Blizzards 25 man mistake.

[Klingers]

Naturally, the player base understands that this "incentive" will not bolster the 25 man raiding community.

That's because there is not one single way to draw crowds back to 25-man raiding that doesn't either come off as emotional blackmail (Look what you can't have 10-mans!) or making 10-man players feel like second class citizens.

At the end of the day, you can take out all arguments about logistics. You can also remove those people who prefer 25s but are doing 10-mans due to an inability to find a raid. You can distill it down very unemotionally to a couple of points:

• About 15-18 people in a 25 man raid didn't enjoy or embrace the larger raid size on the merits of it being 25 people. They sacrificed convenience, put up with longer wait times between pulls and became a faceless cog in the machine purely for the better gear.
• When the gear item levels became the same, Occam's Razor dictates that most of those players took the path to 10-mans because they saw zero value in wasting the time with 25-mans. Path of least resistance. Less annoyance, less time wasting, more fun. Same gear.
• If the only thing keeping 25-mans popular was the gear, and they functionally offer nothing else better for the rank and file members of a raid, then darwinism dictates they should either die or be solely supported by the players that want to raid 25-mans.
• I say this as a random 10-man player addressing a 25-man player: This is your problem. Not mine. Fix it yourself without ruining my fun.

Any way you look at it, "incentives" for 25 man raiding are all about emotionally blackmailing people who'd rather be doing something else into subsidizing the fun of 25 man raiders... At the cost of their own time and fun.

[Hyrican]

I just do not like that many players. I can be angry about 1 or 2 bad people until they learn the bossfight. I prefer this to 5 horrible players and 10 i know nothing about.

[Kharli]

I agree with the 10/25 realm firsts. A 25m guild working on a last-tier boss can have a 10m steal the realm first, but you might say the 10 man was more skilled, BUT, for arguments sake, lets say the 10m version was easier than the 25m counter-part, also the 10m guild was able to raid many extra hours on off-nights where the 25m couldn't because too many people had other obligations...a 10/25 realm first split would be amazing. Of course, a 25 guild could steal both...

well then just have the 25m guild run 10m, simple and honestly, if your one of the top guilds on the server, YOU WILL go that far just to get the realm first ;3

[Talen]

There doesn't need to be parity. That's an unrealistic expectation.

Yes. It is.

But the current collapse of 25man raiding guilds need to be halted, or come next X-Pac 25man will not be viable any longer. (Except a few top guilds)

And? The problem here is simple.....players are leaving 25s of their own choice. Yes, you can say that they may do so because of the convenience of it, or whatever, but whether they like the feel of 10s or not, many players have left 25s for the very simple reason that there is some aspect of 10s that they prefer, and prefer to a degree that they choose 10s over 25s.

This isn't a case of players being enticed or forced into 10s; this is a simple case of 10s offering something most players value highly.

You also have a lot of people crying out for 25s. Many, many people. Earlier in this thread, a GL told how he has to turn down dozens of applications because his guild is full.

What this tells us is that there are plenty of people who want 25s.....there just aren't enough raid groups because few players actually want to run one.

We also know on smaller servers, the reverse is true. You get guilds who can't get a full roster despite players wanting to join because you can't get 25 players on the same schedule.

Logistics. Scheduling. Timing. Recruiting. Server populations. Time needed to gain/craft consumables. These are the big issues facing 25s. But fixing them won't save 25s. Halt/slow the decline perhaps, but not reverse it. Or, if it does, it will do so slowly.

EJL

[Granyala]

Logistics. Scheduling. Timing. Recruiting. Server populations. Time needed to gain/craft consumables. These are the issues facing 25s. But fixing them won't save 25s. Halt/slow the decline.

I agree. For changes to have an effect Blizzard would have had to act mid Cata. But they didn't. The damage is done and the trend cannot be stopped unless they implement something drastic that literally forces people to go 25 again in order to get the best gear, which would be a terrible thing to do.

Well the next addon transition will be interesting. Situation for the rest of mop will remain relatively static, because most teams have formed now.

