Is raiding strangling World of Warcraft, and the MMORPG genre?

[Pua]

Okay. Once again, MMO-Champion has done us all a service and effectively proven what we all already knew:

Organised raiding is a busted flush.

Ultimately, no matter how you cut it, the evidence just keeps on stacking up to an almost impenetrable height.

Raids, as an endgame focus, turn people off.

Players aren’t interested in a model that’s designed to exclude them based on scheduled commitments to a video game that invariably requires VOIP, second-party mods and being told when you can and can’t play by an indiscriminate guild clique. Who’d have guessed? Yet, what’s perhaps more damning than less than 10% of players clearing a raid on its default difficulty (heroic), is the uncomfortable fact that this 10% hasn’t gone up in the four and a half years that Blizzard have been shoving raids down everyone’s throat.

You’re at the TLDR cut off. Read no further if you don’t want to.

This isn’t the first time I’ve looked at raiding statistics and been shocked, so I refer you to my earlier work on the subject. That was written almost two years ago to the day, when I was thoroughly dismayed at what Blizzard did to raiding during Mists of Pandaria. The problem, of course, is that Warlords of Draenor has done something very different and found out that, generally, the results were the same.

Let me put it like this:

Wrath of the Lich King saw no more than 10% get themselves to Arthas and kill him, despite easy catch up via currency gearing, 10-man raids tuned to be easier than 25, and the Icecrown dungeons that allowed for a gearing leg up. Cataclysm, of course, shattered the raiding community; but we still didn’t see an improvement in those numbers clearing a tier. LFR was the leg up as far as Pandaria was concerned, along with the retention of viable currency gearing, but we still didn’t see an upward trend in raid participation.

Then we get to Warlords of Draenor. Here are some of the things we know:

1) Four modes were designed to capture those left out by too-hard normal and too-easy LFR.
2) The staggering of the instances allowed people to enter the main tier in a better gear state.
3) Currency gearing was all but removed, given how brutally inefficient gearing via apexis is.
4) There’s no viable endgame progression other than raiding, with all other rewards neutered.
5) Flexible technology was put in to save for a significant amount of management necessity.
6) Guild levelling was removed, making guilds much easier to found and build a raid team in.
7) Looting was changed to address challenging management of loot systems in casual teams.
8) Professions were designed to streamline raid-ready loot into the hands of players and alts.
9) BoEs were made more numerous than before, speeding up general gearing in and out of raids.

In short, Blizzard have literally done everything they can in order to push people into raiding… And the result is that no more than 10% have managed to take out heroic Blackhand. Now, clearly, that number may go up as the tier continues (and I expect it will), but we’re effectively in an expansion where raiding is the choice if you want character progression, and there’s still been no appreciable uplift in participation.

That 10% figure is as good as it’s ever going to get. However, can we even say that it implies 10% of people really enjoy raiding?

Well, no. No, we can’t. If the game provided the same rewards for activities other than raiding, do we think our 10% clearing a tier would remain the same? I think we all know the answer to that. I think we all know that it’d be lucky to see numbers above 5%.

Given what we now know, that even when you give people nothing but raiding they still avoid it, there’s really only one conclusion to draw.

It’s time to scale it back dramatically, even to the point of removing it altogether.

Of course, this argument has been made before. Around six months ago, just as Warlords of Draenor was landing, Eliot Lefebvre argued his “six reasons” why MMORPGs should dump raiding because it was an archaic endgame staple that was holding the genre back, rather than supporting it. For those who didn’t read those posts, Eliot argued that the six reasons for moving on were as follows:

Raiding is expensive in terms of resources.

Effectively, we all know how it goes. No matter what you ask Blizzard for, “it’d cost a raid tier”. So if we want more and engaging dungeons, racial art for our garrisons, proper world content and questing… We won’t get it. We’ll get a raid tier that nobody’s really interested in.

Raiding is designed for too small a percentage of players.

Well, we know that. At it’s best, no more than 10% of players complete the default level of difficulty for a given raid tier. What’s worse, is that that 10% is subsidized by the other 90% who’re paying for raid development they’re either not interested or not capable of playing.

Raiding takes resources from other content.

Again, Blizzard are explicit in that this is a zero-sum equation. They keep citing it when the question is brought up. How many other pieces of content have been gutted, had their depth removed, or simply never been developed at all because of raids?

Raiding relies on bribery as a content draw.

It’s pretty simple. If raiding didn’t offer the best loot in the game, a tiny percentage of players would do it. There is the fraction of a fraction of a fraction of players who argue that it’s about “challenge”, but even Ion Hazzikostas admitted that raids need the best rewards.

