How to reward 25 man raids for "logistical effort"

[Raelbo]

The topic is "How to reward 25 man raids for "logistical effort""

Having read a significant portion of the 1000+ posts so far, here is a good summation of what makes sense, and why:

1) Make one feast that feeds as many people as want to use it

This reduces the logistical load on the 25 man raid leaders/officers who are probably doing the bulk of the work in gathering mats for feasts. Having to waste more time (than for a 10 man setup) gathering mats to support a bunch of freeloaders is a de-incentive to running 25 man.

2) Bring back Cauldrons and make the cost per raider significantly better than for 10 man

Same reason as sorting out the feast problem above. It reduces the logistical load on 25 man raid officers.

3) Enable Cross Realm raiding at the current tier, even if only for 25 man raids

The single biggest valid excuse a lot of people might have for not raiding 25 mans is that they can't find a 25 man raid community on their server that fits their schedule. Enabling Cross Realm raiding would remove that barrier to entry and enable people to find a match.

4) Award separate realm first and world first achievements for 10 man and 25 man

This will make a difference to those people going for those achievements and prevent them from switching to the raid format that they perceive will give them a competitive advantage.

5) Provide extra VP per boss kill

This is not a new idea. I suspect more time is lost during 25 man due to logistics. Adding 25 VP per boss (for example, the exact number is open to debate) saves the people from having to do 5 extra dailies and balances out some of the hassle factor.

6) Add the chance of getting pre-upgraded items to the loot table

By this I mean have a chance (eg 10%) that items dropping already have the VP upgrade applied to it. I know that some people have contested this, but I think it achieves many of the benefits of simply giving higher item level drops in 25 mans without the huge problems associated with that. Obviously the chance of getting a pre-upgraded item needs to be carefully tuned so as not to make it too overpowering, but enough to serve as a bit of a carrot for people who have no preference for 10/25.

People who prefer 10 man raids will still be able to get exactly the same item upgrades by spending VP, which ultimately boils down to 10 mans needing to do a little extra work to compensate for the extra work done to run 25 man.

As I have pointed out, they are already rewarded with more drops per kill, more battle rezes per attempt and less executional responsibility. That is just how the game is currently designed. I think that caving to the small minority who want to get a gold star for coasting with a few extra warm bodies is not a way to make the game better.

Agreed 100%. The entire rationale behind any changes should absolutely be about helping people to raid the format they want, not about giving them special rewards for being superior to everyone else.

Superior raiders already get rewarded by progressing faster and accessing heroic modes (leading to better gear, titles, mounts and achievements), regardless of their preferred raid format.

Simply preferring the 25 man raiding format does not make one a better player than the next guy, and should not entitle that person to any kind of special treatment or reward.

---------- Post added 2012-11-22 at 11:46 AM ----------

Erm this discussion is about how to incentivise people so that more 25 mans happen.

Yes, to a certain extent. The real objective is simply to make sure enough people keep doing 25 mans to keep it viable. There is no requirement to make 25 mans more popular than 10 mans for example.

If we measure 25 mans on the basis of popularity, they have always been a miserable failure, even when they were dropping higher ilvl loot.

So maybe we shouldn't measure them purely on the basis of popularity. As long as there is a fair sized interest in the format it brings something to the game. It's not advisable to neglect an aspect of the game because it only appeals to a minority. Which is not the same thing as saying that the majority needs should be ignored to placate a minority. It means that the game should not forget about keeping the minorities happy while satisfying the masses.

Drop 25 man dififculty so it's just a bit tougher than LFR

No. Just no. I understand your thinking, and yes, it will make 25 man raid a lot more popular, BUT, it would be missing the point entirely because it would not help the people who are unhappy (the incumbent, displaced 25 man community). In short it wouldn't solve anything or help anything that needs help.

it would benefit pretty much everyone bar hardcore raiders - which is why it would be a godo thing for the game. You have to realise that hardcores are irrelevent, a statistical blip. You should be grateful blizzard do anything for you at all. I suspect they only still do because that's their own background. It certainly won't be pleasing the bean counters.

Wrong. Very wrong. Hardcore raiders are an important part of the community in just the same way that Formula 1 racing is important to motorsport in spite of the fact that it is only a very small minority of racers racing in F1.

