Cataclysm Raid Progression Refinements

[SolSphere]

Because it's mandatory to do to get the thing they want.

Which means anything ever created in the game that someone wants becomes mandatory. Blizzard cannot, no matter what they do, get around this "problem". I quote problem because why is it a problem anyway? I see it as entertainment to be able to run a dungeon in more ways than one. If things are still going to be mandatory, why remove that feature? Why chances to run things away from people?

With the new system (keeping things short here) I have to create two characters to get what I have with one now...

[roboscorcher]

But everyone will lose playstyle freedom with this change, not gain it.

I don't know what sort of playstyle freedoms you are losing, but I think most people will be more free to raid as they like to. Firstly, Breaking up raid content into separate raids means that players can skip content that they hate (more freedom). Secondly, players don't feel forced to do 25 mans (or any multiple versions of the same raid per week) to get the better gear (more freedom).

Now, maybe you feel that Blizz will be forcing you into 10 mans, but Blizz IS aware of this issue, and is going to buff rewards somehow. If you're really worried about keeping 25raiding alive, CONSTRUCTIVE feedback will help you keep it.

[SolSphere]

The amount of ignorance on this issue is astounding!

Your going to be rewarded for getting more members together and raiding in a 25man lockout than you would be if you decided to raid in the 10man lockout.

Example:
10man bosses might award 2 points, 25man bosses might award 7 points.
10man and 25man bosses drop the same iLevel gear (thus dramatically lowering the gear inflation in the process), however 25man might have extra trinkets/weapons/equipment to use should you choose that lockout.
10man and 25man lockouts may provide reputation depending on the raid, however running 25man might grind up the rep at a faster rate.

Sheesh people, its really not that hard to understand. You're making this seem ALOT worse than it really is.

If you think 25mans are going to be no different to 10mans besides the amount of people, you're an idiot... No offense...

Smart 25man raiding guilds will not be affected much by this change, so if you think this change was the end of 25man raids your just another Harbinger of Doom creating a fuss about something which isnt bad at all.

P.S: Lol @ the crybabies cancelling their subscriptions over change.

you are correct on the fact that you'll get more. You are wrong to thing 10 mans can ever = 25 mans. You put more people together the chance for someone screwing up goes up. Therefore the difficulty is inately more. Beyond that one fact it depends on how well blizzard tunes the fights that decide how much of a difference there will be.

[orsraunia]

Here are the things I hate about the idea.

1. You cannot make 10-mans as hard as 25-mans. Look at, for example, Saurfang. Fitting 25 people into the room where they won't chain bloodbolts is significantly more difficult than in 10-man. 2 adds instead of 5 adds is just plain easier. What about Putricide? No ooze/gas variable in 10-man, because it simply wouldn't work in a 10-man environment. So that's one level of difficulty removed. 3 Val'kyr on 25-man LK, 1 Val'kyr in 10. I could go on.

At the same time look at:
1. Sarth 3D - significantly harder at 10 when you couldn't faceroll it. Good guilds with 25man gear had serious trouble with it.
2. If you lose 1 DPSer at a hard 10man heroic (and i mean when you don't outgear the encounter), it may pretty well mean that you have to call it a wipe. You need to lose like 3-4 in 25man.
3. 25man means that will be a lot of people around with cool CDs that can use them and help with critical moments in a fight (e.g. after last air phase of Lanathel). You also have all available buffs and you can balance the raid's DPS and Healing plans better.
4. Especially at the start of wotlk, 25man difficulty was a joke with the amount of AoE healing priests and druids could do.
5. You might get away with 1 DCing and coming back after some time...
I can go on...

So, yes there are fights that are easier in 10man and some that are easier in 25man. I could even settle with 10mans being harder than 25mans intentionally.
In fact, I'd welcome it. Also remember that there are examples, like ToC, where we had 25's normal giving better loot (and easier) than 10's heroic, which were
a lot harder when you didn't outgear the content. Finally, about those that do statistical analysis to prove that it will be harder for them to get a piece of loot
in 25's and thus there's no point in raiding 25's... I just laugh. I mean, yeah, you can be as shallow as this and play this game in the way that will give you teh
epix in the easiest way and play the game in only that way, your choice. Still that doesn't mean that all of us are like you.

[infini]

This change is very sad and unnecessary imo. I really didn't think Bliz could make the game more casual but I guess they found a way.

I remember when MMOs were truly massive, you needed large groups of people to accomplish raid events. Ah yes the good ol days in EverQuest with 72 man raids, no add-ons or modifications that helped play the game for you and many guilds didn't even use vent. It took skill to learn an encounter but when you finally got that boss down it felt truly "EPIC" and it meant something.
Later raids were changed to 40 man, then down to 10/25. Heck you can even get "epic" loot from 5 man dungeons (which doesn't feel very "epic" to me).

I have more of a life now and play semi-casual and generally raid only 2-3 nights a week. I think the changes they are implementing here will kill he point in doing 25 man content. The same rewards with fewer people to coordinate to accomplish an encounter. Even in WOTLK many players only do 10 man raids because they are easier, fewer people who can screw things up.... Just get a solid 10 man group and your golden.

As mentioned already Blizzard is a cash cow, they are constantly trying to make the game easier vs more challenging so that anyone and everyone will be able to play n' pay. Soon enough it will be simplistic enough so that a 3 month old monkey could figure out how to play the game and toss them a check. Go Bliz!

