Where have all the Raiders Gone?

[Drekmar]

You can either accept the reality of a "lazy" community and design for them or you can whinge about the absence of "hard working" players.

Either way, it is what it is. Encounters are too difficult for the potential raiding population. Either nerf them or watch raiding die off. Can't have them where they are and a large raiding population.

You mean the potential raiding die off. Well, theres always LFR for lazy people, so count that as raiding too.

[Deleted]

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

The population rises and falls with the difficulty level. Over the years, wow has got progressively harder and harder and this is shunting more and more players out of the potential raiding population. Mystery solved.

You can't be in favour of harder raids AND also a larger pool of raiders to choose from, they are mutually exclusive. You have to pick one.

[Tomana]

Theres your reason why raiders are leaving. You cant solve it.

It's one of the reasons yes, the second one being the aging of the initial raiding population, as they get jobs and families. Hell, apparently even some top level guilds have trouble recruiting people these days.

So yes, unless some stuff is re-tuned, and most important, the raiders change some of their mentality, the numbers will keep on shrinking. And MOP, while being an awesome expansion overall, took a few steps in the opposite direction. Time will tell whether it was a mistake or not.

[Crashdummy]

Obviously for many raiding guilds, normal modes presented a good challenge, however to that bottom 30%, who would bring friends and family, who aren't very good at raiding - low DPS/HPS, slow to react, etc. - normal modes were too hard. When you turn to Blizzard and the forums and the answer is, "if you want to do guild progression raiding, don't plan on bringing your friends and family", it turned a lot of that group off.

Its worse than that. Its not 30% of Normal raiding guilds failing, its less than 30% of them SUCEEDING. That means over 70% of normal raiding guilds couldnt finish T14, even after 5 months and with item upgrades nerfing the content.

THAT is why i say T14 was stupidly overtuned and T15 is even worse.

[Deleted]

You mean the potential raiding die off. Well, theres always LFR for lazy people, so count that as raiding too.

Ok, so just make LFR level raids then. Job done.

[Glorious Leader]

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

And now we come to the heart of the issue. Why people are defending this tier so vociferously. Because they want to be elites and lord over others and call them "deluded wannabees". That's so good and it sums up why normal raiding will only continue to shrink and become a niche thing. The sad part is that you don't see that this will only in the longer term begin to affect you.

[melodramocracy]

Obviously entertainment is subjective, people are fully entertained being sadomasochists beating their head against a wall 100+ times wiping on the same boss and I'm all for them having content to suite that desire. However if you want to stop the trend of players leaving normal mode raiding then you'll make normal mode raiding more accessible. Guilds adjusting who and how they recruit won't make a difference because the current trend of players leaving normal raiding will eventually make it very hard to sustain normal raiding. The guilds don't have much to do to reverse this trend in fact they are now by and large helpless.

They've done that, that's what the LFR is. Perhaps everyone would think better of it if normal was now called 'medium'.

[vsb]

It's because of dailies. Me and my friends quit wow because we feel that doing dailies is mandatory to remain raider and we don't like dailies.

[Tomana]

And now we come to the heart of the issue. Why people are defending this tier so vociferously. Because they want to be elites and lord over others and call them "deluded wannabees".

The cosmic irony is that his guild is at 1/12 ToT.

[Glorious Leader]

The population rises and falls with the difficulty level. Over the years, wow has got progressively harder and harder and this is shunting more and more players out of the potential raiding population. Mystery solved.

You can't be in favour of harder raids AND also a larger pool of raiders to choose from, they are mutually exclusive. You have to pick one.

Actually if you understand it from his perspective the raiding population generally stays the same. The only thing that has changed is the deluded wannabes have left and he probably doesn't count those as raiders anyway. Now his perspective is foolish and ultimately detrimental but yea you should understand his view on this.

[Drekmar]

Once again, you are talking about people playing a video game for hours a week being "lazy."

What expectation to the contrary do you have exactly?

As an observer looking in from the outside, would you ever describe someone who spent, say, 12 hours a week playing a video game as anything other than lazy?

I dont really know:
Raiding : 3x 4 hours.
Daily stuff: 1-2 hours per day.

[Glorious Leader]

They've done that, that's what the LFR is. Perhaps everyone would think better of it if normal was now called 'medium'.

Really? You bolded what I wrote but ignored it somehow. NORMAL RAIDING more accessible. Normal isn' "medium" by any stretch of the imagination. Not relative to any other time in warcraft or relative to what the overwhelming vast majority of the raiding player base will do, or even to other video games.

[HardCoder]

The population rises and falls with the difficulty level. Over the years, wow has got progressively harder and harder and this is shunting more and more players out of the potential raiding population. Mystery solved.

You can't be in favour of harder raids AND also a larger pool of raiders to choose from, they are mutually exclusive. You have to pick one.

The range of skill has grown hugely. At the beginning, there were only newbies. Two years later, there were people who had killed some very crudely implemented raid bosses, and there were newbies. Now, eight years later, there are people who have killed some much more sophisticated raid bosses, and there are newbies. And there is a huge range in between.

But the game has trouble satisfying that range of skill.

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.

[Glorious Leader]

The cosmic irony is that his guild is at 1/12 ToT.

LOL Fantastic. Tin Pot Tyrants. Even I'm further than that and I hate this tier.

[brirrspliff]

Game is 8.5 years old,
and I believe (could just be me obviously)
- a lot more folks are kicking back, and or trying out something different like Pvp.

I'm liking PVP a lot compared to always having to be there 2 nights a week every week no matter what.

I'm able to Pvp anytime I want, on my schedule.

the kind of pvp you seem to be talking about is comparable to lfr. and you can do lfr whenever you want, too. the kind of raiding that people talk about here is comparable to rgbs. you cannot do them "when i want, on my schedule".

i think one of the main reasons is the difference between 10 and 25 player raids. it produced a split in the raiding community, slimming chances of good raids in both formats.

[Crashdummy]

Wait, what? If you enjoy progression raiding...then you enjoy putting in the time to overcome a challenge for your group. This means wiping...at times wiping over and over again.

Are you guys quitting after 20 tries on xxxxx tier 14 boss? 50? 100? When do you deem a boss impossible for your group that wants to socialize and not focus on the challenge at hand?

@glorious: yeah, but you're progressing through current normal mode content...does that offer no satisfaction at all?

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.

[Glorious Leader]

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.

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.

[HardCoder]

Really? You bolded what I wrote but ignored it somehow. NORMAL RAIDING more accessible. Normal isn' "medium" by any stretch of the imagination. Not relative to any other time in warcraft or relative to what the overwhelming vast majority of the raiding player base will do, or even to other video games.

Currently we have something like "LFR," "Very Hard," and "Also Very Hard."

[judgementofantonidas]

The cosmic irony is that his guild is at 1/12 ToT.

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.

[melodramocracy]

Really? You bolded what I wrote but ignored it somehow. NORMAL RAIDING more accessible. Normal isn' "medium" by any stretch of the imagination. Not relative to any other time in warcraft or relative to what the overwhelming vast majority of the raiding player base will do, or even to other video games.

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