[Deleted]

or, they could just move to a single 15man raid size. That'd be fine too.


and yes, as an officer of a 25man guild. It's certainly not a lack of people that want to raid 25. We're declining about 3 apps a week. I really have no clue why somebody doesn't just make another 25man guild on the server /shrug

[Granyala]

or, they could just move to a single 15man raid size. That'd be fine too.

I sincerely doubt WoW would survive another rescaling of the raid size. Classic -> TBC was bad and upset a lot of people. However game was still fresh back then.
Now game is old. Most peeps would just quit instead of rearranging their roster.

[brunnor]

[*]I say this as a random 10-man player addressing a 25-man player: This is your problem. Not mine. Fix it yourself without ruining my fun.

This is always the most fun "argument" I see. It was your problem that you wanted to raid 10s during Wrath and yet you still elected to complain enough and cause enough hassle to get noticed and ruined my raiding style and fun in the process. "You" being people like you and not just you personally.

It wasn't my problem that you didn't like getting lesser loot, I said suck it up to you back then but Blizzard disagreed with my assessment. It's my turn to say you reap what you sow. Now maybe people will start the understand what all 25s went through for years.

So suck it up and learn our pain.

[MoanaLisa]

I sincerely doubt WoW would survive another rescaling of the raid size. Classic -> TBC was bad and upset a lot of people. However game was still fresh back then.

Now game is old. Most peeps would just quit instead of rearranging their roster.

Unsurprisingly, I agree with this. I've been reading about the 15-man proposal for years now and really have come to the conclusion that it would be the most destructive thing to raiding imaginable. It's one of those "Hell, that's simple to fix" ideas that would break everything related to raiding; old raids, guilds, you name it. The only way I can see it working is if it's phased in and added to 10-/25- formats at the start of an expansion with a very clear announcement that the older two would go away at the end of that expansion.

[Klingers]

This is always the most fun "argument" I see. It was your problem that you wanted to raid 10s during Wrath and yet you still elected to complain enough and cause enough hassle to get noticed and ruined my raiding style and fun in the process. "You" being people like you and not just you personally.

It wasn't my problem that you didn't like getting lesser loot, I said suck it up to you back then but Blizzard disagreed with my assessment. It's my turn to say you reap what you sow. Now maybe people will start the understand what all 25s went through for years.

So suck it up and learn our pain.

Don't put me in that box. I only wanted to do 10-mans in Wrath, so I did. Didn't really give much of a shit about the lower ilvl or what 25-man players were doing at the time.

Also let me be clear: If "I" "ruined your raiding style in the process", then your raiding style was predicated on two thirds of the people not really wanting to be there in that format. They got an option and they buggered off, leaving you without enough people to raid.

This all comes back to personal responsibility. It's not the job of those people who left when an option that suited them better came along to prop up your raiding style. It's your raid, you're the one that wants to be there, so the job of keeping your raiding style viable is on you. Not them, you.

I wasn't the one sooking about raid lockouts or reward levels. I'm just looking at it objectively and noting that it's not fair for you to waste other people's time so you can have fun. In a WoW raiding context, be Darwinian; Adapt or die.

[spectrefax]

Don't put me in that box. I only wanted to do 10-mans in Wrath, so I did. Didn't really give much of a shit about the lower ilvl or what 25-man players were doing at the time.

Also let me be clear: If "I" "ruined your raiding style in the process", then your raiding style was predicated on two thirds of the people not really wanting to be there in that format. They got an option and they buggered off, leaving you without enough people to raid.

This all comes back to personal responsibility. It's not the job of those people who left when an option that suited them better came along to prop up your raiding style. It's your raid, you're the one that wants to be there, so the job of keeping your raiding style viable is on you. Not them, you.

I wasn't the one sooking about raid lockouts or reward levels. I'm just looking at it objectively and noting that it's not fair for you to waste other people's time so you can have fun. In a WoW raiding context, be Darwinian; Adapt or die.

So, by your logic, if Blizzard makes 5 mans drop the exact same stuff/achievements/etc as 10 and 25 mans, and the vast majority of people stop doing 10s and 25s and simply stick to 5 mans and LFR, then it's because they are doing 10s now even though they don't prefer them?

Because you can bet, if they made scenarios the easiest way to max out your gear, they would be the most popular format, doesn't mean everyone likes the format. And, this is essentially what your argument is suggesting.

