Mythic is too tight, guilds are dying

[BeepBoo]

Except in most Mythic situations, one or two deaths means its going to be a wipe, especially on progression. Everyone has to bring their A game and if they aren't and leadership isn't going to fix the problem(s) then they don't deserve to kill bosses.

This is the issue. A game and "absolutely perfect game" are two different things. I can bring my "damn near perfect game" every week, but

1) I refused to use benthic because I refuse to grind that shit
2) I never had 65 before I quit because... I refused to grind that shit
3) I ran out of potions every prog night because I had no gold and refused to buy tokens or farm herbs myself... again, more grind shit I refuse to do

In addition, my realm literally didn't have 20 competent players between it. There is not a single alli or horde guild past 4/8 on my realm, even now, and that's where they were two months ago when I quit because I was fucking sick of getting low purple parses due to the above 3 points as well as I was sick of fucking getting hamstrung by players constantly causing wipes due to the fact that 1-2 deaths = absolutely no victory as you showed.

All of this serves to reduce the mythic raid scene, and I'm living proof. I was perfectly mythic capable. I have the performance and history to prove it. I fucking quit because of all the garbage associated with even trying to do it. My ego won't let me accept that pathetic performance, and my heart won't let me waste my fucking time doing mundane mediocre activities I'd rather not do.

[leorana]

This is the issue. A game and "absolutely perfect game" are two different things. I can bring my "damn near perfect game" every week, but

1) I refused to use benthic because I refuse to grind that shit
2) I never had 65 before I quit because... I refused to grind that shit
3) I ran out of potions every prog night because I had no gold and refused to buy tokens or farm herbs myself... again, more grind shit I refuse to do

In addition, my realm literally didn't have 20 competent players between it. There is not a single alli or horde guild past 4/8 on my realm, even now, and that's where they were two months ago when I quit because I was fucking sick of getting low purple parses due to the above 3 points as well as I was sick of fucking getting hamstrung by players constantly causing wipes due to the fact that 1-2 deaths = absolutely no victory as you showed.

All of this serves to reduce the mythic raid scene, and I'm living proof. I was perfectly mythic capable. I have the performance and history to prove it. I fucking quit because of all the garbage associated with even trying to do it. My ego won't let me accept that pathetic performance, and my heart won't let me waste my fucking time doing mundane mediocre activities I'd rather not do.

Totally agree on the whole grindfest. Skill should triumph over time-consumed, and even gear. They all seems to be related, and if you're chasing high-end content you are expected to put the time and effort to make yourself ready. However:

A) if class x is miles better than clasd y, class will triumph (given equal skill).
B) if gear triumph over skill, in a RNG world luck is king and not skill.

I believe, as same as you, that if you have the skills - you shuld have the kill, regardless of the gear you got, rep you grinded or gold for your consumables...

On the other hand, I can't agree on the 1-2 players causing a wipe. As toxic as it might sometimes be, WoW is a mmorpg, and high end raid demands GROUP effort and collective responsibility. It sucks for you that sub-par players bring you down, but this is the nature of the game.

Btw, the best 2 examples I can give about skill over gear are challange modes in MoP, and a guild back in Wrath who raided exclussively in blue gear (no epics or leggos by choice) just for the sake of challange.

This is way hardcore for me compared to spamming M+, doing split runs etc. For gear inflation - and then overgearing the content

[Frozenbro]

There are 2 issues with what you said.

First, CE and WF raiders community are not the same. Most guild complaining here are top 200-300, not top 25 or above guild. They're not complaing on WF race, they're complaing they can't get the kill in a given patch, or even disbanding, due to difficulty tuned for with the WF race in mind.

You are reaching here, the guys complaining are the 2k+ guilds that got their CE on the past on a probably easier tier, like complaining that they didnt get M KJ CE but they got Xavius CE for example, 200-300 guilds are on farm status for a while already.

[Matija]

Except in most Mythic situations, one or two deaths means its going to be a wipe, especially on progression. Everyone has to bring their A game and if they aren't and leadership isn't going to fix the problem(s) then they don't deserve to kill bosses.

How would you solve that issue for average guilds that still have chance of clearing the mythic, but can't due to decline of players and issues with recruiting?

