What rewards does raiding need to make it more appealing?

[kaminaris]

As far as locking gear pieces for an entire tier, it's not like azerite pieces are doing that now to be fair.
.

With a difference you can get azerite outside of raid and it is pretty much customizable, I have 4 sets for different occasions and respecing them whenever i need.
One for Raids ST, one for Raid Cleave, one for raid AOE, one for offspec. And I'm only playing destro/demo.

Would need more of that if I ever wanted to play affli (but i won't cause I hate dotters).

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Your experience doesn't trump or change my experience. For whatever reason, that's been my experience in the over decade long amount of time I've played this game and raided in it. And that's my reason for not raiding in it now, the community sucks, and even if there are decent/friendly raiding guilds out there, I could not find them.

That is your problem or your sever problem. Dont speak for whole community. I know at least 9 girls that stepped up in mythic raids and did fine. And only one of them was toxic/bad. So... I really really really really really really really really doubt community is the problem.

[Theangryone]

So with no class sets or tier bonuses coming in Shadowlands initially what rewards do you think blizzard should add to raiding to make it more appealing for both casual and hardcore players? Or do you think raiding rewards are fine as is?

It's not the rewards, it's the time sink required for it. Not to mention in the days when I actively raised, we were fine wiping for a couple hours trying to learn or beat a boss. People have no patience for this anymore. No interest listening to someone lose their mind over a wipe. Rewards are secondary to the enjoyment of the activities I do

[Kralljin]

even heroic has mechanics that are blatantly inconsiderate towards 10 man groups, like Ashvane lazors, you get the same amounts either on 10 or 30 man group, but the % of players running changes drastically when it's 6 out of 10 or 6 out of 30.

That's just the price of ultimate flexibility.

People love to act like flexibility is an amazing thing, but designing a 100% flexible thing is a nightmare.

Back when there a clear cut 10 / 25 man mode, you could say "okay, let's design with that exact group size in mind", nowadays everything needs to be easily adjustable for any difficulty, from the 10man group to the 30 man.

It's simply so much easier to design actually good content (in the sense of it being fun, challenging but still reasonable to beat) around a fixed size which expects a certain line up.
If you design virtually anything around everything, you need to give every class every tool (= More Homogenization) or make every encounter so bland that no one is allowed to have any benefit.

Now why does m+ retain their holy cow status while 2v2 arenas and 10 man hardmode raiding had to be gutted to please the developer overlords who decided 3v3 and 20 man is "the" mode so the smaller one needs to be nerfed / removed?

If i were to guess, because Blizzard sees M+ as its own thing.
There is nothing "above / below" M+ within it's own playfield, with 2v2, you also have 3v3 / RBG, with raiding, you had 10 / 25man.
M+ is just M+, you need 5 people, period.

In the debacle of nerfing 2v2 arena rewards Blizzard admitted any activity that requires fewer people will be more popular, given equal rewards. Time to apply the same logic to m+ vs raiding.

The other side of the coin is that most people choose the path of least resistance, not the path of "most fun".
Like, the truth about the 10 vs. 25 debate was simply that barely any 25man raids formed, because you could get the same rewards with 10 people already. On top of that, 25man had the bad habit of falling apart when certain people thought they would be more successful if they take the 10 best people and do 10 man raiding.
Was 10man raiding the objectively "superior mode"?
It required less people and was because of that, easier to organize, that's certain, however the same could be said about any size down to a single person.

Point is, if there would be a Solo mode that would hand out the same rewards, 2v2 / 10man would have also died, because then you'd literally cut any reliance on other people from the equation.
But then WoW would obviously stop being an MMO.

look at how they fidget with dampening and can't decide how to balance healers in 2v2.

You basically highlight the issue of 2v2.
It's an imbalanced mode to begin with, that's why Blizzard chose 3v3, because they felt like it was the most balanced mode.
At the end of the day, you have to choose a mode to balance your game around, trying to balance two modes at the same time doesn't work, X could be OP 2v2 but shit in 3v3 and vice versa.
We've been there before with PvE and PvP, it's the same thing, some specs were OP in PvP but trash in PvE, but Blizzard refused to buff them because it would make them even crazier in the other game mode.

The less people you have, the more imbalanced things tend to get in an RPG, because the classes are different and do not perform equally in the same situation.
The same goes for PvP and for raiding.
And i did raid in Cata / MoP with a 10man Heroic and fully enjoyed it, but one also has to look at the current (Mythic) Encounters and concede that a lot of those wouldn't have worked for a 10man Raid.
It goes back to the point above, designing everything around anything doesn't necessarily result in a superior experience in terms of gameplay, it primarily results in a more accessible experience.

