Alright so I've been seeing a lot of posts around the forums that describe the pros and cons of 10man and 25man raiding, and the lack of incentive people have to do 25mans; I took in all the knowledge I could find and read, and thought up a compromise between all of them (a lot of these suggestions are other peoples')
So the biggest demotivator when it comes to doing and making 25man raids/guilds is the amount of effort that goes in for the officers, and also how cut throat mechanics can potentially hold a raid of 25 back because of a handful of lesser able players. This creates more stress in 25mans than it does in 10mans.
On the other hand, 10mans are more tightly knit groups and the margin of error is much smaller, and even one person under-performing in a group of average performers will severely hinder progress. This is offset by the fact, that from a management perspective it is easier to weed out the bad players, and bring in better ones (assuming no prior loyalty to that player). 10man raiders also usually have more on their plate "per player" than 25man raiders.
So how should we reward these 25man raids that have to go through more intrinsic methods to setup a raid?
- Well there is already a system that provides them with more loot per player, 6/25 instead of 5/25 (2/10). This is good but could use a little bit of tweaking, 25mans should have 5 loot drops from the boss initially that is based on RNG, and have the 6th loot be chosen by the raid leader, so it gives a complete advantage in gearing that is not even based on RNG.
- There is also the notion of having 1/2 upgraded loot drops for them in 25mans, and 0/2 in 10mans. This is a lot trickier because it penalizes 10man raiders for something they have no control over. So what if a system was implemented that gives 10man raiders a time constraint; that is to say, for every boss 10 man raiders kill, their weekly valor cap gets raised by "x" amount. Obviously they don't get this VP for free, it just raises their cap, they still have to do dailies/ heroics to reach that cap before the week ends. Basically, it gives them the "1/2" loot but they have to work more for it (or maybe have an incentive to do dailies, since that should cap them out if done daily).
Now, there are several issues with the above system, and parameters have to be set. One such issue is that, once a player has already gotten all the loot drops they need from a boss, he can quickly hop over to a 10man, just for that boss so it raises his valor cap, and then go 25mans for the bosses that they need actual loot from. The proposed solution to this is that, every individual character has a counter that raises their VP every time they kill a boss in 10man, however this counter is completely shut down as soon as the player kills a boss on 25man mode; I will work it out in an example.
Cap raised for killing bosses in 10mans = 100 VP cap raised (placeholder)
Max kills 15 bosses on 10man
Max Kills 16th boss on 25man
VP cap raised by 1500
Alex kills first boss on 25man
Alex kills rest of the bosses on 10man
VP cap not raised at all
Jake kills first 8 bosses on 10man
Jake kills 9th boss on 25man
Jake kills the remaining 7 bosses on 10man
VP cap raised by 800
From this, you see that you get the VP cap raised until you decide to kill a 25man boss.
The final issue comes in with the buff that players get when they reach the valor cap for the week, and get a buff that grants all their other characters 50% extra VP gain. This completely contradicts 10man raiders having to work more for their upgrades. The fix to this is that this buff only lasts until the initial 1000 VP cap of the week, anything extra has to be done with no VP modifiers.
There is also the notion of how much the VP cap is raised per boss, and based on some easy math, it should be 150 VP raised. The reasoning is that 25 man raiders get 5 pieces of loot from the boss that is 1/2 upgraded, 5/25 means there is a 1/5 chance of getting the loot, and since a 1/2 upgrade is worth 750 VP, 750/5 = 150. I do not include the 6th piece of loot in this, because that is a primary benefit to 25man raids. To add to this, the 6th piece of loot in 25man raids(the chosen one) is 2/2 upgraded when looted. This gives players who already have the piece of loot they need from the boss an incentive to do it again(and not just do an entire week of 10 mans to build up VP), assuming no one else needs loot from the boss.
To summarize all the points above:
- 25 man raids drop 5(1/2 Upgraded) loot per boss based on RNG
- 25 man raids drop a 6th piece of loot(2/2 upgraded) per boss, that the raid leader can choose directly from the loot pool of the boss
- 10 man raids drop 2(0/2 Upgraded) loot per boss based on RNG
- All raiders at the beginning of the week gain a permanent Aura, that increases their weekly Valor Cap by 150, for every 10man boss they kill. This Aura (for the week) is removed when a boss is killed on 25 man mode by that player.
- When a player reaches the "1000 VP Cap" for the week, they are given a buff that increases the VP gained by all other characters on that realm by 50%, this buff only works up to the original "1000 VP Cap" all additional VP does not benefit from this buff
Let me know what you guys think, I put some thought into this, and it looks like everyone comes out a head, it just a few tweaks need to be done to the system, but not the bosses and their abilities per se. This retains a subtle level of equality in both gear (sort of) and difficulty between the two modes.