Where have all the Raiders Gone?

[lockedout]

It also doesn't hurt that the mechanics themselves aren't always clear or explicit or even being explained in a thorough manner. I never thought I would need 6 stacks to get through an LFR boss but Durumu is the worst.

In my opinion mechanics (especially lfr mechanics) should be intuitive enough that a dungeon journal isn't necessary.

Durumu?

When that wing of LFR first dropped no one in my lfr and I mean not 1 person besides my self killed the boss in regular or knew any mechanics.
I explained the fight to the tanks and dps, marked my self with a star for ranged to follow in maze.
We 2 shot the fight.

I do agree with other posters here that some mechanics are not exactly explained in the best manner like dark animus but once you know whats going to happen they aren't hard. I remember them saying that this tier in regular as long as you didn't wipe to mechanics they fights would be easy. For the most part I agree. There a re a few DPS checks like Iron qon but all in all I don't think it's overtuned.

I will throw my 2 cents in and agree with others that 25 is much easier then 10. Just my opinion and I raid currently in both brackets. 3/13 HM 25 and 11/12 NM 10 man.

[araine]

For a very long time, any time there's a discussion of subscriptions and why they're dropping the last couple of years, the forums here and at Blizzard have been full of "The game is dumbed down and that's why people are leaving." The corollary of that of course is that "If they made the game more difficult, people would return and it would be all OK again." Couple of points about that:

1. The first six months of Cataclysm should have put the notion to rest that making the game more difficult again would bring people back. After too long of running the easily over-geared Wrath heroics, the jump up to Cataclysm heroics was nothing short of a catastrophe from a business point of view. The player exodus started early on, during one of the better raiding tiers in recent memory (T11), and it took LFR and the AP to pretty much get the bleeding back to manageable.

2. The advent of LFR and it's subsequent popularity along with increasing the difficulty of normals a bit in MoP has provided further evidence that more difficulty as the main thrust of the game is a good way to kill it off right away. High difficulty has an audience in WoW but it's always been a niche audience in the past, in the present and certainly for the future. WoW was the casual version of EQ when it came out and the myth that WoW was ever terribly difficult is just that: a myth. It was time-consuming and grindy but time-consuming =/= difficult.

It's counter-intuitive that you increase the popularity of a mass-market MMO by ignoring the huge majority of your customers and catering to the niche portion of your audience instead. In fact, it's wrong for this business and just about any other business you can think of. Blizzard has apparently learned this lesson well.

Lastly a comment about accomplishment: There's been considerable comment in this thread and elsewhere about how LFR is so easy that when you down bosses you don't feel any sense of accomplishment. Let me propose that the same audience that I've been writing about above is not overly interested in stress-filled hours of frustration, drama and wiping on raid bosses only to feel a huge sense of accomplishment when the boss goes down for the first time. Does it feel great when that happens? Of course it does. But for most people it's likely not the primary reason they play the game. There is a lot of satisfaction to be had in getting that Loremaster achievement, finishing that quest line, getting your reputation to the point where you can get that mount you've had your eye on for a few weeks or any of the literally thousands of other smaller moments of accomplishing something that are available in the game.

If high difficulty was the solution we should have seen a massive increase in subs in the first 6-10 months of cata instead a mass exodus started. Sure there is a segment that would love to have encounters so tightly tuned that only 0.01% of the raids can get past them ( the 0.01% group themself and the wannabes that think they are better than they actually are) One major problem with this group is that they are very vocal and blizzard wasnt able to keep the guard up against them back in Cata And as a result we saw mass exodus of subs starting to kick in.

And where have all the raiders gone question? We are still out there. But what have happened to the game in the last couple years is if you arent top end you are at the no end and guilds are getting destroyed at alarming rates unless they are top end. All it takes for longterm guilds to start crashing and burning is a couple weeks of wipes and the drama and guild collapse is soon there. Seen many guilds in the 1000-4000 world ranked bracket collapse frequently due to wipe issues creating drama.

[lockedout]

And you are wrong. Simple as that. I am done argueing because nothing anyone says will make you see differently.

Why is he wrong and you are right?

Some fights are easier in 10 and some easier in 25. In my opinion there are more fights that become easier in 25 due to more variables IE battle res and raid CD's.

[WskyDK]

I'm not trying to convince you of that or anything similar. But if you have bossmods screaming at you for 10 different things, then you haven't understood the mechanics or the point of bossmods. I have 2-3 bars up at any time at most. And the actual alerts on screen are limited similarily. Of course, if you love being overwhelmed by the number of mechanics in one fight, I suggest turning everything in the bossmod on. But I prefer to turn everything off that doesn't concern me as a melee. I'm always surprised how little actually is of interest to me.

But go ahead, cry some more about too many mechanics. I sympathise with you. Truly.

Edit: Oh, if you play a DK - as your name suggests - please don't tell me the rotation is complex.

---------- Post added 2013-04-08 at 10:46 AM ----------

So you're saying that you don't care about mechanics because they don't all apply to you?
They affect someone in your raid group. I understand bossmods shouldn't be set up for every ability the boss has (and mine aren't) but we're not discussing how you or I play the game, we're talking about why the raider population is in decline. Setting up bossmods for every encounter grows tiresome.

