Blizzards 25 man mistake.

[Deleted]

I'll quote the whole thing to make a couple of very short points:

1. The first paragraph implies that Blizzard wouldn't have made any change if they knew then what they know now. It's important to remember that they didn't make the changes based on whim. They made them to address perceived problems with the balance between 25's and 10's at the time and to stop the practice of guilds running both 25s/10s every week and burning people out. Given an accurate forecast of how things would work out they might not have made the change that they made but it's pretty unlikely that they wouldn't have changed anything.

2. I agree with the part in bold but that's not to say that they can't apply pressures here and there to make 25's more attractive. It will be more gradual although there's always the small possibility that they'll just eventually cave or more likely do something completely unexpected.

I find that the current raidmodel. Where you "have to" run lfr for upgrades. And you have to do daylies for charms. Is worse than the wrath model concerning burnout.
Sure at some point you reach a gear point where lfr isn't necessary anymore. And if you grind daylies like a mad man you end up with enough charms for several weeks.
But the same could be said of the wrath model where at some point you wouldn't get any upgrades anymore from doing 10 mans.

And when I compare the time invested in doing/waiting for an LFR to open + the time wasted on doing daylies for charms. With the time I used to do 10 mans. I would have to say that back then I used less time and I had a lot more fun because unlike LFR/daylies i was using my time in a more of a social setting with funny interresting people.
And I will say it again LFR is from a social multiplayer perspective complete rubbish. I go in after waiting 30 mins, with a bunch of strangers that i will never ever see again and steamroll through content, and after that I teleport back into the world and que for a new LFR, with a bunch of strangers that I do not care about.

[Deleted]

And THERE is your main mistake. The raids aren't balanced or designed around the cutting edge.

And THERE is where you demonstrate your utter incapability of comprehending abstract ideas. It makes no difference for my point how the raids are balanced or tuned. Read that again and understand it. And now read it again.

Comparing two raid groups, one 25 man and one 10 man with equal skill distribution, due to the effects I've now described over and over, and won't repeat, the 10 man will make faster progress and kill more bosses. This is exactly what you can go and observe in practice and it's what the theory predicts.

One datapoint is my own guild when we downsized from 25 to 10. We easily killed 4 new hc bosses in the first 10 man raid. And it's not because we picked our 10 best players. We couldn't pick our 10 best players because many of them quit, transferred, switched guilds or didn't have the right class geared and available. We ended up with a skill distribution essentially equal to what we had in the 25 man mode, but still progress was an order of magnitude easier.

[Deleted]

And THERE is where you demonstrate your utter incapability of comprehending abstract ideas. It makes no difference for my point how the raids are balanced or tuned. Read that again and understand it. And now read it again.

Comparing two raid groups, one 25 man and one 10 man with equal skill distribution, due to the effects I've now described over and over, and won't repeat, the 10 man will make faster progress and kill more bosses. This is exactly what you can go and observe in practice and it's what the theory predicts.

One datapoint is my own guild when we downsized from 25 to 10. We easily killed 4 new hc bosses in the first 10 man raid. And it's not because we picked our 10 best players. We couldn't pick our 10 best players because many of them quit, transferred, switched guilds or didn't have the right class geared and available. We ended up with a skill distribution essentially equal to what we had in the 25 man mode, but still progress was an order of magnitude easier.

Tuning issue, nothing inherently to do with 25 mans or 10 mans.

See LFR for details as to why raid size doesnt automatically translate into any extra difficulty, except in getting 30 arses on seats at the right time. And I don't see how the skill of persuading 30 people to be sat on a chair at the same time automatically translates into better loot in game, either.

[Banzhe]

Tuning issue, nothing inherently to do with 25 mans or 10 mans.

See LFR for details as to why raid size doesnt automatically translate into any extra difficulty, except in getting 30 arses on seats at the right time. And I don't see how the skill of persuading 30 people to be sat on a chair at the same time automatically translates into better loot in game, either.

