What if Blizzard just admitted 10 and 25 are not equal?

[Handsylton]

I've been thinking about this a little bit... It seems like with the change to 10/25 shared lockout, and the difficulty of 10 mans, while most top guilds competing for world firsts are 25 man guilds.. Maybe they can admit that 25 mans are just the top level of raiding in the community?

10 man guilds will always be popular to small groups of friends who don't like dealing with other people, are comfortable in their smaller groups of people, and don't like the idea of having to run 25 mans. In the community, it seems like right now, 10 mans are SEVERELY overtuned to the point of ridiculousness on some fights. Class stacking is impossible, raid composition is more important, and mainly, because 10 man guilds are trying to compete with 25 man guilds that have an infinite amount of additional resources than they do, do to sheer volume of players, characters, utility, everything.

What if Blizzard decided something along the lines of this...

1. 10 man raids are easier than 25 man raids. They tune the fights so 10 mans are not A LOT easier on heroic, but ever so slightly easier than 25 mans.
2. Separate world first/server first achievements and rankings into 10 and 25 man categories again.
3. Keep the system where 10 and 25 man raids drop the same item level loot.
4. Allow 10/25 man raids to remain accessible to most people. Challenging content for most people, but hardcore raiders and top players will most likely not have much trouble downing all regular modes. Heroic mode is for them.
5. Make fights like Ulduar again, where there is a method to "unlock" heroic mode encounters. You have to EARN your heroic mode bosses by performing some task during the encounter. FAVORITE.... SYSTEM.... EVER!!!
6. No more Heroic mode only bosses. It isolates the population when only top guilds can see a certain piece of content during it's tier. Like I said, Regular modes are for people who want a big challenge. Heroic modes are for people who want the ultimate challenge.

Creating two different brackets, one for 10 man heroic mode competition and one for 25 man heroic mode competition would make a lot of sense. 25 man will be seen as the big dog, while extremely slightly less difficult 10 man will be the almost big dog.

With an Ulduar system, it is much more intuitive for hardmodes... Basically, in order to get heroic mode encounters, you have to do something in the encounter that proves you are capable of performing the fight on heroic.

This will also allow them to tune 10 mans for the majority of players, which will give better access to content to everyone. If the encounter isn't challenging enough for you on normal, strive to unlock heroic mode next week!! Everyone wins when heroics are this way, no separate lockout for heroic mode stuff, just prove you have what it takes to unlock heroic, then do your business. If you can't unlock it, do it on normal, get more gear and come back next week.

It's very similar to motocross. There is the MX Lite class and the MX class. MX lite class is smaller bikes (smaller raids), they aren't quite as fast, but they have to tackle the same obstacles as the big dogs. It is slightly less prestigious, but they are competing in the class they are comfortable with, and they still get recognition for their achievements. The MX class is the big dog class, you take on mammoth tasks in heroic mode and earn the spoils that come along with accomplishing those feats.

In short, I think 10 and 25 man guilds competing against each other will always be a flawed system, because they can never truly be equal. It's not feasible mechanic wise, talent pool wise, utility wise. Admitting that they are not equal is the first step to balancing them correctly.

[PBitt]

I will touch on a few of your points. Blizzard does not track guild rankings themselves, third party sites do this, such as wowprogress, which already (sort of) separates them, as there is an option for each. Blizzard has nothing to do with that. Second, raids are very accesbile, there are plenty of scrub guilds that have managed to kill more than one boss. The fights are definetely harder than Wotlk normals as a whole, but they are doable with time and effort, which is good. Twenty-five mans are still looked upon with more respect as a whole, and I'm currently in a casual ten man guild. Third, heroic mode only bosses are awesome, and this time around Sinestra appears to not even be the hardest. Nonetheless, this is just one little extra bonus for guilds that earn it.

As for 10 man/25 man balance, for the most part I'd say that 10 mans are easier. There are definetely a few cases where you get a bit fucked over for not having the right class combination in T11, notable examples being that not having a sprint on Atramedes kind of sucks, as well as not having an ele shaman on Halfus/Omnitron. Otherwise, you can still get away with some odd combos that wouldn't have been viable previously.

[trulofy]

10 mans are no easier than 25 mans in 10 man everyone has to perform to thier greatest potential if they dont then the raid will fail with a 25 man raid you can still "carry" a few players and still be sucessful not to mention that if someone in a 10 man dies its most likely a wipe but with 25 man you can lose 1,2 even 3 or 4 players and still be able to down a boss.

[Manito]

So you want 10 man to be easier and have the same loot as 25 man?

[trulofy]

So you want 10 man to be easier and have the same loot as 25 man?

who are you responding to?

[junialum]

10 mans are currently tougher than 25s. Could be a tuning issue etc. I'm sure there will be fights that favour 25s or 10s back and forth in the future.

[Mammoth]

In a well organised 25man guild, the 25mans should be easier, you've got a lot more flexability. This should have been obvious to everyone when they originally said they would be the same difficulty. Unfortunately, people were too excited about easy-mode 10-mans.