[epLe]

The feeling of an epic journey into raids stopped when you didnt need 40 people to handle a single trashpack.

I never ever forget how big and bad*** the molten giants at the beginning of MC felt the first time, or the joy of a server-first Naxx40 clear.

The downsizing to 25man raids in TBC, made all raids feel much as casual as ZG/AQ20 did in comparison, and the same with the later 25mans.

Going from 25man to 10 is the same step (-15 players), but since "feeling of epicness" of 25mans is so similar to 10mans it makes perfect sense that the rewards are shared between them.

[antelope591]

Unfortunately I think Blizz is past the point of no return with 25 mans. I'm in the category of preferring 25's because of the epicness and having more raid variety but I've been raiding 10's for a while now simply because its easier and less of a headache with recruiting, skill levels, etc. But since 10's and 25's have been equal for so long you can't simply go back to making 25's straight up superior in terms of gear or you piss off the vast majority of the playerbase who raids 10's. Making raids 15 man would do the same although I personally like the idea. Honestly the best model was back in Wrath.....you had seperate lockouts but 10 man loot was inferior and 10 mans were easier. Its true that clearing 2 lockouts a week is a downside but 10 mans were pretty casual so its not like it was a big chore. With the current model 25 mans dying was inevitable....either way it will take a radical change for people to go back to 25's. Blizz just has to figure out which will piss of the playerbase the least -_-

[Forsedar]

About 15-18 people in a 25 man raid didn't enjoy or embrace the larger raid size on the merits of it being 25 people. They sacrificed convenience, put up with longer wait times between pulls and became a faceless cog in the machine purely for the better gear.

Wait, what? My guild solely does 25man because each and everyone of us prefer a 25man environment because it feels more 'epic' to us. 15-18 people out of our raid do not prefer 10man and I don't understand where you get that from.

When the gear item levels became the same, Occam's Razor dictates that most of those players took the path to 10-mans because they saw zero value in wasting the time with 25-mans. Path of least resistance. Less annoyance, less time wasting, more fun. Same gear.

Yes, most players dropped to 10man because organizing and finding 10 people is much easier than finding and organizing 25man. Its less of a hassle. However, the more fun part is strictly your point of view.

If the only thing keeping 25-mans popular was the gear, and they functionally offer nothing else better for the rank and file members of a raid, then darwinism dictates they should either die or be solely supported by the players that want to raid 25-mans.

No. There has to be more of a reward for something that is obviously more time consuming. You stated it yourself in the previous quote- that 10man is easier in terms of cohesion and recruitment... I.E. sustainability.

I say this as a random 10-man player addressing a 25-man player: This is your problem. Not mine. Fix it yourself without ruining my fun.

We are trying to fix it ourselves... by telling Blizzard that we've had enough because WE have been affected because of YOUR demands. Its okay to ruin our fun but not yours? Please. Its a two-way street in this situation. The changes negatively impacted 25man raiding in order to benefit what you desired. We're asking for a common ground that will atleast make 25mans more appealing so recruitment and progression isn't like pulling teeth.

We want to have fun just as much as you do. Regardless if its fixed or not, its still your problem because Blizzard will continue to look for routes to balance the current guild decay. There is obviously one.

Lets look at some data. I will use Normal Will of the Emperor because it is a boss that is most likely not to be pugged on the majority of servers, but not too far out of reach of casual guilds.

Will kills (25): 1,789
Will Kills (10): 21,639

Now lets use ICC normal, 10 vs 25 in comparison to this data.

Lord Marrowgar (25): 59,356
Lord Marrowgar (10): 84,136

I used those because at the time, they did not share lockouts and were easily puggable each.

The difference between now and then (%) is huge. 10man still outweighed 25man because you could still get decent enough gear AND experience the content. Because everyone wants to have the same thing, 25man has significantly dropped.

The old way was better in my opinion. The numbers showed it. The amount of people taking part in either 25 or 10 were close. To say that its better now is ignorant at best.

