Where have all the Raiders Gone?

[cd1131]

No game can really compare to WoW in terms of MMO, so most raiders I used to know either play LoL or no games anymore

[Millie]

Also, in newer MMOs, the mod support and general customization to the UI is, to put it nicely, piss poor. That's a factor too. At least for me.

I can see that beign an issue for many. I try to stay as standard as possible for my UI, I add things like Weak Auras and stuff but try and keep the elements that already exist in their default state (Bars, frames, ect).

Games like Rift handled this fine for me as it allowed you to unlock and move any part of the UI by default.

[Osmeric]

This is something that I've always struggled to put into words when describing a factor about WoW's engine.

When I've played other MMOs such as Rift, Aion, TERA, SWTOR and GW2 (A game I very much enjoy, but still have this issue with) I find that my character feels like they're ankle deep in molasses as far as movement is concerned. In WoW I move instantly , I can turn on a dime, ect. Many other MMOs I feel so much more restricted or even delayed in my character's responce to my controls, "snappiness" so do speak.

I've thought that a big part of the poor reaction the vehicle mechanism got in Wrath was that vehicles didn't have this feel. Press a button on a vehicle and it feels like you're fighting with big padded gloves on. Everything is just slow and laggy, even if that lag is just a fraction of a second.

[potis]

But that was back when Rift released. This thread is about the decline during MoP.

I doubt many raiders went to back to Rift for the expansion.

The decline exists since early Cataclysm it just didnt show because WoW numbers are really big for the game it is.

I said the same thing before but people tend to ignore it.

Old raider blood is completely burnt out of any raiding, and there is no new raider blood because newer generations do not play MMO's cause its not the main genre of their generation while there are newer more flashy MMO's coming out that are free also, they arent as good but they are free, younger people prefer free over anything else, League of Legends proved that.

As example, WoW became really popular 2006-2008, that generation, and by generation i mean highschool/those finishing highschool went into WoW, cause that was the main game of the period (At least the guys i know from my neighbourhood and schools around me and net cafes all played WoW, of course its area/city/country is different).

The main game of 2012-2013 is League of Legends, every one and their mother and kids play it, literally.

Now Tera went F2P , 2 months ago..Suddenly the net cafe 5 mins from my house has 20 people playing it daily out of nowhere, these people barely touched any MMO or know they exist apart from WoW, and they barely touched that also and they are the generation of 2010-2011 (They are 19-20 years old now).

I have 3 main long existing net cafes near my home that i pass by or know some people in them and i can see exactly what each generation plays.

My generation of 2003-2004: Diablo 2 1.10/Warcraft TFT and still some forgotten counter strike from 2001-2003.

2004-2005 was Early Dota/WoW

2005-2006 Dota/WoW/Private lineage2 servers setup from the net cafe themselves since they were companies and had like 20 shops etc.

2006-2009 is only Dota/WoW with some CoD:MW when it first came out since it was really good, along with ISSP.

At around 2010 WoW stopped appearing at the screens and by 2011 it was replaced by LoL completely, no new guys starting the game, those that played it kept playing or restarting after quitting etc.

Generally out of a pool of 200-500PC's and many failed net cafes only 3 have remained and the only thing i can see on the screens is League of Legends , literally 24/7 with of course some occasional other game.

Long random post but people need to realize the newer generations are not interested in MMO's anymore only a few of them do and they only go to the flashy F2P ones, and there are your raiders.

Old ones quit the game all burnt out or cant play anymore and there is no new blood at all.

[Freia]

Actually i can back him up.

While raiding in Rift for about 14 months or so pretty much every raider i had/spoke/met/played with was some sort of either WoW or AoC ex-player with something like 98% WoW players and 2% AoC ones.

Rift had "a lot" raiders for a new non-WoW game up to at least the first 6 months before it started having a bigger decline with all the newer games coming out and WoW patches etc.

And awesome engines is usually the main goal for Blizzard since forever, its the reason many people cant jump games easily after a Blizzard one cause the "Cartoonish style" engines are very fluid.

So your evidence is the people you meet in rift. So what percentage of WoW raiders quit raiding in WoW to raid in Rift now? I highly doubt it is a significant percentage based on Rift's actual sub count.

[Hyphyjiuce]

Nathrezim-US Alliance was a ghost town when I moved to Medivh-US with my guild.
Medivh-US Alliance now feels like what Nathrezim was at the end of WotLK.

