Blizzards 25 man mistake.

[Kryos]

If you want people to enjoy and prefer 25 mans you should make the organisation easier with good build-in raid management tools. Bribing them with items/mounts is the wrong way. Only really desperate raiders will fall for these cheap tricks. Most will stay 10 man because it's a hassle free easy environment that needs only a minimal ammount of management.

[Deleted]

the more i think about this problem the more I come back to just scrap dual sizes and go to a single size raid (15man please)

[Szemere]

Also, server merges would be great, its hard to keep a 25man guild active on dying servers. It forces you into 10mans most of all reasons imo.

This basically. Why is it hard to get 25mans going? Because if your server is freaking dead, it's gonna be hard to get anything done, and switching to 10man instantly upgrades your team as it's impossible to find 25 people of the same skill on a single server, if this server is freaking dead.

Not saying 25mans are all fine and shit, but unless you can attract people from cross-realm, your 25man guild cant be on a dead server or you'll be forced to switch. And dead servers are stupidly common now. Ever since the peak of 12M active subscribers, the amount of players has only dropped, and the amount of servers only increased.

[phyx]

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).

I am not sure if you are troll baiting or just being serious.

Incredibly narcisstic is to expect same loot with less effort and be incredibly self-entitled. It has proven troughout the history people will always take the easy way out.

[gamingmuscle]

hahahaha brilliant! I just killed my 100 EUR worth keyboard with cola. Thanks a lot, it was worth it!! Here it reads

It must be magick.

Since RNG is, in your words "completely predictable" we're going to play a live game on the forum, and you have the honour to be invited in this game! Watch, you will tell me a number between 1 and 100 and then I will tell you if you guessed it correct. I will use this random number generator. Good luck!!

Same Wiki article.

Several computational methods for random number generation exist, but often fall short of the goal of true randomness — though they may meet, with varying success, some of the statistical tests for randomness intended to measure how unpredictable their results are (that is, to what degree their patterns are discernible).

Heck you random.org even explains that computer RNGs are pseudo random.

[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?

Oh i've no idea, I was just taking it as a generalised principle.

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???

Oh, no clue on the specifics of his ex guildies. Not really important, is it. What matters is the trend - and i'll be right about that.

---------- Post added 2013-02-07 at 05:49 PM ----------

I am not sure if you are troll baiting or just being serious.

Incredibly narcisstic is to expect same loot with less effort and be incredibly self-entitled. It has proven troughout the history people will always take the easy way out.

Why not just make it less effort to run 25 mans. HC level loot for running LFR< no more tuned raids for 25 man and that's it, all sorted. 25 man raids everywhere!

[Deleted]

Then you are now asserting that the content in 10s is easier than 25s.

No. I explicitly stated that I make no such assumption.

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.

Now you're just making stuff up. Please provide five examples of these other groups that can progress much faster 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.

I don't know if you've noticed this, but you are completely incapable of comprehending abstract ideas. Yes I used ME as an example to make it more concrete, however, the argument is not limited to ME. No matter what your skill level is, you will always be able to do better in 10 mans than in 25 mans because there will always be fewer people left outside of your attention in 25 man (unless you can handhold 24 other people, which I have yet to meet a person that can).

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.

I'm not extrapolating. How many cases of a 25 man scaling down to 10 man do you know where they went back in progress rather than leaping ahead? Because I don't know any, yet I saw it happen to every single 25 man guild on my realm. So whatever the causes are, they are there, making 10 mans faster and easier to progress in.

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

I seem to recall that a while back you were still including your character in your signature, I wonder why you stopped...

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.

You appear to be someone that can neither read and comprehend simple English nor do basic reasoning. I already told you that my 25 man cleared almost all the content in the game and that I wasn't micromanaging in any way. Given that your "impression" about this was 100% wrong, you might want to reconsider what other things you are 100% wrong about.

Let me try to put this in simple terms for you: I don't like to micromanage, however, I can micromanage. Micromanaging provides faster progress because you can prevent wipes and fix issues for "weaker" players. It's another form of leadership which happens to be possible in 10 mans but not in 25 mans, and just another issue that means you can progress faster and easier in 10 mans.

[MrHappy]

i think the problem is that people seem to think that 10's are easier than 25's in respect to the Raids' mechanics. There are some fights today that are much simpler in 25 than in 10 and vice versa. Tbh i think raids are as close to balanced for either sides as they were ever since wrath.