[leorana]

You are reaching here, the guys complaining are the 2k+ guilds that got their CE on the past on a probably easier tier, like complaining that they didnt get M KJ CE but they got Xavius CE for example, 200-300 guilds are on farm status for a while already.

Not gonna argue there. I'm pretty sure you have a better understanding than me regarding those numbers. All I'm saying is that difficulty should be tuned correctly from the start. That's it

Setting the bar too high at the beginning lessen participation. If boss is gonna get nerfed on day 100, and those dowing him still get CE, why not set boss to the exact same numbers day 1? Just for WF race sake?

In fact..maybe M+ raidinf isn't the way to go at all...maybe an overtuned WF mode is the solution, which will be unavailable as soon as the first 10 guilds completing the instane. Give those 10 guilds a speciall FOS and leave CE for the rest of the mythic community.

- - - Updated - - -

How would you solve that issue for average guilds that still have chance of clearing the mythic, but can't due to decline of players and issues with recruiting?

Not sure it's feasable once the problem presented itself. Other than flex or bringing back 10m. The situation you described is caused by the dwindeling of mythic capable raiders pool who participate or can be recruited. This is the problem that should be adressed, not the skill required from raiders causing a wipe who must bring their A game.

[Matija]

Not sure it's feasable once the problem presented itself. Other than flex or bringing back 10m. The situation you described is caused by the dwindeling of mythic capable raiders pool who participate or can be recruited. This is the problem that should be adressed, not the skill required from raiders causing a wipe who must bring their A game.

This is my point, the problem is persisting for a lot of years now, possibly a decade. Sure, when game was all hype and we had 10+ mil subscribers, recruiting was much easier. These days, I have officers burning our from trying to recruit just one or two guys to push us through the last raid tier. I contacted several people who were 4/8 or 5/8, while my guild was progressing on Azshara, some of those guys wanted 8/8 guild to get CE and we had 1 or two saying they would prefer Famed Slayer guild.

Go figure.

It is easy to ask a lot from your players when you are in that sweet spot of up to 500 top guilds. When you get to average spot, the situation becomes dire. And we tried nearly all, from going from 3 days raiding schedule to 2, dropping requirements of gear/experience (even went so far to recruit people with good Heroic logs), not much changed.

[leorana]

This is my point, the problem is persisting for a lot of years now, possibly a decade. Sure, when game was all hype and we had 10+ mil subscribers, recruiting was much easier. These days, I have officers burning our from trying to recruit just one or two guys to push us through the last raid tier. I contacted several people who were 4/8 or 5/8, while my guild was progressing on Azshara, some of those guys wanted 8/8 guild to get CE and we had 1 or two saying they would prefer Famed Slayer guild.

Go figure.

It is easy to ask a lot from your players when you are in that sweet spot of up to 500 top guilds. When you get to average spot, the situation becomes dire. And we tried nearly all, from going from 3 days raiding schedule to 2, dropping requirements of gear/experience (even went so far to recruit people with good Heroic logs), not much changed.

Agreed with one exception...

Maybe it's just me, but I don't see a 5/8M guild as *average*, sure, like the olympics they are not running for the gold, or even the finals - but they are olympic and world class athletes.

If a mythic guild could clear with nerfs on the last day of the patch (and still considered mythic), just tune it that way from the start...don't scare away all those mythic(!) raiders with bogus overtuning/grinding/time requirements just so method won't do a xavius.

You want an e-sport raiding event for method and such? Go for it, make it overtuned as hell and time limited (ends when there's a winner).

[Afenar]

99% do not need raiding that way anymore

[Matija]

Agreed with one exception...

Maybe it's just me, but I don't see a 5/8M guild as *average*, sure, like the olympics they are not running for the gold, or even the finals - but they are olympic and world class athletes.

Agreed, but I find it funny to ask for 8/8 guild (which I still understand) or Famed Slayer (which I cannot). As I said, I liked system where raid instance gets nerfed/buffed - ICC and Hellscream's warsong. At some point, it was a nice mechanism that allowed people to clear the zone.