25man guilds with regular problems may be in a bit more trouble. You have 2.5x more chance of random DC or family emergency. Doing ICC25-hms I remember doing progress days with ~23 members because that's all we could master.

Balancing 10 and 25 mans isn't easy, but they're closer than ever before. If you really think 25mans are required to make the progress you need, switch to 25.

[Deleted]

10 mans are no easier than 25 mans in 10 man everyone has to perform to thier greatest potential if they dont then the raid will fail with a 25 man raid you can still "carry" a few players and still be sucessful not to mention that if someone in a 10 man dies its most likely a wipe but with 25 man you can lose 1,2 even 3 or 4 players and still be able to down a boss.

Did you read the post before you actually replied? Or do you simply enjoy writing exactly what the thread poster did?

I cleared all of the 10 man content like a week ago, and yeah it's hard. If you play WoW for the challenge, it's a game you'll like. If you play the game for lol-loot like we did in WOTLK, this isn't the game for you anymore. 10 man is hard in the awesome way, I agree that it sounds to be slightly too hard on heroic, and I imagine it to be so, as we only just manage to do it on normal. Nefarian was a bitch o.O - Back to the point, 10 and 25 realmfirsts feats of strength should be seperated, cause you cannot compare the two raiding evironments atm, at all...

A good 10 man guild can do Baradin Hold on 25, with their 10 players and then some more people just to soak the meteor slash damage.

But I genuinly like this extremely challenging environment, especially after the break WOTLK really was, you could sleep through most encounters, even some on heroic. I feel that raid content, at this stage, should not be for just anyone. You either work hard or you simply don't get the profit you get by raiding hardcore. Sounds fair to me, for now. When the nerfbat hits and the next tier comes, noobs can simply outgear the normal modes and go see the content they didn't have the skill to clear while it was still fresh. <- That is my kind of game.

@ Mammoth
My PC can't handle 25 man raiding well enough for me to perform to the best of my ability. The fact that you COULD progress with 23 members shows you the issue here, you can't even do farm content with 1 person missing on 10 man.

[ffaorlandu]

So you want 10 man to be easier and have the same loot as 25 man?

Thats what I'm reading.

10 and 25 are about as close in difficulty as they can get. Its never the same on each fight due to mechanics. Some fights are easier on 10 than 25 and vice versa. Cho'Gall is easier on 25 than it is on 10, but Captain Planet (Twilight Council) is easier on 10. It just depends on the fight's specific mechanics, some fights even require completely different strategies on 10vs25.

[andybiggs]

Did you read the post before you actually replied? Or do you simply enjoy writing exactly what the thread poster did?

I cleared all of the 10 man content like a week ago, and yeah it's hard. If you play WoW for the challenge, it's a game you'll like. If you play the game for lol-loot like we did in WOTLK, this isn't the game for you anymore. 10 man is hard in the awesome way, I agree that it sounds to be slightly too hard on heroic, and I imagine it to be so, as we only just manage to do it on normal. Nefarian was a bitch o.O - Back to the point, 10 and 25 realmfirsts feats of strength should be seperated, cause you cannot compare the two raiding evironments atm, at all...

A good 10 man guild can do Baradin Hold on 25, with their 10 players and then some more people just to soak the meteor slash damage.

But I genuinly like this extremely challenging environment, especially after the break WOTLK really was, you could sleep through most encounters, even some on heroic. I feel that raid content, at this stage, should not be for just anyone. You either work hard or you simply don't get the profit you get by raiding hardcore. Sounds fair to me, for now. When the nerfbat hits and the next tier comes, noobs can simply outgear the normal modes and go see the content they didn't have the skill to clear while it was still fresh. <- That is my kind of game.

winnar!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Staunch]

@ Sweetz. Doing the 12/12 normal stuff on 10 man aint what the issue is.
The real issue is that: You have to have either 3 tanks, or 4-5 healers (some of em being disc priests) for something like halfus 10 man. Otherwise the dmg inc is just too immense to deal with. Another one: Chimaeron u have to run with 3 tanks aswell on heroic 10 man. Otherwise you WILL lose a tank during the feud because of the debuff being applied. (Thank god for DKs and their blood pres). However that should IMO not be the point. You should not have to pull in a tank / healer / raider, which u don't have anyways in a 10 man team, to fill the class stacking.

Atm for me... I feel like people who are only doing 25 mans, OR have JUST cleared 10 man normals.. don't know jack about the 10 man heroics at all.

[junialum]

10 man heroics are a huge step up from normals. You begin to see the need for that extra tank or healer. My guild has a SP that goes disc or holy for heroics.

Such are things you never face in a 25 man. I believe it's still a tuning problem that blizz should sort out.

[ShockASU]

Honestly - they just need to split up the achievements/realm firsts.

Killed Lady Sinestra (10 player)
Killed Lady Sinestra (25 player)

Raiding in a 25 man guild and seeing a 10 man guild get realm firsts or vice-versa is just silly. So why can't they just split it up - and for the realm firsts just give separate titles - a la LK 10/25 heroic

[sicness]

10 mans are currently tougher than 25s. Could be a tuning issue etc. I'm sure there will be fights that favour 25s or 10s back and forth in the future.