20 man mythic raiding is also imbalanced as hell, check random guilds that are recruiting specific stuff (not just "any exceptional players") and I'd swear 9 out of 10 it's gonna be "ranged dps". Cut down mythic to 15 man and you can hope to get some semblance of balance between the melee and ranged camp, and the number of healers can be tuned by how much raid damage is applied.

First off, guilds who aren't recruiting "exceptional players" aren't truly attempting to improve their roster, they just want people to fill the missing slots and have their current line up remain the same.
Unpopular opinion, people who are willing to play what the raid needs are more valueable than people who just want to stick X, and i'm saying this as someone who mains Elemental (out of all specs) for over a decade now and still raids within the higher echolons.

That's not a design issue, that's a people issue, if you have three Dps Warrior already, you don't need a fourth, for a "good line up" someone needs to reroll.

Next, as hinted already, designing Melee "friendly" raids is extremely difficult, because those encounters have serious weaknesses.
It's a simple equation, Range Dps can stand anywhere within a circle that has a 80yard diameter and still do their role, whereas melee are cramped into a circle with a ~10yard diameter that's even cut in half due to parry.

Even a simple mechanic such as "spread out" doesn't fly in a melee heavy raid, the complete opposite, a "stack up" mechanic is completely trivial in a melee heavy raid.
In a ranged heavy raid, simply combining these two mechanics already creates a modicum of difficulty that's reasonable to solve, whereas on the Melee side, it's just completely bonkers, one mechanic is a complete pain, the other entirely trivial.

Now, Blizzard went down the path of melee not being targeted by some abilities, the pinnacle of that design was Nighthold, where melees had to do virtually nothing on a lot of encounters.
Look how Ranged Dps dance around during Gul'dan P1, then compare it to Melees whose sole job it was to stand with their back towards the middle of the room.
Gul'dan isn't the only example, there are other encounters in Nighthold where Melees do not have to play any mechanic at all.

Following that design paradigm is obviously bad as well, where ~half of your dps doesn't have to worry about mechanics at all whereas the other half has to handle all of them.
That simply triggered the opposite effect, people started to stack Melees so you'd have a few ranged dps left who just handle all the mechanics while the Melee dps kills the boss.
That sucks for melees, i get that, but on the other hand, one has also has see the side that they have the benefit of never worrying about certain mechanics.

Simply cutting down that number won't solve that issue, even back when 10man raiding was a thing, that was still a problem, almost any decent 10man raid only had like a Dps Warrior and a Rogue at best, the rest was made up by ranged Dps.

[Gaidax]

To do mythic raiding you will also need to do M+ or you hold back your team.

Nyah... Aside from weekly M+10 run, you don't need anything. Heck at this point we're not even doing that, because 440 from chest is useless for us and we have better Azerite from raid anyway.

People massively overestimate what Mythic actually needs. I basically raidlog 2 times a week for 3 hours nowadays. There was some extra effort first month of the expansion mainly because of Benthic socket crap, but that's about it. It wasn't mandatory either, we did not enforce this and Azshara still died somehow in the end.

[Aggrophobic]

Its not how I feel, its how mythic community is. Sorry but you either never been in guilds top 200-1000 or you just don't know mythic raiding community.
Vast majority of mythic raiders view raids as something hard, not as loot pinata.

People who care about loot are viewed here as "loot whores" and are generally not well percieved because they block progress with constant whining about the need to reclear entire tier because "he has only heroic trinket for boss X".

Sorry to burst your bubble.

Haha. Nice try mate.
We're talking about the average player. Not even Blizzard cares about the top 200 and nothing, litteraly nothing is balanced after what they think.

The AVERAGE player plays the game for the loot and as soon as it's removed, the content is "dead". The same goes for the average mythic player as well by the way.

And while I have no Idea at what rank I've been at I have cleared every HC and later mythic raid ever released while the content was current except for this last expansion when I had to step down becuase of work. That however does not change how (again the average player) thinks or feels.

You're making a fool out of yourself here.

[Djaye]

scrapping WF and TF.
scrapping all random rng procs to gear drops.
making BIS attainable again.
having a difference in gears across all content.
having to raid to get the best PVP gears is poor design.

getting better gear from 5mans than from 25mans is just stupid on every conceivable level.

[Flower Milk]

That is your problem or your sever problem. Dont speak for whole community. I know at least 9 girls that stepped up in mythic raids and did fine. And only one of them was toxic/bad. So... I really really really really really really really really doubt community is the problem.

