Ghostcrawler tweet about 25 man, let the speculation begin!

[Thirstblood]

They already stated they will not remove 25 man and blue posts suggest they will add things to make 25 man more popular, this thread is about what those things will be.

Just.. No... just... stop it.. blizzard >_>

[Rebourn]

I hope they crush this ten man raiding crap. It's not even real raiding. Go do a 5 man dungeon if you want a smaller group. Only reason more people do ten man raids is because it is a lot easier.

I don't disagree, but these days is also depends on the Guild and server population, putting together 25 man raids these days is a lot harder then it used to be.

[Talen]

Well...what could they do?


Kill 25s?
Definitely controversial. And it would simplify balancing. BUT....LFR works well with 25s. And it wouldn't work as well in 10s for various reasons. Tank and healer ratios for example. So, they'd want to keep LFR and that means scaling the raids for 25 player.


Kill 10s?
Also controversial. But 10s are popular. They are easy to form and manage, they allow players to run with friends. They don't have that epic feel some like but many probably don't notice or care while others prefer the initmacy of 10s or feel the smaller size provides the same feeling of epicness through greater reponsibility and player impact. Killing 10s also would mean greater degree of guild disruption.


Kill both, bring in 15s/20s?
Again controversial, again would solve some issues, again would run into the desireability of keeping LFR as 25 and again would have the guild disruption issue, this time affecting all guilds.


Scaling raids?
Allow raids to scale in difficulty between 8 and 30 players. Everyone can join in, and there's no need for standbys or benched players. May also possibly allow for some leeway with less than optimal playstyles or players. Downside? There'd no doubt be sweet spots in every tier where X players has an advantage...though X could vary with very boss. This, perhaps, would be optimal but hardly controversial.


Revert to the LK model?
Again, controversial. The LK model had many flaws. Players ran 25s because they had to, there were issues with running raids multipel times per week, scaling issues with gear stats and so on. The basic model was 25s were harder, but offered better loot. The end result was that 10s were seen as a joke. Blizzards shown no interest in reverting to this system and indeed, has apparently written off the corner stone of better gear.


Fix the logistics issues?
A large part of the problem today is that 25s are harder to create, run, manage. Blizzard can balance raids around in raid coordination, and that is one of the areas they say they balance around (amongst many) but that still leaves out of raid logistics which fall too often on very few shoulders, Blizzard could take steps to aid and redcue the burnde of this aspect, and has alraedy done so to a small degree. The downside is that it still means players would still be unwilling to leave their established 10s and fixing the logistics issues will probably still mean many players run 10s simply because of their friends. It also won't affect the issue some players sya is important of progression players dropping to 10s because they can abuse the avergae skill iof the raid that way. To me, however, that isn't an issue at all. This fix also doesn't strioke me as controversial - unless you count "not doing anything to attract players to the format but are willing to let them settle at their own level" as controversial. Cross realm guilds? CRZ is unpopular to some....


Additional rewards for 25s?
Possibly controversial. What you'd end up with is a balancing act in that you try to entice players to join 25s but not to the degree that they abandon 10s. Blizzard would be tweaking its own policies here in that it would be acting to draw players away from a format they like simply to obtain a reward they want, especially if the rewards were unique. Non-unique rewards but a higher chance of a drop may work but then you'd have to balance around rarity and ensuring such drops weren't too common. Titles, acheivements, pets, mounts would all fall under this aspect.


Pre-upgraded loot drops?
A popular idea. Personally - I don't think Blizzard are going to give players 10k+ VP free of charge for no additional effort. A small increase in VP gained from raids so the cap is reached quicker, with less reliance on dailies? More probable but then that runs into the old "running out of content" issue.


Get rid of shared lockouts?
This would increase players flexibility - but affect gearing speeds and put pressure on some players to run content too often. Not insurmountable issues however.


Unique content for 25s?
Blizzard complained about the cost of developing content for all raiders and the need to have it justfied given the samll raider base. One of the reasons LFR was brought in. Ra-den appears to be a Heroic boss, not a 25m only boss. Unique content for 25s appears to be unlikely. As dioes creating special 10m only raids and 25m only raids.


Increased loot drops?
Already in place, hasn't worked and there is the issues that rewarding 25s too much will kill 10s.


Make 25s easier?
That'd be the LK situation in reverse. It would still cause issues.


EJL

[Polarthief]

controversial.... that's the key word. I am guessing its higher ilvl items again. Which would suck.

And then 50% of all 10 man raiding guilds unsubbed.

[Last Starfighter]

And then 50% of all 10 man raiding guilds unsubbed.