[dragi]

In my opinion mythic raids should "belong" to elite, ppl enough stubborn to farm raid until all dead there. If on your server proggress is 4/8 this mind you don't have ppl who want kill boss. When i raiding we moved in progress very slowly, main reason was, we had few ppl who prepared to raid other only came.
It's eternity problem, if you make mythic easier you will have group ppl unhappy it's too easy. If you make harder... this topic. In mmo game should be content which only small % can reach it, in pvp its easier cause you have rating.

Edit: Matija what a point or satisfaction to put foot on corpse myhic boss 10x nerfed. To clear content you have other levels.

[Frozenbro]

All in all i agree there should be a progressive nerf to a tier, but in a way that you work for it, be it via gear, farming X stuff or w/e, this on top of the usual round of nerfs blizz hands out, game should never have a "boss gets easier just cause you wipe", like the crap that LFR has, this is just allowing players to be trash without putting effort.

[leorana]

In my opinion mythic raids should "belong" to elite, ppl enough stubborn to farm raid until all dead there. If on your server proggress is 4/8 this mind you don't have ppl who want kill boss. When i raiding we moved in progress very slowly, main reason was, we had few ppl who prepared to raid other only came.
It's eternity problem, if you make mythic easier you will have group ppl unhappy it's too easy. If you make harder... this topic. In mmo game should be content which only small % can reach it, in pvp its easier cause you have rating.

Being a member of the 'elite' and paying for server transfer isn't the same. You can be the best player in the world, but unless your name is mionlol you still need other raiders to assist you.

No one is asking for easier mythic. Like it or not, mythic is getting easier since the first day of the patch to it's last. Tunning to the 0.1% instead of the single digit % community is one problem.

The fact that you link between grinding and being elite is also kinda weak. I can farm insane to the membrane but it won't make me a good raider.
I could have my TF drop from +10 in a single run...doesn't make me better than the guy running +15 who got no loot.

What makes you good is..well...being good. We could argue what is rhe cut-off you consider elite, and I do agree mythic raiding should belong to those. For me? Top 10% is elite enough.

[Ahovv]

A flat nerf kinda feels bad. I can vividly remember barely not killing Illidan before the % nerf hit and facerolling him afterwards. I prefer amping player power.




That's not the point. I even wrote that we don't want to be gifted an Azshara kill. We rarely ever complete a tier. That's fine.
The point here is that the difficulty feels tighter than ever before while the usual bump to player power as incentive to keep trying is all but gone.

If a guild can't kill Ashvane now, they'll probably never. They won't suddenly clear the tier if you throw them a bone every now and then. But they maybe won't disband because there's at least a chance to kill Ashvane down the line.

If a guild disbands because it needs months of loot down the road to kill a boss, maybe it deserves to disband.

Change your policies, get better, or accept that you won't kill the boss.

[Matija]

Edit: Matija what a point or satisfaction to put foot on corpse myhic boss 10x nerfed. To clear content you have other levels.

Loads of people cleared ICC or Dragonsoul with mentioned buffs, they also had normal difficulty, yet this helped them. If it made them happy...

[leorana]

All in all i agree there should be a progressive nerf to a tier, but in a way that you work for it, be it via gear, farming X stuff or w/e, this on top of the usual round of nerfs blizz hands out, game should never have a "boss gets easier just cause you wipe", like the crap that LFR has, this is just allowing players to be trash without putting effort.

Lfr buff is the same as ICC buff, only one is pull-based and one is time-based. If any, lfr buff actually makes you earn the buff while in ICC you can just come at the end of the expansion and get the 30% buff.

Why nerf bosses in the first place? Just set the right difficulty off the bat.

[Zyky]

1) I refused to use benthic because I refuse to grind that shit
2) I never had 65 before I quit because... I refused to grind that shit
3) I ran out of potions every prog night because I had no gold and refused to buy tokens or farm herbs myself... again, more grind shit I refuse to do

All of this serves to reduce the mythic raid scene, and I'm living proof. I was perfectly mythic capable.

Mythic capable and progression capable are very different things, just to clear this up. Every reason you listed proves to me that you weren't Mythic or Progression capable. All you're living proof of is that you're one of the many lazy players who expect feasts/flasks to just be handed out and that you have zero intention of putting in outside effort to not be a burden to your team. Being raid prepared is not "absolutely perfect gameplay".

