Why is each expansion giving us less and less raids?

[JemiS]

I haven't really coloured it by tier. Each colour represents a patch that introduced a raid. The time-frames are still close enough.

It also means you can't combine Highmaul and BRF into the same tier, as BRF released with 6.1

But yeah, your times are very off and need work.

[Alvito]

I think less since less people are playing they have a smaller budget for content. Wrath had 10 million and Legion will have much less.

They are making more off of the game now then they did then. The cash shop and other goodies take care of that. If there isn't worthwhile content then the subs and cash shop both dry up.

[darkwarrior42]

wasn't ZA, BT, and Sunwell all T6 as well? even if they were available at seperate times? I didn't play in bc so I'm not completely sure.

OP addressed the timing in relation to his graphic, but for the record:
-ZA was tier "5.5", a 10-man raid designed to be between tiers 5 and 6 in terms of difficulty, but not officially part of any raid tier.
-BT, Battle for Mount Hyjal, and Sunwell were all technically Tier 6, but Sunwell came later and was designed to be done after the former two. I recall a few people calling Sunwell "6.5", but I can't remember now if that was a widespread thing or just something people on my realm or in my guild did. Sunwell did drop Tier 6 set pieces, but they were the slots that typically aren't part of raid sets since Classic (belt, boots, bracers), and color-wise matched the Sunwell pieces more than they matched the actual T6 pieces (or at least, if you look at the T6 paladin boots, they have a silver/red theme, as opposed to the silver/blue of the pieces you get from BT/MH).

[Will]

some good points by all.

On the topic of fewer bosses/more numerous raids, well myself and a lot of my friends actually prefer this. It's kind of nice and all that BRF has lots of bosses, and so does HFC, but it's all the same theme. Having less bosses but more raids generally means you get to experience different themes, because being totally honest the WoD raids may have had good bosses, but artistically, they've been very samey-samey. 90% of HFC looks the same. Most of BRF looks the same. This is a big contrast to, say Ulduar for example, which had a snow section, a mechanical section, a jungle, etc. And let's face it, past expansions may have had more raids in general, but they've all had two or three 'major' raids like Ulduar, containing large numbers of bosses comparative to WoD raids.

A big raid +1 or 2 smaller raids ---> one big raid. In my opinion.

Also, to expand on that point, a lot of people are saying that WoD has a similar number of bosses to old expansions, but I'm not sure I agree. Not counting world bosses we've had 30 so far this expansion.

In TBC Kara alone had 11, (counting chess event). SSC had 6. TK had 4. BT had 9. ZA had 6 (but I suppose you could discredit these as they're not fresh bosses). Hyjal had 5. Maggie and Gruuls combined, another 3. That's 43. (or 37 if you discredit ZA), so in a worst case scenario that's still 7 more bosses than WoD has today - the equivalent of another Highmaul-sized raid!

Vanilla had a lot of bosses. Both AQ20 had a decent number. AQ40 was massive. MC and BWL were big.

If we ignore Naxx in TBC (because it was done in vanilla), then WotLK has fewer bosses than WoD. I'll concede this point. But I tend to include Naxx in WotLk because that's when most players got to experience it. If you, instead, discredit Naxx from vanilla, then vanilla *still* had more bosses than WoD does today.

MoP had considerably more bosses than WoD currently has, and if the September release date for Legion remains on track, MoP will retain the title of shortest expansion.

Besides, I disagree, there's more to it than number of bosses. In particular, we're talking about time frame. How long each boss is around for you to play with. My whole problem - illustrated by the picture - is that EVEN if number of bosses remains similar to previous expansions - those bosses are drawn out over a longer and longer time frame. The problem with the Dragon Soul patch is an example of this: Dragon Soul had only 8 bosses to play with but it was a very, very long time until the next raids came out. Long periods between content demands more bosses. If HFC is going to be out for longer than any patch ever before, then 13 bosses just doesn't cut it.

[MrLachyG]

I think people need to stop classing one or 2 boss instances as raids; at least not comparing them to 10 boss raids

[darkwarrior42]

It also means you can't combine Highmaul and BRF into the same tier, as BRF released with 6.1

Siege of Orgrimmar was Tier 16. Blackrock Foundry was Tier 17.

What would you call Highmaul? Wowprogress calls it tier 17, and Blizzard certainly implies they're the same tier. There is an ilvl gap between them, but nowhere near the gap between BRF and HFC.

If I were to agree with you can call Highmaul its own tier (16.5?), then I would consider it one of the worst tiers ever. It had a pathetically low boss count of only 7 bosses, as bad as Firelands, but at least Firelands had strong thematic gear and a raid tier set, along with a very strong tie-in to the theme of the expansion, to make up for it. Highmaul was much more of a tangential story, with no strongly thematic gear, no raid set, and at only 7 bosses would tie for the shortest raid tier in the game.

[TOM_RUS]

And it now costs twice more every expansion (399 RUB WotLK, 399 RUB Cata, 399 RUB MoP, 899 RUB WoD, 1999 RUB Legion). So game get's worse and worse, but price doubles. I don't get it.

