20 Man Mythic: Success or Failure?

[Deja Thoris]

... and didn't work

Worked pretty damn fine.

I mean, go back and read Lores original post on why the changes were made. All of the benefits listed were subjective "We think it'll feel more epic etc" - bar one objective benefit which was "the ability to make mythic only mechanics that rely on having certain classes present". How did that work out? Thats right, a fucking huge flop

[Lilija]

You're overstating the importance of the balance issues. 50 loud forum neckbeards having a back and forth shouldn't inform game design decisions.

But the death of 25man guild and then the general decrease in raiders possibly could influence design decissions.

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Yes 50 players shouldn't, but thousands of players? And i'm overstating the importance of balance issues on what grounds? At the highest level the players that put forth effort and time deserve to be on an even playing field. They don't just deserve it, its the right thing to do.

In fact the top of raiding is the only space where it's required. Because on lower levels balancing matters much less cause things start to focus more on players skill rather than optimalization.

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Worked pretty damn fine.

I mean, go back and read Lores original post on why the changes were made. All of the benefits listed were subjective "We think it'll feel more epic etc" - bar one objective benefit which was "the ability to make mythic only mechanics that rely on having certain classes present". How did that work out? Thats right, a fucking huge flop

It worked out perfectly. Raiding has never been better. WoD had one of most fun encounters.

[Relapses]

Good to see so many new arguments in this thread.

"10M Heroic was better and my friends liked it therefore everybody liked it."

Yep. Bulletproof analysis.

"More people raided 10M Heroic therefore it was more popular."

Oh yeah, there's one we haven't seen before.

"Blizzard hates their customers, that's why they got rid of 10H raiding."

...or its even more airtight derivative,

"Blizzard made 20M because it was easier and they're lazy."

Infallible. Absolutely fucking infallible. I take back all of the conjecture I've ever made in favor of 20M Mythic. Clearly I've been wrong this whole time. Thanks for showing me the light, MMO-Champ.

[Deleted]

it is definitely failure. have done more guild changing than in any other expansion. guilds seem to fall apart, raids get cancelled etc. not all 20 people play at same level, some people feel bad and carried, others feel like they doing so good and help slackers. etc. people with near 100% attendance feel disturbed some others show up when they care. people frustrated when benched. blah blah blah.
with 10 man raiding there was usually 2 raid teams in guild, main team and more casual 2nd team. main team could always borrow ppl from casual team, and some main teamers could help casual team (or had alts on casual team) on farming bosses etc. it was more flexible, new recruits could gear up there and etc.

[Deja Thoris]

"10M Heroic was better and my friends liked it therefore everybody liked it."

Yep. Bulletproof analysis.

"More people raided 10M Heroic therefore it was more popular."

MMO-C logic. 10m heroic had triple the participation of 25 man. Therefore it was less popular!

In more news. Logic, what is it?

[Relapses]

MMO-C logic. 10m heroic had triple the participation of 25 man. Therefore it was less popular!

In more news. Logic, what is it?

Do you intentionally forget the pages and pages and pages of fucking debate -- IN THIS VERY FUCKING THREAD -- we've already had over logistics and the very fucking obvious reasons 10M was "more popular"? It's not as simple as you're making it seem and I think it's borderline insulting that you would even try to imply as much.

[Glorious Leader]

Looking into the future is tough, please teach me your ways. An argument from authority it may be, but you would consider the creator of somethings opinion to be weighted slightly higher than a no-name joe from the street. My opinion doesn't really matter, but i enjoyed both formats 10/25, and the current style.



No because you can't please everyone in this community, but they pleased a great many people with this move. Also whether or not you personally care about something has no bearing on a large scale. There was enough feedback and internal/external desire to warrant a change.



Lei Shen was a nightmare for 10 man if you didn't have the right immunities, Dark animus was a tough chokepoint as well for 10 man. IF you don;t remember then you didn't raid during that time. (or suffer from memory loss in which case I am truly sorry) 25 man players were getting extremely well geared compared to 10 man players over time, this created an outcry from the community, also known as the people who cared at the time. Once again your personal opinion bears no weight when talking about the past events that just happened a few years ago.

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The community called for harder dungeons "like in the old days". People were reminiscing about cc'ing mobs in bc heroics and having to pay attention. The "hard" dungeons during ICC were being tanked by Boomkins that were soloing the entire instance. Seriously everyone in this thread has massive amnesia.