Last few weeks when we were lacking 4 people for our heroic progression as a 25man guild we just did not raid. If this keeps up I will look for another guild and it will probaly a 10man one but not because I want to ...it is just more reliable that 10 people show up to raid vs 25. Yes we can recruit/spend the night wiping teaching the fight to new comers. Unfortunately our officers do not want that. That maybe the down fall of my guild (or at least a reduction in the rate of progress). I raided both 10's and 25's for this current teir and i cannot say that 25's are significantly harder to do. Yes there are more people you need to watch out for...how ever there are certain fights that are much simpler on 25 vs 10. Elegon, Tsulong, Windlord, that troll boss in MVS (garajal or w/e his name is) are examples of that.

[Deleted]

[...]

Stone Guards -> Easier on 25m.
Gara Jal -> Easier on 25m.
Will of the Emperor -> Easier on 25m (before Ring of Frost nerf which required 6 level 90 mages; Good luck with that in 10m!).

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.

5 people dead is 20% of your raid team. A 10m wouldn't have killed it either with 2 DPS dead. You also had 3 people already ressed, so (lacking the context I assume) 8 people failed.

Garalon we had only one person dead and hit enrage.

Garalon Normal pre-nerf was a gear check, and still is, even on 10m. We only raided twice a week and first day killed it, world 150 kill on it. This was into enrage, with most wipes in enrage!

This guild will likely kill these two encounters on 10-man because, in fact, they require less personal responsibilities and not more.

Here's a trick a guild on my realm managed to do for 3 patches (and idiots fell for it every time): We're recruiting, going 25m! Then they hit a tough spot like Spine and they go 10m again. But here's the twist: their main raiders all got gear from the 25m runs, and they kicked out the worst ones. This makes 10m easier in 2 ways: more/better gear, and better players. Trick sounds familiar?

You talk about Paragon. Paragon couldn't find enough Finnish players because many people quit WoW.

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?

You haven't proven at all, all you did was an anecdotal experience. If you played Gara Jal 10m H pre-nerf without being overgeared you'd know it was a huge RNGfest and if you had certain classes which is more of a problem in 10m then it was nearly impossible. It is much easier to heal it on 25m.

If there were no advantages running 25m people everyone would switch to 10m, but that isn't happening because there are advantages running 25m. We've discussed these throughout the thread. If you believe 25m is always easier than 10m and you prefer the according to youmore difficult format then either live with that, or ask Blizzard to nerf 25m.

---------- Post added 2013-02-07 at 07:46 PM ----------

Same Wiki article.

Heck you random.org even explains that computer RNGs are pseudo random.

I know what PRNG is. And I also know that it doesn't mean "Matoshi already got the debuff last wipe, so lets skip them this try." PRNG is meant to emulate random closely. The only difference is that it uses its own random data to generate new, to save CPU power.

I am not sure if you are troll baiting or just being serious.

If you think someone is trolling you should report them. Calling someone a troll isn't allowed on these forums. You're entirely free to use the ignore function if you prefer.

---------- Post added 2013-02-07 at 07:50 PM ----------

Let me try to put this in simple terms for you: I don't like to micromanage, however, I can micromanage. Micromanaging provides faster progress because you can prevent wipes and fix issues for "weaker" players. It's another form of leadership which happens to be possible in 10 mans but not in 25 mans, and just another issue that means you can progress faster and easier in 10 mans.

You can microamanage in 25m, but not alone. You need to delegate that. In in 10m you need to communicate (as part of delegation) as well. If you want to be a dictator however you'll be better off in 10m because playing 10 sockpuppets are easier to manage than 25m. That however does not mean you cannot microamanage 25m: you just need about 2 more persons to help you.

---------- Post added 2013-02-07 at 07:58 PM ----------

And you think the RNG used in WoW is a true RNG like random.org? If you're going to act so smug, you really should know what you're talking about.

Yeah why, you got some documented proof they use /dev/urandom instead of /dev/random? Or when it detects the player is Martoshi it threats them as a special snowflake? Give me a break. Yes, random is random. If you have 10 players who can get a debuff and nobody is excluded then statistical analysis will prove a roughly 10% average chance the player gets the debuff, and in 25m it is average 4%. But it doesn't work like "poor Martoshi got the debuff twice last week, so Martoshi won't get it this week." Which is also why all anecdotal evidence based on RNG has to be taken with a grain of salt. Like mister "can't get my bow for 12 weeks" a few pages back.