I do play a DK, and if you'd have paid even a little bit of attention, you would have seen my sig in which my Blood Dk is in. My comment about rotations wasn't in reference to myself, it was a general statement. I can see how it might have been confusing though when I started talking about me in there

[Glorious Leader]

And you are wrong. Simple as that. I am done argueing because nothing anyone says will make you see differently.

Right back at ya. I'm sure their are some MECHANICS that favor 10 mans. I don't think fights overall currently favor 10 mans. That's it.

[Freia]

Why is he wrong and you are right?

Some fights are easier in 10 and some easier in 25. In my opinion there are more fights that become easier in 25 due to more variables IE battle res and raid CD's.

Reread my posts. I say some fights are easier on 10 man and some are easier on 25m and he responds back pretty much, "Everything is easier on 25m". There is no point arguing. He is stuck on his opinion and won't take any argument whatsoever.

[SherbertLand]

half way through out dragonsoul progression we started including a player from the u.s. 20 guild at the time. she was hot shit in a 25 man but after a night of wipes on ten man spine admitted that shit was no where near as hard on 25. that's what I base my opinion on. the cold hard facts that a us ranked player was ready to give up.

---------- Post added 2013-04-08 at 04:45 PM ----------



there is no 10 man pre nerf content that you are going to raid with 2 players down the entire raid pre nerf unless you wrote the game or are hacking. the same cannot be said for 25 man. so next cool story bro.

You're seriously basing your entire opinion off one person's perspective on one fight?

[Glorious Leader]

Durumu?

When that wing of LFR first dropped no one in my lfr and I mean not 1 person besides my self killed the boss in regular or knew any mechanics.
I explained the fight to the tanks and dps, marked my self with a star for ranged to follow in maze.
We 2 shot the fight.

I do agree with other posters here that some mechanics are not exactly explained in the best manner like dark animus but once you know whats going to happen they aren't hard. I remember them saying that this tier in regular as long as you didn't wipe to mechanics they fights would be easy. For the most part I agree. There a re a few DPS checks like Iron qon but all in all I don't think it's overtuned.

I will throw my 2 cents in and agree with others that 25 is much easier then 10. Just my opinion and I raid currently in both brackets. 3/13 HM 25 and 11/12 NM 10 man.

Durumu is a pretty good example of a mechanic that isn't really clear and even at this point the developers have acknowledged the maze itself isn't even clear on a visual graphical level. Durumu is an outlier though. NO other boss had required me to get that many stacks for a kill.

---------- Post added 2013-04-08 at 09:15 PM ----------

Reread my posts. I say some fights are easier on 10 man and some are easier on 25m and he responds back pretty much, "Everything is easier on 25m". There is no point arguing. He is stuck on his opinion and won't take any argument whatsoever.

Because generally 25 mans are easier. Some (SOME and not many as far as I can tell) MECHANICS may be easier on 10 man but generally speaking this isn't the rule and overall 25 mans are much easier. I'm stuck in my opinion because it's correct.

[Freia]

You're seriously basing your entire opinion off one person's perspective on one fight?

He also kills all normal content pre-nerf but only killed sha of fear 19 days ago. Go figure.

[lockedout]

Reread my posts. I say some fights are easier on 10 man and some are easier on 25m and he responds back pretty much, "Everything is easier on 25m". There is no point arguing. He is stuck on his opinion and won't take any argument whatsoever.

I see, sorry I didn't read all the posts here since there are 37 pages lol.
I will add in my opinion a similarly skilled group of 10 vs 25, I think the 25 would progress faster.
Looking at wow progress 7 of the top 20 guilds are 10 man, out of these 7 none have killed lei shen except paragon.
I would say at least for Lei shen you can't argue the fact it is harder in 10 man.

[SherbertLand]

I see, sorry I didn't read all the posts here since there are 37 pages lol.
I will add in my opinion a similarly skilled group of 10 vs 25, I think the 25 would progress faster.
Looking at wow progress 7 of the top 20 guilds are 10 man, out of these 7 none have killed lei shen except paragon.
I would say at least for Lei shen you can't argue the fact it is harder in 10 man.

That's not evidence.

[lockedout]

Durumu is a pretty good example of a mechanic that isn't really clear.

I thought the same thing the first time I did it in regular.
I am ranged but wanted to stay in melee for more deeps.
I died like a scrub.
My friend was like dude try coming out to range.
At this point I didn't even really understand the maze so I went to ranged.
LOLOL if you ever die to this boss in the maze at range where there is a 4 yard wide lane to just run straight.
Funny story our monk just ran off the side of the platform once was hilarious.
In melee it is much harder but once you do it once or twice it's super easy.
I also now do this boss in melee range :P

---------- Post added 2013-04-08 at 09:24 PM ----------

That's not evidence.

More 10 man guilds that raid then 25 by a large margin.
only 1 is 12/13.
I was just looking at the data we have access to.
If you disagree please provide some facts thx.