Raiding pigeonholes social interactions.

The argument that raiding is social isn’t necessarily true. If enforces a specific type of social interaction, which is you play with people capable of clearing raids – and not, necessarily, the people you want to play with the most. In fact, it’s inherently anti-social.

Raiding exists because it’s assumed to be a necessity.

Ultimately, this is where it all lies. “A game must have raids, otherwise what would endgame PvE be? Nothing”. That’s the argument, but the truth is that we don’t know what that endgame would be, because it’s always been raids. Yet raids are not popular.

Now, I’m not saying these arguments are all iron-clad and proven to be right. I’d also stress that people read Eliot’s posts rather than assuming that my paraphrased summaries accurately convey the strength of his arguments. What I’m saying is that raiding, as a staple of PvE endgame in an MMORPG, has got a significantly difficult number of questions to answer.

Maybe it’s time we started properly asking them.

[SilentRose]

I wouldn't play wow if it didn't have raids. I enjoy the raiding and my raid core do as well. Just because someone doesn't like something, does not mean everyone dislikes it. The only problem here is raiding is the only end content currently but that doesn't mean that raiding should be canned and tough luck to everyone involved.

[rda]

Raiding is designed for too small a percentage of players.

Well, we know that. At it’s best, no more than 10% of players complete the default level of difficulty for a given raid tier. What’s worse, is that that 10% is subsidized by the other 90% who’re paying for raid development they’re either not interested or not capable of playing.

I will just quickly say that you should be looking not at the number of players who complete content, but the number of players who intent to play that content - but that changes little, because I think that's an even smaller number (the number of people going into raids would perhaps decrease tenfold or more, if raids weren't the only source of best gear).

Yes, they should scale raids back dramatically, they are killing the game.

[Deleted]

Has your analysis taken into account the fact that despite the giant population drop that should've hit that 10% of people raiding, the number still is at 10%? Considering the massive sub drops between last expac and now, that is. If anything this sounds like an improvement to me, but I could be wrong, maths isn't my strong suit.

Secondly, not to sound too elitisit, but a huge percentage of people aren't really playing right in the first place, myself included. A large number of factors contribute to poor play and therefore exclusion, including the piss poor default UI and control scheme and especially people's attitudes that leave no room for them to be criticized either constructively or otherwise on their playstyles 'bcuz I play how I wants". Ultimately, addons and an open mind that desires to improve are what's necessary for people to become raiders and most people simply can't cut it for various reasons that are both in and out of their control. You can call it elitism or what have you but the simple fact is, most people simply don't play their class to its full potential, and assuming you do at any one time is folly. Heroic raiding and above is now being designed for those that can at least get 80% performance and above, for everything else there's LFR and Normal which should be quite satisfactory for most people.

Raiding needs to have the best rewards not because you can take Hazzikostas' quote out of context, but because it truly is the most challenging aspect of endgame. I fail to see how the lower ilvl gear from Normal and below doesn't satisfy the masses, you really don't need anything else for doing any other content in the game.

I myself enjoy raiding quite a lot because of the challenge and recently because of my new guild's social friendly atmosphere that can also progress. We raid 3 nights a week, and while not progressed substantially (HC Blackhand left) it is still filled with people that know they aren't the best because they lack the hubris to assume it, and they want to improve. Mistakes are made constantly but that is the nature of progression, and it seems we understand that but we don't feel the need to go blame it on Blizzard. Add that to the fact that you can choose which difficulty you want to raid, and your argument about pidgeonholed social interactions doesn't stand. There's plenty of social people at all levels of skill, you just can't be assed to find them.

It is safe to say that you will never see raiding in WoW removed. It is the primary means of driving the story outside of levelling content, it is the reason we can call ourselves heroes or saviors in the World of Warcraft if we're into RP and some such.

Edit: I'd also like to add that forcing social interactions through game design doesn't really translate well into the real world, and is really just bad design. There is no reason for people to interact with other people if they can progress their char to the fullest alone and we've already seen it in with the advent of the LFG tool. Ultimately, players want to have an enjoyable experience and will surround themselves with other capable people, just like in real life. This is human nature, not some development that arose from the current raiding paradigm.

I understand that you would like alternative means to progress your character and I'd like to see some as well, but understand that the rewards will never be as good as raiding simply because of the extensive amount of work required for a raid night to be successful. Ultimately in a fantasy MMORPG setting, killing the biggest, meanest baddies is the ultimate measure of success in terms of PvE, and they're not supposed to be pushovers or solo killed by a single godlike player like some bad deus ex machina. There's plenty of singleplayer RPGs for that and even there you will find people of all skill levels that won't be playing to the fullest.