[Fenixdown]

lola, this is somewhat off topic obviously, but Stone Guard 25 is basically Halfus heroic. Stone Guard 10 is Halfus normal. Both are easy, but you'd be fooling yourself to think that 10-man is harder considering you're guaranteed to remove one mechanic every week. As far as Will goes, the RoF usage simply proves that Will 25 is harder. They're not nerfing spells for 10-man use, now are they (well, maybe Discipline priest, but that's another story entirely). I will not argue on Gara'jal. It is definitely more challenging on 10-man.

I don't know how you judge difficulty, but I'm guessing it's simply based off of your clear "10-man only" biases and not on actual logic. I won't state that some fights aren't harder on 10-man, they are. Usually the "gear checks" (ala Garalon). However, there are nine encounters that require spacing for a mechanic and situational awareness, minimum. Those nine are definitely more challenging on 25-man. As long as encounters continue to be designed in that manner (which they need to be, to be honest, in order to provide challenge to raiders in today's gaming world, and I am not complaining about that), then 25's will, more often than not, be more difficult overall.

To answer Injun, my story was what just happened yesterday. Of those 15, none are currently raiding. So, yes, you are currently down 15 raiders in the community, and I would not at all be surprised if some of them a. quit raiding or b. quit the game entirely (as stated, even I'm beginning to contemplate that decision, but this is not the time or place for such a discussion).

To answer the poster that I cannot recall the name of in regards to the "guild strategy", I have to wonder if you may be right on your assessment. I have seen other guilds do this in the past, as well. Which, that being the case, then doesn't that simply prove yet again that 25's are more complex logistically and mechanically and prove that they need increased support in some fashion to be deemed a viable option to the masses?

As to people who continue to use the words "force people to do 25's", no. That's not what we want as 25-man raiders. We want people to look at both options and decide what is more important to them. Right now, they don't have to. 10-man gains all of the benefits of 25's with none of the drawbacks. How is that even a choice?

[Travex]

lola, this is somewhat off topic obviously, but Stone Guard 25 is basically Halfus heroic. Stone Guard 10 is Halfus normal. Both are easy, but you'd be fooling yourself to think that 10-man is harder considering you're guaranteed to remove one mechanic every week. As far as Will goes, the RoF usage simply proves that Will 25 is harder. They're not nerfing spells for 10-man use, now are they (well, maybe Discipline priest, but that's another story entirely). I will not argue on Gara'jal. It is definitely more challenging on 10-man.

I don't know how you judge difficulty, but I'm guessing it's simply based off of your clear "10-man only" biases and not on actual logic. I won't state that some fights aren't harder on 10-man, they are. Usually the "gear checks" (ala Garalon). However, there are nine encounters that require spacing for a mechanic and situational awareness, minimum. Those nine are definitely more challenging on 25-man. As long as encounters continue to be designed in that manner (which they need to be, to be honest, in order to provide challenge to raiders in today's gaming world, and I am not complaining about that), then 25's will, more often than not, be more difficult overall.

To answer Injun, my story was what just happened yesterday. Of those 15, none are currently raiding. So, yes, you are currently down 15 raiders in the community, and I would not at all be surprised if some of them a. quit raiding or b. quit the game entirely (as stated, even I'm beginning to contemplate that decision, but this is not the time or place for such a discussion).

To answer the poster that I cannot recall the name of in regards to the "guild strategy", I have to wonder if you may be right on your assessment. I have seen other guilds do this in the past, as well. Which, that being the case, then doesn't that simply prove yet again that 25's are more complex logistically and mechanically and prove that they need increased support in some fashion to be deemed a viable option to the masses?

As to people who continue to use the words "force people to do 25's", no. That's not what we want as 25-man raiders. We want people to look at both options and decide what is more important to them. Right now, they don't have to. 10-man gains all of the benefits of 25's with none of the drawbacks. How is that even a choice?

^ What she said

[jax]

I don't know how you judge difficulty, but I'm guessing it's simply based off of your clear "10-man only" biases and not on actual logic.

You have hit the nail on the head here when it comes to Lola, if it doesnt match up with his specific experience in game then it isnt real.
He lives in some fantasy land where he thinks that all 12 million peoples experience with the game is the same as his. I spent 3 pages trying to get him to understand that his perception and premise of how things are isnt the only idea that is real... I failed and for my trouble was called a liar and cheat...

Goodluck trying to open his eyes to a reality that is not based on his very narrow minded view.

[Deleted]

To answer Injun, my story was what just happened yesterday. Of those 15, none are currently raiding. So, yes, you are currently down 15 raiders in the community, and I would not at all be surprised if some of them a. quit raiding or b. quit the game entirely (as stated, even I'm beginning to contemplate that decision, but this is not the time or place for such a discussion).