Wow, so 10man went from the bastard child to be 10=25 while not even being remotely close anyway (on practically every aspect in raid content apart from the pull!!)

Your response displays a level of stupidity n' ignorance normally only found at blizzard employees when they want to get a point across (Yes, infract me for calling a shovel a shovel), comparing LFR to normal / heroic is as stupid as you can possibly get!

Infracted. Ok, I will...insulting other posters is against site rules.

[Talen]

And THERE is where you demonstrate your utter incapability of comprehending abstract ideas. It makes no difference for my point how the raids are balanced or tuned. Read that again and understand it. And now read it again.

You said:

These of course only apply when you're playing at the edge of performance and on fights that actually matter. If you're only dicking around in content that you can clear even if half your raid are mouthbreathers, then none of this matters anyway.

That hardly makes it seem as if you are comparing raids with similar skill distributions. You certainly aren't trying to see how the game works for 99.99% of the players who actually use the content but aren't raiding at the cutting edge. Those groups will have all sorts of issues precisely because the game isn't designed around them. They need to make use of every shortcut and loophole to maximise performance because they down the boss without being fully geared.

Trying to suggest issues that affect only those groups need to be fixed at the expense of the majority is not likely to happen.

Comparing two raid groups, one 25 man and one 10 man with equal skill distribution, due to the effects I've now described over and over, and won't repeat, the 10 man will make faster progress and kill more bosses. This is exactly what you can go and observe in practice and it's what the theory predicts.

Theory predicts lots of things. And experience shows some are right, some are wrong.

For example...you keep claiming 25s have greater personal responsibility. Why? Because YOU, leading, can't tell them what to do on a personal level, YOU can't keep track of them, YOU can't warn them or berate them individually for mistakes they are making or mistakes they made......and so YOU feel they need to take greater responsibility.

Conversely, Blizzard has stated that, from the many fights by many groups it sees, it is 10s who often have greater personal responsibility. And there are players who will agree with that, and others who will disagree.

One datapoint is my own guild when we downsized from 25 to 10. We easily killed 4 new hc bosses in the first 10 man raid. And it's not because we picked our 10 best players. We couldn't pick our 10 best players because many of them quit, transferred, switched guilds or didn't have the right class geared and available. We ended up with a skill distribution essentially equal to what we had in the 25 man mode, but still progress was an order of magnitude easier.

Not an unusual story. But there are many reasons why such events happen. Maybe the skill level of your group was higher. Maybe the average iLevel of the group was higher. Maybe you got rid of assistant raid leaders who weren't spectacular at their jobs. Maybe the group you had just worked a lot better without Idiot A and Jerk B. Maybe the group just gelled and everything just went right. And so on.

Being blunt, and without any knowledge of your guild, my own impression of you is that you micromanage. You, personally, hold the hands of poor raiders in your 10 man group....you appear resentful that you can't do the same in 25s. You don't come over as someone comfortable with delegation, don't feel comfortable having to trust them, keep wanting to hold the hands of the players they are shepherding. So...when you downsized to a group you were capable of leading by yourself, you also ended up with a group that worked much better together.

Maybe I am wrong

EJL

[Seriss]

Wow, so 10man went from the bastard child to be 10=25 while not even being remotely close anyway (on practically every aspect in raid content apart from the pull!!)

Your response displays a level of stupidity n' ignorance normally only found at blizzard employees when they want to get a point across (Yes, infract me for calling a shovel a shovel), comparing LFR to normal / heroic is as stupid as you can possibly get!

Maybe you should read more of the discussion than just the most recent post?

The point being made was that tuning is what makes raid bosses harder or easier and not the number (25/10) displayed next to your minimap.

It's obvious that you're having a bad day. *pets* Be nice.

[Deleted]

Tuning issue, nothing inherently to do with 25 mans or 10 mans.