And you really can't fault WoW for it, considering how they have strived to make it so accessible to everyone in terms of what you have available to do. What you can do is blame them for their increasing sloth and corporate attitude that translates into less and poorer content overall. Their obvious attitudes towards becoming more controlling of how players consume their content, removal of flying for instance but many others, is an indicator that their mentality has shifted away from quality game design and towards corporate milking and pushing this game into maintenance mode more and more.

[Deleted]

Ok let's assume for a moment that this bunch of arbitrary bullshit you just posted is anywhere close to truth. What exactly is the alternative here? What content of substance are we supposed to do in a 11 year old tab target MMO? I'd fucking love to know your magic solution to this "problem".

You are like the adolescent revolutionaries who want to "DESTROY THE SYSTEM MAAHHHHN" but then offer absolutely no alternative to it.

Also there's a chart on frontpage of this very website showing numbers like 60% raiding participation right fucking now. Raiding is the only content this game has to offer, it has always been that way. It can't have any other sort of content by design. If you think otherwise tell me your vision right now or shut up.

If there was this huge demand for a MMO without raiding why won't somebody just step in and fill the hole in the market and become megarich? It could be you. Godspeed you delusional autists, make your mom proud, do a Kickstarter.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

When raids were part of the game and not THE game things were fine. But now that the whole game is designed to drive the cattle into raiding it has, yes, become the hand around the necks of most the player base.

[l33t]

So, as always there are tons of critique but no solutions to this "problem".

Please, OP, can you or your precious Eliot Lefebvre (who the fuck is that?) give your propositions. Save the genre! What alternatives do we have?

I experienced another form of endgame content in GW2, which is: dynamic world pseudocontent; meaningless dungeons you have zero reasons to run; not so meaningless but still meaningless fractals, which are nothing but a harder dungeons; meaningless world pvp AKA running with a big pack of players and zerging small groups or players from another team; and oh-so-praised Story which is, by fact, a chain of six or less quests. Is that your proposed end-game content that should replace raiding? If that's so, then please rethink your idea, because that kind of content start to suck in a month of continuous gameplay.

[Pull My Finger]

Raiding is expensive in terms of resources.

Raiding is designed for too small a percentage of players.

Raiding takes resources from other content.

Raiding relies on bribery as a content draw.


Raiding pigeonholes social interactions.


Raiding exists because it’s assumed to be a necessity.

I actually agree with all of these. It's all a big ass crutch for the genre on multiple levels. In retrospect, I also have to say that the whole idea of raid-centric end game design has, over the years, kept me from really sinking into the game and has gradually diminished my participation and interest.

[Terridon]

Raid-tier isn't over yet, and people say the numbers are proof that it's bad for the game, despite more than 1/3rd having entered an actual raid, and killed at least one boss.
To me that seems pretty decent.

[Armbre]

So, as always there are tons of critique but no solutions to this "problem".

Please, OP, can you or your precious Eliot Lefebvre (who the fuck is that?) give your propositions. Save the genre! What alternatives do we have?

I experienced another form of endgame content in GW2, which is: dynamic world pseudocontent; meaningless dungeons you have zero reasons to run; not so meaningless but still meaningless fractals, which are nothing but a harder dungeons; meaningless world pvp AKA running with a big pack of players and zerging small groups or players from another team; and oh-so-praised Story which is, by fact, a chain of six or less quests. Is that your proposed end-game content that should replace raiding? If that's so, then please rethink your idea, because that kind of content start to suck in a month of continuous gameplay.

Instead of raids i'd love to see new five mans released every few weeks that would push the story along, you could put out quite a few dungeons compared to one raid. I know you'll say gear inflation but i think the gear should only move up a small amount such as in wrath and bc, gear should be something that helps you play better not the reason you play, in my first 6 years with wow i gave zero craps about gear and had fun now everything is so ilvl focused its nauseating

- - - Updated - - -

Raid-tier isn't over yet, and people say the numbers are proof that it's bad for the game, despite more than 1/3rd having entered an actual raid, and killed at least one boss.
To me that seems pretty decent.

Only because its the only way to advance your characters gear, apexis is a joke

[Glormon]

I don't doubt some of your personal findings, I do however find it difficult to believe most of it. We're given relatively accurate numbers and as it currently stands in Blackrock Foundry on that same heroic difficulty we have a higher percentage of players participating then your "10%", the only particular boss in question coming to close to that number being the final boss, Blackhand, himself.