Doubt that's typical, and not really important to the point I was making.

Most raiders have moved comfortably from 25's to 10's because it's the path of least resistance - that's why this thread exists, after all. Some want them to move uncomfortably back to 25's from 10's. It's a big thing to justify, given the average player just wants his loot with the least effort possible. Adding effort doesn't seem to serve that desire.

[Deleted]

Doubt that's typical, and not really important to the point I was making.

Most raiders have moved comfortably from 25's to 10's because it's the path of least resistance - that's why this thread exists, after all. Some want them to move uncomfortably back to 25's from 10's. It's a big thing to justify, given the average player just wants his loot with the least effort possible. Adding effort doesn't seem to serve that desire.

Unfortunatly having seen a lot of 25 man guilds dying on my own server i can say that it is typical, that a lot of the raiders just stop raiding normal/heroic and a lot also stop playing at all. The community they where in died and they decided to move on. Which from a real life perspective is for the best.

But heck when the total normal/heroic raiding population hits 300k maybe blizz will just kill of 10 and 25, and the only thing left standing will be LFR. Heck LFR is free beer, maybe it will just be better when all raiding guilds just die out.

[MoanaLisa]

the more i think about this problem the more I come back to just scrap dual sizes and go to a single size raid (15man please)

This has been brought up several times and in an ideal world, I would 100% totally agree with you. It still may happen someday but it will require a long period of preparation for it to happen. You don't just ask every raiding guild in the world to essentially destroy themselves unless you have an excellent reason. I'm not sure that an imbalance between 10/25 is enough of a reason.

[Deleted]

This has been brought up several times and in an ideal world, I would 100% totally agree with you. It still may happen someday but it will require a long period of preparation for it to happen. You don't just ask every raiding guild in the world to essentially destroy themselves unless you have an excellent reason. I'm not sure that an imbalance between 10/25 is enough of a reason.

If it was imbalance only m8, while raiding was thriving i would be with you on this one.
But look at the numbers of people raiding reaching a limit down as we speak, they have never been that low since the time of TBC regarding end game tier.

Also regarding 10 mans, thew upsize is not anything dramatic. Hell we re talking for an extra dungeon group. Blizzard is making it sound like it is a similar feat with climbing mount everest.

Lastly if a lot of people didnt genuinely like the idea, it wouldnt come up again and again and again. Blizzard turned down the idea 4 times by now officially. Still people are coming back with it.
I agree with you that in order to implement such a change you need to give people an adgustement period. Ideally it should be placed right after clearing final tier of an expansion on the anouncement list for the next one. Me personally i would be delighted if they were to anounce that we re going to 15 man tomorrow and from the current tier already. Pitty that raiding lost another expansion after Cataclysm failure because blizzard was not bold enough to propose something fresh and different.

Only further decline there will be out of more 10vs25 and i honestly hope next expansion wont be too late for raiding as now it is too late for 25s.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

25-mans are dying and there's nothing Blizz can do about it.

As they said, it's more work, and will never be more rewarding without making it mandatory for guilds to do.

Meanwhile, the overall pool of raiders is shrinking, no doubt about that. Shrinking at a faster rate than the game population is shrinking.


Simply put, more people would rather play WoW as a solo RPG than as an MMORPG these days.

[MoanaLisa]

I agree with you that in order to implement such a change you need to give people an adgustement period. Ideally it should be placed right after clearing final tier of an expansion on the anouncement list for the next one.

Well, once they actually decide, the sooner the better. I actually think that guilds and raiders aren't quite so fragile as everyone believes or that even that I've implied but something like six-to-twelve months to say "This will happen and you should be ready for it and start thinking about your plans" will go a long way toward making what would be a very difficult thing a bit more palatable. Then for the most part guilds could just let the natural forces of people coming and going allow them to downsize if necessary or recruit with time to plan. A 15-man raid in the final patch before a new expansion--not trivial but not earth-shattering in difficulty or importance--wouldn't be a terrible idea either.

Given circumstances like that it might work but no one should be kidding anyone that it wouldn't be a difficult thing, cause a lot of grief, etc. The fact is that 15-man raids would be more work to do than 10's. Not as much as 25s of course but more nonetheless. There's no guarantee that betting everything on a 15-man raid size would work out which is why I said earlier that they need a damn good reason to do it. The current situation, which might be amenable to tweaks here and there and gradual pushes, may not be serious enough to warrant such a decision.