Night guys thanks for the entertainment.

I could honestly seem them reacting to neck beards on forums demanding harder dungeons but again that's just poor judgment. What's even worse is that they them doubled down on this, wrote a blog.begging people tk engage in that content and then reversing that decision 100% come mists. Terrible judgment.

[Deja Thoris]

Do you intentionally forget the pages and pages and pages of fucking debate -- IN THIS VERY FUCKING THREAD -- we've already had over logistics and the very fucking obvious reasons 10M was "more popular"? It's not as simple as you're making it seem and I think it's borderline insulting that you would even try to imply as much.

Oh, the old "I luved 25 man cus it was epixz and amazink and had better loots" .... but then I raided 10 man. They incentivized 25 man with essentially better loot and still couldn't convince people to play it. I think theres a conclusion in there and it isn't the one you're drawing.

Whats fucking insulting is that you can actually think that a raid format where the biggest barrier to entry is the logistics is a success.

I get it though, you're the same person that coo's stuff like "WoD produced the most tightly tuned encounters bla bla" and that makes it a success. May I present to you Blackhand mythic. Bring lots of hunters, boomkins, rogues or gtfo. That really met the design intent didn't it?

I mean sure, theres pages of debate IN THIS VERY FUCKING THREAD. But when you strip away the bullshit your logic falls as flat as quad amputee on a bouncy castle.

[Deleted]

And yet the company that makes the game thought otherwise, curious.

Same company that gave us that revolutionary gameplay system called Garrisons, and their improved Shipyard version? same company that has managed to lose half their playerbase in three months?, same company that said the removal of flying was gonna bring amazing new gameplay to the game?, same company that stole a raid tier after saying the only one size in mythic was gonna be more raiding?
THAT company?

[Relapses]

Oh, the old "I luved 25 man cus it was epixz and amazink and had better loots" .... but then I raided 10 man. They incentivized 25 man with essentially better loot and still couldn't convince people to play it. I think theres a conclusion in there and it isn't the one you're drawing.

Whats fucking insulting is that you can actually think that a raid format where the biggest barrier to entry is the logistics is a success.

I get it though, you're the same person that coo's stuff like "WoD produced the most tightly tuned encounters bla bla" and that makes it a success. May I present to you Blackhand mythic. Bring lots of hunters, boomkins, rogues or gtfo. That really met the design intent didn't it?

I mean sure, theres pages of debate IN THIS VERY FUCKING THREAD. But when you strip away the bullshit your logic falls as flat as quad amputee on a bouncy castle.

Nowhere have I ever said that 25M was superior. I mean, fuck, I was a 10M Heroic raider for most of MoP. I often get accused of 25M bias since I favor WoD's larger raid size but I've also argued why it's necessary ad infinitum as well. Class representation matters in raids and it's a core tenant held by the developers. No amount of sappy, heartfelt "Blizzard killed my super tight-knit 10M Heroic guild and now I hate the world because I can't replicate that experience in the live game anymore " bullshit stories are going to change this fact.

As for logistics: That's something you and I will never agree on but I don't think it's fair to completely discount my opinion on this subject simply because more people would prefer logistics not to be a part of the Mythic raiding equation. You and I have fundamentally different viewpoints on what makes a raid enjoyable. The difference is your viewpoint is generally more supported by players and my viewpoint is generally more supported by the developers themselves. Label me a shill if you'd like, but I don't think it'll be changing any time soon.

[Osmeric]

same company that has managed to lose half their playerbase in three months?

Don't exaggerate. They lost 3M net in three months.

[Deleted]

I personally prefer the bigger raid sizes. If I have to be even more honest - I prefer the WotLK model where 25 man had superior gear than 10 man and 10 man was more like casual/off day/evening with friends and family raid thing.

Yes 10 man had nicer atmosphere with a lot less people, communication was easier and personal responsibility was a huge part of killing the boss on the highest difficult possible. Where 25 man was more faceroll and you have a chance to kill a boss even with half the raid dead. Anyway...
But in my eyes 10 man had a big flaw - the loot that droped: every boss have a loot table of around 20 items and on 10 man only 2 items were dropping.
I am 100% sure that everybody here(and on every other simmilar thread) who claim 10 man was better can tell us how many times they killed boss X for 30 times and at least 15 times the whole loot (of 2 items) gets disenchanted, because noone need it or worse - there is no class in your roster that can actually use the item.

