohn4]

I dont raid anymore and dont care...if they bring back progression through dungeon i am ok. If i decide i want to raid, i am sure i can find a guild to raid regardless of the raid team size.

But i am wondering, if raid is going to be 10m why not just scrap it and only have 5m long and hard dungeons? I mean how 5 more players can change the experience...for me raid means lot of people. Going from 5 man to 10, adding 1 more tank and 1-2 more healers is not suddenly a "raid"

[Deleted]

I like the structure that 10man had in icc but, for me now the flex sizing addresses the needs I have for raiding. I'm not looking to go harcore into mythic. Although in saying that, guilds I have been in don't struggle too hard after clearing heroic and progressing a handful of kills in mythic. If we don't have enoigh for mythic one week, we just had an alt run in heroic or had other activities I nes up if we didn't get the numbers. For me this suits me fine.


What about guilds with 16-18 active raiders, they're too small for 20man and not small enough for 10 man orsplit 10 man groups?

Possibly better option to keep the flex until mythic, then downscale to make 15-16man mythic. Don't raid mythic too hard so, I don't know what this would to for current 20mans.

[Trapped]

I wouldn't call it a dealbreaker for me, but it is a dealbreaker when it comes to raiding.

I like 10m. When 10m as an alternate raid size came out in WotLK I loved it and played it exclusively from then on. It was so much more personal and finding 9 other good players on a small server is fairly easy compared to 19.

I know 20m involves more large-group management and that's a difficulty of raiding, and I know 10m is technically possible with raiding, but I'd honestly rather they ditch flexible and just bring it back to 10 and 25(20?) again. I don't care if it awards less loot or whatever, I just seriously doubt I'm ever going to give a shit about raiding again if they insist I do it in a giant 20-30 man clusterfuck.

100% agree. All my raiding I've ever done since TBC has been in 10-man format. I don't think small servers can support 20-man Mythic guilds tbh.

[Deleted]

The mythic encounters in WoD are the best encounters they have ever made, except for a few shitty bosses like assualt every boss is good and tightly tuned. Mythic blast furnace is most likely my favorite encounter of all time and that fight is only possible on 20 M. Mythic as it is right now is meant for the hardcore, if you want a more intimite social experience they made heroic and normal and even then there are very social laidback mythic guilds, like the one i am in.

[Spiral Mage]

So, wait .. someone else wanting something 'back in the game', that never left? Just take 10 and go raid, you don't need to take any more than that. I don't quite understand this ..

If anything, flex raiding is the best thing they could have done. 10mans always had to recruit 2-3 more to make sure they could raid reliably but then those were 2-3 people that got benched when the regulars were online and available. Now, you can take those 2-3 with you and never bench anyone.

So this boggles me. You wanna take just 10? Do it. I've seen alot of people doing just that.

[StaeleAilar]

So, wait .. someone else wanting something 'back in the game', that never left? Just take 10 and go raid, you don't need to take any more than that. I don't quite understand this ..

If anything, flex raiding is the best thing they could have done. 10mans always had to recruit 2-3 more to make sure they could raid reliably but then those were 2-3 people that got benched when the regulars were online and available. Now, you can take those 2-3 with you and never bench anyone.

So this boggles me. You wanna take just 10? Do it. I've seen alot of people doing just that.

Pretty much this. 10 man is still a normal and heroic option. If you want to be doing the hardest content, then you have to do it 20 man. That's it. No if's and's or but's. Personally i have ALWAYS preferred the larger raid sizes, i hated the small groups. Bigger teams meant more to do on off nights, more people were around, more people liking different aspects of the game outside of raiding.

[Deleted]

10man was always more intimate than bigger sizes...
10man was, for the most part, signifigantly harder than 25man..

10man was always better than bigger sizes..

Ye its no like ive killed norushen 10 heroic about 50 times and never ever wiped.

[Trapped]

So, wait .. someone else wanting something 'back in the game', that never left? Just take 10 and go raid, you don't need to take any more than that. I don't quite understand this ..

If anything, flex raiding is the best thing they could have done. 10mans always had to recruit 2-3 more to make sure they could raid reliably but then those were 2-3 people that got benched when the regulars were online and available. Now, you can take those 2-3 with you and never bench anyone.

So this boggles me. You wanna take just 10? Do it. I've seen alot of people doing just that.

Was waiting for this post. I clearly stated I was talking about a strict 10-man raid size in my OP. Flexible 10-30 is not that at all, and bringing in 10 people usually gimps yourself because of the scaling mechanisms in place. Also, Mythic is 20-man only. I would not raid at all if I knew I couldn't reach the highest level of raiding possible, which is currently Mythic.

[Kheirn]

So, wait .. someone else wanting something 'back in the game', that never left? Just take 10 and go raid, you don't need to take any more than that. I don't quite understand this ..