[Deleted]

half way through out dragonsoul progression we started including a player from the u.s. 20 guild at the time. she was hot shit in a 25 man but after a night of wipes on ten man spine admitted that shit was no where near as hard on 25. that's what I base my opinion on. the cold hard facts that a us ranked player was ready to give up.

Cold hard eh? Unsurprisingly you fail to grasp the meaning of "fact". Second-hand opinion remains opinion and does not get elevated to "fact".

[SherbertLand]

I thought the same thing the first time I did it in regular.
I am ranged but wanted to stay in melee for more deeps.
I died like a scrub.
My friend was like dude try coming out to range.
At this point I didn't even really understand the maze so I went to ranged.
LOLOL if you ever die to this boss in the maze at range where there is a 4 yard wide lane to just run straight.
Funny story our monk just ran off the side of the platform once was hilarious.
In melee it is much harder but once you do it once or twice it's super easy.
I also now do this boss in melee range :P

---------- Post added 2013-04-08 at 09:24 PM ----------



More 10 man guilds that raid then 25 by a large margin.
only 1 is 12/13.
I was just looking at the data we have access to.
If you disagree please provide some facts thx.

You're looking at a situation and accepting one possibility. There's not even a point in trying to debate.

[Oppressionix805]

to Oakland California duh! nah but in all seriousness the raiders all left throughout the years when blizzard kept messing up on rebooting, the raids and than once Ulduar came out raiders were at awe to what will come after and than ToC came and than they went to like wow you went from a great raid progression to complete garbage than ICC came out and it was eeh compared to ulduar and than cataclysm came and nothing but garbage which killed half or more of the raid population pre MoP and that half still hasn't really returned

[Faroth]

Well one of our raiders quit WoW recently since money got really tight and he had to start cutting expenses. F2P MMOs vs paying for WoW forced a decision for the time being.

Another said he really liked MoP for what he played, but just hasn't found time to get back into it. His wife lost interest in WoW at the start of Cata (didn't like healing changes) and I think that probably contributed to him not playing now.

Another is working on her masters and got a new job at the same time, so no time for WoW.

That's where some of our raiders went. Basically, RL interfered with WoW. We're okay with doing LFR, but we're all kind of in agreement we're going to be disappointed not being able to do normal 10 man raiding for SoO.

[happyzod]

Cold hard eh? Unsurprisingly you fail to grasp the meaning of "fact". Second-hand opinion remains opinion and does not get elevated to "fact".

Fact, blizzard tunes 25 man health to be 3x 10 man health. Fact, 25 man raids get boosted by extra gear per person as well as extra thunderforge per person. Fact, 25 mans get extra battle resses per person. There was an analysis done a short while ago that concluded that 25 mans, by the end of 2-3 months, will have an average of a 5 ilvl advantage over 10 mans just from the extra drops plus extra thunderforge. Fact, blizzard had to increase the health and damage of Asian 25mans by 10% because of an 8 ilvl advantage.

[Glorious Leader]

Fact, blizzard tunes 25 man health to be 2.5x 10 man health. Fact, 25 man raids get boosted by extra gear per person as well as extra thunderforge per person. Fact, 25 mans get extra battle resses per person. There was an analysis done a short while ago that concluded that 25 mans, by the end of 2-3 months, will have an average of a 5 ilvl advantage over 10 mans just from the extra drops plus extra thunderforge. Fact, blizzard had to increase the health and damage of Asian 25mans by 10% because of an 8 ilvl advantage.

Fact 25 mans can support a far wider range of players skills and abilities. Fact 25 mans can support a far wider range of raid comps. Fact 25 mans have a WEALTH of raid cool downs that aren't available to 10 mans.

[Freia]

I see, sorry I didn't read all the posts here since there are 37 pages lol.
I will add in my opinion a similarly skilled group of 10 vs 25, I think the 25 would progress faster.
Looking at wow progress 7 of the top 20 guilds are 10 man, out of these 7 none have killed lei shen except paragon.
I would say at least for Lei shen you can't argue the fact it is harder in 10 man.

Paragon actually talked about this topic back when in T11 when hardly any 10m guilds were progressing far in heroics. Downing content at extremely fast pace requires doing things like class stacking and basically molding your raid composition to best fit the encounter. Most of the hardcore guilds with the roster to do all of that were 25m. While most 10m guilds don't have the rosters or back up alts to change raid comps on the fly to fit raid encounters. And a lot of that is still applicable today. Paragon now is proof of what happens when an extremely hardcore raiding guild that is will do what it takes to down the content switches to 10m.

And in my experience, Lei Shen Normal was way easier on 10m then 25m.

[Crym]

Show me one mechanic from a current boss that is not a gimmick, and I'll tell you a vanilla boss that uses the same mechanic.

Ground fire was a "gimmick" for a boss before they became standard (before WoW ever did it). Vehicle fights are a mechanic. Visibility of an enemy determined by beams shining on them is a mechanic. Asking people to give you a list of bosses with original mechanics but excluding all original mechanics because they're not standard is self-defeating.