[Pua]

I wouldn't play wow if it didn't have raids. I enjoy the raiding and my raid core do as well.

What is it that you enjoy about raids, that couldn't be provided by other forms of content with higher participation rates?

Just because someone doesn't like something, does not mean everyone dislikes it.

That's not really the point, at all - in fact, I'm saying the opposite. I'm saying that because the overwhelming majority of players don't like raids, Blizzard should be looking to scale them back.

I will just quickly say that you should be looking not at the number of players who complete content, but the number of players who intent to play that content - but that changes little, because I think that's an even smaller number (the number of people going into raids would perhaps decrease tenfold or more, if raids weren't the only source of best gear).

Yes, they should scale raids back dramatically, they are killing the game.

That's a fair point. Personally, I think raid participation is grossly (and I mean by magnitudes) inflated by the reward bribe.

Of course, that's my opinion. It's inherently difficult to prove, likely impossible, but we do have what Ion Hazzikostas said about LFR; namely, that if heroic dungeons rewarded gear as good or better, then it'd be completely abandoned. LFR and organised raiding are very different things, but I think any reasonable person would accept that organised raiding would hit a huge slump if it didn't have the best rewards.

By far.

Has your analysis taken into account the fact that despite the giant population drop that should've hit that 10% of people raiding, the number still is at 10%? Considering the massive sub drops between last expac and now, that is. If anything this sounds like an improvement to me, but I could be wrong, maths isn't my strong suit.

Well, if anything, you'd imagine raid numbers would go up if players were leaving because they were sick of having no content to do (it'd leave the players who do have raids). If people are leaving, yet numbers largely stay the same, the implication is that a broad number of players are leaving for a broad number of reasons, and the percentages rarely diverge. Sadly, we can't come to any solid conclusions.

All we know is that raiding isn't popular, no matter how much effort and work it receives.

Raiding needs to have the best rewards not because you can take Hazzikostas' quote out of context, but because it truly is the most challenging aspect of endgame. I fail to see how the lower ilvl gear from Normal and below doesn't satisfy the masses, you really don't need anything else for doing any other content in the game.

Except that's not strictly true. Would we, for arguments sake, suggest that LFR is "more difficult" than challenge mode dungeons?

Which has the better rewards?

In fact, do many legitimately believe that normal mode raids are harder than challenge modes? I suspect not. The best rewards should come from the hardest content, or that which takes the most effort; remember the two are not the same. And in either case, raiding being the "hardest" content available isn't a categorical imperative. It's that way by deliberate design.

The rest of your post... I have no specific agreement or disagreement, and nothing specific to really add.

Ok let's assume for a moment that this bunch of arbitrary bullshit you just posted is anywhere close to truth. What exactly is the alternative here? What content of substance are we supposed to do in a 11 year old tab target MMO? I'd fucking love to know your magic solution to this "problem".

You are like the adolescent revolutionaries who want to "DESTROY THE SYSTEM MAAHHHHN" but then offer absolutely no alternative to it.

Also there's a chart on frontpage of this very website showing numbers like 60% raiding participation right fucking now. Raiding is the only content this game has to offer, it has always been that way. It can't have any other sort of content by design. If you think otherwise tell me your vision right now or shut up.

If there was this huge demand for a MMO without raiding why won't somebody just step in and fill the hole in the market and become megarich? It could be you. Godspeed you delusional autists, make your mom proud, do a Kickstarter.

Flamebait, I'm afraid, and reported as such.

But to be systematic and answer the question I think you have; I'm highlighting the problem.

I'm not paid to find the solution.

When raids were part of the game and not THE game things were fine. But now that the whole game is designed to drive the cattle into raiding it has, yes, become the hand around the necks of most the player base.

That's my view of the subject. There's a reason the game grew continuously prior to Cataclysm.

[l33t]

Instead of raids i'd love to see new five mans released every few weeks that would push the story along, you could put out quite a few dungeons compared to one raid. I know you'll say gear inflation but i think the gear should only move up a small amount such as in wrath and bc, gear should be something that helps you play better not the reason you play, in my first 6 years with wow i gave zero craps about gear and had fun now everything is so ilvl focused its nauseating

Yes exactly what I was talking about. Just like in GW2, if there is no carrot on the stick (which is loot), you will complete your precious new shiny dungeon on day1 and sit without any motivation to run it again for next two weeks. So I question again: is that really what your wish for raids replacement?