I believe very strongly, and Blizzard does too, that it is vitally important to protect the interests of the most passionate players of the game as well as keeping the masses happy.

[Deleted]

I think they could do something within the item upgrade system for example all 25man loot drops or has a chance to drop with level 1 upgrades. Both raid sizes can eventually get the same gear 25man gets it faster. I don't think giving 25man raids extra feasts is going to encourage 25man raiding..

[Diablade]

10 mans are pathetic and overall significantly easier. I absolutely despise people that try to compare 10 and 25 as equal. It isn't even remotely close in any way.

[Raelbo]

I don't think giving 25man raids extra feasts is going to encourage 25man raiding..

Allegedly the problem faced by 25 man raids is primarily that no one wants to organise and run them.

It is a reasonable assumption that in many groups, preparing feasts for raids is handled by 1 or 2 people. This job is twice as much work for a 25 man raid as a 10 man raid, and as such is a deterrence to people volunteering to perform that duty.

It may not seem like a huge issue, but it will reduce logistical load on a critical member of any 25 man community

---------- Post added 2012-11-22 at 12:37 PM ----------

10 mans are pathetic and overall significantly easier. I absolutely despise people that try to compare 10 and 25 as equal. It isn't even remotely close in any way.

And this unsubstantiated, inflammatory and downright ridiculous opinion helps anything how?

[Deleted]

10 mans are pathetic and overall significantly easier. I absolutely despise people that try to compare 10 and 25 as equal. It isn't even remotely close in any way.

Why there is only one 10 man guild in top10 and like 2-3 in top 20? And dont bring up the "better players play 25man" argument up.

[Desul]

I've read through quite a few pages here and still don't see the argument I'd like to see.

In world top guilds, there is mostly equal distribution to 10 vs 25.
In top 100 guilds ratio skews in favor of 10man.
In world top 5000 ratio is 20% 25man vs 80% 10man.
In top5000-15000 ratio is more like 1% 25man, 99% 10man.

When you have the skills for being in the top 100, there won't be many mistakes, everyone is on the same level, the difficulty feels much the same.
When you go down the line, and more brainfarts happen, afk, dc's, time wasted on CR's and looting, people loose focus and 25man suffers more from it.
For example, in DS when we had like 2 bosses down on HC and working on third in a 3 night per week raid schedule, we did 'alt' runs on friday nights where alcahol and derping was involved. At 1 timem this alt run was 3 bosses ahead of the mainraid. (mainraid was 25man, alts was 10).

IMHO I think things should stay as they are, without extra rewards and instead when the nerfs starts hitting (when top 5000+ guilds are still progressing) the nerf hits 25man harder. It keeps world top guilds on equal ground and doesn't punish the slow grinders for having a few palookas in the raid (cause only people we've managed to recruit for the past 6 months even with DS 8/8 HC on farm for 4 mothns before MoP have been friends of friends).

Checking wowprogress for my guild, we are in top 1000 25man, top5000 world overall. We are fighting to stay top20 on our server, and all the recruitments go to the other top19 guilds first.

Case in point (we usually do 10man last day before reset as extra raid day during progression).
Will of the Emperor: 25man - 11 pulls; the week before 25man kill we did 10man - 1 pull, 1-shotted.
Garalon: 25man - 91 pulls; 10man - 19 pulls
And no, we didn't cherry pick the best raiders for the extra day, it was totally random people who had time, and often we had people in there with below average dps in our 25man.

Fights like Garalon are the kinda fights I really hate as a raidleader in a 25man guild. 1 person fucks up, we wipe. Like I said, keep it as is during world top 1000 progression, then ffs give us some leeway. If each player in a 10man guild has a 10% chance to derp per pull, your odds on getting a kill in about 7 pulls. If the same applies to 25man, it's 91 pulls!

[Deleted]

Almost all of those that post here and raid 25m want to get "free" items or "better ilevel" items as reward for the logistical effort. That is not only not viable but also bias intended. Logistical effort should have some sort of logistical rewards: flask duration extended, bring back the cauldrons, food buff somehow scaled.

Other that then, please leave your bias aside and think that the 1:5 ratio 25m vs 10m is mostly do to the number player fact. It's not easyer or harder, overall it's about the same level this tier and the boss encounter experience is the same as they have the same mechanics in either raid size.

