Cataclysm Raid Progression Refinements

[armand]

On a more serious post, I think this is kinda good for the people like me that got a lot of alts i'll finally be able to do the final raid for all of them and not just with some of them, because i don't have much time to complete 10 and 25 modes.

[Mdi]

Lol are you retarded or what? Ever looked at 10 man strict? Ofc the same people that have 25heroic kill will have 10 heroic kill cause they vastly outgear the content, please stop being a terribad fag and come back when you know what skill is.

Split paragon into three 10man groups and put them against Vox imortalis (#1 world 10man strict) and give them equal gear. Il bet you that paragons 10man groups will clear it faster than vox. Thought you 10man strict players would have realized that the majority of the good raiders are in 25man guilds. Stop pulling the outgearing argument.

[Gummywyrms]

Split paragon into three 10man groups and put them against Vox imortalis (#1 world 10man strict) and give them equal gear. Il bet you that paragons 10man groups will clear it faster than vox. Thought you 10man strict players would have realized that the majority of the good raiders are in 25man guilds. Stop pulling the outgearing argument.

Cheers to you.

[Tang]

And why is your enjoyment of the game built around other people getting better loot that doesn't affect you in any way whatsoever? Is your goal not to clear the content? Your loot is tuned to the difficulty of the content you're doing. But you're not really interested in clearing the content. You want the shiny purples and you want them without having to do the harder content to get them.

25 man content in 25 man gear isn't any harder than 10 man content wearing 10 man gear, and in fact in a lot of cases it's easier. The only thing that makes 10 man "easier" right now is the fact that it's being tuned around having only 10 man gear (excluding a few weird mechanics like on the Arthas fight where fewer people make the fight easier). If 10 and 25 drop the same gear and they're both tuned for the same gear, then it's impossible to even say that 25 man would be more difficult in any way except the administration of a larger raid force.

Really, your argument is so self serving, because if "shiny purples" are so unimportant to you Mr-I-Just-Do-It-For-Not-The-Shiny-Purples, then why does it matter if 10 man raiders get the same level of loot?

[Deleted]

The difficulty level between 10-man content and 25-man is essentially just people. In 25-mans, you might find an additional mechanic during a boss fight, but the biggest difference is typically the amount of health the boss has. They will usually do more damage, as well, to make up for the fact that they assume that 25-man raiders will have better gear then 10-man raiders.

I'm not sure we're playing the same game here. That is true for pugs at Marrowgar, but have you tried Putricide 25, BQL 25 and Sindragosa 25? Are they at the same difficulty as the 10 men version, only with more people? Of course not. They are MUCH harder. And on top of that they require the attention of 25 people instead of 10.

So what will happen? Will they increase the difficulty of 10 men so that it is actually challenging, or will they water down the difficulty of 25 men EVEN MORE to appeal the "casuals"?

You know what will happen.

[madethisfor1post]

I'm still trying to figure out when putting together a 25man raid in a guild got tough.

This will not kill established guilds...it will kill wannabe guilds who for some reason or another can't get 25 like-minded people together. So now they have a fall-back plan and get to do 10mans with little to no penalty short of less badges a week.

LORDY LORDY PLEASE SAVE US FROM DEM EVIL BLIZZARDS THEYS TRYIN TO TAKE AWAY MY SUPERIORITY COMPLEX!

[Tang]

I'm not sure we're playing the same game here. That is true for pugs at Marrowgar, but have you tried Putricide 25, BQL 25 and Sindragosa 25? Are they at the same difficulty as the 10 men version, only with more people? Of course not. They are MUCH harder. And on top of that they require the attention of 25 people instead of 10.

10 man version is much harder in 10 man gear than 25 man is in 25 man gear. No question about it. if you roll in with the better gear though, you can brute force much of 10 man the same way you could brute force much of 25 man with heroic gear.

[Gummywyrms]

10 man version is much harder in 10 man gear. No question about it. 10 man is much easier in 25 man gear, however.

So you're saying that with then emblems that 10 man members get they don't buy the 264 badge gear?

[zanipani]

ahahahahhahahaha......... :'(

It's like Vanilla to TBC all over again.
The amount of drama this will cause ,as guilds get reduced members, will be glorious. This makes me almost want to start my account up again so I can see half the guilds on my server fizzle away.

[lilbuddhaman]

It's pretty clear that you and the people claiming that 25s are only harder due to the logistics of assembling 25 people have obviously never cleared 25 HMs. A number of the ICC 25 HM fights are an gigantic step up in difficulty compared to their 10 HM equivalent. The 10 man HM versions are literally are faceroll by comparison. Anyone saying otherwise has obviously not cleared 25 HMs, and are lying if they do claim to have done that.

Agreed. Some mechanics are simply not possible in a 10m.