Every expansion, with the exception of Warlords, had a certain amount you had to do outside of core raid times to not be a burden on your group. Whether it's herb farming, fishing for food, badge farming, or AP farming. This is nothing new, especially if you want to participate in the highest level of content available.

- - - Updated - - -

How would you solve that issue for average guilds that still have chance of clearing the mythic, but can't due to decline of players and issues with recruiting?

As bad Guilds(either from bad leadership or bad players) die out, less bad guilds looking for players/taking decent-good players = more readily available and quality players available to the guilds capable of clearing the content to replace their bad players that aren't capable or willing to get better. At the end of the day, there's frankly too many guilds and eventually players need to step up and get better or guilds die and we end up in situations where hundreds of guilds die to wall bosses

[Frozenbro]

Lfr buff is the same as ICC buff, only one is pull-based and one is time-based. If any, lfr buff actually makes you earn the buff while in ICC you can just come at the end of the expansion and get the 30% buff.

Why nerf bosses in the first place? Just set the right difficulty off the bat.

And who decides whats the right difficulty right off the bat? you getting CE? little Jimmy getting CE? who? its subjective in the end until you find your proper gameplay and guild.

[Matija]

As bad Guilds(either from bad leadership or bad players) die out, less bad guilds looking for players/taking decent-good players = more readily available and quality players available to the guilds capable of clearing the content to replace their bad players that aren't capable or willing to get better.

One issue with that, people don't go to other guilds (only) they quit the game. Thus, the pool of recruits diminishes over time. How to solve that? We finish every tier and get CE, usually around when last boss gets first wave of nerfs or close to it, however - from start of BFA, we lost around 5 people who played with us since TBC. They didn't join better guilds.

[Otimus]

The bigger problem is the content design puts people on a target path too quickly toward Mythic raiding content when it's obviously not designed to be these people's endgame. i.e., it's too easy to outgear things, and then all you're left with is heroic raiding, and I feel that the overlap of people who eagerly want to do heroic and are able to do mythic have too much overlap, so a lot of people are left with not much else to do but fall apart/quit.

This has kind of been the problem since SoO, IMHO. (That got mitigated with the WoD pre-patch making it very easy to flex raid SoO though.)

LFR is basically worthless. Normal is pretty much worthless. There's no damned difficulty curve and people are getting thrown to the wolves or left with no content they want to or can do. It really shouldn't be this way.

If you have a curve that is actually a curve, you don't even really have to bother with much nerfing, because everyone will be doing the kind of content or working toward the kind of content they want to do. You pretty much exhaust the usefulness of almost everything but heroic raids, Mythic+ dungeons, and mythic raids a few days into level cap. Everything else is a reliance on winning the gear lottery and grinding. Normal dungeons, heroic dungeons, Mythic 0 Dungeons, LFR, and Normal raids should not be as worthless as they are. (Well, LFR is debatable. I don't think it should be worthless, but I'd understand someone who thought it should be.)

It's not even really like this because we're close to the end of the expansion. It's been like this since SoO and has been varying degrees of slightly better or slightly worse (or massively worse in the case of BFA!) with each patch/expansion since. The further you pull yourself away from the mythic pack, the more painfully glaring it becomes. (Because they're (the mythic players) mostly the ones who are left actually having fun, save for the weirdos who love to level a thousand alts or whatever)

[leorana]

And who decides whats the right difficulty right off the bat? you getting CE? little Jimmy getting CE? who? its subjective in the end until you find your proper gameplay and guild.

This is a Great question, and while you're right it's quite subjective and hard to determine from the start - you could narrow it down a notch.

PTR is quite usefull for that matter, and blizz should use it more efficiently to balance mythic around fully-decked heroic gear (plus neck lvl as required).
While at it, remove TF and make heroic raiding gear second only to mythic lvl gear. That way, you won't need to farm M+, and you can't outgear content.


If you're balancing it around top 25 guilds you're doing this wrong. What's the right way to do it? I Realy don't know and not going to pretend I have all the answers. But talking about problems are a good start to cope with them.