But then again few people raided 10m and 25m this tier so 90% of them speak in this topic without any knowledge.

[Granyala]

what does it matter to you what drops in 25s. really, if your happy with the size of raid your doing, does what happens in the other size really matter?

Because if the other format is too easy, new people will flock to it en masse and cut off the needed supply of new recruits. People constantly leave for whatever reasons. If almost everyone just wants to do easy 10man, those that want to do 25man eventually are FORCED to do 10man as well simply because "leaving people" > "new recruits gained".

THAT is the problem and that is what Blizzard would like to address.

flask duration extended, bring back the cauldrons, food buff somehow scaled

Flask and food are worthless in MoP. Besides just tell every raider to farm his own stuff and there is no logistic burden involved. Problem is the recruiting process.

In 25s you can afford to have a few deaths and you can even pull if you're backfilling a few players. Both really make you stop in your tracks on 10s. In 25, it's easier to fade back into the group if you're still not 100% confident in what you're doing. In 10s, it's harder to be a wallflower. - WoW Devs

Yeah right. Will of the Emperor and Garalon would like to have a word with you. They are ridiculously easy in 10man compared to 25man.

[Deleted]

Invalid argument Granyala as you are cherry picking boss fights and poiting fingers on how 10m is easyer then 25m. You need to compare it on overall tier raids, where I am afraid 10m and 25m are equal. And not to mention that encounters has same mechanics. Bring your best players or suffer. That being said, logistical effort should be rewarded with logistical rewards. No better gear or anything just consumables and any other things that can make the raid preperations easyer.

[Granyala]

Invalid argument Granyala as you are cherry picking boss fights and poiting fingers on how 10m is easyer then 25m. You need to compare it on overall tier raids, where I am afraid 10m and 25m are equal. And not to mention that encounters has same mechanics. Bring your best players or suffer

Naah I'm not. My guild just flexxed Garalon in a tactics testraid on tuesday after we were done wiping in our normal Monday 25man raids. We did not cherrypick our raiders (Or I would have been in there) Hell I didn't even know that they wanted to go in Tues. They just grabbed what was online and mashed him.

No better gear or anything just consumables and any other things that can make the raid preperations easyer.

Repeat after me:
The problem is NOT raid preparation on a personal level. Thats totally equal between 10 and 25.

The problem is RECRUITING people. Everyone sees we didn't down Garalon 25 yet, but there are a plenthora of 10man ez-mode guilds that downed him. Guess where a new recruit would like to go?

[IxilaFA]

http://i.imgur.com/Pju1d.png

Given that a large portion of their subscriber loss was from the Asian market as well, that's not represented in that data, since data was obtained from WoWProgress...
I'd say a very large portion of the players that quit, DID care about raiding.

That graph isn't a very good representation of actual statistics. You're comparing raids that have been out for not even one expansion cycle yet to raids that have been out for what, nearly 3 years now? The reason you'll see a lot more Beast and Marrowgar kills is because you can jump into a raid with 10 idiots now and kill it on 25-man or 10-man. Meanwhile, not many people have gotten in the mood to go back and power through Cata content yet. I'm sure once you get to the end of MoP you will see Magmaw kills equaling nearly 2 million as people go back for transmog gear / achievements. It might actually be less now that achievements are shared, but if people want a piece of gear on their shaman, it will still count.

As for rewarding 25-mans, I'm against changing anything. Right now people have their choice of style and it's working pretty well. Sure there are less active 25-man guilds, but a lot of people who do raid in 25-man guilds will tell you that the effort is usually worth it. People who don't say that are clearly choosing the wrong style and are refusing to admit it, or to change their old traditions.

If anything, I would say make 25-mans a lot easier. I'm talking, put 25-man on a level between Normal / Raid Finder, put 10-man on a level between Normal / Heroic, and then make Heroics equally challenging, or maybe with 10-mans being slightly harder. This would generate a lot of interest in 25-mans because they can't down bosses in 10-man Normal, and the hardcore guilds could compete in 10-mans because that would be the most difficult of all the content. Essentially I'm saying just do what they did with Challenge Modes: smaller group, harder challenge. It would be like saying raiding with 25-mans is taking the easy way out, because it's the easiest mode, but you need to take your 10 best people in order to down any bosses in 10-man.