We see these tuning issues all the time, sometimes they go for one size, sometimes for the other. There's tons of anecdotal evidence going both ways, including 15 min long posts which could be boiled down to choreography. The 25m zealots want us to believe it is always 25m raiding being treated unfair and they want more candy (that's actually what they want: not quality of life, no, they just want more reward. If WoW isn't rewarding enough there's a sensible option it is called unsub!). But when you then say they should simply nerf 25m to make it easier suddenly they bail out because "the content must remain harder than 10m, lol". Its elitism at its best.

Cause really in the start of this expansion doing Gara Jal undergeared was a huge RNG fest and if one of your two healers was a resto druid then it is a hell to heal with the shadow damage link as well as the unavoidable strikes the boss does (bonus points if your tank is a DK). If you then run with a team of only 11 or 12 raiders because of a tight roster, and no alts becaue that is how casual you play then what can you do. Whereas in 25m the fight is a lot easier to deal with, healing-wise, because of RNG more spread out and more eyes to watch for damage. And Will of the Emperor was also easier 25m because of class stacking and chaining CCs.

Blizzard is fine with tuning issues back and forth either difficulty as long as they go both ways, and I agree with them.

[Deleted]

Wow, so 10man went from the bastard child to be 10=25 while not even being remotely close anyway (on practically every aspect in raid content apart from the pull!!)

Your response displays a level of stupidity n' ignorance normally only found at blizzard employees when they want to get a point across (Yes, infract me for calling a shovel a shovel), comparing LFR to normal / heroic is as stupid as you can possibly get!

But LFR could be set at the HC level, quite easily.

The actual difficulty level of the raid (of any size) is entirely arbitary and entirely at the whim of blizzards design team.

Any argument that 25 mans are "harder" fails as soon as you realise that.

In fact, as i've already suggested, there is a very easy way to incentivise 25 mans - give them the same loot as 10 man, but make them a piece of cake to complete. Make lfr even easier, make 25 man HC difficulty somewhere near the LFR level and leave 10 mans where they are now. Job done. Everyone would be raiding 25 man in no time.

What the 25 man normal/HC raiders want is for the raids they do to stay as unfriendly and undoable as they are now, to retain the same in game difficulty and for millions of quite happy 10 man raiders to all suddenly change their raid size and somehow develop abiolities they don't actually have from nowhere. It's unbelievably narcissitic.

You think that millions of other players must change to make your favoured playstyle workable, even though given the option people ditch that playstyle asap because they think it's turd, just because you want it!

[Deleted]

That hardly makes it seem as if you are comparing raids with similar skill distributions. You certainly aren't trying to see how the game works for 99.99% of the players who actually use the content but aren't raiding at the cutting edge.

No. You simply misunderstood. I meant when playing at the edge of your raid group's performance in fights that matter. I.e., when you're doing progress, not when you're dicking around in farm content. The argument holds regardless of the skill level or distribution of your raid group, you would still progress faster and kill stuff easier in 10 man rather than 25 man.

For example...you keep claiming 25s have greater personal responsibility. Why? Because YOU, leading, can't tell them what to do on a personal level, YOU can't keep track of them, YOU can't warn them or berate them individually for mistakes they are making or mistakes they made......and so YOU feel they need to take greater responsibility.

It's not about ME personally, it's ANYONE. A person of my skill level can track and control 10s with high level of effectiveness but cannot do it for 25s. That means that all other things being equal (in particular the raid's skill distribution) my raid group will make faster progress when fighting 10s. That's the point.

Conversely, Blizzard has stated that, from the many fights by many groups it sees, it is 10s who often have greater personal responsibility. And there are players who will agree with that, and others who will disagree.

I couldn't care less what Blizzard has stated, that's just an argument from authority, and pretty crappy authority given Blizzard's disastrous track record as of late. I've provided actual reasons why personal responsibility is greater in 25 mans.