And then 75% of forum posters pulled numbers hot out of the ass.

[Saffa]

Meaning that 25 man is easier.... Nice idea... lol

Blizzard will loose majority of their playerbase now if they punish 10 mans in any way. It sounds like thats what they are doing. So be ready for the bomb.

They may lose the majority of their raiding playerbase, but that does not equate to their total playerbase - most people do not raid whether you like the fact or not. Number of players that have killed Stone Guard in normal 10 man is 348,460 - a small proportion of the 10 million players WoW has atm. Keep that in mind before you start expecting Blizz will listen to tantrums or blackmail. Blizz can count numbers too.

[Gandrake]

I hope they crush this ten man raiding crap. It's not even real raiding. Go do a 5 man dungeon if you want a smaller group. Only reason more people do ten man raids is because it is a lot easier.

or because you need significantly better specs for an optimal 25 man raiding experience than you'd need for an optimal experience playing Skyrim.

But I think it's funny that people complain about it so much, and think that there is not enough incentive to run 25 man raids. The fact that 25s get 3x as much loot is enough reason to run it alone.

I am very confident if you ask any 10 man raider why they don't raid 25 man, a large majority of the answers will be because of hardware requirements.

[kamuimac]

Why does everyone keep saying that they're going to kill 25 mans? Why would Blizzard want to remove the top guilds from their game completely? Most top end raiding guilds are 25 man, and most of them would more than likely completely quit if 25 mans were "removed".

Top guilds are like 0.01% of wow population - nobody cares about them besides people who are in top guilds - harsh truth but truth.

[Talen]

I am very confident if you ask any 10 man raider why they don't raid 25 man, a large majority of the answers will be because of hardware requirements.

I suspect:

>>>I like 10s
>>>I want to raid with friends and don't care about anyone else
>>>Don't care but this group suited my schedule/took me in/etc

would probably be more accurate.

EJL

[Raider321]

I suspect:

>>>I like 10s
>>>I want to raid with friends and don't care about anyone else
>>>Don't care but this group suited my schedule/took me in/etc

would probably be more accurate.

EJL

>>> Tired of carrying the 15 bad players that all 25m guilds have

The solution isn't to kill 10m, it's to make 25m guilds more attractive.

One solution would be to let 25m raids play crossrealm to help finding new recruits for example, not many people want to pay for transfer+faction change to maybe get a spot in a 25m guild if they already have one in a 10m guild.

Giving more loots to 25m (that already get more than 10) would not do much tbh. Giving higher ilvl would certainly make players switch to 25m but I'm also certain that many 10m guilds would just quit then - not really a solution imo.

I still really don't understand the whole "25 guilds are dying, force people back to playing something they don't prefer". If 10m is so popular, what's wrong with that? People asked for it and got it then switched to it, now it's a problem? There are more than enough 25m guilds out there, they may not be on your realm but they're out there. Yet again another issue with current state of wow, low pop realms and costing a fucking fortune to migrate+faction change your main+alt.

[Radalek]

The fact.

Big percentage of current 10 man raiders would like to raid 25 man but they don't have time/patience to organize them.

---------- Post added 2013-01-04 at 10:27 AM ----------

If said players love 25 mans, what stops them from taking the burden unto themselves and become a raid leader? Nothing. In fact, I would hazard many of those that enjoy 25s are simply lovers of a free ride.

Really? Nothing stops them? Sorry but that's just load of crap. You can't organize and lead 30 + raiders just like that. Not a lot of people have the time or patience to run 25 man guild in the current system. It's basically another job and unless you're in top 100 guild you get nothing out of it and people always chose the path of least resistance and organize 10 mans instead.

[Talen]

The fact.

Big percentage of current 10 man raiders would like to raid 25 man but they don't have time/patience to organize them.

Not so much of a fact as a belief. While there are players doing 10s who would prefer to do 25s, the question as to how many of these there are hasn't really been answered. It can range from almost none to almost all and even were the logistic issues to be addressed, there are still other factors to consider.

If you raid 10s because your friends are there...would the improved presence of 25s cause you to switch?

EJL

[Enosh]

The fact.

Big percentage of current 10 man raiders would like to raid 25 man but they don't have time/patience to organize them.

[Deleted]

id say they shuld keep it as it is, same loot, same reward. plain and simple.. why have an increase in ilevels when the bosses is the same?

[Radalek]

You will have one by the end of the day.

[Raider321]

The fact.

Big percentage of current 10 man raiders would like to raid 25 man but they don't have time/patience to organize them.