I for sure can tell you my story - my 10 man team didn't had hunter or a shaman. Imagine the joy in the voice of my friends when 2 mail pieces drop. Or the tier bosses - 2 pieces of loot - 1 tier and another random. After 10 weeks that tier gets disenchanted every reset and the boss keeps droping "that damn mail bracer again".
Or how many kills of X or Y boss and he just refuse to drop the damn weapon and/or trinket. I swear to god i used normal mode FL staff from Ragnaros and my next upgrade was many months later with heroic staff from Hagara the Stormbinder in DS. Or how my 10 man guild had weapon drops in MSV and ToT only from coins, except when in the last week the Twins droped tha staff... fun times i tell ya.
Or how many struggles we had on those "dps checks" type bosses, because the RNG just refused to drop weapons for my group and we simply couldn't pull off the dps.
I am 100% sure everybody here who raided on 10 man can say those same stories.

So yeah 10 man was "easier", because communication was easier and you had fewer people to manage and you knew you can count on all those 9 people, but I think we don't raid just because we like our buddies from the guild. We also want our piece of the pie - the loot that bosses drop. In that order of thoughts - don't try to convince anyone here that you like cooking the pie more than eating it.

25man is better just because of that - more loot drop, better distribution and faster raid gearing (due less disenchanted loot), more room for errors (well not really, but a lot better than 10 man) and a bigger choice of cooldowns and toolkits to take advantage of to help you with the fight(and thus making it easier).
The only downside of 25 man is that there is a lot more "noobs" to carry, but let us all be honest - there will always "noobs" to carry.

[Deja Thoris]

Class representation matters in raids and it's a core tenant held by the developers. No amount of sappy, heartfelt "Blizzard killed my super tight-knit 10M Heroic guild and now I hate the world because I can't replicate that experience in the live game anymore " bullshit stories are going to change this fact.

Oh please, many of the final bosses in recent years have been class stacking orgies. Don't tell me representation matters.

As for logistics: That's something you and I will never agree on but I don't think it's fair to completely discount my opinion on this subject simply because more people would prefer logistics not to be a part of the Mythic raiding equation. You and I have fundamentally different viewpoints on what makes a raid enjoyable. The difference is your viewpoint is generally more supported by players and my viewpoint is generally more supported by the developers themselves. Label me a shill if you'd like, but I don't think it'll be changing any time soon.

I think we're both guilty of discounting the others points because theres clearly truth in both views.

At the end end of the day - what I can't fathom is that with
1) A shrinking playerbase
2) A general trend in gaming towards convenience (for better or for worse - its reality)

That they decided to up the minimum player requirement for the hardest mode. And thats a position that I won't budge on. Just as you won't on yours. (But what I'll probably do is continue to berate people that call 25 man more popular when numbers and logic prove otherwise)

[Deleted]

That they decided to up the minimum player requirement for the hardest mode. And thats a position that I won't budge on. Just as you won't on yours. (But what I'll probably do is continue to berate people that call 25 man more popular when numbers and logic prove otherwise)

There was one scenario within which players preferred really 25 man but found themselves running 10 man instead.

Its where raid leaders preferred 10 but all players who were not willing to lead wanted 25.

[Relapses]

Oh please, many of the final bosses in recent years have been class stacking orgies. Don't tell me representation matters.

For the bleeding edge poopsock guilds that raid 200 hours the first week of the instance, no. But for the umpteen bajillion Mythic raiding guilds that don't class stack, there's still a place for a lot of representation in their raids. It's unfair to talk about how it ended up in HFC since it's been out for ages and everybody just rerolled Mages. But for the bulk of progression (pre-December) most guilds weren't running 35 Arcane Mages and I think that's reflective of a genuinely successful design philosophy.

I think we're both guilty of discounting the others points because theres clearly truth in both views.

At the end end of the day - what I can't fathom is that with
1) A shrinking playerbase
2) A general trend in gaming towards convenience (for better or for worse - its reality)

That they decided to up the minimum player requirement for the hardest mode. And thats a position that I won't budge on. Just as you won't on yours. (But what I'll probably do is continue to berate people that call 25 man more popular when numbers and logic prove otherwise)

Perhaps Blizzard is okay with Mythic raid participation levels shrinking. It was never meant to be something raided casually or even on a large scale. I think that's why this is such a hot button issue for a lot of people since those who were casually raiding 10H were also the ones most impacted by the shift to 20M.

