Unpopular opinion: 10 man raids should make a return in Shadowlands.

[Onikaroshi]

And that's exactly why I'm saying it: It isn't "overblown." It's a very real issue that should be taken into consideration when discussing how Blizzard rolls out features. Touching back on AP in early Legion: The burnout from Nighthold is one of the major reasons it was changed moving into BfA (and is further being removed entirely in SL). It's very easy to pretend that everything's fine since neither you nor the people you intend to raid with will be doing any of the bad things such a system would facilitate; it's harder to understand that the very existence of the ability to form these bad habits is the reason Blizzard is so remiss to make a lot of changes that we see championed by the "silent majority" represented on this forum.

Agree to disagree, I don't think it's nearly as bad as you say it is.

And you have to weigh both sides, I feel like the benefits of having a 10 or flex mythic would far outweigh the negatives. I want smaller group hard raiding, I want to be able to raid again.

[Flurryfang]

10 man mythic raiding is just a bad idea. Because if you have exists while 20 man mythic does, you will create a tier system, where either is seen as the "real" raiding.

Also bigger raids just feel better and gives you more options. If you go with 10 man, be ready to find a "perfect" combo of classes/specs, that Blizzard will have to balance the raid around.

[Elbob]

Of course I am serious because that is the truth.
People at lower levels think they need more dps because otherwise they won't kill a boss which is laughable.

Your argument is easily debunked because at this moment we have no balance. You somehow base your opinions on thinking that 20 man is balanced.
It's not. No more than flex 10-20 would be.

Quick example,
Assuming we have similar teams with same skill but
1st one has 5 ele shams
2nd one has 5 fire mages

which one is easier? 5 fire mages.
Can both teams clear entire mythic? yes.

Class/spec balance is entirely different topic. Which is a lot more of an issue than making mechanics scale to flex raid size.

Yes people at ALL levels think/need more dps until they kill the boss. I raid in a casual 7/12m guild on the weekend with some IRL buds now that prog is done. They just killed M Vex this weekend after 3 weeks of reaching it but not killing. You wanna know why it died? Cause the officers decided to sub out 1 dps for an extra fire mage and suddenly the add problem they were having went away and the boss died. So it WAS a dps problem. Could it also have been fixed by better play from everyone? Yep. But the guild leadership(who isnt me or any other 12/12m raider) decided it would be easier to just use the extra meta class. If guilds as low in progression as that guild will sit people to bring meta classes you sure as hell better bet they will sit people for more optimal raid sizes

Next, the boss fights are balanced whether I pull them or you pull them on mythic, the mechanics function the same when its only 1 size. If you pull it on 10man mythic and I pull it on 20man mythic the mechanics are FORCED to change. If you say otherwise please explain to me how to do Mythic nzoth and only need 10 necks with only 10 people in the raid. Assuming hp of the boss and adds are scaled down to hit the same timers. You will find you need more necks then are available.

Your example has nothing to do with my point, I already said it was possible but my point was about personal and guild pressures to use optimal class/specs which is not a far leap to optimal raid size. Your final point is going off on a tangent that you made against a point I never used.

[kaminaris]

Yes people at ALL levels think/need more dps until they kill the boss.

And this is where you are wrong, case closed. Vast majority of failures on non-leading guilds is mostly tactical failures or simply someone dying.
How often you see berserk or soft enrage while all people still live? Cause I haven't seen that since MoP.

[Elbob]

And this is where you are wrong, case closed. Vast majority of failures on non-leading guilds is mostly tactical failures or simply someone dying.
How often you see berserk or soft enrage while all people still live? Cause I haven't seen that since MoP.

The statement is accurate because its not about what is mathematically possible. Its about what the particular players are capable of doing and if they THINK the boss is unkillable with current comp/raid size they will make changes.

Also since you didn't explain how mythic nzoth would work with only 10 necks I'm assuming you concede that the functionality of mechanics would have to change? But if not I'll give you another one. M Xanesh only allows each player to soak 1 time. Early kills of Mythic Xanesh frequently required a 4th grp to soak bringing the number of needed soakers to 12. Natural solution is to lower the debuff timer on small grps, but that removed the entire point behind the debuff allowing each play to participate only once. So what if its only lowered on grps of less than 12 to make it possible? That makes bringing 11 people unquestionably easier than bring 12+. Once again the mechanic is forced to change with variable raid size and certain sizes gain an advantage over larger ones because of it.

So should devs be forced to design encounters around 10 man and limit design ideas more than they already are?