Not an unusual story. But there are many reasons why such events happen. Maybe the skill level of your group was higher. Maybe the average iLevel of the group was higher. Maybe you got rid of assistant raid leaders who weren't spectacular at their jobs. Maybe the group you had just worked a lot better without Idiot A and Jerk B. Maybe the group just gelled and everything just went right. And so on.

Or maybe I was there and know those things weren't the cause, and maybe you weren't there and have no idea what you're talking about. Lets not forget that you have no experience of raiding at this level.

Being blunt, and without any knowledge of your guild, my own impression of you is that you micromanage. You, personally, hold the hands of poor raiders in your 10 man group....you appear resentful that you can't do the same in 25s. You don't come over as someone comfortable with delegation, don't feel comfortable having to trust them, keep wanting to hold the hands of the players they are shepherding. So...when you downsized to a group you were capable of leading by yourself, you also ended up with a group that worked much better together.

Argument from authority and now ad hominem attacks? Do you actually have any real arguments to make? This is more speculation with zero basis in reality. I ran a successful 25 man for years and killed most 25 man content Blizzard put in the game, and you think I'm not comfortable or capable of delegating? In 10s you can micromanage and it will give you higher performance than delegated leading, it's just one reason why 10s are an easier path to the rewards.

[Deleted]

But LFR could be set at the HC level, quite easily.

The actual difficulty level of the raid (of any size) is entirely arbitary and entirely at the whim of blizzards design team.

Any argument that 25 mans are "harder" fails as soon as you realise that.

In fact, as i've already suggested, there is a very easy way to incentivise 25 mans - give them the same loot as 10 man, but make them a piece of cake to complete. Make lfr even easier, make 25 man HC difficulty somewhere near the LFR level and leave 10 mans where they are now. Job done. Everyone would be raiding 25 man in no time.

What the 25 man normal/HC raiders want is for the raids they do to stay as unfriendly and undoable as they are now, to retain the same in game difficulty and for millions of quite happy 10 man raiders to all suddenly change their raid size and somehow develop abiolities they don't actually have from nowhere. It's unbelievably narcissitic.

You think that millions of other players must change to make your favoured playstyle workable, even though given the option people ditch that playstyle asap because they think it's turd, just because you want it!

Excellent post.

That's exactly what LFR is and also why it is a raid. As easy as you may find it, its nothing more or less than an easy version of 25m Normal.

What 25m N and H raiders need to realize is that they don't have enough influx for different reasons than the difficulty of their content. If they honestly believe 25m are tuned in favor of 10m more often than the other way around they should post their thorough statistical analysis to Blizzard.

Because maybe there are just different reasons 10m is more successful. For example because you feel more connected and closer to each other, and feel more responsible because there's just nobody else to do the job except for you.

Other than that, if 25m downright provided no benefits whatsoever to 25m, then the hardcore raiding guilds still sticking to 25m are stupid: either they are competing with 10m, but 10m provides only benefits so they self nerf (lol, you read it here first) or option B they see 25m as their own league but its an empty league and one entirely decided on by choice (not like platinum league you have to work hard on to join).

[Deleted]

But LFR could be set at the HC level, quite easily.

Yep and nobody would do it unless with a full premade group, because otherwise it would be waiste of time. And that is a reason enough to asume that LFR will be never tuned to have heroic level difficulty the way "heroic level" difficulty is tuned today.

The actual difficulty level of the raid (of any size) is entirely arbitary and entirely at the whim of blizzards design team.

Yes but thats completely irrelevant since we can only judge upon what is implemented.
Blizzard can turn solo mode into the most challenging gamestyle. That doesnt mean that they will, nor does it mean that it will change the past, our present in this case.

Any argument that 25 mans are "harder" fails as soon as you realise that.

Any argument that 25 is not overall harder based on experience ever since the changes were implemented at the begining of cataclysm, is a far fetched and twisted version of the truth, based only on the tuning of few encounters that were inded very hard in 10 man IN COMBAT. Raiding is not only "in combat" though. Even if we are talking about pugs. Time is vital as well and many other factors that are conveniently pushed under the carpet when any 10 man lover wants to make an argument about "difficulty".
To claim that 25s might be tuned to have LFR difficulty tomorrow is a pure speculation, and you cant argue that 25's "are easier" based on such speculation.