[mercutiouk]

I have a core I5, 8 gigs ram, 660 ti video card, 2x ssd hard drives. With that said. I still wont raid 25 man lag fests. Its bad enough doing Sha with 10 fps. In 10 mans, i hover around 30. Thats sad. And I can only imagine other peoples computers having to deal with 25 man and world bosses.

25 man raiding is dead and will stay dead. Hmm lets see. Do I want to depend on 15 other people, make things more difficult for the same rewards. Or do it with 10 people where I wont lag as heavily, have less stress and easier management including pugging. Yeah, Ill stick with 10 man raiding forever lol.

I humbly suggest you take a look at driversweeper from guru3d.com. You sound like you have old drivers kicking around on your system (unless that TV does over 1920x1080 in which case - ofc, the res is high). I had a recent clean up and took a clean jump of about 35fps improvement pretty much everywhere.

It cleans off ALL graphics drivers (though you get to select which) you reboot with basic windows vga driver, install a fresh set of your cards relevant driver, reboot again and expect huge improvements.

I raid 25m with i7 + 480GTX + 8GB and have ZERO issue. Before the clean up, pretty crap.

The 480's about equal to a 570GTX, here's that card compared to yours. Basically within 10% all round:

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/518?vs=647

[Banzhe]

If ppl really wanted to do 25 mans then they would. The fact that even with a little extra loot before and now a chance at higher lvl gear more often screams that Blizzard knows ppl don't want to yet it is being forced onto the game. Often mechanics are easier due to flexibility of roles or ability to swap specs fight to fight with a 25. This is yet another one of their unneeded fixes and stupid over reactions to the ppl that want to hide in a group of 25 for higher loot chances.

Don't even know where to start with this hyperbole, classic example of no interaction between the brain n' mouth!

Let me address it with a similar one: Majority of people only raid 10m because their absolute shit and would fall flat on their ass if they didn't have the space of Stormwind to manouvre, raid awareness of donkey's!

[Soulfighter101]

If achievements are split again, I'll blow my brains out. It was a crappy model where you would either have to get 15 extra people to do the 25 man achievments, or split into 2.5 raid groups just to get the 10man ones. A nice idea would be to add rare tokens that have a chance to only drop off of all 25 man bosses, tokens you could turn in for mounts/tabards/titles/transmog gear. That way, it's a purely vanity based incentive to do 25mans, yet it will get people interested in doing it. If you gave 25 mans better gear, there'd be massive QQ and people would cry out that the 10man fanbase is being belittled.

TL;DR: Add a vanity-based incentive to 25's, one that'd be cool enough to bring attention to 25's, but not big enough to force people into doing them.

[Talen]

Unsurprisingly, I agree with this. I've been reading about the 15-man proposal for years now and really have come to the conclusion that it would be the most destructive thing to raiding imaginable. It's one of those "Hell, that's simple to fix" ideas that would break everything related to raiding; old raids, guilds, you name it. The only way I can see it working is if it's phased in and added to 10-/25- formats at the start of an expansion with a very clear announcement that the older two would go away at the end of that expansion.

I don't think you could even make that announcement. You'd need to bring it in, see how it works first....btut even then, the issue is that large segments are going to love 10s while 25s will likely still retain a strong following as 25 will still be too small and Blizzard seems to like 25s, especially for LFR.

15s would have been an ideal size to bring in at the start of the game. It is very likely too late to change to it now.

I wonder if it would be possible to design a raid around just one size, and then apply a raid wide buff or buffs or debuffs based on raid size and make up to adjust mechanics (a la DS LFR) and raid/target strengths.

Wait, what? My guild solely does 25man because each and everyone of us prefer a 25man environment because it feels more 'epic' to us. 15-18 people out of our raid do not prefer 10man and I don't understand where you get that from.

He's probably nor far off when speaking about a typical guild.

Yes, most players dropped to 10man because organizing and finding 10 people is much easier than finding and organizing 25man. Its less of a hassle. However, the more fun part is strictly your point of view.

Unless you have loads of fun with all the organsiation of a raid, odds are you'll want to get to the part you actually find to be fun as quickly as possible....that'll probably be the part that takes place once you get to the instance. And thats probably an apsect that doesn't vary too much between raid sizes for a lot of players. BOTH formats can be fun.

