Are raids becoming less popular?

[Elbob]

But isn't that extension just a trick, a loophole in lockout system and not officially supported by Blizzard? And if guilds really do that already, then why not cut the middleman and make lockout two weeks? If you still want lockouts to be one week long, what else than more loot are you after?

i reference my opening line, it only hurts the people that want to raid every week. Extending is also not a "trick" you just opening up your raid panel and select the raid you want to extend.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

Accusing blizzard and then writing this is quite something. You are selectively leaving out the overall modern context, causality, a fuckload of other factors and you clearly have no respect for larger guils either. You focus exclusively on the past with a half-baked conspiracy theory, while having no serious regard for the modern situation. Your bias blinds you, your accusations of tunnel vision are no more than a reflection of yourself, as you are refusing to underline the consequences.

I see your main agreement is here to make it a personal attack and not much substance. It says a lot for the reality of the situation. I can agree a meta will always exist but if it is balance correctly it isn't you run this comp or bust situation the game is in now. It also has nothing to do with 10 man being viable. You may not like 10 man but its VERY obvious it was insanely popular in the past. It is obvious other games almost always go smaller with some of the game even making harder content (FF for example) so to say its just impossible is just lack of vision on the developers part. Along with those that are subservient to the style of play that has clearly been sheading players from raiding for about 3 expansions now.

[ZazuuPriest]

But isn't that extension just a trick, a loophole in lockout system and not officially supported by Blizzard? And if guilds really do that already, then why not cut the middleman and make lockout two weeks? If you still want lockouts to be one week long, what else than more loot are you after?

at a certain point guilds dont need to be doing the first half of the raid especially if theyre trying to progress to Cutting Edge. Making a raid that you cant extend doesnt help anyone it only hurts the top end players

[Thraenduil]

i reference my opening line, it only hurts the people that want to raid every week. Extending is also not a "trick" you just opening up your raid panel and select the raid you want to extend.

Since they have added that function to actual raid frame, i admit my mistake. I looked Wowhead, but didn't find mention of it.(Am I still that green with that site?)But something should be done about this constant haste in raiding.

[Elbob]

Since they have added that function to actual raid frame, i admit my mistake. I looked Wowhead, but didn't find mention of it.(Am I still that green with that site?)But something should be done about this constant haste in raiding.

https://www.bluetracker.gg/wow/topic...extension-faq/

there you go straight from 2009 when it was added

[Lolites]

- Don't need 50 million addons and weakauras

neither in wow, unless you aim for world first...
i use DBM and thats it and i clear HC every tier and in some tiers mythic (that depends more on real life than game itself), DBM is enough (healers might need more, I never healed anything past normal) if you feel like you need more its almost certainly YOU issue

- No lame boss weekly lockout. Only weekly lockout is loot. If I killed a boss already and my friend wants help, I can join their group and help them.

that is a thing in wow for quite some time... maybe actually check the game before whining about it?

- Can clear an entire tier with PUGs.

with exception of mythic that is true about wow too...

- Savage raids can be cleared by all skill level players.

we have difficulties in wow for that...

sounds like you dont eveb know about wow, and are happy with FF, so go play it? seems like no brainer...

[Soon-TM]

sounds like you dont eveb know about wow, and are happy with FF, so go play it? seems like no brainer...

Given the participation numbers, looks like many people are following your advice and ditching raiding entirely. Mission accomplished, I guess?

[Nymrohd]

I think the primary problem with raids is that they are repetitive.

Even if you never bother with LFR, you go into the current raid (because why bother with the previous raid since catch up gear makes the previous raid(s) irrelevant) on Normal, wipe a few times, eventually get through all the bosses...then do it all over again on heroic (which is the same raid with an extra mechanic...ooohhh, so exciting(/s)), wipe a few times, eventually get through all the bosses...then do it all over again on mythic (which is the same raid with an extra mechanic...ooohhh, so exciting(/s)).

It feels like you are practicing something over and over and over again. That's fine when you are honing skills for something better, but it's annoying in raiding because all that practicing *was* the raid. It's a treadmill to nothing other than the same gear you got way back on normal, but slightly better stats. And, like NFTs, you have a receipt that says you did something special (i.e. something worthless except to very, very few).

Sorry, but that isn't going to be exciting to most people. If you like that, great! More power to you. But if you want more people playing your video game, it needs to a game (i.e. fun), not a continuous chore. The current raid approach is anti-engaging. The game was more popular when not so many people were raiding...and that was fine because there was plenty to do. Right now, either you raid continuously or do the same 2 handfuls of dungeons as fast as possible continuously. Both of these things are boring to most people.

How on earth are they more repetitive than dungeons though? At least you are artifically gated to do a raid once a week.

- - - Updated - - -

That was a lot of words to say something against something that actually already worked in the past. Its not some what if here, it worked, it worked well, and when it went away the raiding scene just slowly started to doddle down as they focused on trying to make raids great for like 5 guilds in a world race situation and then like another 100 in the whole of the game.

Also the idea that meta is the huge issue for raiding going smaller when the competing concept within the game is M+ which has a far harsher meta than any raid ever had is ludicrous.