[pyrogfx]

I don't necessarily agree with 10 man mythic - I do think however Mythic should Flex 10-30.

I get it being fixed 20 at launch from a competitive point of view; however, once say, 100 or 200 guilds have killed the end boss, does it really matter if it's perfectly balanced?
Our guild is semi-casual, but with good people in there; every tier we eventually get stuck halfway through from people being bored, taking breaks, and suddenly we only have 15-16 raiders. This leads to more people stopping because we can't raid, and there's not much else to do between patches. Opening Mythic up to Flex after some months (and relaxing the lockout rules) would go a long way towards keeping more people engaged in the game by having something to do.

[OpieOP]

Yeah 10 man raiding would be cool to have again, but lets face it, it will never return since blizz is way to lazy to design bosses to fit 2 sizes. Just look at the nzoth debacle, he hasn't even functioned when there was only one raidsize. Given it mostly hasn't had anything to do with the player size itself, but it speaks for the lazyness of blizzard in testing their own encounters.

[Relapses]

I much prefer either the old ICC or Ulduar 10v25 systems, where 10 man is the easier and more casual raid option on a seperate lockout. I do not think 10 man is suitable for the pinnacle endgame. It is so hard to balance, since a single person can change what strengths and weaknesses the group have so much. Especially having 10 man alongside 20/25 is a very bad idea.

The issue with this is that 10M Heroic was still dwarfed by 25M back when this was a thing (as illustrated by this analysis here). I don't think we'd see the same support for a tier below larger raid sizes if they were to be reintroduced today. Add onto that the fact that this would essentially add a fifth difficulty level to raids and... it doesn't seem quite as appealing. Now, you could argue in favor of removing Normal flex to make room for this and I'd be a little more on board but that really seems to be heading in the direction of trying to fix something that isn't broken.

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As a developer myself, I can appreciate the design challenges that having 10 and 20/25 has, you simply cannot make content that works equally throughout for every boss/raid, and you are 100% correct in 95% of this post. Some bosses are harder on 25 man, some were harder on 10 man, but as a designer, it sucks to try to make something compelling based on 2 different lenses, and it especially sucks when you're main population of players are playing the less interesting version, a smaller 10 man group. As you said, you cant make huge expansive boss fights and rooms, because it will feel so lackluster or be too much of a challenge for 10 players to cover.

I do however think Ota your view on 'casual heroic guilds' is really radical. You're talking like an elitist, no offence. Most players just want to have fun and be 'challenged' but they dont want to push till their brains come out, they fall asleep on their keyboards, they may not have time to push hard, nor do they want the pressure/atmosphere to be that. They just want to do something thats considered the end of the road for them. Modern heroic is extremely easy compared to mythic and right now, theres no middle ground for those players to fall in. I think saying fuck the casual 10m heroic raiders is a bit too much.

You said "Is this the right game for you to be playing?" but the thing is, the real answer to that is "No, is this the right game for YOU to be playing?" because the majority of the player base preferred 10m, you are in the minority preferring 25m here and yet you're insinuating they shouldn't be playing the most popular version of the game because its not your preferred way of playing the game. Now I loved 10m, I found 10m guilds more fun/relaxing, and 25 man raids more fun mechanically, and I wasnt in a casual guild, we cleared 14/14 current etc.

I do think Blizz needs to have an evaluation at some point in the future, to see how best to progress, maybe they will conclude it is to say 20m, maybe it will be 15m, who knows, but to suggest WoW is the wrong game to play because you enjoyed smaller scale raids at mythic/heroic isnt fair imo.

Just touching on this since you quoted a post from almost 10 pages ago: If it's "elitist" to have the opinion that raid teams need to be formed with the intention of completing the instance, then so be it. The evidence of Blizzard providing three separate raid difficulties to complete content (one of which you can literally press a single button to experience) seems to indicate that they share my opinion. You can try to stand up for casual Heroic raiding until you're blue in the face but I firmly believe Blizzard never intended for this to be a thing and is at least part of the reason they prefer larger raid sizes for Cutting Edge content. (The other reasons being ease of encounter design and class/spec representation.) And for the record, I have no problem with 10M Heroic progression raiding -- my issue has always been casual 10M Heroic raiding. Sadly, you can't have one without the other so I don't see Blizzard bringing it back any time soon.

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And you have to weigh both sides, I feel like the benefits of having a 10 or flex mythic would far outweigh the negatives. I want smaller group hard raiding, I want to be able to raid again.