I followed a friend to Stormrage-US Alliance and wish I had done it sooner. I have not been on a realm that felt this alive since Vanilla/BC. Que times can get annoying, but still worth it imo.

[MrSerious]

the future of raiding in WoW is LFR, after each expansion you will see more and more people choosing LFR over an organised raid.

By the time you get to fight Sargeras it'll just be a bunch of randoms in LFR while some are afk at the start. It'll be an epic fight.

/EDIT just noticed some people talking about rift. From what you read everywhere if you like raiding then Rift is the game for you. Haven't tried it myself but just by looking at the videos of rift raids you can see how amazing they are.

[Seefer]

Subs peaked during the "easy" expansion, and plummeted immediately with the inception of harder 5 mans, less gear from valor, and lessened catchup mechanics in the first quarter of Cata.

Actually they stagnated in WOTLK, 5 mans were not difficult in Crapaclysm other than needing a little CC until you outgeared it which btw did NOT take long at all, you could get whole valor sets so I don't know what you mean by that not "less catchup mechanics" seeing as I had every class but a rogue ready to raid in Crapaclysm...................so again, Crapaclysm was not hard in the least.

[Deleted]

/2 LFM RAID XXXX only with clear ACM and ILVL 392382382829928333333333333333333

same goes with raid guilds in my opinion and of the things i can read in the chat

for me, as a returning player from TBC, it is impossible to find a raid guild because everyone wants players which already got crazy good gear and or cleared the whole raid already.
(ive raided sunwell and BT sucessfully, i even can show achievements, logs that show i was one of the first healers killing illidan/Kil jaeden on my server, they dont give a shit about those achievements which clearly state that i dont suck at raiding and im willing to spend time to improve and get good again, but all that matters is gearscore 2938537 and clear achievement of current raids)


so for me as sad as it sounds, the LFR tool was the best thing that happened by far in this game.

im really interested in what you say about my current state of not finding any raid guild or just a raid group in the game, and what i should do to get one

[Vaelorian]

/2 LFM RAID XXXX only with clear ACM and ILVL 392382382829928333333333333333333

same goes with raid guilds in my opinion and of the things i can read in the chat

for me, as a returning player from TBC, it is impossible to find a raid guild because everyone wants players which already got crazy good gear and or cleared the whole raid already.
(ive raided sunwell and BT sucessfully, i even can show achievements, logs that show i was one of the first healers killing illidan/Kil jaeden on my server, they dont give a shit about those achievements which clearly state that i dont suck at raiding and im willing to spend time to improve and get good again, but all that matters is gearscore 2938537 and clear achievement of current raids)


so for me as sad as it sounds, the LFR tool was the best thing that happened by far in this game.

im really interested in what you say about my current state of not finding any raid guild or just a raid group in the game, and what i should do to get one

Not sure but speaking as a former recruitment officer and guildmaster that had a guild for almost 7 years, I would say the guild(s) you've tried to get into have a serious problem with their recruitment officer(s).

What I look for in an apply (a written one):

1. does this guy have the right age (I simply detest "kids")
2. have actually done a very good job writing their apply (e.g. elaborate answers instead of the usual "yes"). You don't have to be a Shakespear to write a decent apply you know.
3. shows in their writings that they know their class pretty well
4. has achievements from a certain period when it was current + not raising doubt that this account has been bought
5. has superb gear equal to what is available to that player without raiding in a guild
6. has the required gems/enchants/talents for what is mostly suited for the content (ofcourse you can switch talents, but an obvious pvp talent is still not a pve talent)

If you can do this + you seem a nice guy to talk to.... I seriously doubt any guild would deny you if they have room and aren't recruiting for the sake of recruiting.

[Slant]

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

The raider population is in decline, because these are not the old gang of gamers anymore. These are new kids who're used to unlimited continues, getting handed everything to them and overall simple, easy gameplay where each and every aspect of the game is taught to you in a fun, entertaining manner so you basically can't fail to win the game. Simple as that.

None of these kids ever had cracked games on an old 286 or Amiga or Atari ST, where they had no manual and had to figure everything out themselves. That is in addition to games being a lot less forgiving and harsher back then. You died in Giana Sisters and have no continue? No problem, go back to the start and begin all over again. Not nowadays, no my friend. Tomb Raider - while being an excellent game - is a good example of today's game attitude. Savepoints every two steps. Please, dear god, don't let the player be punished in any way.