[PenguinChan]

This is just patently false. Meta-slaving will absolutely happen. It happened when 10M Heroic was a thing and there's absolutely no reason to believe it won't happen again. The main difference between the game now and when 10M Heroic raiding was a thing is that the game has moved away from homogenization. This means it'll be even worse this time around.

If you want 10M Heroic raiding just wait a few months for Cataclysm Classic.

This is something I dislike within FFXIV and how it has created a homogenization issue. Not that I meant ease of play, as FFXIV is - but the similarity of most things that makes it less enjoyable than it could be. 6 / 8 / 10 man systems in a lot of games have restricted play rather than expand upon it (Not talking about dungeons. I think 6 man dungeons open games up...)

This is also the consequence of having higher and higher difficulties FWIW. If the game had 20 / 25 man or even 40 man casual and normal stuff where performance was way less important (and the only options) the 'meta' wouldn't really exist at that point. Take that as you will but it's definitely worth mentioning in the whole grand scheme of things.

[cozzri]

Meta slaving in 10m mythic raiding will be much more severe. The spots are very restricted and there's much more pressure in a mythic guild than a m+ team. It will not be any easier, m+ already demonstrated that hardcore meta slaving isn't a positive.

The 10m you lot are remembering will not be the same 10m today considering the current state of the community.

Easy fix: Remove mythic. Make raids one difficulty again with optional hard modes. Ulduar is a prime example of what is capable; they choose the lazy path of just changing the numbers from ToC onward. It's a shame how lame raiding is currently to be honest. Hamster wheel to death is not fun content, but hey, they need to keep you on track otherwise their player engagement metrics look like poop.

Game is designe for addicts; and they play the community against each other by making the best gear super difficult, and people not on the front end just buy a carry for the gear. This whole system feeds into the WoW Token; why would they change that?

Blizzard has completely fallen off

[shimerra]

Easy fix: Remove mythic. Make raids one difficulty again with optional hard modes. Ulduar is a prime example of what is capable; they choose the lazy path of just changing the numbers from ToC onward. It's a shame how lame raiding is currently to be honest. Hamster wheel to death is not fun content, but hey, they need to keep you on track otherwise their player engagement metrics look like poop.

Game is designe for addicts; and they play the community against each other by making the best gear super difficult, and people not on the front end just buy a carry for the gear. This whole system feeds into the WoW Token; why would they change that?

Blizzard has completely fallen off

Optional hard modes is literally just mythic raiding with extra steps. You haven't fixed anything you've just changed how the problem occurs because the "hard modes" was just triggering mythic within the dungeon instead of triggering it with a button before the instance. While the flavor of them was sometimes interesting it was also sometimes really annoying. Like having to hold DPS on that mech boss in Uldar where you trigger it by breaking the heart. Lots of pugs were good enough to break it, but not good enough to handle the HM and if there's one thing that never works in a pug it's telling DPS to slow down for any reason.

A lot were lame like Mimiron's button that you just walked around to the back and right clicked and Yogg Saron's where you just don't click a button instead. Fight changes, but the activation occurs outside/doesn't impact the fight itself. There's almost zero difference between those two "button press" hard modes and clicking a drop down menu for mythics. Freya's was just don't kill the side bosses. Not exactly mind blowing game design there either. Don't get me wrong I enjoyed them when it was current. But I also don't pretend they were all top level game design or even most of them even if the actual fight itself was decent.

Come to think of it I'd argue only Storm Giants and General had truly interesting ways their hard modes were activated mid fight. Because they actually actively changed how you handled the encounter not only once the hard mode was activated but throughout the fight. The rest were basically functionally the same as a mythic toggle.


Honestly I still love raiding. I only quit doing it because at this time in my life I have zero desire to pug even 5 mans and my schedule/personal preference makes it so I have no desire to commit to raid times like I did as a teen. I pretty much only play with my RL buddies unless it's faceroll content. And that's a problem I feel that's gotten more widespread. There's a lot vying for our attention now and games that are popular now are popcorn live service games like CoD or League. Even the worst league match I'm in and out in an hour tops. That's a much easier sell as opposed to an hour spamming trade or LFG for a crap shoot on whether or not the group disbands after 2 wipes on the first boss or makes it to the end.


My solution would be to embrace 10 man mythic. And the one thing I'll give you is 10 man hard modes were at least a thing. Raiding got a lot nicer once they dropped from 40 to 25 and got rid of the stupid debuff limitation. Can keep raid finder at 25 because honestly who cares. Running a 25 man raid guild was just simply exhausting.

[Relapses]

This is something I dislike within FFXIV and how it has created a homogenization issue. Not that I meant ease of play, as FFXIV is - but the similarity of most things that makes it less enjoyable than it could be. 6 / 8 / 10 man systems in a lot of games have restricted play rather than expand upon it (Not talking about dungeons. I think 6 man dungeons open games up...)

This is also the consequence of having higher and higher difficulties FWIW. If the game had 20 / 25 man or even 40 man casual and normal stuff where performance was way less important (and the only options) the 'meta' wouldn't really exist at that point. Take that as you will but it's definitely worth mentioning in the whole grand scheme of things.