[Alroxas]

Siege of Orgrimmar was Tier 16. Blackrock Foundry was Tier 17.

What would you call Highmaul?

What would you call MSV? It didn't drop tier and had 6 bosses. Yet it was bundled together with HoF and ToES as part of that "Tier".

[MrLachyG]

Time wise too - you look at MoP which had 42 raid bosses over 2 years 2 months. WoD has 30 for maximum 1 year 10 months. Cata had 31, Wrath had 60, BC had 45 and Vanilla had 33. So roughly works out to be almost equal considering most expacs run for 2 years. Only exception is Wrath but they did have 2 of the larger raids in the entirety of WoW

- - - Updated - - -

MoP had considerably more bosses than WoD currently has, and if the September release date for Legion remains on track, MoP will retain the title of shortest expansion.

You are either a) blissfully ignorant of the fact that MoP went for over 2 years or b) are ignoring that to boost your own argument. Either way, you're wrong

[alexkeren]

Nostradamus, is that you?

Most people understand from common sense, the entertainment industry and Blizzard's history that Summer 2016 ends on 9/21/16 and the OR BEFORE carries a lot of historical weight.

[glowpipe]

Game is dying and devs knows it. Sub fees doesnt cover the cost of adding additional raids. Fact. Deal with it.

[Will]

It also means you can't combine Highmaul and BRF into the same tier, as BRF released with 6.1

But yeah, your times are very off and need work.

I know. I hear you. I updated it to represent your suggestions. SoO is now correctly showing as being the longest content draught, and Highmaul and BRF are now represented by different colours, as it was an oversight. Apart from that it doesn't need to be 100% spot on. As I say its just a rough idea.

[Nyoken]

Cause of everyone keeps pestering Blizzard to do everything faster, thats why. So they get what they ask for......yearly expansions? Suure... but you can forget about the quality of the game.

[Will]

You might want to take a quick time out and get your stuff in order.

There were less than 4 months between the introductions of Ulduar and ToC. Ulduar really wasn't out very long. Firelands was out for 5 months. I will extend firelands by 1 bar, but I keep trying to remind people that it's for a rough idea!

[Littleraven]

Well..the number of Bosses is pretty close in TBC, Cata, MoP and WoD - so as usual I'd say it is all how you spin it, right?

To further emphasise: What is now the x-pac with a big number of raids and bosses (WotLK) was then pissed upon as "Lazy Naxx re-hash and worst raid in history TotC"

^This. Most raids in Vanilla and BC were smaller raids. You would at MOST get like a 6 or 7 boss raid compared to the 13+ we have been getting lately. That trend started with Wrath and they seem to want to get away from it again. Number of raids is irrelevant when each raid is the size of SoO and BRF or HFC.

Also the quality is higher than its every been. So there is also that.

[meroko]

Interview has already been confirmed we will be getting more raids this time around. At the very least 2 post launch raid tiers. Go look on the front page for the interview.

[Deleted]

WoW is too time consuming to make they want you to move to their other franchises which are a lot easier to develop and balance.

[Chickat]

... and longer, more drawn out patches? I threw together this quick illustration to back up my point. Note that it only includes patches where a raid was released; other patches are ignored. The number of raids per expansion - including small ones and PvP raids - are counted along the top:



(not coloured by tier. colour just represents major content patches that included new raids)

We're seeing longer patches with less content than ever before. Note how the first raid tiers are all similar for each expansion, but the number of raids at launch changes drastically. In TBC, most of the raids were actually available at launch but were gated by attunement or stringent gear requirements. It's only in later expansions Blizzard has decided to manually gate raid releases in order for players to feel less 'rushed'. I have bundled HFC and BRF into a single tier because, despite gated release, they ARE the same tier.

Successive tiers almost always consist of one large raid, though the current HFC tier will last way too long if Legion doesn't come out before September next year.

Only the first 3 games had a fourth tier, and only two of them had a fifth tier. Of the first 3 games, despite having 1 extra tier, they still stayed on market almost the same length as the other games. So we're getting 1 less tier in the same amount of time, despite the fact the sub fees have gone up and the development team has more staff than ever before working on it.

I TOTALLY understand that the legion release date in September could change, but for the purposes of illustration I have assumed that it comes out in September. I have also assumed, for purposes of illustration, that Blizzard doesn't decide to release any new raids in the interim. Take it with a pinch of salt only -- it's just to give you a rough idea of the timeframes.

Why dont you count bosses instead?

[Valerossi]

And it now costs twice more every expansion (399 RUB WotLK, 399 RUB Cata, 399 RUB MoP, 899 RUB WoD, 1999 RUB Legion). So game get's worse and worse, but price doubles. I don't get it.

Your ruble has become more and more worthless . There's your reason why .

[Gref]

Why are you guys discussing about the time? Look at the amount. One is 8 other one is 5. Quantity.
Also, we need Jaylock on this for his insightful comments.