Cataclysm Raid Progression Refinements

[rkma]

There was a time when 20-man raids were considered the fun/casual thing to do in comparison to 40-man raids. Now even that's too much to ask, apparently.

Fact is, by forcing people to pick either 25 or 10-man, Blizzard is messing up a basic mechanic that has been there since early Vanilla. There has never been a scenario where, in a large raid (25-man) you could just give up, drop down to a smaller raid size, and get the same loot. It seems pretty obvious to me that this will kill larger raid sizes any time there is any actual difficulty.

If the content is just on farm, then sure, people may do 25-mans for faster loot. But otherwise, it's always going to drop down to the small group sizes. It's just common sense.

Furthermore, anyone who raided both 10 and 25-man raids will be screwed. Want to play with your friends outside raid time? No dice, roll an alt or something. Want to progress independently, and still be part of a large guild? Screw you, the casuals don't like your playstyle.

IMO everyone who thinks this is a good change is just a spoiled brat who can't stand that there are things out there that other people enjoy to do, and that they just might be rewarded for doing it. You can't use the argument "oh I don't play for loot" and at the same time say "waaah 25-man raiders get better loot!" That's just a crappy argument. And there's really no defense for saying "25-man raiders shouldn't get to raid both, because... [insert bad logic here]."

[Dvaldin]

[blizzquote="Zarhym;http://blue.mmo-champion.com/t/24401856405/cataclysm-raid-progression-refinements/] ...but for some players that might mean that 25s feels mandatory again, which would be a potential problem.[/blizzquote"]

And that right there is the whole point, to cater to a variety of play styles and make playing a certain way not feel mandatory. It's going to be a difficult thing to accomplish, and I'm glad I'm not in their shoes. (then again, for the money they probably make, I'd gladly take on the challenge).

The way I envision it is that playing styles are going to be geared more toward guilds rather than individual players. So, if you like running 25s and want to do them, join a bigger guild and reap benefits from that guild that are based on 25-man raids. I have no idea what those benefits would entail, but based on the new philosophy, it would seem they would not want them to be so great as to encourage players to leave a smaller guild to gain the benefits of a larger one. It's all in the details.

Couple of things I would like to see:
-- A way to add points to lower-level items to bring them up to par with higher-level items to add more personality to your character visually. I really like the look of some of the lower level items, and wish there was a way I could transfer the stats from new loot I gain to them to retain the look of my character. That would also prevent everyone from running around with the same gear. Come on, Blizzard, find a way to make this happen. It would be good for the game, but more than that, it'd also be a hell of a lot of fun, and that's what it's all about. This really needs to happen. I can't stress it enough.

-- Guild housing. I believe it'll happen one day, just not anytime soon. No idea how it would work, but it'd be nice to have your own personal guild gathering space where everyone prepares for a raid and is able to transport from there to their dungeon after, perhaps, completing a certain task that makes a portal open between the guild housing room and the dungeon.

[grdja]

LOL n00b, you don't need a guild to raid. You raid with GS and Achi!
Social aspects of a MMO? What the f is that? One is obliged to spend a week or two playing random "heroics" with mute AI bots, and even after initial gear up you have to enjoy your 30 minutes of silence only and rarely interrupted by "GOGOGO" and "PULL MOAR". :'(

[rkma]

Apparently you people are too short sited to see the bad side of this. This means we need to choose between recruiting 10 extra people and running 2 25 man groups, or forcing us to remove 15 of our friends and run 25 man content. My guild has come to know each other well, and now we have to choose between a bigger headache or losing people. The change from 40 man raids is a bad one.

I can definitely see guilds dissolving over this.

By using this analogy you are basically admitting that this will kill 25-man guilds.

[Ksmota]

Not only is this change to raid sizes stupid, but they're again planning to gate instances. Great, another 12 weeks of farming faceroll normal mode to open the final boss for access to heroic mode. That's not going to lead to burnout again or anything. This entire system is ridiculously flawed.

[ILjXYZ]

The sky is falling!!

*runs around in a circle*

[rkma]

It's not fair that I am able to level two characters, and bad/casual players only have the patience to level one. Please delete my second character to make it fair.

[Ellcries]

We're continuing to refine the raid progression paths in Cataclysm, and we'd like to share some of those changes with you today. Please enjoy!