When one of the downsides is the complete dismantling of a community which has had an opportunity to sort itself over the last five years, I have a hard time accepting chaos for chaos' sake is the best way forward. So then the question becomes whether the current accessibility of Mythic 20M hits the right notes. The OP suggests that smaller raids would be better for "more people," making the root of the debate about whether more accessible Mythic raiding would be better for the game. And while I certainly understand that line of thought, I prefer to see it from the angle that while smaller raids are undeniably more popular, they have the unfortunate inherent tendency of being taken less seriously and more prone to gameplay habits which go against Blizzard's design intentions for raiding in general.

[Onikaroshi]

When one of the downsides is the complete dismantling of a community which has had an opportunity to sort itself over the last five years, I have a hard time accepting chaos for chaos' sake is the best way forward. So then the question becomes whether the current accessibility of Mythic 20M hits the right notes. The OP suggests that smaller raids would be better for "more people," making the root of the debate about whether more accessible Mythic raiding would be better for the game. And while I certainly understand that line of thought, I prefer to see it from the angle that while smaller raids are undeniably more popular, they have the unfortunate inherent tendency of being taken less seriously and more prone to gameplay habits which go against Blizzard's design intentions for raiding in general.

They certainly didn't care about dismantling those communities when they went to 20

[Relapses]

They certainly didn't care about dismantling those communities when they went to 20

The switch to 20M was signalled more than a year in advance and the existence of a 25M Heroic community helped ease the process. (I was in a 10M Heroic guild that raided from 2:30 AM to 6:30 AM four nights a week and we managed to not only get a 20M roster but were one of the few guilds to kill Mythic Blackhand.) A switch back to smaller raids will repeat what we saw at the beginning of Cata: A complete implosion. (Seriously, look at the graphs in that thread I linked. Something like 85% of 25M Heroic guilds simply ceased to exist from one raid tier to the next.)

[Sharpbladez]

When they got rid of 10man raiding, I stopped raiding & havent since. I would love for it to return, but I doubt it will.

[Onikaroshi]

The switch to 20M was signalled more than a year in advance and the existence of a 25M Heroic community helped ease the process. (I was in a 10M Heroic guild that raided from 2:30 AM to 6:30 AM four nights a week and we managed to not only get a 20M roster but were one of the few guilds to kill Mythic Blackhand.) A switch back to smaller raids will repeat what we saw at the beginning of Cata: A complete implosion. (Seriously, look at the graphs in that thread I linked. Something like 85% of 25M Heroic guilds simply ceased to exist from one raid tier to the next.)

Most guilds didn't make the jump, the switch killed MANY 10 man guilds.

[Laughingjack]

When they got rid of 10man raiding, I stopped raiding & havent since. I would love for it to return, but I doubt it will.

I mean its still there in normal and heroic

[Onikaroshi]

I mean its still there in normal and heroic

Only if you don't want any challenge

[Lei]

I would love to see the role distribution in these "want 10 man back" topics.

I raided as healer. In 10 man groups your responsibility is so much bigger than in a 20/25 man group. There is you and the other healer and that's it. Some like the extra stress, not me. Especially not as those days resto shaman (wouldn't know how resto plays nowadays, haven't raided since mid wod, but back then nuissances were apparent, even in mop)

[Laughingjack]

Only if you don't want any challenge

I mean beyond seige of org you never really had a challenge in 10 man. It was far easier by design for almost every tier

[Lei]

What I could imagine tho (which would drive everyone else mad) is content like Kara back then. A 10 man specific raid. Where everything is tuned for 10 man. The size of the rooms, the (number of) abilities, everything.

[Onikaroshi]

I mean beyond seige of org you never really had a challenge in 10 man. It was far easier by design for almost every tier

Not just Siege, and even at it's easiest 10 man heroic(mythic) was much harder than current heroic

[Skyforge1]

Absolutely throw my support in for 10man

[Relapses]

Most guilds didn't make the jump, the switch killed MANY 10 man guilds.

Alright, but how much of that was because people weren't actually serious about raiding and how much of that was because people just didn't want to raid in larger groups? Because, like, if it isn't the latter, you'd think my guild that raided in the middle of the fucking night wouldn't have been able to recruit the right players... but we did. Obviously anecdotal but it stands to reason that the biggest group of players negatively impacted by the switch to 20M Mythic wasn't the progression-oriented 10M's (though there was some collateral damage, as the many voices in this thread prove), it was the innumerable casual Heroic 10M guilds that weren't all that serious about raiding in the first place.