20 man mythic and its real impact.

[Deja Thoris]

Obviously the latter although raid leading on its own was certainly easier in 10s as well. Being able to micromanage when people breath in and out certainly helped a lot in my terribad alt runs.

Well at least en par with your contributions.

Oh this delusional poster again talking about having his tier bonuses a week earlier making major differences on tiers lasting half years.

Actually, 25's in the past had a higher WF chance. Therefore the rewards were greater.

Care to dispute that fact or are you just going to stick to insults to get your point across?

[Chetnik]

I'd prefer they remove flex, give us Ulduar style "heroic" modes, and put in a separate tier of content that was geared towards 10-man raiding. It would serve so many purposes, including giving 10-man raiders a chance to build up their roster if that's what they chose to do. This worked extremely well in BC, and the hardmode choice that Ulduar gave for the bosses was perfect if you wanted to raise the difficulty of an encounter. I'm almost certain that the only reason they don't employ this design is because it requires too much time and resources that they want to dedicate to pushing out expansions faster. It's unfortunate, but that's the current state of the game today.

That's a bad idea. They shouldn't put 10man and 20man (or 25man) on different tiers. That would force the 20man groups to do 10man, and it would force the 10man groups to try to get enough to do the 20man stuff which would basically put us right back to where we are. Wrath was a good model, FOR ITS TIME, because we didn't know any better, but there were a lot of 25man groups going into 10man to try to get some gear to help out with their 25man. Blizzard didn't like that people felt like they needed to dedicate 20hrs/week to raid and moved to the Cata/MoP model. When Blizzard made the switch in Cata to having a choice between 10/25, that became the norm, and it should've stayed the norm.

[Glorious Leader]

That's a bad idea. They shouldn't put 10man and 20man (or 25man) on different tiers. That would force the 20man groups to do 10man, and it would force the 10man groups to try to get enough to do the 20man stuff which would basically put us right back to where we are. Wrath was a good model, FOR ITS TIME, because we didn't know any better, but there were a lot of 25man groups going into 10man to try to get some gear to help out with their 25man. Blizzard didn't like that people felt like they needed to dedicate 20hrs/week to raid and moved to the Cata/MoP model. When Blizzard made the switch in Cata to having a choice between 10/25, that became the norm, and it should've stayed the norm.

Nobody had to dedicate 20 hrs a week to raiding. If it meant it took you an extra week to kill Arthas that's fine. People feeling forced to do content they don't is the worse justification for any change made in the game. If you and your guild are serious fucking try hard shit heels that's to too bad.

[rogueMatthias]

Recruit better? Train and gear up a larger Raid team? OP's claim is BS and has nothing to back it up.

Here's the contradiction... IF, as you say, ALL these Mythic Raid teams are falling apart because they don't have the right number of people now... shouldn't there be LOADS of Mythic-level players leaving these teams that want to raid that could... just throwing this out there... FORM A MYTHIC RAID TEAM????

I've been raiding to some varying degrees between casual and hardcore since I started the game. I always much preferred 25 man teams - It felt like a real raid with that many people. For quite a while 10 man raiding was the "easy mode" raiding for PUGs and scrub guilds that couldn't recruit enough good people for a 25 man team.

[videnfost]

I think the other issues with WoD have caused the sub issues. I don't see Mythic contributing to sub loss.

[Kyanion]

Recruit better? Train and gear up a larger Raid team? OP's claim is BS and has nothing to back it up.

Here's the contradiction... IF, as you say, ALL these Mythic Raid teams are falling apart because they don't have the right number of people now... shouldn't there be LOADS of Mythic-level players leaving these teams that want to raid that could... just throwing this out there... FORM A MYTHIC RAID TEAM????

I've been raiding to some varying degrees between casual and hardcore since I started the game. I always much preferred 25 man teams - It felt like a real raid with that many people. For quite a while 10 man raiding was the "easy mode" raiding for PUGs and scrub guilds that couldn't recruit enough good people for a 25 man team.

OR...or...or and stay with me now. People quit the game if they are unable to raid. Or on smaller realms a few people try to add more people to raid and it does not work out because you know not everyone can raid the same days/times. The more people you require to do something the harder it is logistically to make work. You act like it is super easy to just log on a realm and go "Heh new mythic guild forming, pst" and bam instant raid team.

- - - Updated - - -

I think the other issues with WoD have caused the sub issues. I don't see Mythic contributing to sub loss.

