Where have all the Raiders Gone?

[Drekmar]

I'm all for them having heroic modes. Honest I don't want them left out in the cold anymore than my friends or even myself are now. Their just needs to be a better balance struck. That's it. The second boss shouldn't be a massive cock block. I'm all for the final bosses being difficult and the heroic modes being difficult but the entire raid lacks any actual sense of progression. It's just a massive fucking cock block.

I agree with that point. Horridon is pain in the ass. Garalon was pain in the ass.

The jump of difficulty between JinRokh and Horridon is huge, we had to get new players for that.
I think the difficulty is ok, but not for 2nd boss.

[Crashdummy]

So why did they stop clearing the accessible T14 content?

Because T14 was not accesible either.

T14 is part of the problem, HoF was as overtuned as ToT is and blocked over 70% of the normal raiding guilds for 5 months even with item upgrades.

[AeneasBK]

Horridon has been tougher than any of the bosses after it we've killed so far

On topic:

My guild is 6 years old. Still raids 25 man on a dead server. You just need to have a good leader *cough*. Charisma helps, as does compassion.

[Glorious Leader]

there are many reasons why a guild may be 1/12. in my case it was a choice to stop raiding with sub par players and rebuild rather than spend another tier codling the poor game play of 2/10ths of our group.

LOL well their you go. Now you know where all the raiders have gone. They were all apparently sub par all along and only a few of them were actually any really good. Fantastic. How many more will drop away?

[Drekmar]

Because T14 was not accesible either.

T14 is part of the problem, HoF was as overtuned as ToT is and blocked over 70% of the normal raiding guilds for 5 months even with item upgrades.

Mostly if people fail its because they cant keep up with the mechanics of encounter, except some bosses.

[judgementofantonidas]

Putting some time, yes. Not being able to complete the tier after 5 months and with item upgrades, i find that unacceptable. And its not 1 guilds not being able to do it, its over 70% of the guilds that started doing Normal raiding that tier.

with the exception of sha we got ahead of the curve. it was painful but fulfilling. we spent 3 weeks working on ambershaper with the same three people not being able to press their one or two button at the right time. the difficulty is just fine and need not be lowered just because we as a group are not getting past the preliminary bosses of the latest tier. we need to improve or find a different hobby not lower the quality of the game for those who can complete.

[Glorious Leader]

If you're looking at raids now having 3 difficulty levels (which they do), normals fall right in the middle.

No it doesn't. Merely counting 3 and saying the middle is normal doesn't make it medium difficulty. Not by any measurable stretch. Not relative to any other time in world of warcraft. Not relative to even other video games. Not relative to what the majority of the raiding player base can accomplish. It is simply easy, hard and harder. Theirs 3 there and one is in the middle. Their is no medium though.

[Arainie]

LFR, small 10man friends groups and accessability happened. When everyone can get pretty much everywhere alone or with a small core of friends, most people who previously made an effort to get there will take the easy way towards the treasure.

As a side effect, previously dedicated raiders like myself quit the game when good recruits are more scarce than a giraffe on the north pole. 95% of the applicants my 25man guild got in MoP were applicants whose applications I would have closed after the first few lines in the past, yet we were forced to consider them all due to more and more people quiting as yet another side effect of the above statements.

[Crashdummy]

If somebody wipes 50 times on "normal" boss, it means they suck.

I dont get it how somebody can get stopped by Elegon or Garalon...

Then over 70% of normal raiders suck.

Maybe the solution is to tune NORMAL raids to NORMAL raiders level?

[judgementofantonidas]

LFR, small 10man friends groups and accessability happened. When everyone can get pretty much everywhere alone or with a small core of friends, most people who previously made an effort to get there will take the easy way towards the treasure.