This graphic Max created shows the problem with the current buff paradigm:



It's why I've suggested moving from 20 to 25 players for Mythic.

[Erolian]

That's just the natural cycle since all we do is repeat past mistakes. The next step is realizing buffs are too restrictive on comps so to ease the burden we start letting them overlap and come from multiple specs or classes. Then they just delete them because its actually stupid. Then we talk about how we miss raid buffs a few years after that

[Low Hanging Fruit]

Also the idea that meta is the huge issue for raiding going smaller when the competing concept within the game is M+ which has a far harsher meta than any raid ever had is ludicrous.

No matter the size, even if they made it 100 person raids, will always have a meta. If the meta is in a terrible state then that is a problem in class balance. Which, even if they balanced things VERY well a meta would always still exist but suddenly even if a raid or group is a 5, 10, 15, 20, 40, 60, 100 man group wouldn't be as slaved to the "god comp" line of thinking. Its in the data. No matter the raid or group size meta will exist but when balance is right its way less restrictive and groups of any size and MOST make ups can find success.

This is not a raid size issue. It is a class balance one.

- - - Updated - - -

That's just the natural cycle since all we do is repeat past mistakes. The next step is realizing buffs are too restrictive on comps so to ease the burden we start letting them overlap and come from multiple specs or classes. Then they just delete them because its actually stupid. Then we talk about how we miss raid buffs a few years after that

Even then it just shifts the meta though. So buffs are removed then you just look at who does the most damage or healing line of thinking. Remove all buffs from the game if class X does on average 10k more dps then class Y then that is just how the meta lines are drawn.

Getting class balance just reasonable correct solves most issues with raid sizes and meta slaving.

[Relapses]

No matter the size, even if they made it 100 person raids, will always have a meta. If the meta is in a terrible state then that is a problem in class balance. Which, even if they balanced things VERY well a meta would always still exist but suddenly even if a raid or group is a 5, 10, 15, 20, 40, 60, 100 man group wouldn't be as slaved to the "god comp" line of thinking. Its in the data. No matter the raid or group size meta will exist but when balance is right its way less restrictive and groups of any size and MOST make ups can find success.

This is not a raid size issue. It is a class balance one.

When a 20M raid group has 14 mandatory slots that kinda is, by definition, a raid size issue. The question is how Blizzard goes about fixing it: I think if they're going to insist on giving so many classes unique raid utility then the logical next step is to bump up the raid size. The other way to solve it would be to either a.) homogenize classes and remove the unique utility (ie, the MoP approach) or b.) allow a consumable scroll to take the place of some of the utility (the BfA approach). In any case, I do not believe the current raid buff paradigm is sustainable.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

When a 20M raid group has 14 mandatory slots that kinda is, by definition, a raid size issue. The question is how Blizzard goes about fixing it: I think if they're going to insist on giving so many classes unique raid utility then the logical next step is to bump up the raid size. The other way to solve it would be to either a.) homogenize classes and remove the unique utility (ie, the MoP approach) or b.) allow a consumable scroll to take the place of some of the utility (the BfA approach). In any case, I do not believe the current raid buff paradigm is sustainable.

It will just move the goal post of what the meta is. So buffs aren't an issue so maybe you can bring in a few more raid cooldowns, people spreadsheet it out, debate, and then you determine X amount of externals and raid wide CDs is what is best. Or these 4 classes do X% more damage then the others so just bring more of those. Are required buffs brought from classes adding to the problem? Sure, but that sounds like something that needs to be worked on the class side and not raid size.

[Relapses]

It will just move the goal post of what the meta is. So buffs aren't an issue so maybe you can bring in a few more raid cooldowns, people spreadsheet it out, debate, and then you determine X amount of externals and raid wide CDs is what is best. Or these 4 classes do X% more damage then the others so just bring more of those. Are required buffs brought from classes adding to the problem? Sure, but that sounds like something that needs to be worked on the class side and not raid size.

...what I'm saying since I guess you missed it is that before we even talk about class balance we need to figure out how to handle a raid buff paradigm which has 14 mandatory slots.

[JoakimB]

Its very hard for alot of semi hardcore/casual guilds to find exactly 20 ppl. 20 ppl that always shows up in time. Thats like, almost never the case for us. Some day there is this guy thats 20min late, some day another one. Some day we are 15, some day we are 22.

Its just so frustrating to get EXACTLY 20 ppl. Make it flex like 15-20 ppl, who cares if its a little easier or a little harder when there is 200 guilds thats already killed the boss. No one gonna care if you kill it or not, people just wanna raid, not wait/disband. And no, HC is a complete joke in difficulty.

[PenguinChan]

This graphic Max created shows the problem with the current buff paradigm:



It's why I've suggested moving from 20 to 25 players for Mythic.

I don't see any graph if you meant to upload something or link it.

[Relapses]

I don't see any graph if you meant to upload something or link it.

Maybe try this or this?

Suffice to say it shows in a 20M raid group there are currently at minimum 14 mandatory slots.