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  1. #1

    Should raids be smaller?

    Over the past few expansions, PuG raiding even at the Heroic level seemingly has increased in volume at a significant level. Maybe it is unstable schedules of people who have grown older, maybe it is a younger demographic more used to plug and play gaming but I think this change is observable.

    One issue I see with PuG raiding is duration. Most guilds will not clear a raid in a single run unless deep in farm. Raiding takes time and Blizzard mostly releases raids with 8+ raid bosses. In a PuG environment fully clearing a raid in a single run can be tough. Many people start their PuG raids when they will have ample time and try to refill as people leave which creates a poor experience for everyone involved. Trying to arrange a second run during the lockout often fails.

    I think there are two things that would clearly help here. First is to expand the skip system. While a few raids offer multiple skip points in a raid, cutting it in chunks that are reasonably easy to clear in a single run and thus letting people organize Raid PuGs that effectively run wings instead of the entire raid, most often the skip is singular and drops you on the penultimate boss which doesn't really help much with splitting the raid (remains very useful to progress on the hardest boss and even more so later in the expac or in the future when you do mount runs).

    But the better option would be to change the design. I personally love raid tiers that feature two or more raids. You get to choose where you want to progress any given week, you have thematically different environments and encounters which makes the repetition of the raids over 6+ months less tiresome. And while encounters do have decent variety in mechanics, thematically the devs are often forced to repeat concepts and create bosses with no links to lore just to fill the raid. With smaller raids you could focus on the important characters of a storyline instead of featuring multiple filler. Should Blizzard considering changing the standard to 2-3 raids of 4-6 bosses instead?

  2. #2
    Personally I prefer huge raids with many bosses, because they thematically often fit better in my opinion. If I'm invading the villain's hub I expect it to be filled with bosses and enemies.

    For me WoW's best raids are Ulduar, Throne of Thunder and Karazhan. All of them which have been extensive and took a lot of time to clear. I usually dislike smaller raids like Emerald Nightmare, Eternal Palace or End Time. They're just too short to feel epic.

    What I think is a good idea though is making raids have "wings" like Guild Wars 2 does. Each huge raid is split up in 3-4 wings with 3-4 bosses each and you can freely choose which wing to clear first. The final boss should be locked though and only be approachable when you've killed all or the majority of bosses / cleared the wings before.
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  3. #3
    I'm all for 2 raids of 6 bosses instead of 1 raid of 11, but it's going take disproportionally more time make 2 raids, even if the amount of bosses is same/similar, and that's not an option. Not to mention that a larger raid means there's an opportunity for a proper difficulty curve.
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  4. #4
    Would love a raid tier set up kinda like Cata:

    Raid A: 5 Bosses, Final Mythic only boss.
    Raid B: 2 Bosses, as hard as final 2 bosses in Raid A (so 5th and Mythic only boss difficulty).
    Raid C: 3 Bosses, as hard as #3-4-5 in Raid A.

  5. #5
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    Quote Originally Posted by Nyel View Post
    Personally I prefer huge raids with many bosses, because they thematically often fit better in my opinion. If I'm invading the villain's hub I expect it to be filled with bosses and enemies.

    For me WoW's best raids are Ulduar, Throne of Thunder and Karazhan. All of them which have been extensive and took a lot of time to clear. I usually dislike smaller raids like Emerald Nightmare, Eternal Palace or End Time. They're just too short to feel epic.

    What I think is a good idea though is making raids have "wings" like Guild Wars 2 does. Each huge raid is split up in 3-4 wings with 3-4 bosses each and you can freely choose which wing to clear first. The final boss should be locked though and only be approachable when you've killed all or the majority of bosses / cleared the wings before.
    End Time was a dungeon not a raid, just fyi

  6. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by Nyel View Post
    What I think is a good idea though is making raids have "wings" like Guild Wars 2 does. Each huge raid is split up in 3-4 wings with 3-4 bosses each and you can freely choose which wing to clear first. The final boss should be locked though and only be approachable when you've killed all or the majority of bosses / cleared the wings before.
    So, Naxxramas?

  7. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by MrLachyG View Post
    End Time was a dungeon not a raid, just fyi
    You're right, I meant Dragon Soul and not End Time.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by Flarelaine View Post
    So, Naxxramas?
    Kinda, yes.
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  8. #8
    I enjoy big raids, but the logistics leave a lot to be desired. Respawn at boss after wipe, more skips (and easily attainable) or better structure (wings, like mentioned above), less annoying trash (it says a lot if people do death skips for trash where it's feasible, like in Sepulcher)... You shouldn't be forced to extend a lockout just to skip a boss that may be problematic for reclear (a lot of mythic guilds did it this patch) - if you've killed a boss once, you should be able to easily skip it in future runs if you so desire. Just a couple of QoL features like that and it would be perfect.

  9. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by Flarelaine View Post
    So, Naxxramas?
    Naxx was nice in that regard, yes. BRF is probably the best example. Just no massive and mostly linear raid with no skip or just a single skip for mount runs.