So yeah, once Blizzard puts raiding into a higher gear, people are overwhelmed and quit. Simple as that. The community isn't what it used to be. And all this talk about this or that being the fault of Blizzard... well, technically, it's all true. They are responsible for the development after all. But it won't change people quitting the game. So this whole debate is kinda moot.

---------- Post added 2013-04-09 at 10:19 AM ----------

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.

I actually agree about the vehicle fights and Durumu's visibility mechanic. What I meant by gimmick is something that's clearly just for one boss and not repeated a lot. Take Ryolith or Valithria. Now that they have repeated Valithria in Terrace, I'd agree that it's becoming more of a common mechanic. But steering a boss by dpsing his feet? Well, ok... that doesn't sound like a 1-boss gimmick at all.

Sure there are exceptions, but outright denying Blizzard is rehashing the same old mechanics over and over again is being ignorant. But then, for the sake of making you all happy, I'll agree that everything is a common mechanic, nothing is repeated every and each thing is designed uniquely for that very specific boss and has never been done before. Because we all know green fire is not red fire, right?

[Blackmist]

We've seen a drop in the number of raid guilds killing the first boss, because many of those old guilds that couldn't clear more than a few bosses on normal (even with buffs) have gone pure LFR.

There were a lot of these. They found raiding fun, because they were all together, but they were no good at it. A few would be competent, but you can't boost 8 out of 10 people. LFR is perfect for these players. They see the bosses, they play together and if somebody doesn't show (as is often the case in very casual guilds) it's no big deal. No need to pug a healer or tank, they can just go.

There *is* a decline in the number of players as well, but it's not as severe is it looks. In Wrath, there were around 80k guilds with kills. Cata started with 70k and dropped to 60k by the end. Now there are 40k killing Stone Guard. It *could* be that 20k guilds stopped playing entirely, but it's more likely that a large number of them were the ultra casual LFR crowd. You can't count the new raid yet, because it's not been not long enough for some of them to even try it. I reckon that will finish on around 35k kills on that first guy.

[Crashdummy]

I don't understand what all the people clamoring that raiding is dying because of difficulty are going on about. I started playing pretty recently, and raiding even more recently and I do just fine. In my opinion, if you don't have the mental capacity to do T14 and T15 encounters, something is bloody wrong with you.

Well, guess there are a lot of people without the "mental capacity" to do T14 and T15 encounters.

40k guilds killed Stone Guards N before 5.2
13k killed Empress, before 5.2

And that is after 5 months of content being available and several of them witht he item upgrade system "nerfing" the content.

After 5 weeks, only 20k guilds killed Jin'rokh.

Now, we can post that everyone that cant kill Norma raids is mentally handicaped, like you did, or we can actually stop being blind and look at actual stats and analyze them.

Normal Raiding is hard for NORMAL people, too hard, and that is killing raiding.

[Vaelorian]

I think it is pretty dumb to say that (for example) WOTLK had 50k guilds downing bosses and MoP has 20k guilds downing bosses as if that is a tool to measure if the raids are too difficult. People just swarmed towards LFR. So fewer guilds are actually there to raid. Thats how I look at it.

LFR is a tool of convenience. Why would you bother with a rigid raidroster if you can "raid" whenever you want to? So yes less guilds defeated boss X, that means shit all basically.

The way you calculate it is like how Blizzard thinks LFR is the best invention ever because so many people use it, so it must be FUN!

LFR isn't fun (must say I do like the ToT LFR's tbh, dunno how long that will last when we outgear it), it is a means to acquire gear - be it to do normals more easy or be it just to upgrade your character for faster grinding of dailies... whatever. I don't think Blizzard can assume that LFR is fun based on how many people use the tool. Same for having a chest in Stormwind with all the heroic loot in there for that expansion. Everyone can grab it for free. Would that be a "fun" thing or be efficient way to gear up? Think it would be pretty popular. But would it be fun? I don't think so.

[Crashdummy]

I think it is pretty dumb to say that (for example) WOTLK had 50k guilds downing bosses and MoP has 20k guilds downing bosses as if that is a tool to measure if the raids are too difficult. People just swarmed towards LFR. So fewer guilds are actually there to raid. Thats how I look at it.

LFR is a tool of convenience. Why would you bother with a rigid raidroster if you can "raid" whenever you want to? So yes less guilds defeated boss X, that means shit all basically.