The problem is that the raids are horribly tuned for anywhere below 15 members. They never intended 10 people to actually be a viable option when tuning these raids, it's just a minimum requirement. The raids are tuned to roughly 20 people on every difficulty, anything less is severely gimping your raid.

Personally I don't function well in larger groups, the 10-man option was what made me enjoy raiding and since it's no longer viable, I quit. I still play the game and from time to time raid casually with my guild, but I can't stand a dedicated group of 15-20 people, it's too much. Hell, if it was possible I'd love a 5-man raid. With fewer people you get closer, almost to the point where you can read eachothers minds, and I miss that.

[Gilgameshh]

10man was always more intimate than bigger sizes...
10man was, for the most part, signifigantly harder than 25man..

10man was always better than bigger sizes..

I can understand how you think these things, but it's completely subjective.

Depending on the mechanics of a certain fight, either raid size could make the fight easier.

Here's the problem: When you design fights for multiple different raid sizes, or even two, it puts limitations on encounter designs. That's why mythic is for only 20 people. While I hate mythic for a variety of reasons, the logic behind fixing the size makes perfect sense. 20 just so happens to be the number Blizzard chose.

Another problem is that as Blizzard adds conveniences, communities within individual servers outright die. It's hard to find a large group of people you know to do anything anymore, and I think the 20-man size is Blizzard's way of keeping things "massive" in their MMO. I loved when I was part of 40 man raids and I'll never, ever experience that amount of joy again. It wasn't the difficulty, and it wasn't the class balance; it was the feeling of being part of a huge group with 39 other people. A group so big that you formed class channels to coordinate. I made more friends in vanilla than I have in the rest of the expansions combined. That's just me, though.

The closer raid sizes get to 1, the less this game stays true to being what it set out to be. Creating the 10-man raid size was a mistake by Blizzard in the sense that people who have experienced it and liked it have had it taken away. Was it bad for the game to do away with 10-man? No, but it was bad for a lot of people who liked 10-man raiding. That doesn't mean 10-man raiding was a good design philosophy; it means it's the design you enjoyed and made sense for you and others. It could work if Blizzard decided that the focus should be 10-man, but I'm sure they're going to do that.

To compensate for the removal of 10-mans, we now have flex for everything outside of mythic. For those that actually enjoy raiding for progression, this is inexcusable, and I'm with you. When flex guilds are littering servers, the pool of mythic raiders from which to choose lessens. I don't blame the people who hate mythic, but this is all part of a large problem. Subs are down, new players are clueless when they hit max level, and flex guilds are content with normal/heroic content. Many guilds are struggling not only with the difficulty of mythic, not only with the burnout of multiple difficulties, but also with recruiting because of the factors I listed off in this paragraph.

Mythic raiding has become its own niche within the niche of raiding, and that has taken things way too far. More people enjoy raiding on a lesser difficulty with more content, not more difficulty with less content. Why is Blizzard catering to the two extremes of raiders with LFR and mythic? Why aren't the majority of the people who actually enjoy raiding catered to instead? It's pretty confusing to me.

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Personally I don't function well in larger groups, the 10-man option was what made me enjoy raiding and since it's no longer viable, I quit. I still play the game and from time to time raid casually with my guild, but I can't stand a dedicated group of 15-20 people, it's too much. Hell, if it was possible I'd love a 5-man raid. With fewer people you get closer, almost to the point where you can read eachothers minds, and I miss that.

I feel the opposite of being in a larger group, but I'll agree that with the increase in difficulty for mythic raids, it's not enjoyable (maybe that's not your reasoning, but it's mine).

If you would love 5-man raids, you should probably advocate for a more serious push for dungeons. Dungeons were designed to give the smaller experience. I'd like to see tiered releases of dungeons alongside the release of raid tiers.

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Pretty much this. 10 man is still a normal and heroic option. If you want to be doing the hardest content, then you have to do it 20 man. That's it. No if's and's or but's. Personally i have ALWAYS preferred the larger raid sizes, i hated the small groups. Bigger teams meant more to do on off nights, more people were around, more people liking different aspects of the game outside of raiding.

I think you should have sympathy for those that have lost the option to do 10-mans. Those people enjoy their 10-man raid sizes as much as you enjoy your larger raid sizes. If I had my way, we would go back to 40-man with some 25-man half-tier raids thrown in. People want to progress their own way, and it's hard for me not to feel bad for those who have had their 10-man progression ripped away from them for a terribly watered down flex experience.

The rest of what you said I completely agree with.

[Huehuecoyotl]

I don't understand Blizzard's determination to maintain walls within their content. The introduction of Flex was a great idea (I had been suggesting something similar for years). But why have it for some levels of difficulty before, suddenly, saying that it is 20 man or nothing for Mythic?

Flex is a god-send for anyone running a raiding guild. Suddenly your raid nights just need a bare minimum to be successful. You can run a raid roster of 25, and if you get a day in the summer where lots of people are off on holiday, you can still raid. Or if all 25 turn up, you don't leave anyone on the bench. Better for the people that want to raid, better for the GM, less drama all round.