In fact, as i've already suggested, there is a very easy way to incentivise 25 mans - give them the same loot as 10 man, but make them a piece of cake to complete. Make lfr even easier, make 25 man HC difficulty somewhere near the LFR level and leave 10 mans where they are now. Job done. Everyone would be raiding 25 man in no time.

Obviously you fail to grasp the difference between "fresh game" and "established game".
Wow is not about to launch tomorrow to talk about the level of difficulty of 25s. It is a game that for more than 4 years 25s were the only end game, and a game that when blizzard changed it raiding activity dropped by over 50%. And no i am not counting LFR as "Raiding".

What the 25 man normal/HC raiders want is for the raids they do to stay as unfriendly and undoable as they are now, to retain the same in game difficulty and for millions of quite happy 10 man raiders to all suddenly change their raid size and somehow develop abiolities they don't actually have from nowhere. It's unbelievably narcissitic.

There are no "millions of happy 10 man raiders". There are roughly 500k raiders left overall, and according to Blizzard 1/3 of the 10 man raiders are not so happy.

You think that millions of other players must change to make your favoured playstyle workable, even though given the option people ditch that playstyle asap because they think it's turd, just because you want it!

Again millions?
Are you mixing 10 man raiders with LFR "raiders" maybe?
Your argument is wrong on the simple math basis, your acusation that followed your argument is turd because your argument is based on faulse data.

I like that the other poster above me found your post "excellent".
Forums, magnificent place really.

[Talen]

No. You simply misunderstood. I meant when playing at the edge of your raid group's performance in fights that matter. I.e., when you're doing progress, not when you're dicking around in farm content. The argument holds regardless of the skill level or distribution of your raid group, you would still progress faster and kill stuff easier in 10 man rather than 25 man.

Then you are now asserting that the content in 10s is easier than 25s. An assertion few others appear to be making so far in MoP, even with blizzards patchy history to date. 10s progress faster because its easier to skew the system, because they are easier to get going, because its easier to replace a no show, because it takes less time to distribute gear, because the organisational burden on the raid leader is lower and so on. Most of these issues come under the generic "logistics' argument, which an already acknowledged issue, while others such as skewing for progression reflect a raiders own desires and wants from a raid.

. That's the point.

And..? Your raid group cannot progress as fast in 25s because you only really work well in 10s. However, other 25 man groups can and do progress much faster. You want Blizzard to engineer a situation where your skills at raid leadership do not hold back the raid group r result in slower progress.

I couldn't care less what Blizzard has stated, that's just an argument from authority, and pretty crappy authority given Blizzard's disastrous track record as of late. I've provided actual reasons why personal responsibility is greater in 25 mans.

Yes, you have. YOU personally cannot hold-the-hand of 24 other players or direct them to the same degree that you do so in your 10 man group.

Or maybe I was there and know those things weren't the cause

Maybe they weren't. But it's always dangerous to extrapolate from just one case study. We don't know the raids, the timing, the raid make up or the inter-player relationships. You do, but that doesn't mean you experience is universal.

Lets not forget that you have no experience of raiding at this level.

Unless you know the name and server of my main, you don't know anything about my raiding history.

Argument from authority and now ad hominem attacks? Do you actually have any real arguments to make? This is more speculation with zero basis in reality. I ran a successful 25 man for years and killed most 25 man content Blizzard put in the game, and you think I'm not comfortable or capable of delegating? In 10s you can micromanage and it will give you higher performance than delegated leading, it's just one reason why 10s are an easier path to the rewards.

You appear to be someone who is fairly good at raid leading, but unhappy with your speed of progress in 25s precisely because you cannot micromanage everyone in the raid. You don't appear to like the loss of efficiency your raid experiences when you personally aren't directing everything. As I said...my impression and, as a result, I'm not really surprised your 10 group does better.