The first of the refinements being made is that we're combining all raid sizes and difficulties into a single lockout. Unlike today, 10- and 25-player modes of a single raid will share the same lockout. You can defeat each raid boss once per week per character. In other words, if you wanted to do both a 10- and 25-person raid in a single week, you’d need to do so on two different characters. Normal versus Heroic mode will be chosen on a per-boss basis in Cataclysm raids, the same way it works in Icecrown Citadel. Obviously the raid lockout change doesn't apply in pure Icecrown terms though, as this change goes hand-in-hand with a few other changes to raid progression in Cataclysm.

My opinion and obviously everyone has one; this is so wrong. Right now our guild is limited to 10 man. Then we pug 25 man that way we are still getting the experience and chance at better loot until our guild builds the forces to do 25 man. When this comes to pass that will no longer be possible, which is telling smaller guilds or guilds that are struggling to rebuild to continue content this will no longer be possible except Maybe on certain bosses or if you don't have the people converting a 25 man to a 10 man.

I have as I am sure many have been looking forward to Cataclysm with anticipation and reserved doubts. The more I hear the more I wondered if these changes are not going to hurt in the long run.

[Odexy]

I was really looking forward to cataclysm until I heard this. I mean, I'm still excited but... Eh. =/ I really enjoyed raiding both 10 and 25 mans, so it's really gonna suck to see that choice be taken away.

[Nexdominus]

Worst Idea ever...

[Inzom]

Regarding the whine. Most of you are forgetting about the fact that 25player raids will drop more loot *per player* along with more badges gold etc. Atleast that is the way I interpret it. That is, that it is not just more loot adjusted to the factor of there being 25 players, but more loot for each individual player in the raid.

Short version: 25player raid = more loot for you.

[Quadrokin]

I actually like the current system and enjoy doing 10 and 25 man raids separately. These changes seem to be unnecessary, the amount of Blizzard ass sucking in this thread has reached epic levels.

[Maven]

Haters gonna hate

[Odexy]

Regarding the whine. Most of you are forgetting about the fact that 25player raids will drop more loot *per player* along with more badges gold etc. Atleast that is the way I interpret it. That is, that it is not just more loot adjusted to the factor of there being 25 players, but more loot for each individual player in the raid.

Short version: 25player raid = more loot for you.

But a lot of current 25 man guilds just won't risk going into 25 man raids anymore. Right now, we run 25 mans on tuesdays and have progression runs on Wednesdays and Sundays. However, people always seem to have "plans" on these days, thus making us short for our progression runs. When this happens, we break off into 10 mans so it's not a wasted night.

Now, what will we do if 2-3 people decide they don't feel like coming after we've started a 25 man? We won't be able to break off into our 10 mans, so there's no point in running the 25 man at all if we're just going to risk wasting our time.

edit: and as far as more loot to me... Probably not. Considering when running a 10 man there's maybe 2 other clothies running with me in comparison to about 11 other clothies running in a 25 man.

[Grusli]

If something - I think 10 mans will be more challenging and require more of each individual - than what 25 man will be.

I personally think this is a good change. It doesn't take ANYTHING away from those that like 25 man raids. Absolutly NOTHING. It only adds to what is availabe in 10 mans.

I think this ins't quite correct. While you are right that anyone is still allowed to raid in 25 mans, it is on the other hand alot harder to manage a 25 man raidgroup as you know for sure. It is all about the fact if you are "forced" to do these raids or not. Personally I'd rather do the less demanding 10 mans (from an organisational point of view). But the fun in an MMO doesn't soley come from playing your character. At least for me it has also to do with achieving things on a "metaplane" (in vanilla it was kind of rewarding to buildup a working raid). A game as complex as WoW has, to some extend, the right to expect certain things from players regarding interaction among them, even from more or less casual ones. Building up a 25 man raid should still be worth the effort, few people will do 25s because its more fun.

I can really only hope that 10 mans at least tend to be a little more difficult, so that you might need a well balanced and coordinated team. The beginning of Kara was just right and exactly what 10 mans should be like imo. A good thing I read out of these news is however, that it seems to be harder to outgear the instances.

Edit: If more loot per player will suffice isn't clear to me. Might, might not.

[Moke]

Couple of things I would like to see:
-- A way to add points to lower-level items to bring them up to par with higher-level items to add more personality to your character visually. I really like the look of some of the lower level items, and wish there was a way I could transfer the stats from new loot I gain to them to retain the look of my character. That would also prevent everyone from running around with the same gear. Come on, Blizzard, find a way to make this happen. It would be good for the game, but more than that, it'd also be a hell of a lot of fun, and that's what it's all about. This really needs to happen. I can't stress it enough.