Big percentage of the current 10 man raiders quit 25man raiding because they don't like the fact that they're carrying the other 15 players. They have just as much time as the others, perhaps less patience.



edit: of course; source coming by the end of the day.

---------- Post added 2013-01-04 at 11:42 AM ----------

id say they shuld keep it as it is, same loot, same reward. plain and simple.. why have an increase in ilevels when the bosses is the same?

Because people believe that 25man is harder due to finding 25 non-bads is more difficult than only finding 10 non-bads.
The actual content is more or less the same (in my opinion) - you can't skip boss mechanics in 10m like u can in 25 but there is also more to keep track of in 25m raids.

Individual skill matters more in 10m but the raidleading needs to be better in 25m to be successful.

[Deleted]

Well RAider321 i assume you don't know something about economy or simply mpla mpla 10-man is the Single viable option since is 90% of raiding population..? Right?
Well 90% of the 3% of 10 million is quite low.

Just compare Wotlk and Mop with economy of the game because is simply fact's this is what matter.There is like a 80% less raider's. And ofc this would come with less players.

At the end this is not about a skill or who is harder ....Is simply the economy of the game and how is gonna take more money. I doubt that people like Europeans would understand about how economy plays rolle with Greed of Companys.
.

So it's not 35k Guild that have killed 1st boss. It's far less since many 10-man in my server have disbanded but still count's. So Your 200k 10-man raiders wont get the money to create new raids and new bosses. Simply fact's that people like you deny .


Did you enjoy Cataclysm raiding? Ofc no...

[Deleted]

Well RAider321 i assume you don't know something about economy or simply mpla mpla 10-man is the Single viable option since is 90% of raiding population..? Right?
Well 90% of the 3% of 10 million is quite low.

Just compare Wotlk and Mop with economy of the game because is simply fact's this is what matter.There is like a 80% less raider's. And ofc this would come with less players.

At the end this is not about a skill or who is harder ....Is simply the economy of the game and how is gonna take more money. I doubt that people like Europeans would understand about how economy plays rolle with Greed of Companys.
.

So it's not 35k Guild that have killed 1st boss. It's far less since many 10-man in my server have disbanded but still count's. So Your 200k 10-man raiders wont get the money to create new raids and new bosses. Simply fact's that people like you deny .


Did you enjoy Cataclysm raiding? Ofc no...

If you gonna state "simple facts" then show us the facts? I mean i could also tell you any numbers I want and say its simple facts tho its not..

[Deleted]

If you gonna state "simple facts" then show us the facts? I mean i could also tell you any numbers I want and say its simple facts tho its not..

Genjuros Server.
How many Guild in Tbc , How many in Wotlk . And the pick up Cataclysm and Mop atm.

What are you gonna see ? 1/10 of what guild we had in Tbc and Wotlk.. Many people simply quited because they could raid in what format would want. So right now tell me if you're talking about the fact's. You like many 10-man guilds like we are today not be able to pass 4 bosses in Msv? I thought Good raiders are now in 10-man but there like 20k 10-man Guild's that have passed Elegon. I like the fact that 10-man are the hardcore ones but where are those numbers???

If people loves so much those 10-man why the... are so many few... 10-man Guild's raiding?
Pick up Wow progress since so much you want Fact's. Number's??? It's like 30% of 10-man are doing Hardcore. Wow is an amazing number but is like...

H: Stone Guard (10): 8069 (22.21%)
H: Feng the Accursed (10): 6342 (17.46%)
H: Gara'jal the Spiritbinder (10): 5036 (13.86%)
H: Four Kings (10): 2647 (7.29%)
H: Elegon (10): 4101 (11.29%)
H: Will of the Emperor (10): 1658 (4.56%)

Pick up the number with the number in 10-man normal
Stone Guard (10): 35042 (96.45%)
Feng the Accursed (10): 33467 (92.12%)
Gara'jal the Spiritbinder (10): 31555 (86.86%)
Four Kings (10): 30790 (84.75%)
Elegon (10): 21395 (58.89%)
Will of the Emperor (10): 18568 (51.11%)

In term's.

Again sorry but for a 10-milion population that seems to have this game those 10-man raiders represent Quite to non existence number's.

Seems that people playing this game avoid raiding. And the people that are stoping are simply not replaced. Mpla mpla...Solo raiding in next patch...

[Radalek]

arguments against incentivizing 25m raid with same gear as 10m, but upgraded 1 of 2?
We considered it, but the problem is that the 10s couldn't upgrade their gear until 5.1, making 25s drop strictly better gear.

Is this slightly changed stance on that? Since this 'issue' they had will not exist in 5.2 it looks like they might consider it.