Oh for sure the majority of sub losses are due to not much to do for a lot of the playerbase. Mythic raiding DOES contribute to sub loss but how much of the sub loss is due to raiding is a lot smaller than other issues. No one is debating the sub loss part. What we're debating is trying to make raiding work for smaller raid sizes again.

[Bryntrollian]

So, you're proposing a game design principle that is guaranteed to lead to failure of the game as an ongoing enterprise.

Remind me not to invest in anything you ever have anything to do with.

High level raiding isn't keeping the game afloat

[Osmeric]

High level raiding isn't keeping the game afloat

He was proposing a game design in which casuals have no end game. What exactly are they to do after they reach level cap?

[Deleted]

Ok, I'll bite. Besides just tuning numbers for 10 people, lets go over what would have to change in each fight:

Assault: no mechanics that require more people.
IR: During air phase, target 2 people with artillery instead of 4
Kormrok: Maybe half as many explosive runes to make up for the lack of people?
Council: Dispelling would move the debuff to 2 people instead of 3
Kilrogg: Bottom phase would be shorter since mobs would have less hp, so no need to change mechanics
Gorefiend: Shadow of Death and Touch of Doom fewer players at the same time
Iskar: Make the debuff for holding the eye stack a little slower
Socrethar: 2 people get gift instead of 4, slightly fewer ghosts spawn
Fel Lord: maybe 1 or 2 pillars less spawn each time
Xhul: fewer people get surge
Tyrant: fewer people get font
Mannoroth: 1-2 people get mark of doom, fear, and shadowforce instead of 3
Archi: This is the only fight where things might need some mechanical changes, or some tighter number changes, particularly when the group of 3 goes under. Also, I think only 1 or 2 people would need to get chained instead of 3.

So besides just changing some numbers around to make it for 10 people instead of 20, there aren't any real mechanical changes that would need to happen.

Not going to spend any more time on this than I already have, as it is clear you have spent very little actually thinking about it.

So, at first glance, you just breeze over Assault as if this would require no dev time to make a 10man version of which is your first error. Fewer mobs, potentially faster spawn times, fewer mobs converging at specific times as it would be overwhelming for 10 people. 2 people running the ammo is going to be a greater impact on 10man than 2 people running them on 20man. I can probably think of a few more, all this would need to be calculated and force them to run more PTR testing on this raid size.

You specify fewer artilleries on Iron Reaver, which means greatly reduced chance of overlap on damage going out, if you want to keep this difficulty then the damage of it needs to go up or the same amount need to be affected by it, which causes output issues in a 10man group. This is an issue that comes up a lot, where for a mechanic to be as challenging on 10man it actually needs to do MORE damage than a higher raid size version.

Kormrok, you specify less runes, but even with less runes you require a certain amount of space unless they change the spawn radius. How would you accomplish this with the same soaking patterns? If this dictated developer time on new soaking patterns based on 10man which gives similar space as 20, how would you solve the Pound being infinitely easier to take 0 damage from with only 10 people in the same amount of space as 20? Same thing applies for Gorefiend, you specify less Dooms will be going out which removes the difficulty of more constricted space as the encounter progresses, which means the Doom spawn radius would need to be larger for 10man etc etc.

These are just the first 3, you're lucky I didn't get to Fel Lord and Xhul as we both know where that would be going.

[Banchou]

Recruit better? Train and gear up a larger Raid team? OP's claim is BS and has nothing to back it up.

Here's the contradiction... IF, as you say, ALL these Mythic Raid teams are falling apart because they don't have the right number of people now... shouldn't there be LOADS of Mythic-level players leaving these teams that want to raid that could... just throwing this out there... FORM A MYTHIC RAID TEAM????

I've been raiding to some varying degrees between casual and hardcore since I started the game. I always much preferred 25 man teams - It felt like a real raid with that many people. For quite a while 10 man raiding was the "easy mode" raiding for PUGs and scrub guilds that couldn't recruit enough good people for a 25 man team.

Usually most people from a broken guild do this: or go for a bigger guild with more progression (if necessary transfer for a more high pop realm), even if he/she will be the 4th replace; or stop to raid/play the game because don't want pass for another possible guild breaking again or even only want to play with his/hers friends. While that the smaller and with less progression guilds enters on the eternal loop "you can't recruit people if you don't have progression and you can't have progression because don't have enough players to raid".