Overall, however, your point that the burden on raid leaders is much greater in 25s even when the raid is balanced to give a similar difficulty and require similar effort from everyone else is one that has been raised before and is one Blizzard is aware of. How to fix it without hitting 10s is the question a lot of people are asking.

EJL

[Travex]

But LFR could be set at the HC level, quite easily.

The actual difficulty level of the raid (of any size) is entirely arbitary and entirely at the whim of blizzards design team.

Any argument that 25 mans are "harder" fails as soon as you realise that.

In fact, as i've already suggested, there is a very easy way to incentivise 25 mans - give them the same loot as 10 man, but make them a piece of cake to complete. Make lfr even easier, make 25 man HC difficulty somewhere near the LFR level and leave 10 mans where they are now. Job done. Everyone would be raiding 25 man in no time.

What the 25 man normal/HC raiders want is for the raids they do to stay as unfriendly and undoable as they are now, to retain the same in game difficulty and for millions of quite happy 10 man raiders to all suddenly change their raid size and somehow develop abiolities they don't actually have from nowhere. It's unbelievably narcissitic.

You think that millions of other players must change to make your favoured playstyle workable, even though given the option people ditch that playstyle asap because they think it's turd, just because you want it!

That's exactly what LFR is and also why it is a raid. As easy as you may find it, its nothing more or less than an easy version of 25m Normal.

What 25m N and H raiders need to realize is that they don't have enough influx for different reasons than the difficulty of their content. If they honestly believe 25m are tuned in favor of 10m more often than the other way around they should post their thorough statistical analysis to Blizzard.

maybe there are just different reasons 10m is more successful. For example because you feel more connected and closer to each other, and feel more responsible because there's just nobody else to do the job except for you.

Other than that, if 25m downright provided no benefits whatsoever to 25m, then the hardcore raiding guilds still sticking to 25m are stupid: either they are competing with 10m, but 10m provides only benefits so they self nerf (lol, you read it here first) or option B they see 25m as their own league but its an empty league and one entirely decided on by choice (not like platinum league you have to work hard on to join).

lol? ^Mega troll posts.

LFR is to 25m-N as Water is to Syrup. Both share the phase but have completely different flavors and viscosities.
One could say the same thing about 10m vs 25m. I'm sorry to rain on your butthurt post but that's just the way it is, was, and always will be. The logistics of running and maintaining a 25m in addition to the grand majority of fights for this formats (not all, mind you) are more difficult (tuned, in addition to implicitly as per organizing 25 people inside an encounter).

25's 'feel more epic' simply because of the number of people you utilize for the same task. It makes the experience grander, if only by that you share it with a greater number of people. Typically the club scene one aims to attend is one with a very large number of people, for a number of socio-psychological reasons that are mostly irrelevant to this post. One does not typically grab a laptop, throw on his or her iPod and dance in the same venue with 10 people, that just isn't a party, sorry Did the war effort and opening of the AQ gates or opening of the Wrathgate feel more or less epic than a 10m raid or a 5m dungeon?

You say that 25m's are 'stupid' "if 25m downright provided no benefits whatsoever to 25m". I'm not entirely sure what you are attempting to convey with this sentence but I will attempt to refute this non-sense regardless. 25m's currently have only one quantitative advantage over 10m's and that is 20% more loot (2/10 vs 6/25). This Thunderforged % increase I doubt will even be a 20% discrepancy. I also don't believe these values were or will ever be anyone's tipping point in raiding 25's over 10's. So that being said one could, and you do, argue that there is "no benefits whatsoever to 25m". If that is the case why so vehemently argue that 25's should just be made to die out?