I've played on at least 10 different servers, I found a handful of decent guilds that weren't weird about me being a woman in over a decade of playing/raiding in WoW, but that's it. And what does "they did fine" mean? Like they performed fine? That was not an issue for me, the issue for me was getting creeped on by dudes in my guild. And it's not like it was all the guys in my guild, it would quite literally be just one single guy who would creep on me, I'd tell the people in charge about it, they'd say "there's nothing we can do", so for me it was either leave the guild or continue to be creeped on, those were my only 2 options. Repeat that over and over again in most guilds I join, with only a handful of guilds I've joined and raided in not being like that and dissolving over not having enough people to keep raiding. I play this game to relax and have fun in my free time, not to deal with getting creeped on. I'm not going to do an activity like raiding if every time I have to do it there's some guy whispering me asking me a bunch of questions like, where do I live, how old am I, send me pics of you, etc. I'm here to raid and play the game, and if I could avoid that kind of behavior, I would raid in this game. I never have to deal with that at all in FFXIV, it doesn't even exist. There's so many other women in that game and so many of them in charge of guilds that that kind of behavior is not tolerated at all.

[shoc]

Progression and the sense of accomplishment is the reward

[vsb]

I want no rewards. May be title and that's about it. Especially not gear! So only those who love mythic will stay. Just for pure amasement. Like high M+ keys, which don't bring ilvl increase, so only M+ lovers stay there. So many random people who not love mythic raiding still try and leave and ruining it for everyone else.

[Augusta138]

Haha. Nice try mate.
We're talking about the average player. Not even Blizzard cares about the top 200 and nothing, litteraly nothing is balanced after what they think.

The AVERAGE player plays the game for the loot and as soon as it's removed, the content is "dead". The same goes for the average mythic player as well by the way.

And while I have no Idea at what rank I've been at I have cleared every HC and later mythic raid ever released while the content was current except for this last expansion when I had to step down becuase of work. That however does not change how (again the average player) thinks or feels.

You're making a fool out of yourself here.

1: he wrote top 200 all the way to top 1000, so we are talking a lot of guilds and players here
2: almost all raiders understand loot is a tool to get the job done. There are some lootwhores here and there and guilds deal with them how they see fit. (We kicked them most of the time, although ive been in guilds that would keep them around and feed such a player gear due to being always there or the amount of dps they do)
3: what sample size is this average player you are talking about?
4: raiding and raid instances are about the challenge and progressing through said content.
5: you can deny point 4 all you want, but it is simply why iy is in the game and how it is treated by the most raiders.
6: another example: Heart of Azeroth gets alot of shit it needs to be grinded out. However from the getgo it was said it was a way to slowly nerf content since nothing was tuned around HoA levels and traits.
7: WoW isnt in any shape or form a game because of loot. You play a game because it is fun and enjoy it. Not because it has loot or shiny epics.

But i really feel like there is no use anymore discussing this.

You dont seem to understand why or how the game works and cant be told how it works since it doesnt fit with your reason to play this game.

We have to many people already on these forums that think their opinions are facts and the truth.

Once again:
If loot is the only thing keeping you playing WoW i would really reconsider playing the game.

[CrawlFromThePit]

Normal and Heroic are end game for most Raiders, most will NEVER touch mythic. Because:

1. they may not be good enough and they know it
2. they may prefer small group raiding and not want to field a team of 20+
3. they may not be ABLE to field a team of 20+ on the regular due to server size
4. they may not want to, just plain and simple, they don't want to do mythic
5. etc.

We had a team of 25ish and every time we did a poll of if we wanted to start mythic, 2/3s would say no.

So they're doing what they want, don't need any other incentives then.

[kaminaris]

Haha. Nice try mate.
We're talking about the average player. Not even Blizzard cares about the top 200 and nothing, litteraly nothing is balanced after what they think.

The AVERAGE player plays the game for the loot and as soon as it's removed, the content is "dead". The same goes for the average mythic player as well by the way.

And while I have no Idea at what rank I've been at I have cleared every HC and later mythic raid ever released while the content was current except for this last expansion when I had to step down becuase of work. That however does not change how (again the average player) thinks or feels.

You're making a fool out of yourself here.

Balancing is not a problem AT ALL aside from mythic. You can clear heroic/normal with everything and anything.

You don't know what average players plays for. So stop with this nonsense. If they wanted gear, they would be doing M+ and stepping up the mythic raids.

No it's you who is making a fool out of yourself by speaking for everyone. You literally have no clue.

[Nerovar]

It's easy. Remove LFR, make raid gear better than M+, bring back set boni, bring back PvP gear that's only useful in PvP (so people don't gear through arena etc.) and that's it. Now you need to raid in order to have optimal PvE gear.

[Gaidax]

It's almost like different people enjoy different things... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Some do it for loot, some do it for parses, some do it for challenge, some do it vanity and some do it for a bit of everything in that list.

Silly discussion really.