  10. #10
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    Personally I like long raids but I also like it when there is a myriad of different raids available with different difficulties. At the start of MoP and Wotlk we had 3 raids available which all offered something different and with different sizes. I think this is nice for variety and a good way to introduce new and returning players to raiding and ease them back into it and prepare them for longer raids later in the expansion. It also helps against theme fatigue.
    Legion also did this well by having both big and small raids available mid expansion.

    I also like the wings concept and I honestly wish ToT had had them as it was a very long raid and it was very linear. Still an amazing raid, just not very pug friendly.

  11. #11
    I like large raids.

    That said, I would prefer non linear raids like BWD, where you can choose which bosses you kill. Have a raid with 3 wings à 3 bosses, one Boss as entry-free loot and one final boss. That way pugs can choose to run a specific wing and when they inevitably disband you won't have a half finished lockout like you currently have.

  12. #12
    Think they should just do mixes. I love big raids with a clear path, big raids with wings, but I also really loved the 3 raids in the beginning of Cataclysm, 3 very differently thematically raids, youd progress some bosses then move to one of the other raids to work on a boss there, but there werent any clear way of doing it. It gave some choice. They kinda did it in the beginning of MoP aswell, but opened the raids staggered.

    Also miss raids like Baradin hold and Vault of Archavon. I know they were replaced with world bosses more or less, but they were not so hard that they were hard to pug while also requiring a raid. World bosses are such a bad replacement as we just zerg the shit out of them. Their abilities dont matter at all.

  13. #13
    Quote Originally Posted by wrynil View Post
    Also miss raids like Baradin hold and Vault of Archavon. I know they were replaced with world bosses more or less, but they were not so hard that they were hard to pug while also requiring a raid. World bosses are such a bad replacement as we just zerg the shit out of them. Their abilities dont matter at all.
    They could try some world bosses on Oondasta's level. Sure people will cry but imo it will be fun.

  14. #14
    Larger Raids are my favorit
    I personally would love to see a raid in a Mega man!? like style.
    Combine that with Raids like Satharion/Ulduar and the wing system from Naxx, where u have different wings and clearing those gives the raid some benefits for the final wing/boss. (rescue an npc, activate a machine ect to give u more power or avoid a mechanic)

    That way u could bring back hardmodes or even an Elite mode by not clearing wings first or not activating those benefits.

    But i guess thats for a different topic

  15. #15
    Quote Originally Posted by klaps_05 View Post
    Would love a raid tier set up kinda like Cata:

    Raid A: 5 Bosses, Final Mythic only boss.
    Raid B: 2 Bosses, as hard as final 2 bosses in Raid A (so 5th and Mythic only boss difficulty).
    Raid C: 3 Bosses, as hard as #3-4-5 in Raid A.
    Otherwise agree with the general idea, but I think there are too many hard bosses (4x penultimate bosses and two ultimate bosses). I rather have it set up in a way that we have 2x penultimate bosses and just one ultimate boss.

  16. #16
    Should raids be smaller?

    Yes.

    I’d rather have 5 small raids that absolutely slap and you can get done in under an hour than any amount of mega raids that require so much time to even get to the bosses you want.

  17. #17
    Quote Originally Posted by Synapse12 View Post
    Should raids be smaller?

    Yes.

    I’d rather have 5 small raids that absolutely slap and you can get done in under an hour than any amount of mega raids that require so much time to even get to the bosses you want.
    How small is small for under an hour? I'd prefer 10 bosses raids, or raids that amount to at least 10 total since I remember how much of a letdown Firelands was, but if you're going to have a massive 10-12 boss raid.. maybe just completely remove trash. People already raid on limited days and hours, cut out the needless bullshit already.
    Last edited by La; 2022-07-12 at 12:43 PM.
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  18. #18
    Yes, the game will have to move to a different format eventually. This dev team seems set on it's current ways, but raid participation has been dropping off a cliff and will eventually not make monetary sense anymore.

    Yes, monolithic raids are too cumbersome to organise and require a time commitment many aren't willing to put anymore.

    In my opinion, if they wanted the game to be more popular they should cut raids into 4 boss raids and add a raid+ like system.
    This means they could make raids more often or use resources for something else.

  19. #19
    Quote Originally Posted by La View Post
    How small is small for under an hour? I'd prefer 10 bosses raids, or raids that amount to at least 10 total since I remember how much of a letdown Firelands was, but if you're going to have a massive 10-12 boss raid.. maybe just completely remove trash. People already raid on limited days and hours, cut out the needless bullshit already.
    Uhhh however small it needs to be to fit that time frame or close idk how else to describe it. Using number of bosses is sort of pointless because that doesn’t show how big the actual raid is. Zulaman can be under an hour but it has 6 bosses.

  20. #20
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    lmaaao people advocating for even less content

    now I've seen everything

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