Of course, my solution has always been for Blizzard to just suck it up and make all raids 15-man. They completed the transition from 25 to 10 mans already, just do it one more time and solve all of your problems.

Naah I'm not. My guild just flexxed Garalon in a tactics testraid on tuesday after we were done wiping in our normal Monday 25man raids. We did not cherrypick our raiders (Or I would have been in there) Hell I didn't even know that they wanted to go in Tues. They just grabbed what was online and mashed him.

He wasn't saying you cherry-picked your raiders, he was saying that you're just selecting two bosses (out of 16) and saying that 10-man is easier.

Now I haven't raided 25-mans since TBC, but wouldn't Elegon / Stone Guards / Imperial Vizier all be easier on 25-man? In 10-man, Elegon is a nightmare because your DPS absolutely have to be up to snuff, and nobody can slack on killing their sparks. On 25-man, you have 3 people per spark, so even if one isn't pulling such good burst numbers the other two can save him. Stone Guards you have more tanking options and more DPS to run the tiles. Vizier you can stack Disc priests and have a ton of more healing cooldowns to get through Force and Verve (which I guess is irrelevant now since it's been nerfed to hell)

[Deleted]

Long story short:

over 9000 people want to do 25man raiding -> nobody does.

Seems weird to me.

[IxilaFA]

Another assumption that I see people making is that 10-mans are easy because the bosses in general are easy. What people in 25-man raids don't realize is that sure, you can select your 10 best raiders and go crush the content. Most 10-mans, however, don't have the luxury of ten highly skilled people. If a 10-man raid even has 1 player who isn't up to par in their raid it can drastically impact their progression (even more if that 1 person is a Healer / Tank). Sure it's easy to say only recruit 10 really skilled players, but you forget that we also need reserve positions, off-specs / classes, plus some servers don't even give many 10-man guilds the luxury of recruiting 10 skilled players.

[Granyala]

Now I haven't raided 25-mans since TBC, but wouldn't Elegon / Stone Guards / Imperial Vizier all be easier on 25-man? In 10-man, Elegon is a nightmare because your DPS absolutely have to be up to snuff, and nobody can slack on killing their sparks. On 25-man, you have 3 people per spark, so even if one isn't pulling such good burst numbers the other two can save him. Stone Guards you have more tanking options and more DPS to run the tiles. Vizier you can stack Disc priests and have a ton of more healing cooldowns to get through Force and Verve (which I guess is irrelevant now since it's been nerfed to hell)

Dogs depend on which three are up. (lol) You get easy weeks and you get tougher weeks depending on combination.
In 25man Elegon is a nightmare too. It's quite tightly tuned if you go in in ID 1-2.
Vizier is that the boss with the latency check? Those little yellow orbs that spin around? Sorry can't distinguish the bugs by names^^.
Don't know that one didn't give us much trouble, why would it be harder in 10m? You have less people failing to move.

To us only three bosses stand out this tier:
Elegon (He gets fairly easy with gear though)
Will of the Emperor
Garalon

I'm talking about normals though, no clue how mean 10man HCs are. In T11 they were far meaner than their 25man counterparts.

If a 10-man raid even has 1 player who isn't up to par in their raid it can drastically impact their progression

If you go into 25man early in the expansion you can't have a gimpy tank/healer in 25man as well. Outgearing content fixes a lot of issues though and might be easier to do in 25man due to less mean RNG.

[Heathy]

its takes longer to co-ordinate a 25 man around usually the same space

it take longer to get back into the next try after a wipe

there is more drama

there is a bigger chance of no shows due simply to the fact that you have to rely on more ppl to actually show up.

10man can sit in its casual bubble and blissfully deny any of the extra shit that a 25man has to go through. but it does exist. read that actual blue post if you haven't.

[IxilaFA]

Dogs depend on which three are up. (lol) You get easy weeks and you get tougher weeks depending on combination.
In 25man Elegon is a nightmare too. It's quite tightly tuned if you go in in ID 1-2.
Vizier is that the boss with the latency check? Those little yellow orbs that spin around? Sorry can't distinguish the bugs by names^^.
Don't know that one didn't give us much trouble, why would it be harder in 10m? You have less people failing to move.