-- Guild housing. I believe it'll happen one day, just not anytime soon. No idea how it would work, but it'd be nice to have your own personal guild gathering space where everyone prepares for a raid and is able to transport from there to their dungeon after, perhaps, completing a certain task that makes a portal open between the guild housing room and the dungeon.

I don't know why they don't have those 2 stuff yet. I used to play Anarchy Online, which actually has both. Some sort of guild housing (although i got to admit it was only used to raid there, cause it unlocked to do some raids) and the "social tab". This "social tab" looked exactly as your normal tab where you put your actual gear. Just throw in the gear pieces you like to be shown and enable some option that allows you to show the "social tab" and viola. No one looked the same anymore when they released it.

On topic I don't get why they are getting rid of the 10/25 separate achievements. I really don't see why they did that. That's actually something that would keep you doing 25 raids. Now they are just welded together and no one will ever know if you killed some boss on 10m or 25m. I guess it's to keep the casuals happy and not force anyone into 25m raids for achievements cause than you could gain more achievement points than casuals which is a danger to the new concept of casual raiding.

I think this change will kind of get the 25m raids not to exist anymore. There is nothing, absolutely nothing (I'm basing myself purely on the blizzard posts) you could gain from 25 that you can't gain from 10m (this is actually their target to aim for). That means no achievement or whatever to brag with, cause you killed stuff on 25m instead of 10m.
Now human history tells us we will do everything the easy way. For example why bother spending 10 hours doing 1 thing while there is a way to do it in 5 hours. Same goes for 10m vs 25m, it's way harder organizing/leading/maintaining a 25m guild than a 10m guild (more people that break your head about lewt).

So to conclude this small wall of text if there is absolutely no difference (who needs more gold, faster loot, ...) between 10 - 25 raiding than 25 raiding will die, it's easy (human nature to do stuff easy-mode).

On a side note which actually made me lol thinking about it. The next thing that was in the blue post.

"We of course recognize the logistical realities of organizing larger groups of people, so while the loot quality will not change, 25-player versions will drop a higher quantity of loot per player (items, but also badges, and even gold)"

So in other words ==> quantity > quality
So which company actually works around the process of offering quantity over quality?

Regarding the whine. Most of you are forgetting about the fact that 25player raids will drop more loot *per player* along with more badges gold etc. Atleast that is the way I interpret it. That is, that it is not just more loot adjusted to the factor of there being 25 players, but more loot for each individual player in the raid.

Short version: 25player raid = more loot for you.

Who cares if you can get loot faster than everyone else, the thing is you get the same loot for doing stuff easier. So why bother doing stuff the hard way, while you can do it the easier way. (in other words why do 25m raids if 10m raids give you the same rewards)

[Myrclo]

Regarding the whine. Most of you are forgetting about the fact that 25player raids will drop more loot *per player* along with more badges gold etc. Atleast that is the way I interpret it. That is, that it is not just more loot adjusted to the factor of there being 25 players, but more loot for each individual player in the raid.

Short version: 25player raid = more loot for you.

nice since i only have 16 slots i have all those 16 slots fully geared in 3 runs, then will just faceroll boredom on my keyboard, or, :O what is that light outside

[Roveredo]

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weeeee

[roboscorcher]

Lets suppose that 25s receive 3 times more loot and stuff, even then... can someone explain me any DECENT fight where gathering 10 good man is even REMOTELY comparable to the difficulty of gathering 25 man to do content ? I give you a freaking example, my resto shaman did LK in a PUG way before the % buffs were added. In a freaking PUG! There is no way a PUG to 25 man today can even get down sindragosa or for god sake the Blood Queen, at least in my server.

Just think about it, you all have played both versions there is no way anyone will do 25s except for WORLD FIRST 25 AT X.

Shockamos, Grim Batol

Well since raid content will be split into smaller raids, who cares if your PuG can't down the last boss of a 5-boss raid? You will still have a bunch of other raids to try out later in the week. Also, 25s will drop more Valor points, which alone will make it attractive early on.

[Reah]

So I can either save my lockouts for my guild so I can do the 25 mans we do every week or I can do the 10 mans with my group of friends and then be unable to do the raids with my guild? That's what I'm getting from this as far as the lockouts go. So if I want to remain in the guild I'm in I have to tell my 10 man friends Sorry but I can't raid with you guys anymore...can't use up my lock outs.