If you ask me, I would love to see more ways of character development in WoW (And, just so you know, character development in wow = gear). I would love to have 5-man dungeon progression that gives its own gear same level as heroic raid one. I would love to have story development (dailies and stuff), which gives its own gear same level as normal raid one. What you propose is lack of character development at all, so absolutely no reason to play - just like GW2.

[lazorexplosion]

The actual gameplay part of raiding is fun enough.

Unfortunately:

1) Raiding requires a large group of people, which in turn requires exponentially more time spent organizing people and waiting for people to get organized, which drags down the average enjoyment of the activity with stuff that is a chore.

2) Because it takes a significant amount of effort to organize a raid group, you need to put in a decent amount of time each session to make it worthwhile. But then sessions that go for 2 or 3 hours drag on and become tiring and repetitive even if it was initially fun, especially if you aren't seeing much progression.

3) Because of the organization, guilds tend to do it via schedule. Being committed to do raids when you aren't really feeling like it makes it feel more like a chore at times, and increases burnout.

4) Because it's large group content, you feel your own individual contribution much more weakly, which makes mastering it feel less rewarding; often your own progress will be roadblocked by other people and you can't progress at a pace that matches your own learning.

You can make raiding gameplay as fun as possible, but those structural issues will tend to drag it down for most people.

[Aori]

No, instanced content is strangling the MMO genre.

[DarkAmbient]

Why do people react so angrily to critique of WoW?

On topic, I agree with the OP. I think the future of MMOs lies in permanent character progression free from the reliance on huge set-piece PvE encounters. Think more sandbox, less scripted linearity. I don't think WoW will be able to abandon the raid design philosophy because it's a fundamental part of the game.

[Airwaves]

WoW? Yes. God yes. Far to much focus on it.

MMO games? No. Look at GW2. Powering along with zero raiding.

[Seriss]

But to be systematic and answer the question I think you have; I'm highlighting the problem.

I'm not paid to find the solution.

It's always easy to shout "I don't like this!"

...but then be silent when you're asked "Well, what would you like instead?"

[Marrilaife]

Raiding exists because it’s assumed to be a necessity.

Ultimately, this is where it all lies. “A game must have raids, otherwise what would endgame PvE be? Nothing”. That’s the argument, but the truth is that we don’t know what that endgame would be, because it’s always been raids. Yet raids are not popular.

Well, good thing is times slowly change, we're getting MMOs like Guild Wars 2 or some other "sandbox" MMOs that start introducing various concepts different from traditional "how MMO should be", we need to wait and see what is players' reaction to various models of end game and maybe if something becomes popular and liked, WOW will copy it like it copied other successful features of other games.

For example Guild Wars 2 endgame has: structured pvp, "world vs world" outdoor pvp, dungeons (fractals), world bosses (kinda zergfest), crafting, events, dailies, but no typical raids. So yes, you can make MMO without raiding. Now can you change WOW to a non-raiding model?

Who knows. That's a big risk, you might get a massive success or a massive flop. Is it a risk Blizzard is willing to take? Not sure really... I think atm they're there for easy n' fast cash grabs, sell the expansion box based on hype, who cares if subs drop afterwards, after all we sold so many boxes, we'll also up sub cost here and there based on dollar exchange rate and slap few store mounts, and reap massive profits. The rest is PR about "cyclical" players and not enough time / manpower to develop stuff. What if it "costs us a raid tier" and still we only get rudimentary content in exchange? I'm not sure if Blizzard 1) knows what to develop outside of raids 2) actually cares to do so.

For example they could expand world events as years progress, but all we get is 1 extra pet or toy added.

They could make crafting more interesting, that was another staple of MMORPG genre, instead in WOD they made professions bland, boring, simple and too similar to each other.

They could develop class specific questlines, but why develop 11 questlines for each class if you can develop 1 for everyone? Or why even develop questlines when you can just make apexis dailies? I've really missed things like 5.1 and 5.2 questlines that were there on top of dailies and not one instead of another. At least you could see some story and lore... Nowadays except garrison campaign we really don't have anything like that, and garrison campaign had no additions in 6.1 (we only get a bunch of Harrison Jones quests) and from what I've heard about 6.2 there are only few quests added to the story.

People also asked for new arenas and BGs, new max-level zones like Farahlon, new dungeons (and not rescaled old ones), will we see them this expansion?

[Myrwyss]

As others mentioned,no raids in mmo->guild wars 2,its fun for a first few days/weeks,but in the end there is nothing that you would call actual end game.Raids are what made mmorpg so popular,what made so many people try the games,but they shouldnt be the main focus of the game.Slightly biased as im currently playing it,but ffxiv is doing good job in giving good enjoyable raids for the raiding population,and tons of other end game content.