Vizier is the one with the orbs, but he also does Force and Verve which in its initial form was a nightmare for 10-man guilds. You had to bring in 3 healers, and if your guild is like mine, your options are VERY limited for what classes you have healing. If you have the wrong combination, you can easily be left without many raid cooldowns, which means your healing has to be optimal to survive that phase.

If you go into 25man early in the expansion you can't have a gimpy tank/healer in 25man as well. Outgearing content fixes a lot of issues though and might be easier to do in 25man due to less mean RNG.

Gimpy tank, maybe not. But I'm sure you could've had a poor healer and downed many of the fights, because you have 4 - 5 other healers who can carry them. Try doing a 10-man with one bad healer, where the other healer has to carry them the entire time, and you'll sing a different tune about how one bad player can ruin a 10-man guild's progression. I think the gap is a lot worse for DPS too. In a 10-man guild you have 5 - 6 DPS who have to do the same ratio of damage as a 25-man raid that has 18 DPS where one or two can easily slack off their rotation and nobody will notice. You can tell this because a lot of World of Logs entries for even the most hardcore guilds will have that one or two DPS who just didn't do their best that attempt.

[Oxyra]

That graph isn't a very good representation of actual statistics. You're comparing raids that have been out for not even one expansion cycle yet to raids that have been out for what, nearly 3 years now? The reason you'll see a lot more Beast and Marrowgar kills is because you can jump into a raid with 10 idiots now and kill it on 25-man or 10-man. Meanwhile, not many people have gotten in the mood to go back and power through Cata content yet. I'm sure once you get to the end of MoP you will see Magmaw kills equaling nearly 2 million as people go back for transmog gear / achievements. It might actually be less now that achievements are shared, but if people want a piece of gear on their shaman, it will still count.

As for rewarding 25-mans, I'm against changing anything. Right now people have their choice of style and it's working pretty well. Sure there are less active 25-man guilds, but a lot of people who do raid in 25-man guilds will tell you that the effort is usually worth it. People who don't say that are clearly choosing the wrong style and are refusing to admit it, or to change their old traditions.

If anything, I would say make 25-mans a lot easier. I'm talking, put 25-man on a level between Normal / Raid Finder, put 10-man on a level between Normal / Heroic, and then make Heroics equally challenging, or maybe with 10-mans being slightly harder. This would generate a lot of interest in 25-mans because they can't down bosses in 10-man Normal, and the hardcore guilds could compete in 10-mans because that would be the most difficult of all the content. Essentially I'm saying just do what they did with Challenge Modes: smaller group, harder challenge. It would be like saying raiding with 25-mans is taking the easy way out, because it's the easiest mode, but you need to take your 10 best people in order to down any bosses in 10-man.

Of course, my solution has always been for Blizzard to just suck it up and make all raids 15-man. They completed the transition from 25 to 10 mans already, just do it one more time and solve all of your problems.


He wasn't saying you cherry-picked your raiders, he was saying that you're just selecting two bosses (out of 16) and saying that 10-man is easier.

Now I haven't raided 25-mans since TBC, but wouldn't Elegon / Stone Guards / Imperial Vizier all be easier on 25-man? In 10-man, Elegon is a nightmare because your DPS absolutely have to be up to snuff, and nobody can slack on killing their sparks. On 25-man, you have 3 people per spark, so even if one isn't pulling such good burst numbers the other two can save him. Stone Guards you have more tanking options and more DPS to run the tiles. Vizier you can stack Disc priests and have a ton of more healing cooldowns to get through Force and Verve (which I guess is irrelevant now since it's been nerfed to hell)

Haven't finished reading your thread on incorrect assumptions.
But WoWProgress data shows the data as it was at current.

Take Marrowgar 25.
http://www.wowprogress.com/achievement/19
Last recorded kill, is during the final days of WotLK

[Deleted]

Repeat after me:
The problem is NOT raid preparation on a personal level. Thats totally equal between 10 and 25.

The problem is RECRUITING people. Everyone sees we didn't down Garalon 25 yet, but there are a plenthora of 10man ez-mode guilds that downed him. Guess where a new recruit would like to go?