[Ksmota]

25 man content in 25 man gear isn't any harder than 10 man content wearing 10 man gear, and in fact in a lot of cases it's easier. The only thing that makes 10 man "easier" right now is the fact that it's being tuned around having only 10 man gear (excluding a few weird mechanics like on the Arthas fight where fewer people make the fight easier). If 10 and 25 drop the same gear and they're both tuned for the same gear, then it's impossible to even say that 25 man would be more difficult in any way except the administration of a larger raid force.

Really, your argument is so self serving, because if "shiny purples" are so unimportant to you Mr-I-Just-Do-It-For-Not-The-Shiny-Purples, then why does it matter if 10 man raiders get the same level of loot?

Another one who hasn't cleared 25 HMs making the comparison comment. ICC 10 hard modes are so ridiculously easy that you can literally clear the majority of them in most 245 gear with bits and pieces of 251, the requirements are that lax. I know as I've tanked the majority of the 10 man hard mode encounters on my DK whose off-spec gear was made up of 50%+ ToC 245 loot. I don't expect this to change in cataclysm. In-fact, I expect it to get worse with Blizzard's continued pandering to people who can't play the game at a high level but want the best gear.

My argument has more to do with the fact that this is a direct attack on 25 man raiding. I like the big guild atmosphere and the big raids. 10 mans are boring, quiet and uneventful. I don't see why they can't share the same lockout, and drop the same loot but with that loot being a lower ilvl. The 10 man guilds can still enjoy the game and clear the content. They won't have access to the best loot, which they shouldn't anyway.

[Evoelle]

Its difficult to look at what has been said and really tell if its either...

A) Very good
or
B) Very bad

As what was previously said by Ghostcrawler and various wise people on the boards. You just have to wait for more information as we approach Cataclysm or actually see what the new system is like at Post Launch or during the Beta.

I quite frankly welcome the change. Ok, the gear is the same. Think about this though - (In ToTc 10 and 25, gear was named almost the same and also the only difference was that it had the word "Heroic" attached to the Item Description)

Achievements are still there, and plently of guilds will still run 25 Man Raids in order to get them, particulary the "World First: xxx" achievements. Who is not to say we cannot keep our Undying / Immortal titles?

My 2 cents.

[Rootofalleli]

The problem is that point A is nonsensical and the only way to make it reasonable is to collapse it into point B. It's not just a matter of what people prefer, it's also a matter of incentive versus difficulty. And the fact is, 25 man is harder to organize than 10 man, which is harder to organize than single player.

Perhaps mailbox is not the proper analogy. But maybe questing is.

Can people raid 10 man even if the same loot is obtainable from questing? Sure, they can! But that's my point.

I posted earlier about how to keep strong incentives for 25m raiding. If the rate of emblem gain is higher in 25m and there are more drops per person, there is still a great reason to run it (on top of enjoying the challenge, which is what we should be there for anyway). This isn't a stretch at all- it was alluded to in the blue post.

As others and I have said above, part of the difficulty of balancing 10m vs. 25m encounters is the difference in item level and the possibility of missing buffs/dispels in 10m. For those of us in 25m guilds, 10m fights feel really easy. We can overgear them and choose a solid, balanced group from our guilds. But if Blizz knows that 10m groups will have better gear and more balanced buffs in Cata, 10m encounters can be harder.

I admit that a lot of things can go wrong and that the task of balancing is not trivial. I don't see how people can freak out this much and declare the death of WoW/25m raiding/love/freedom/etc. If 10m raiding in Cata is lolfaceroll/ezmode/loottrain-choochoo, ok, I'll start bitching then too. But that's exactly what we're being told *isn't going to happen*.

[Rocketsurgeon]

This is a fantastic change. More skill, less elitism. More fun, less chore.

[Sanchopancho]

In each expansion its the same fight that is given , Hardcore vs casual .Clearly the majority is below average thats why there are 3000 or 4000 guilds that have unlocked hms(25) in icc and 40000 that have killed saurfang normal(25). It should be clear to everyone that the opinion of the majority is leading this game to one way. First it was 40 man raids to 25 raids , secondly the badge gear came and everyone was capable of getting tiers only by playing 20 minutes per day. Finally 25 seems to die since there is clearly better communication in 10 than 25 man raid assuming the difficulty stays the same. It's obvious that the designers care for the casuals and that explain all the nerfs in general. THERE can be no balance in 10 and 25 and only one will survive and the statistics are with the casuals once more. It isn't a matter of crying or flaming its only the direction in which the company wants to go , thats more players = more money and by the end of the day we r all customers that want to be happy with the services we are provided with. I hope these changes wont be final but i am afraid they will be ...