This exactly. While there are some fights that are definitely easier on 10 man (namely Alakir solely to having less room to spread people out), the majority of fights are slightly over-tuned in 10 man requiring more dps out of players specifically. I'm not complaining, because the fights are still easily doable by a competent group in normal mode, I just question why the dps requirements are higher for a 10 man group than a 25 man when you compare it person to person. By this I mean if all your dps has to pull 15k in 25 man then all your dps is typically required to pull closer to 17k in 10 man (not exact numbers, just a basis for comparison). It may be only a slight different per person, but when you add it up it's quite a difference.

---------- Post added 2011-02-04 at 03:57 PM ----------

Honestly - they just need to split up the achievements/realm firsts.

Killed Lady Sinestra (10 player)
Killed Lady Sinestra (25 player)

Raiding in a 25 man guild and seeing a 10 man guild get realm firsts or vice-versa is just silly. So why can't they just split it up - and for the realm firsts just give separate titles - a la LK 10/25 heroic

When the best 10 man group is only 6/13 heroic modes while the 25 mans are obviously cleared I think this is a non-issue save for 1 or 2 fights.

[Anowyn]

Maybe they can admit that 25 mans are just the top level of raiding in the community?

If you mean that this is where the top guilds (I.E. Paragon, Ensidia, etc.) are competing for world firsts, I completely agree with you. If you mean that 25-mans are the hardest all around, I disagree. Organizational issues aside, there are fights that are harder on 10 man and others that are harder on 25 man. This is largely due to role and class availability in the corresponding number of people in each. From what I've been reading among the community, the majority of 10-man Heroic Modes are actually harder than their 25-man counterparts. Although there are some that are definitely harder on 25-man. I think people who complete heroic modes in either version are definitely doing very well and would consider them "top" regardless of whether it's 10 or 25 man.

However, I still think that it would be nice if there was separate 10/25 man world firsts, since they are definitely not equal. :P

[patrins]

from having everything down but neph in 25man, id say basically ever single fight ranges from slightly to significantly easier in 10man.

we finally got alakir down in 25man but at the end of every Monday night of wipes we'd take any 10 players, not remotely caring about class composition or even if these 10 players are good and 1shot the boss with all our healers at 60%+ mana at the end. im pretty sure the 10 worst players in our 25man raid struggling to come out of phase 1 with everyone alive could 1 shot 10man.

chimiron for instance is pretty jokes in 10man too. the amount of aoe healing needed is so much less its absurd.

ascendant council 10man > guy gets mark on head. if he's a mouth breather and doesn't run out everyone dies.
ascendant council 25man > 3 guys get marks on head. if any of them are mouth breathers or cant find room in the more crowded room everyone dies. why does 25man need 3 players marked. how is that not more difficult (just an example of shitty 10>25 fight mechanics by the devs, not that the lightning rods are remotely difficult).

[SoulPoetry]

Atm for me... I feel like people who are only doing 25 mans, OR have JUST cleared 10 man normals.. don't know jack about the 10 man heroics at all.

needing 3 tanks for some fights doesn't break 10 mans, if you have a dedicated core, it's not hard to gear someone's OS geared up. i don't remember this much complaining about sarth 3d 10.

[sicness]

10 man heroics are a huge step up from normals. You begin to see the need for that extra tank or healer. My guild has a SP that goes disc or holy for heroics.

Such are things you never face in a 25 man. I believe it's still a tuning problem that blizz should sort out.

And not to prolong my further agreeing with this, but this is what I dread when my guild starts heroic modes this weekend.

[furyofwar]

Okay aparently people are blind an cannot see the obvious so I will point it out for you. Notice that pretty much every wrath top guild got to test beta. You can just search there guild an most of them have beta videos on youtube. Now. How do you get to be a top guild in wrath.. ? 25mans. Okay so if you have 25man guillds beta testing then obviously they are going to be doing the bosses on 25man. Now. This means there is ALOT more testing going on for the 25man encounters an not enough testing going on for the 10man encounters. The result. Is 10man +25man normal mode being on par. And 10man heroics being broken to shit.

In wrath. 10man were a absolute joke an the easiest thing I ever did on WoW. We Did some icc fights without anyone even tanking(festergut etc) Just dps tanked it an it was a joke. When you can faceroll a fight without even bringing the standard raid requirements its to easy. We pugged 11/12H 10man +drakes it was by far no where near difficulty of 25man. But now that they evened out the boss difficulty/dmg and the lack of 10man testing in beta...well You can see why 10man guilds are getting destroyed in heroic modes. Its obvious they are harder you can just look at stats and figure that out. But what do you expect when you only give people interested in 25mans access to beta? Of course they are going to play 25mans lol. I am sure they will get nerfed a tiny bit(10man heroics) so they are on the same par. An when they do then 10man people will be battling those 25man guilds for world firsts. But for this content patch just deal with it. In the end it will be fixed.

[Maelstrom51]

So you want 10 man to be easier and have the same loot as 25 man?

Well, they're currently harder and drop less loot per person. Being slightly easier and dropping less loot per person sounds a bit more fair to me.