No. There has to be more of a reward for something that is obviously more time consuming. You stated it yourself in the previous quote- that 10man is easier in terms of cohesion and recruitment... I.E. sustainability.

Which is a logistics issue and not a raid issue. Should player A be rewarded because of player Bs work? I still maintain that logistics is one of the major issues facing 25s today. Not the raid itself...the logistics and management.

We are trying to fix it ourselves... by telling Blizzard that we've had enough because WE have been affected because of YOUR demands. Its okay to ruin our fun but not yours? Please. Its a two-way street in this situation. The changes negatively impacted 25man raiding in order to benefit what you desired. We're asking for a common ground that will atleast make 25mans more appealing so recruitment and progression isn't like pulling teeth.

Not an unreasonable request. Do you have a solution? One that fits Blizzards current desire not to gut 10s to restore 25s that is.

We want to have fun just as much as you do. Regardless if its fixed or not, its still your problem because Blizzard will continue to look for routes to balance the current guild decay. There is obviously one.

No....there isn't "obviously one".

EJL

[Daerio]

TL;DR: Add a vanity-based incentive to 25's, one that'd be cool enough to bring attention to 25's, but not big enough to force people into doing them.

And that would accomplish exactly nothing, which is precisely what the thunderforged change is going to do.

I would like to raid 25s, like a lot of other people. Unfortunately, I can't any more, because none exist on my server. Cho'gall was the 5th most progressed US server in Dragonsoul, we had a decent number of 25s floating around from T11-13 - we even had THREE 25 man guilds transfer to Cho'gall. (Rebellion, Ascend, Exodus) Then MoP came out, and now there are no hardcore/semi-hardcore 25 man guilds left on Cho'gall. Even Exodus is transferring off again. I attempted (with a couple other people) to form my own 25 man guild when MoP came out, but it was plagued with issues, and fell apart. Then I transferred off server, paid my 30$ to try out another guild on another server, and THAT didn't work out either. Now I'm back on Cho'gall raiding 10s, even though I don't want to - and more realistically, I'm more likely to quit before I get to play in my preferred raid setting again. (25s)

WoTLK was their best raid system in my opinion. At the time, I was in a 10 man guild, thinking that I might end up liking it better. I didn't mind that 25s had better loot, more loot, more incentive. We raided 10s heroic, and we pugged 25 normals on the weekend. And it was extremely easy to pug because people weren't automatically locked to every raid setting. Now, the best you can do is find an alt of somebody that isn't raiding on their main at the same time you're trying to pug, or maybe somebody who's guild isn't raiding that week - or worst of all, somebody who doesn't normally raid, the LFR hero. It was a much better system, and they need to go back to it.

But I seriously doubt they're going to do what it takes to fix 25s, and that's sad. It will end up costing them subscribers, which will probably be more detrimental to the game than you hardcore "We want 10s to be the only raid setting!" people think.

[Klingers]

So, by your logic, if Blizzard makes 5 mans drop the exact same stuff/achievements/etc as 10 and 25 mans, and the vast majority of people stop doing 10s and 25s and simply stick to 5 mans and LFR, then it's because they are doing 10s now even though they don't prefer them?

Because you can bet, if they made scenarios the easiest way to max out your gear, they would be the most popular format, doesn't mean everyone likes the format. And, this is essentially what your argument is suggesting.

By my logic? As strange as this might sound, yes.

Obviously Blizzard wouldn't actually make 5 mans and scenarios drop raid gear, but if human nature plays true and most of your raiding pool drops away to the path of least resistance, you want to keep doing raids and they don't, then that tells you something:

Those people didn't enjoy doing what you enjoy doing as much as you think they do. That also means your fun is predicated on them doing something they see as a chore... Which is bad.

Of course this doesn't happen. Most people actually like raiding. They just like easily-organised raiding with minimal downtime and frigging around.

You've got to divorce rewards from all contexts when you make your arguments for why 25 man raiding is so good. The one single important question you should be asking is "Why isn't this more fun for more people?". Answer and solve that, then you get your big raider pools back with a smile on their faces. Punish them for doing 10-mans and all you get is people either half-arsing it for the shinies or quitting raiding entirely.