Of course the sub issues aren't mythic fault alone (WoD as a whole is), but is truth that have many people who stopped to play because of side effects from it since raiding is the one of the fell thing worth to keep paying the subscribe.

[Foj]

If you and your guild are serious fucking try hard shit heels that's to too bad.

If only Blizzard wasn't the Savior of Try Hard Shit Heels, this game might be going somewhere.

[Glorious Leader]

He was proposing a game design in which casuals have no end game. What exactly are they to do after they reach level cap?

The same thing they do now. Unsubscribe. Neither the current system or the ridiculous one being proposed offers much for casual players.

[Baconeggcheese]

Nobody had to dedicate 20 hrs a week to raiding. If it meant it took you an extra week to kill Arthas that's fine. People feeling forced to do content they don't is the worse justification for any change made in the game. If you and your guild are serious fucking try hard shit heels that's to too bad.

People feeling forced to do things is a very real problem that exists more in the mid-tier guilds than it does at the high end.

At the high end we already have the attitude / expectations that we're "forced" to do certain things, so it really doesn't bother us. That's kind of the point of what we're doing.

For the average raider though they still adopt some of that mentality, it's probably more common than it is uncommon. Feeling forced to do things can be a real problem for those kinds of guilds.

[Gilgameshh]

That's a bad idea. They shouldn't put 10man and 20man (or 25man) on different tiers. That would force the 20man groups to do 10man, and it would force the 10man groups to try to get enough to do the 20man stuff which would basically put us right back to where we are. Wrath was a good model, FOR ITS TIME, because we didn't know any better, but there were a lot of 25man groups going into 10man to try to get some gear to help out with their 25man. Blizzard didn't like that people felt like they needed to dedicate 20hrs/week to raid and moved to the Cata/MoP model. When Blizzard made the switch in Cata to having a choice between 10/25, that became the norm, and it should've stayed the norm.

I think you missed my point. I'm talking about adding in raids like Karazhan that suit the 10-man groups, and raids like SSC/TK that suit the 20-man groups. No, the challenge won't be the same for 10-man, but it'll allow for the removal of normal mode.

Now we'd be down to two difficulties instead of three. Hopefully it would also allow for the removal of LFR from the main tier, so that if you want to gear your alts, you can at least queue for the raid that you're not grinding on your main. Alts/returning players/casuals get to see the 10-man content and can join a 20-man guild if they so choose for the "big content." I'm a stark advocate for the removal of LFR, but if it's not going to be removed, it should not award better gear than the heroic dungeons that are current at the time. There needs to be a better gear progression system than the one we have now, and I think that's completely reasonable.

Having a half-tier raid, if designed well, is also very fun to do for progression raiders on their off-nights. Karazhan was extremely fun (to me and everyone I knew at the time), but we have had nothing like that for a very long time. Zul'Gurub in vanilla was also fun.

There are so many reasons why having half-tier raids would benefit the game that it's hard to even think of them all, but that was the short list.

[Glorious Leader]

People feeling forced to do things is a very real problem that exists more in the mid-tier guilds than it does at the high end.

At the high end we already have the attitude / expectations that we're "forced" to do certain things, so it really doesn't bother us. That's kind of the point of what we're doing.

For the average raider though they still adopt some of that mentality, it's probably more common than it is uncommon. Feeling forced to do things can be a real problem for those kinds of guilds.

Its a fucking non problem. It's entirely 100% an issue on the part of players who lack self control and it should in no way shape or form be catered too or designed around.

Let's flip this around. I feel forced to raid. Gut raiding...

[Gilgameshh]

People feeling forced to do things is a very real problem that exists more in the mid-tier guilds than it does at the high end.

At the high end we already have the attitude / expectations that we're "forced" to do certain things, so it really doesn't bother us. That's kind of the point of what we're doing.

For the average raider though they still adopt some of that mentality, it's probably more common than it is uncommon. Feeling forced to do things can be a real problem for those kinds of guilds.

This is why there could just be a shared lockout for 10/20 if they choose to go that route. I don't like the 10/20 option for the same raid simply because it allows Blizzard to get lazy with content creation. If you try to give two different types of people the same thing, one option is inevitably going to be worse. The time they'd spend balancing a single raid instance for two separate sizes could easily be allotted to create another raid tier that is more functional for 10-man raid groups. Not gonna be the same challenge in that 10-man raid, but it would allow you to grow your guild in the meantime while you run it. I think that's a far better design than what we have today, but considering the amount of people that have quit, maybe 10-man happens to be the way to go moving forward as the "chosen" number by Blizzard.