[Deleted]

Perhaps Blizzard is okay with Mythic raid participation levels shrinking. It was never meant to be something raided casually or even on a large scale. I think that's why this is such a hot button issue for a lot of people since those who were casually raiding 10H were also the ones most impacted by the shift to 20M.

Not just 10H, the move to make mythic 20 man also saw all the other modes be tuned to take as many people as possible, which effectively murdered small group raids for everybody.

I see why it was done - to make recruiting for mythic easier, but jesus christ it was a stupid move, given what the playerbase was actually set up to do.

[Deja Thoris]

Not just 10H, the move to make mythic 20 man also saw all the other modes be tuned to take as many people as possible, which effectively murdered small group raids for everybody.

I see why it was done - to make recruiting for mythic easier, but jesus christ it was a stupid move, given what the playerbase was actually set up to do.

If anything the reverse is true. The pipeline for mythic has been wrecked because now many promising players see mythic as an unobtainable goal because of gating by headcount.

[Deleted]

If anything the reverse is true. The pipeline for mythic has been wrecked because now many promising players see mythic as an unobtainable goal because of gating by headcount.

Well yes.

They destroyed a lot of small guilds by making 10 man utterly non viable in highmaul whilst simultaneously putting a barrier to entry on the top level content, they crushed raiding at both ends.

[shaunika123]

It is simply not possible to balance raids for two different raid sizes in this game. It has been discussed thousands of times and people like you usually have no argument instead of blaming blizzard for being lazy, greedy basterds.

the thing is, even if the raids arent totally balanced, who cares really?
in the long run 10 and 25 man were about the same difficulty in cata (i didnt raid in MoP so dont know about that) it's just that different bosses were hard in one and in the other

personally i wouldnt care if 10man was a few% harder than 25 man because it's much more enjoyable for me. and if blizzard cant balance 2 difficulties to be roughly the same(not completely) then it's really their fault.

Perhaps Blizzard is okay with Mythic raid participation levels shrinking. It was never meant to be something raided casually or even on a large scale. I think that's why this is such a hot button issue for a lot of people since those who were casually raiding 10H were also the ones most impacted by the shift to 20M.

yes but shouldnt it be skill, and not your ability to gather a large amount of players be determining your validity for mythic? i mean they're already pmuch agreeing with me on that since they're making 5 mans to have mythic level difficulty and loot.

[kary]

it is definitely failure. have done more guild changing than in any other expansion. guilds seem to fall apart, raids get cancelled etc. not all 20 people play at same level, some people feel bad and carried, others feel like they doing so good and help slackers. etc. people with near 100% attendance feel disturbed some others show up when they care. people frustrated when benched. blah blah blah.
with 10 man raiding there was usually 2 raid teams in guild, main team and more casual 2nd team. main team could always borrow ppl from casual team, and some main teamers could help casual team (or had alts on casual team) on farming bosses etc. it was more flexible, new recruits could gear up there and etc.

Yawn.

I doubt half of these 10 man groups people are mourning even did past the free loot bosses on heroic anyway.

My guild came back from complete dormancy in Mists (got cutting edge for msv) to 4/7 M highmaul before BRF to 7/10 BRF to all content cleared by december. I doubt more than 5 people from the original normal mode imp kill are there on roster right now.

The problem isn't the system, but people's stubbornness. Most guilds have periods of low attendance.

Anyway, whatever. 20 man tuning is great. Adapt or quit.

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Nowhere have I ever said that 25M was superior. I mean, fuck, I was a 10M Heroic raider for most of MoP. I often get accused of 25M bias since I favor WoD's larger raid size but I've also argued why it's necessary ad infinitum as well. Class representation matters in raids and it's a core tenant held by the developers. No amount of sappy, heartfelt "Blizzard killed my super tight-knit 10M Heroic guild and now I hate the world because I can't replicate that experience in the live game anymore " bullshit stories are going to change this fact.

As for logistics: That's something you and I will never agree on but I don't think it's fair to completely discount my opinion on this subject simply because more people would prefer logistics not to be a part of the Mythic raiding equation. You and I have fundamentally different viewpoints on what makes a raid enjoyable. The difference is your viewpoint is generally more supported by players and my viewpoint is generally more supported by the developers themselves. Label me a shill if you'd like, but I don't think it'll be changing any time soon.

I really loved how you had to build your 10man around having all the buffs and battle-resses and bloodlusts. Liked being a rogue? too bad, we need a battle-res.