But from a progress point of view, you have this wonderful situation right up to the point you want to move into Mythic. Where suddenly you are back to the bad old days. 25 people turn up? 5 of them are going to sit the night out. 17 turn up? You can either spend the night wiping or call it. A brick wall that stops progress for smaller guilds that used to be able to get to end game content at a slower pace.

And why keep that artificial gate in place? To maintain the "purity" of Mythic raiding? So that top end raiders can enjoy some sort of proper balance to their raids?

Let's face it, Blizzard can either tune their raids for Flex, or they can't. If they can, then they can do it for Mythic as well. If they can't, then why were they happy to introduce it for the vast majority of people who are now just raiding below Mythic? Did the fact they wouldn't get a balanced raid experience not matter?

Sure, there may be some fights where 18 man is easier than 17 man. Or 11 is easier than 12. And the cutting edge guilds in the World First race will use them wherever they can. But who cares? Outside of those few hundred people that are actually in that race, who will that bother? Those people will run numerous alts to get an edge. Or exploit (or semi-exploit) wherever they can. Designing something specifically to appease such a small group, with such an extreme gaming ideology, doesn't make sense to the majority of people playing WoW.

And of course there will end up with the next level of guild down that try to follow the cutting edge philosophy. Maybe they are in a server race, and want to use the "right" number of players in each fight. If that means that they are benching players on almost every fight, just to do this, then that leaves the people in that guild with a nice, easy choice. They stick with that kind of guild and accept being benched from time to time when the raid size mechanics mean they don't have to be; or they leave and join a guild that lets them get involved in every minute of raiding that they want to, and maybe make slightly slower progress.

Mythic has to be made Flex, for the overall good of the game. And given the number of people walking away at the moment (and the low participation numbers for Mythic raiding) I fully expect this to happen for Legion.

[Kharum]

15-man would be perfect.

[Deleted]

I don't really care, since I don't raid. However when I did raid I loved 25-man hc raids. So I would probably love 20-man mythic as well.
But I won't be getting Legion either way, for several reasons... however raiding isn't one of them

[Gilgameshh]

I don't understand Blizzard's determination to maintain walls within their content. The introduction of Flex was a great idea (I had been suggesting something similar for years). But why have it for some levels of difficulty before, suddenly, saying that it is 20 man or nothing for Mythic?

Mythic has to be made Flex, for the overall good of the game. And given the number of people walking away at the moment (and the low participation numbers for Mythic raiding) I fully expect this to happen for Legion.

As I've said in previous posts, I think mythic in general is terrible for the game. That said, it's designed around a fixed set of people because it lets Blizzard design encounters with a certain amount of people in mind. Making encounters for a flex system limits their ability to design potentially cool encounters. Even though flex exists, the encounters are still designed for 20 people. That's why they have a tough time balancing the numbers, and that's why nerfs happen more often they otherwise would in normal/heroic. For this reason, I'm also not a huge fan of flex.

I will agree that having the only important difficulty for actual progression NOT be flex, when everything else is flex, is crappy. That's why I hate mythic, but also why I hate flex. They go hand in hand.

As a guild master, I will agree that flexing heroic raids before going into mythic was amazingly convenient. That being said, if flex didn't exist, there would be plenty more people to actually recruit. I'd rather they get rid of mythic/LFR altogether, and focus on making content for the majority of people who like to raid. That would ideally be for one difficulty (harder than the current heroic difficulty) with some Ulduar style hard modes, but I'd be content with just normal/heroic.

[Zeta333]

My fiancee and I have both agreed that if they don't bring back strict 10-man raiding, that we're not buying Legion. 20-man raiding, while looking good on paper, was the ultimate nail in the coffin for many guilds this expansion, even ones that already had a large, active roster. I despise larger raid groups because it's easier for people to get carried, and you lose some of the tight-knit, social aspects that you can only find in smaller groups.

Also, as the game continues to bleed subs, it will be even harder for 20-man Mythic guilds to find decent recruits.

Do you new kids realize 10man raiding is why raiding is in the bysmal place it is now. Merging the lockouts and loot tables killed a good half of raiding guilds. It killed server populations and turned a great deal into ghost lands. It was horrible and should have never been allowed to transpire. Always makes me facepalm to see new people like you and your wifetobe touting that if no 10man raiding will die. Raiding is past support. RIght now WoW and its raiding scene will coast on untill it becomes one of those hasbeen mmos that turns free2play or just forgotten by the devs. You wont see the pop spike to 10million again, fuck i doubt it will go past 7 ever again. The current server count was build with a population expanding past 15million, fuck i remember when new servers were added.

[Fincayra]

20 man mythic destroyed the raiding scene for tons of semi-casual guilds. It's a large reason why the game lost 1/2 it's playerbase in 6 months. Not the only reason of course, but one of them.