The way you calculate it is like how Blizzard thinks LFR is the best invention ever because so many people use it, so it must be FUN!

LFR isn't fun (must say I do like the ToT LFR's tbh, dunno how long that will last when we outgear it), it is a means to acquire gear - be it to do normals more easy or be it just to upgrade your character for faster grinding of dailies... whatever. I don't think Blizzard can assume that LFR is fun based on how many people use the tool. Same for having a chest in Stormwind with all the heroic loot in there for that expansion. Everyone can grab it for free. Would that be a "fun" thing or be efficient way to gear up? Think it would be pretty popular. But would it be fun? I don't think so.

I am not saying "Wrath had 50k guilds, MoP have 20k, MoP is harder".

Im saying, 40k guilds started t14, only 13k killed empress (which is not even the end boss) over 5 months and with item upgrades nerfing.
Now, why would you bother with a rigid roster? Apparently 40k guilds bothered, but only 13k reached the last stage.

Raiding in WoW is hard, too hard, a very small percentage of the population that tries it is succeeding, which means Normal raiding doesnt follow a Normal curve.

And IMO, the fact that its so hard is causing people to stop raiding and some stop playing.

[Eisenstein]

I have recently experienced some of the LFR hang over in my raid group that was disturbing. We were going in to do an easy ToES run with some guildies and a couple of people from openraid.com (great site). We were doing Lei Shi which is basically one of the easiest fights I've seen this expansion. Half the people in my group did not understand CC and don't damage like WTF! Just makes me think the spoon fed method of LFR is almost spoiling players where they almost can't get out of the mind set of stand there and pewpew till you win or die. I mean how hard is it to not press an AOE or not doing a F&*^%$g chi torpedo and breaking CC. We spent 3 hours on Lei Shi /facepalm.

[Tuffguss]

Can't even believe what I am reading... "Raiding in WoW is hard, too hard..." @ normal modes. Nowadays in wow between the sweeping nerfs, TF gear and non-raid epics you increase in power verrrry fast even if you are stagnant and stuck on a boss. If you are stuck nowadays, you will quickly increase in power... giving you what you need to progress.

Hop back to BC and tell me what happened when guilds got stuck... anyone know? I'll tell you. The good players all left and joined more advanced guilds because there was nothing to help them progress. We now have a plethora of tools/features available to help groups increase in power to push through road-blocks on the progression path... I don't understand why people complain about it so much.

[melodramocracy]

These are tied in together, don't you see? Most people are only willing to attempt a boss so many times before they give up. That's why they nerfed bosses before - because guilds hit the wall and give up. Remember how everyone cried about it? "Oh no, don't nerf bosses, let players hit the wall until they learn!" Well, this is what you get.

That's not what I'm saying. The argument here is that a very large number of folks who would have been considered raiders in Wrath and everything prior have decided that LFR nets them what they want out of the 'raiding' experience. WowProgress shows numbers for guild kills, but doesn't show LFR numbers at all to contrast to. (or pugs for that matter)

In addition, this means a bit of a reality check for guilds who are looking for that top 3% player who brings all sorts of knowledge and experience. You have a dwindling pool to choose from, and most of your potential candidates are either a) already in a raiding guild they're happy with, b) don't feel like raiding on a schedule any longer, or c) don't meet your current qualifications. It's a buyers market, as it were, so unless you're willing to be a bit more helpful and teach folks, you're probably in for continued frustration at finding candidates.

[Nessus]

You can't teach ppl to play. You can explain tacs, tell them what to do or where to move in specific moment, but you cant teach them to play. Gm's and officers have already enough duties beside "teaching" the players. Players need to make some effort in order to improve their skills and knowledge if they want to raid above LFR level.

[Osmeric]

You can't count the new raid yet, because it's not been not long enough for some of them to even try it. I reckon that will finish on around 35k kills on that first guy.

You can count how many guilds had downed Feng by this point in T14, vs. how many have downed Horridon now. (I say this because the first boss of MSV was the blocker, whereas in ToT it's the second boss, so comparing rates on just the first bosses would be misleading). Last I checked, there was a substantial decline. And this is remarkable, since MSV released before many guilds had fully geared up for it in heroic 5 mans.

I'm seeing a trickle of activity still in T14, but I am very doubtful many guilds that have failed to clear T14 will continue on through T15, or even get very far before giving up, if they haven't already.