[cFortyfive]

Actually, 25's in the past had a higher WF chance. Therefore the rewards were greater.

I already stated you would get gear slightly faster. But again I know from previous "discussions" that you are suffering from the delusion that slightly faster acquisition of gear or better drop chances of the exact same shit that drops in the other format makes any difference especially for the individual player. Maybe that's the point where I should mention again it's easier to get mounts in 10s.

[Foj]

People feeling forced to do things is a very real problem that exists more in the mid-tier guilds than it does at the high end.

It's a very real problem that people should do something about, but those people should be psychiatrists and therapists, not developers at Blizzard.

[Deja Thoris]

I already stated you would get gear slightly faster. But again I know from previous "discussions" that you are suffering from the delusion that slightly faster acquisition of gear makes any difference especially for the individual player.

Dreaming in regards to your bullshit ideas. Obviously 10m was the more prevalent format with less effort for the same rewards.

Jesus, are you being this stupid deliberately?

So path of least resistance is smaller difficulty for same rewards yet somehow 25 man gear more quickly? Hilarious how you call others deluded when you can't even keep track of the drivel you post.

[Chetnik]

So, at first glance, you just breeze over Assault as if this would require no dev time to make a 10man version of which is your first error. Fewer mobs, potentially faster spawn times, fewer mobs converging at specific times as it would be overwhelming for 10 people. 2 people running the ammo is going to be a greater impact on 10man than 2 people running them on 20man. I can probably think of a few more, all this would need to be calculated and force them to run more PTR testing on this raid size.

This falls under the "besides just tuning numbers" stipulation that I had in my post. There's nothing about Assault that would need to change for 10man. You act like it takes dps 20min to run an ammo crate.

You specify fewer artilleries on Iron Reaver, which means greatly reduced chance of overlap on damage going out, if you want to keep this difficulty then the damage of it needs to go up or the same amount need to be affected by it, which causes output issues in a 10man group. This is an issue that comes up a lot, where for a mechanic to be as challenging on 10man it actually needs to do MORE damage than a higher raid size version.

I'm merely speaking about the air phase when it comes to the artillery targets. As far as the damage goes, AGAIN this issue falls under the "besides tuning numbers for 10man" stipulation that I had on my post.

Kormrok, you specify less runes, but even with less runes you require a certain amount of space unless they change the spawn radius. How would you accomplish this with the same soaking patterns? If this dictated developer time on new soaking patterns based on 10man which gives similar space as 20, how would you solve the Pound being infinitely easier to take 0 damage from with only 10 people in the same amount of space as 20? Same thing applies for Gorefiend, you specify less Dooms will be going out which removes the difficulty of more constricted space as the encounter progresses, which means the Doom spawn radius would need to be larger for 10man etc etc.

Yes you would have less space to work with, but you'd also have less people, so you wouldn't need all that space. The "fewer runes spawning" comment assumes this, so I figured it was a given that you would be working with less space than on 20man.

Look, I agree that HFC is a great raid. I love the place, but you can't in sincerity say that the mechanics present in the boss fights there are unable to be fitted to a 10man format. Obviously, there's a level of tuning that would need to go into it, and there would certainly be some work for Blizzard to do to tune it to a 10man environment, but it's not like they haven't done that before. Most of the people on my side of the argument in this thread have either tried mythic or are currently raiding mythic and are thoroughly unimpressed with what Blizzard delivered in exchange for gutting our preferred raid size. The only fight, in all of WoD, that would be significantly harder in a 10man environment is mythic Blast Furnace whose mechanic could be translated to 10man in a similar way to what Razuvious was for naxx10.

Personally, I think Blizzard just wanted to go with the "good business" move of not spending so many resources on making 2 raid difficulties. I mean, the most liberal estimates put the total amount of raiders at about 300k before WoD. The most liberal estimates put the amount of raiders who've stopped playing between 5.4 and now at about 50k (and lets just assume all 50k stopped because of the 10 -> 20 transition). In the grand scheme of things, that's not that many people. I just think it's a little disingenuous to say that you're moving to a 20man only format so you can design raids that have mechanics that couldn't be done in the old 10/25 format. It's just not true.