And so you come in a "how to reward [...] for logistical effort" thread and demand Blizzard "kills" one of it's raid versions just so the other can sustain itself. Don't take it to harsh but that's bias 101. The tactics and mechanics are the same in both 10m and 25m just a small portion is different, just like 25m you get the same boss zone so it's more crowded, in 10m it's needed for everyone to know the tactic. That's why I said, overall it's equal.

And the recruiting part is up to your guild and the people willing to join. Like I said before, bring better players and make them learn the encounter and you won't fail. I don't think that if they all 25 players know what to do your raid will fail, the same in 10m. And regarding to your Garalon, it's even more needed for people to know what to do, kiters not to fail, DPS not to fail and hit enrage and healers not to fail to heal. Same in 25m and 10m, no ez-mode out there.

[Granyala]

But I'm sure you could've had a poor healer and downed many of the fights, because you have 4 - 5 other healers who can carry them. Try doing a 10-man with one bad healer, where the other healer has to carry them the entire time, and you'll sing a different tune about how one bad player can ruin a 10-man guild's progression. I think the gap is a lot worse for DPS too. In a 10-man guild you have 5 - 6 DPS who have to do the same ratio of damage as a 25-man raid that has 18 DPS where one or two can easily slack off their rotation and nobody will notice. You can tell this because a lot of World of Logs entries for even the most hardcore guilds will have that one or two DPS who just didn't do their best that attempt.

I find it quite hilarious that you automatically assume that a 25man raid has only 2 sub average players. Believe me when I say that when ONE of our DPS slacked we hit Elegons enrage timer. Why? Because most of us are average. That isn't reserved for 10m guilds you know? If all your players are average one baddie will hurt equally in both raid sizes. The chance to have more than one baddie is higher in 25m though.

That's where the "10m is more attractive b/c you don't have to carry dead weight" argument comes from.

And so you come in a "how to reward [...] for logistical effort" thread and demand Blizzard "kills" one of it's raid versions just so the other can sustain itself.

I know it's a big thread and you probably didn't read everything but I stated multiple times already that "moar epixx" isn't the answer because it would screw over the entire 10m community.

Personally I don't think there is anything Blizzard can do at this point w/o severely upsetting their 10m followers. Between dying servers (guess that's our main problem, a server trans might save us in the long run), wow's old age and the attractiveness of easier 10m recruiting, 25m are doomed and will be reserved for the top guilds that can get recruits due to their reputation /prestige of being in them.

And regarding to your Garalon, it's even more needed for people to know what to do, kiters not to fail, DPS not to fail and hit enrage and healers not to fail to heal.

Best try was Enrage @ 7% w/o long time deaths. Need more tries or more gear, don't know yet. I'm not complaining though, I hate bosses that just roll over on the first evening. <_<

[Raelbo]

Because if the other format is too easy, new people will flock to it en masse and cut off the needed supply of new recruits.

Fair enough. But surely the best way to address this sort of issue is simply to put more effort into balance the encounter difficulty by tuning boss hp and damage output...

People constantly leave for whatever reasons. If almost everyone just wants to do easy 10man, those that want to do 25man eventually are FORCED to do 10man as well simply because "leaving people" > "new recruits gained".

True. But your assertion rests on the assumption that 10 man content is easier than 25 man content, which is an easily fixable problem. Given that the objective difficulty between 10 man and 25 man is basically the same, it stands to reason that people are leaving 25s for reasons other than that 10 man is "easier".

THAT is the problem and that is what Blizzard need to address, if at all possible.

Flask and food are worthless in MoP. Besides just tell every raider to farm his own stuff and there is no logistic burden involved.

Meanwhile in a competing 10 man guild there is an officer who makes flasks and feasts for everyone. So the new recruit looks at this situation and decides that because he is lazy, he'd rather avoid the 25 man guild where he needs to organise his own flasks and food.

I think most people commenting here, as well as Blizzard themselves, acknowledge that what makes 25 man raiding "harder" is not the content. It is the logistics. Sorting out flasks and food is a logistics issue. Why dismiss out of hand a good suggestion that directly addresses the issue?

Problem is the recruiting process.

It's only a problem because of a lack of people wanting to do 25 man content. If people don't want to do the content, then why force them?

Yeah right. Will of the Emperor and Garalon would like to have a word with you. They are ridiculously easy in 10man compared to 25man.

So then fix the encounter difficulty. Either make the 25 man version easier or the 10 man version harder.