Moving on, you say that 25's are either competing with 10's or they are in a "'non-existent' league of their own. I can only speak for myself but I personally look at a few ranks, our server rank, our US rank, our US 25's rank. When I play I am only in competition with myself, can I beat my top dps here, can I use my tanking cooldowns more efficiently and with better timing this attempt, has my awareness and understanding of this fight improved to the point where I can start calling a handful of things out and be more assertive in the maneuvering of fellow raid members, etc. When all that is done and we reflect on rank I do typically take the 25's ranking more seriously than the overall for a couple reasons. 1) The average 25s raider is better than the average 10's raider. This is pretty much a fact. That is not to say that 10's does not have fantastic players, better than myself, for they certainly do. 2) 25's have the same exact logistical issues and are challenging themselves against the same content we do as a 25's and thus are a more apt comparison of where we stand in the rankings.

Your argument just seems riddled with gaping holes and inconsistencies. Fortunately there are enough people who can see the truth and simply be objective about it: People want to play 10m, people want to play 25, they should be allowed to choose and do whichever they like without being hindered at every corner by logistical issues. Unfortunately, and this is the crux of the OP, there are a great number of issues hindering people who would choose to raid 25m were it not such a headache to do/maintain, and this is what we and Blizzard are seeking a solution to.

[Fenixdown]

Unfortunately, and this is the crux of the OP, there are a great number of issues hindering people who would choose to raid 25m were it not such a headache to do/maintain, and this is what we and Blizzard are seeking a solution to.

I'd like to take this and expand upon it with my very recent experience, just to show people that yes, there is an issue.

The guild I was just recently a raiding member of decided to make the switch from 10-man to 25-man. This switch was made in mid November. Before this change, they were 14/16 normal modes with their first kill being on October 3rd. From the point of making the switch up until last week, they had gone from 0/16 25-man to 5/16 heroic. This guild raided three nights per week. So, based on averages, they had an average of one progression kill every 3 days in 10-man and every three days in 25-man, because there were three weeks of not raiding 25-man content due to the holidays. That is simply going by the week in it's entirety, though the statistical analysis would be identical if factoring in the days not raided upon. So, the progression was nearly identical.

However, because the more challenging boss encounters on heroic require coordination, and that is drastically easier to do on 10-man than on 25-man, they simply made the decision to tell 15 members of their raid team that they would have to find greener pastures elsewhere and reverted to being a 10-man guild. Now, here's where I'm going to make my points.

This was a guild that only raided three days a week. So, they weren't hardcore by any means. However, due to that fact, and the fact that any player can simply get the same rewards, titles, and accomplishments within the game from 10-man as one can from 25-man, the pool of recruitment was slimmer than your much more hardcore guilds. Guild styles attract certain types of players. Less raiding requirements in your schedule lead to a more casual player attraction. However, simply put, you are drastically less likely to progress through heroic mode content as a casual 25-man guild than as a casual 10-man guild.

Now, you can take that as me saying that 10-man is easier, and I am and it is. You can try to feed me the lines of "less battle resses" and "more personal responsibility", and all of those are frankly bogus. The fights we were working on, Garalon and Spirit Kings, require more personal responsibility per individual in 25-man than in 10-man. With five dead, we were 30 seconds off of enrage and with the final Spirit King still at full health. Tell me we didn't need those five people for that encounter alive. Garalon we had only one person dead and hit enrage. Tell me the personal responsibility there was lower.

This guild will likely kill these two encounters on 10-man because, in fact, they require less personal responsibilities and not more. If it were the opposite, then 25-man would always be the more attractive raiding design. However, simply tooting that horn just to make your format seem equally, or more, important doesn't make it a truth. This is why more and more guilds, from Paragon to the guild I am having to leave to find a new place to raid that hopefully will not make the same decision as they did, are making the change to 10-man from 25. It's not because they want to. It's not because it's more personal challenge. Simply put, it's easier. There's no other rhyme or reason for it. It's easier to maintain, easier to control, and easier to coordinate and clear. On HEROIC level, where mechanics become far more lethal.