As a side effect, previously dedicated raiders like myself quit the game when good recruits are more scarce than a giraffe on the north pole. 95% of the applicants my 25man guild got in MoP were applicants whose applications I would have closed after the first few lines in the past, yet we were forced to consider them all due to more and more people quiting as yet another side effect of the above statements.

although the majority fits the mold of what you have stated not all. I made the decision early in cata to not bow to the easier path of running 25 man with all the extra benefits and more room for slack. have I paid for it in not always being able to find players up to the challenge of ten man raiding? absolutely. But the payoff is in the satisfaction received when we accomplish the goal with better players and more effort.

[Osmeric]

If it were up to me, I would simply ignore the needs of the top 1-2% of players. But that's not how Blizzard does it.

If you look at it the right way, those top players are doing everything in their power to make Blizzard's job as tough as possible. They go to enormous lengths to segregate themselves from the rest of the player population, play with extreme intensity, brutally screen out anyone not in the upper ranks of performance, and minmax everything.

Why should Blizzard be catering to a group that is deliberately placing itself as far as possible from the average?

[pld]

I've noticed that a few guilds on my server went from 3/12 to 6/12 within the past week or two. A handful of them are fairly casual guilds who only raid 1-2 times a week, so I don't think this raid is necessarily "overtuned". I think with all the number adjustments, this current tier feels pretty balanced.

I've also been noticing this trend amongst raiders that if they cannot fully clear a tier, the tier was overtuned and created for hardcore raiders. I remember back in previous expansions where fully clearing a raid was really difficult and reserved for the top guilds. I don't think Blizzard designs raids with the intention of having the majority of raid teams clearing normal mode.

[Osmeric]

I've also been noticing this trend amongst raiders that if they cannot fully clear a tier, the tier was overtuned and created for hardcore raiders. I remember back in previous expansions where fully clearing a raid was really difficult and reserved for the top guilds. I don't think Blizzard designs raids with the intention of having the majority of raid teams clearing normal mode.

If a guild cannot clear a tier, then the tier was overtuned for them, by definition.

Historical arguments, and arguments from intention, aren't worth anything. They're basically arguments from authority, and give absolutely no reason why anyone should accept a situation that displeases them.

Going forward, I think it's clear the current raid design is not sustainable. My prediction is that hard raid modes will be downgraded to vanity-reward-only, much like Challenge modes in 5 mans are.

I am wondering if Blizzard has some internal plan that the lesser players will go to Titan, and leave WoW for the harder core players. If so, I wish they'd release Titan and watch it perform poorly, so they could be rudely disabused of this fantasy.

[Deleted]

I've noticed that a few guilds on my server went from 3/12 to 6/12 within the past week or two. A handful of them are fairly casual guilds who only raid 1-2 times a week, so I don't think this raid is necessarily "overtuned". I think with all the number adjustments, this current tier feels pretty balanced.

I've also been noticing this trend amongst raiders that if they cannot fully clear a tier, the tier was overtuned and created for hardcore raiders. I remember back in previous expansions where fully clearing a raid was really difficult and reserved for the top guilds. I don't think Blizzard designs raids with the intention of having the majority of raid teams clearing normal mode.

One of the reasons for that is the requirement for the current tiers gear to stand a chance in the next one.

Blizzard have also openly stated that they moved away from non clearable tiers (due to exiting customers saying "i signed up to fight the LK/Elfydemon Guy/Dragon where the fuck was it?" on the way out) but you are right, the old model was of non clearable tiers. Hasn't been that way since LK.

[SirReal]

play on a high pop server...plenty of raiders..... theres plenty of raid spots to go around if you look in the right place. recently transferred from arthas-us alliance to sargeras-us alliance and couldn't be happier

[Glorious Leader]

play on a high pop server...plenty of raiders..... theres plenty of raid spots to go around if you look in the right place. recently transferred from arthas-us alliance to sargeras-us alliance and couldn't be happier

I was on arthas-us horde for years. Left it to play alliance with some pals on windrunner. I knew alliance side wasn't really populated well on alliance is horde still good though?