If they do it, they should do it clean though and not provide all 3 sizes as a transition. Just do the thing and get past it if that's what they think they need to do.

[Deleted]

This has been brought up several times and in an ideal world, I would 100% totally agree with you. It still may happen someday but it will require a long period of preparation for it to happen. You don't just ask every raiding guild in the world to essentially destroy themselves unless you have an excellent reason. I'm not sure that an imbalance between 10/25 is enough of a reason.

You're being a bit dramatic. In TBC every guild had to upsize from 10 to 25 during progress. Guilds come an go all the time, it's not like the current 10 mans have long histories behind them like many of the 25 man guilds did that Blizzard had no problem killing.

While standardizing on one size is an improvement, I'm not sure it will fix WoW. Nor am I sure if Blizzard is really interested in fixing WoW rather than just milking it with minimal effort and risk until Titan.

In an ideal world every raid size would get their own raids, essentially taking the TBC model and tweaking it to allow "parallel" progress for both 10 and 25 man guilds in different raid instances. But honestly, the game is too old, Blizzard is not what they used to be, and the playerbase has already gotten used to the farmville style WoW to go back to more meaningful raiding experience.

[Deleted]

Well, once they actually decide, the sooner the better. I actually think that guilds and raiders aren't quite so fragile as everyone believes or that even that I've implied but something like six-to-twelve months to say "This will happen and you should be ready for it and start thinking about your plans" will go a long way toward making what would be a very difficult thing a bit more palatable. Then for the most part guilds could just let the natural forces of people coming and going allow them to downsize if necessary or recruit with time to plan. A 15-man raid in the final patch before a new expansion--not trivial but not earth-shattering in difficulty or importance--wouldn't be a terrible idea either.

Given circumstances like that it might work but no one should be kidding anyone that it wouldn't be a difficult thing, cause a lot of grief, etc. The fact is that 15-man raids would be more work to do than 10's. Not as much as 25s of course but more nonetheless. There's no guarantee that betting everything on a 15-man raid size would work out which is why I said earlier that they need a damn good reason to do it. The current situation, which might be amenable to tweaks here and there and gradual pushes, may not be serious enough to warrant such a decision.

If they do it, they should do it clean though and not provide all 3 sizes as a transition. Just do the thing and get past it if that's what they think they need to do.

I liked the bolded part.
I happen to believe very much into few things about 10 man as a rule of thumbs.

1) They need to be more in order to accomodate the same raiders doing prior to the chanfes 25. They arent. As a result the raiders are excluded even if the want to raid.
a) You need new officers. No more than one per team is needed, but old 25 ppl officers will stick together even if a downsize happens.
b) You need 12% of the playerbase to swap to tanks.
2) They are not hard enough to create that make the creators of newly formed 10 mans not to be attached to them and motivated to make it work.

Really 10 man is limiting, with wow terms when it comes to raiding.

On the other hand 25s now are even more of a hassle than they used to be even.
In the current model it is a feat to survive even!
To hope for changes while 10 man raiding is dominating wow is the least i can say futile, unless Blizzard didnt learn from their stupid mistake with Cataclysm Changes and wants to repeat it.

One look to the glorious top 40 guilds in ICC 25.

Top 4 stopped raiding or stopped being 25.
Together with them, are not around for various reasons (as 25 to say the least)
no 8,9,12,16,17,19,23,24,25,27,28,29,32,34,38,39,40

So with 21/40 world top guilds folded or downsized what one can claim anymore?...

15 people is an excellent size for many reasons that have been brought up to this site many times.

1) Can secure level playing field to progression oriented players.
2) Can be accessible enough for the more casual players while,
3) Require enough involvement from the officers side to "connect" with their guild and not to let it rott at the first obstacle
4) Freeing resources from balancing with oportunity to funnel more resources into quality
5) Raid design with one size in mind. Need to bring back the old burried Karazhan Memory designed for 10? SSC for 25 maybe?
6) Make up for a less restrictive set up, with the potential all classes to be represented
7) Make loot issues for 10 man with RnG--->dis less apparent
8) Feel more epic without being chaotic
9) Brings people together, rather than discriminating them into "10" and "25" ppl raiders.
10) And my favorite, puts MMO Champ "Raids and Dungeons" forum out of business, since half of the threads here are 10vs25 :P (joking)

In the end of the day only that blizzard statement "feels like a punishment to all" remains. A statement as faulse as their previous ones regarding the current model when they applied the changes. History has proven who was right and who was wrong.