[kaminaris]

I've played on at least 10 different servers, I found a handful of decent guilds that weren't weird about me being a woman in over a decade of playing/raiding in WoW, but that's it. And what does "they did fine" mean? Like they performed fine? That was not an issue for me, the issue for me was getting creeped on by dudes in my guild. And it's not like it was all the guys in my guild, it would quite literally be just one single guy who would creep on me, I'd tell the people in charge about it, they'd say "there's nothing we can do", so for me it was either leave the guild or continue to be creeped on, those were my only 2 options. Repeat that over and over again in most guilds I join, with only a handful of guilds I've joined and raided in not being like that and dissolving over not having enough people to keep raiding. I play this game to relax and have fun in my free time, not to deal with getting creeped on. I'm not going to do an activity like raiding if every time I have to do it there's some guy whispering me asking me a bunch of questions like, where do I live, how old am I, send me pics of you, etc. I'm here to raid and play the game, and if I could avoid that kind of behavior, I would raid in this game. I never have to deal with that at all in FFXIV, it doesn't even exist. There's so many other women in that game and so many of them in charge of guilds that that kind of behavior is not tolerated at all.

So it's a you problem, thanks for confirmation. Guess what, idiots are everywhere, either grow a spine, tell the guy to fuck off and ignore him or continue whining how "community is bad". And it doesn't matter what gender are you.

[Gaidax]

So it's a you problem, thanks for confirmation. Guess what, idiots are everywhere, either grow a spine, tell the guy to fuck off and ignore him or continue whining how "community is bad". And it doesn't matter what gender are you.

I'd be wary of going there, I suspect there is some to it, but on the other hand there is not shortage of retards either way.

[Aggrophobic]

Balancing is not a problem AT ALL aside from mythic. You can clear heroic/normal with everything and anything.

You don't know what average players plays for. So stop with this nonsense. If they wanted gear, they would be doing M+ and stepping up the mythic raids.

No it's you who is making a fool out of yourself by speaking for everyone. You literally have no clue.

Oh go to bed, you're embarrassing.

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1: he wrote top 200 all the way to top 1000, so we are talking a lot of guilds and players here
2: almost all raiders understand loot is a tool to get the job done. There are some lootwhores here and there and guilds deal with them how they see fit. (We kicked them most of the time, although ive been in guilds that would keep them around and feed such a player gear due to being always there or the amount of dps they do)
3: what sample size is this average player you are talking about?
4: raiding and raid instances are about the challenge and progressing through said content.
5: you can deny point 4 all you want, but it is simply why iy is in the game and how it is treated by the most raiders.
6: another example: Heart of Azeroth gets alot of shit it needs to be grinded out. However from the getgo it was said it was a way to slowly nerf content since nothing was tuned around HoA levels and traits.
7: WoW isnt in any shape or form a game because of loot. You play a game because it is fun and enjoy it. Not because it has loot or shiny epics.

But i really feel like there is no use anymore discussing this.

You dont seem to understand why or how the game works and cant be told how it works since it doesnt fit with your reason to play this game.

We have to many people already on these forums that think their opinions are facts and the truth.

Once again:
If loot is the only thing keeping you playing WoW i would really reconsider playing the game.

Not talking about me. But again, when loot is removed no one plays it. WoD lfr was a good example.
Legion LFR as well. Loot is the main drive and has always been and nothing, just nothing gets people as upset as nerfing loot rewards.

[Carnagexz]

It's almost like different people enjoy different things... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Some do it for loot, some do it for parses, some do it for challenge, some do it vanity and some do it for a bit of everything in that list.

Silly discussion really.

Yet it always springs up since the raiding was around in this game. The funny thing is that everyone is making this adversarial for no reason. If your not raiding for loot, then good for you. Some do though, hens when you cut loot the number of people who attempt the content will decrease. Given that raiding for the challenge crowd is so small in number, we can all agree that thats not majority of population though. So should they then be the ones to ask for the changes that (According to them) do not really impact them? If you don't care about loot, then WHY do you care about what others loot? That kind of silly. It's like no true Scottsman type of deal.

The core issue with raiding is that not everyone can commit to the lifestyle change that it brings. Because of that commitment serious raiders will always be a minority of minorities. Litterally same as PvP Hardcore arena, its great that you guys are where you are, but from the business perspective Blizz really shouldn't cater to that small number of players at the expense of the majority. People not participating in LFR when loot got nerfed isn't a myth, it happened. When ever gear got cut it always resulted in people dropping content. Again, if thats ok for YOU, then sure. But again, not the case for all.

[Augusta138]

Oh go to bed, you're embarrassing.

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Not talking about me. But again, when loot is removed no one plays it. WoD lfr was a good example.
Legion LFR as well. Loot is the main drive and has always been and nothing, just nothing gets people as upset as nerfing loot rewards.

WoD and Legion lfr had no loot?
I am confused what you are saying.

1: it had loot
2: there was a lot of raid participation during both expansions in all difficulties.

[Aggrophobic]

WoD and Legion lfr had no loot?
I am confused what you are saying.

1: it had loot
2: there was a lot of raid participation during both expansions in all difficulties.

You clearly have no clue. This is over.
Go troll somwhere else.