[Galaddriel]

play on a high pop server...plenty of raiders..... theres plenty of raid spots to go around if you look in the right place. recently transferred from arthas-us alliance to sargeras-us alliance and couldn't be happier

That's part of the problem right there. 50% of raiding is happening on the top 20 realms. The other 50% is scattered on the other 226 realms.
When you lose a tank or a healer on a realm that's losing more players than it's gaining, you lost more than just one raider.

[Greyvax]

Raiding just got old, it's been done before so many times that very little changes except for altered boss mechanics and skins. Believe it or not, all games get old and die out after a while. There's just so many players in WoW that it'll take a lot longer to do so.

Also committing to X days a week of raiding is just stupid. Why would I want to invest 3 nights a week of must-attend raiding, especially when people randomly contact me with plans or invites to hang out during the week? I'll just end up blowing off the raid. It was doable earlier on (people in college didn't do much during the week as they do in real world), but when you get older it's less feasible unless you are a basement dwelling neckbeard.

[Crashdummy]

Again, your "objective" data does not support your conclusions. This is because (why do I have to keep explaining this?) you formed your conclusion first and then looked for data to support it. That's the very opposite of objectivity.

The spread between the number of people who kill the first boss in a raid tier and the people who killed the last boss has always been significant. There's nothing new here. And certainly nothing to support your preconceived notion that Normal Mode is too difficult. Guilds break up (something that has happened a lot lately) and people quit playing (something else that has happened a lot lately). Beyond that, thousands of people send their undergeared, poorly performing alts through as much of a tier as they can - inevitably failing to complete it while it's considered "current".

Seriously, just stop already. If you’re going to run around spouting off an unsupported opinion, that’s fine. You’ve every right to make an idiot of yourself. Just quit pretending that it’s factually based.

Over 70% of guilds broke or had its people quitting? No.
And i am nto talking about the first and last boss, i am talking about Stone Guards and Empress.

And even so, i dont recall the diference been 70% in the recent past (WotLK, Cata).

What has alts have to do when we are talking about how many GUILDS cleared things?

Over 70% of the GUILDS that started Tier 14 couldnt finished it. I think it supports my conclusion that it was too hard.

At least i am giving arguments, you are not.

---------- Post added 2013-04-10 at 01:25 PM ----------

Easy, they have to try harder. Thats all.

Yeah, its the fault of over 70% of guilds. Its not like the less than 30% of guilds that did cleared HoF are in reality the guilds that are ABOVE Normal level and should be progressing in Heroic level (or finishing it) while Normal level should be easier for the NORMAL PEOPLE (you know, the over 70% that is failing in Normal content so much)

---------- Post added 2013-04-10 at 01:30 PM ----------

Going back to Wrath would not provide more raiders. Only more deluded wannabees.

I believe the deluded ones are the ones that think NORMAL raiders are the ones in the 20% top of the raiding piramid of people that attempted to do normal raids (not considering those that didnt even atempt to do so).

---------- Post added 2013-04-10 at 01:38 PM ----------

Mostly if people fail its because they cant keep up with the mechanics of encounter, except some bosses.

I know, i never said the bosses were impossible. What i'm saying is that the room for error or underperfom from a perfect performance that Normal raids have is too small for normail raiders, which is supported by the fact that over 70% of the guilds that started T14 couldnt even finish HoF, let alone the entire tier.

---------- Post added 2013-04-10 at 01:40 PM ----------

with the exception of sha we got ahead of the curve. it was painful but fulfilling. we spent 3 weeks working on ambershaper with the same three people not being able to press their one or two button at the right time. the difficulty is just fine and need not be lowered just because we as a group are not getting past the preliminary bosses of the latest tier. we need to improve or find a different hobby not lower the quality of the game for those who can complete.

Its not a group, its over 70% of the groups.

Over 70% of the groups cant get past some preliminary bosses.

You could, congratz, maybe you are above the NORMAL CURVE? (you mught wanna look at what a NORMAL curve is, and then realize that less than 30% of groups completing a tier does not represent a normal population)

[Haywire5714]

but you are right, the old model was of non clearable tiers. Hasn't been that way since LK.

Since LK? wtf