Now, I don't know about any of you, but if something is clearly top to bottom easier, from logistical and executable standpoints, then why is something that is harder on all fronts giving equal reward? If you play a game with multiple difficulty settings, do you expect the same pat on the back for a job well done from the game's design team for accepting, and accomplishing, greater challenge? No. So why is it that this is an acceptable system?

I will say that the WotLK system was not without flaws. Simply put, the gear should have been identical design. However, that said, the gear should have still been a lower item level. The content was, and still is, designed to be less challenging because you will have less overall gear to simply "outmuscle" it. But the longer the system stays as is, where the reward is equal but the difficulty is clearly lower on all fronts in one format over another, the longer there are people such as myself left without a guild and contemplating why exactly they pay this company a monthly subscription fee to design a raid style that they greatly enjoy, but that does not get the support it justifiably deserves, so therefore sees drastically less and less overall opportunity to be accessible.

[Deleted]

Now, I don't know about any of you, but if something is clearly top to bottom easier, from logistical and executable standpoints, then why is something that is harder on all fronts giving equal reward? If you play a game with multiple difficulty settings, do you expect the same pat on the back for a job well done from the game's design team for accepting, and accomplishing, greater challenge? No. So why is it that this is an acceptable system?

.

Tuning is a design decision from blizzard. They could just make all 25 mans cakewalks (in fact they have made LFRs and they are the most popular raid in wows history).

And, once again - you need to measure 25 man with 3 ten mans to make the comparison accurately. It's not like your 15 kicked raiders stopped playing, they went 10 man as well.

[Deleted]

Tuning is a design decision from blizzard. They could just make all 25 mans cakewalks (in fact they have made LFRs and they are the most popular raid in wows history).

And, once again - you need to measure 25 man with 3 ten mans to make the comparison accurately. It's not like your 15 kicked raiders stopped playing, they went 10 man as well.

How the hell do you know if they didn't stop playing???

[Deleted]

How the hell do you know if they didn't stop playing???

Number of raiders over time shows that they haven't (on average)

It really is true that most raiders only care about advancing their characters - aka loot. 10 man, 5 man, 25 man, 40 man, they aren't arsed, they just want their toon to get stronger. Blizzard could make single player experiences that are brutally tuned if they wanted. Difficulty is a design decision on the part of blizzard - and I can't help but notice it's the one variable the "give 25 man better loot and make people raid 25 man because I want them to" crowd don't want to look at.

LFR is 25 man. LFR is really popular. Jobs already done guys.

[Deleted]

Number of raiders over time shows that they haven't (on average)

It really is true that most raiders only care about advancing their characters - aka loot. 10 man, 5 man, 25 man, 40 man, they aren't arsed, they just want their toon to get stronger. Blizzard could make single player experiences that are brutally tuned if they wanted. Difficulty is a design decision on the part of blizzard - and I can't help but notice it's the one variable the "give 25 man better loot and make people raid 25 man because I want them to" crowd don't want to look at.

LFR is 25 man. LFR is really popular. Jobs already done guys.

Well please show me the numbers that show that normal and heroic mode raiders are steady, because last i looked they where declining. And since you said 10 man...

[Deleted]

Well please show me the numbers that show that normal and heroic mode raiders are steady, because last i looked they where declining. And since you said 10 man...

I said total number of raiders.

Any decline has to be shown as a %age of the total population to be meaningful - and if the population is decling then we'd expect to see a decline in total raiders. Is the total raiding population as a %age up or down since mop launched?

[Deleted]

No you said quite specifically that the other people who where cut in fenixdowns guild now raided 10 man and that they didn't quit. And I asked how the hell do you know that?
to which you answered that number of raiders over time on average shows that they haven't stopped playing. Which wasn't the answer for the question of how do you know if they stopped playing?
and definetly wasn't the answer for a subquestion of how do you know that they raid 10 man now?

Is the number of LFR "raiders" rising with mop is it???

And i specifically said the numbers of users of normal and heroic mode i do not care about the users of lfr...