[Thundercougr]

I'm not sure we're playing the same game here. That is true for pugs at Marrowgar, but have you tried Putricide 25, BQL 25 and Sindragosa 25? Are they at the same difficulty as the 10 men version, only with more people? Of course not. They are MUCH harder. And on top of that they require the attention of 25 people instead of 10.

So what will happen? Will they increase the difficulty of 10 men so that it is actually challenging, or will they water down the difficulty of 25 men EVEN MORE to appeal the "casuals"?

You know what will happen.

25-man versions are only more "difficult" because they are scaled for the increase in gear. You CANNOT compare today's "10 vs 25" situation versus Cataclysm's "10 vs 25". As it stands today, 25 man drops the same ilevel as 10-man heroic. Since 10/25 normal drop different ilevels, the only "valid" comparison would be 10 Heroic vs 25 Normal. Which, in that case, I would say that are pretty equal. In Cataclysm, 10 and 25 will drop the same loot, so bosses will be scaled in 10 to hit as hard as they do in 25. In today's raid setting, a 25 boss hits much harder than a 10 boss, because it's assumed you will have better gear. You will have the SAME gear in Cataclysm.

As for as things such as tactics go, I would say that 10/25 normal are similar. The only thing different is more damage to accomodate for the higher stats on gear players in 25 generally have, and of course boss HP because of the higher numbers of DPSers you have. As I said, tactics for 10/25 are similar. I would dare bring your argument against you, and say that Putricide/BQ/Sindy 25 are about as hard as they are in 10-man. Both versions require some coordination and are legitimately challenging, yes. There is nothing drastically different however (Such as say, Kel'Thuzad 10/25, which was legitimately VERY different. 25 was much harder than 10, due to the difference in abilities of course), and they are thereafter similar to each other.

[Deleted]

25 man content in 25 man gear isn't any harder than 10 man content wearing 10 man gear, and in fact in a lot of cases it's easier. The only thing that makes 10 man "easier" right now is the fact that it's being tuned around having only 10 man gear (excluding a few weird mechanics like on the Arthas fight where fewer people make the fight easier). If 10 and 25 drop the same gear and they're both tuned for the same gear, then it's impossible to even say that 25 man would be more difficult in any way except the administration of a larger raid force.

How are 10-mans more difficult?

- a lot less effort required to have a stable pool of players
- it is a lot easier to find 12-13 players of equal skill-level and personality than finding 35 or more
- mistakes are 60% less likely to be made
- fights are always tuned towards non-optimal synergies/buffs/debuffs -and easier if you have them
- positioning/spacing/tactics take a lot less time/effort to develope and execute

And I have killed every 10-man Hardmode except Arthas when the content was still "up to date". Yes, we also did raid 25-mans but most of us ran 10´s in different speccs or with alts (and we were always within the first 1% of people that did this at all :>). Except Sartharion3D and maybe one or two other fights, 10-player encoutners were always easier.

[Ollakka]

Another one who hasn't cleared 25 HMs making the comparison comment. ICC 10 hard modes are so ridiculously easy that you can literally clear the majority of them in most 245 gear with bits and pieces of 251, the requirements are that lax. I know as I've tanked the majority of the 10 man hard mode encounters on my DK whose off-spec gear was made up of 50%+ ToC 245 loot. I don't expect this to change in cataclysm. In-fact, I expect it to get worse with Blizzard's continued pandering to people who can't play the game at a high level but want the best gear.

My argument has more to do with the fact that this is a direct attack on 25 man raiding. I like the big guild atmosphere and the big raids. 10 mans are boring, quiet and uneventful. I don't see why they can't share the same lockout, and drop the same loot but with that loot being a lower ilvl. The 10 man guilds can still enjoy the game and clear the content. They won't have access to the best loot, which they shouldn't anyway.

You should be happy that you dont have to go 10mans for couple of BiS items and can fully focus on 25mans now.

[troxan]

so many stupid posts here

we've seen blizzard change the instance system plenty of times. They are an experienced company, if this doesnt work they can just change it again. Best not make predictions of how it will turn out over a preview.

Or make soms things available in the Blizzard store.

Made me laugh, but also:

"if this doesnt work they can just change it again" well, it will work.. but not for everyone, lets say if they lost 10.000 hardcore players over this, but then instead gained 11.000 players that dont really care at all, and just play for like 1-2hours/day, it would still be a win-win for them, as long they get more $$.

True Story.

[Ksmota]

I admit that a lot of things can go wrong and that the task of balancing is not trivial. I don't see how people can freak out this much and declare the death of WoW/25m raiding/love/freedom/etc. If 10m raiding in Cata is lolfaceroll/ezmode/loottrain-choochoo, ok, I'll start bitching then too. But that's exactly what we're being told *isn't going to happen*.

Blizzard also claimed hard modes were tuned for the progression guilds. All but one of them turned out to be severely undertuned. I doubt they'll get any better at balancing come Cataclysm.