[Pekoe]

As a player who enjoys running both 10 and 25 raids I have to say I am disappointed by this change.
I run 25s with my guild and I pug 10s. I used to be known as the Pug Queen on my old server. I had successfully participated in 40 and 25 man pugs and taken down END bosses with those pugs (Vanilla and BC respectfully). I saw it as a challenge, and enjoyed the fun of meeting new people I hadn't run with. Its how I met several people who are now very good friends- Even though some don't even play WoW anymore! Even within current LK content I enjoy entering a pug raid and teaching the "noobs" the proper strat or easier "new" ways for them to beat the content they have never beat previously. Locking 10 and 25 to the same raid ID is a negative change in my opinion. In the proposed system- I will never pug again. Over five years worth of pugging high end content will come to an end.

One of the things that hasn't really been mentioned and is sort of related-
We all love the Dungeon Finder. However with that Dungeon finder came something we perhaps did not expect... Guilds have a harder time finding the new talent they need without running server-only dungeons. If they make 10 mans accessable via the Dungeon Finder, combined with the fact that 10 and 25 man raids will share a lockout ID... This is potentially devistating to recruiting new talent to established guilds. Just thought I would bring this up.

[briswindus]

Its about money...

• Using the same loot table means less work in design and development.
  Not allowing 10's and 25's of the same instance to be run each week means less servers needed to host the instances (They say people will run on alts and that maybe true so this might not be that much) BUT they can host more 10 man on a server then they can 25's so mb the changes there will save them some money.
  The more accessible they make end game content the more casuals they keep as subscribers
  And lastly the truth is that the money isnt in keeping the Hardcore Raider happy.

[seaboogers]

What the raid lock out really affects are the classes utilizing dual specs.

Tank/DPS....Healer/DPS.

Some of us run main spec in 25s....then run 10's in alt spec for that spec's gear.

This change screws us out of that capability.

It doesn't affect the "PEW/PEW" classes nearly as much.

10/25 dropping the same gear...meh...whatever,pidgeon-holing people into a single spec due to the shared lockout...is shit.

[Kathis]

I had another thought:
...
Or possibly say you can do 10 and 25 man raids in one lockout but you can only get 35 badges a week... no matter what you are doing? I don't know. It just seems to me there are ways to approach the changes they clearly want to make without upsetting as many people as they have. I know there are always going to be haters... but this seems a bit extreme.

This is exactly what I was thinking when I read it. Since they're putting in a cap to how many badges you can earn per week, the problem really resolves itself. It sounds as though they're taking the easy route and making the cap artificial by only allowing you to engage x amount of bosses + daily randoms for badges rather than coding in an actual cap that stops you from getting more than you should. If they did -that- instead, then they could allow 10 and 25 man access in a single week and once you hit your cap, then you either didn't get any more badges/points for a kill but still had access to loot, or got the lower tier badges instead much the way you can continue to run random heroics after the first but only get the lower tier badges as a result.

It seems like a much simpler solution to me and doesn't restrict people from which raid they want to enter. Then again, if their concern is how fast people are gearing themselves up in the first place, then the shared lockout is probably the only way to go.

Frankly, for myself, I'm happy for the loot matching in 10/25. Tired of having to run 25's for higher end gear when I simply don't enjoy 25 man raids. So long as the difficulty is tuned properly on both, then it makes sense to me. I can't though agree with the idea of forcing people to choose between either 10 or 25 man. It should be a players prerogative as to whether they do one or both types of raids, whether they run one character or two, or ten. We are, after all the customers in this exchange, let's not forget. What we want should be more important than a 'design philosophy'.

[Beanie]

Respectful question here. I'm not sure if anyone has asked this, but if 10/25 are saved to the same lockout, will multiple 10s not be available across the bored? People will be saved to one raid id. ???

[Deleted]

Unbelievable stupid. Im not surprised though, all new changes and wotlk have been f*cking terrible.

Im glad i raided in TBC and could do 25man one day and then the other day do 10man raid(that didnt have 25man version like lol wotlk). Im glad i played TBC when heriocs was actually fun and you needed to CC.

[McshammerExecutus]

I guess I have to learn Shaman PvP -.-

[Tenik]

Lets suppose that 25s receive 3 times more loot and stuff, even then... can someone explain me any DECENT fight where gathering 10 good man is even REMOTELY comparable to the difficulty of gathering 25 man to do content ? I give you a freaking example, my resto shaman did LK in a PUG way before the % buffs were added. In a freaking PUG! There is no way a PUG to 25 man today can even get down sindragosa or for god sake the Blood Queen, at least in my server.

Just think about it, you all have played both versions there is no way anyone will do 25s except for WORLD FIRST 25 AT X.

Shockamos, Grim Batol

[pesto81]

Hooray! Death to the 25 man raid, though I assume they'll make the 25 man drop more than 2.5x more loot so maybe not. No more carrying 10-15 scrubs with good gear who can't pay attention and actually output.

... the ones who are upset by this change.

[Bigjay]

"The achievement won’t care if you complete it in 10s or 25s. If we do meta-achievement mounts, it’s possible we’d still have different colors of mounts, or maybe even different mounts"

Blizzard again shows they have no idea what's going on and nothing thought out. We'll only have one achievement but two possible outcomes. Yeah that'll work, good job again.

Can't wait until the last expansion where raids are completely gone and you have 1 person instances only like the crap ones in aion. It'll be super enjoyable to pay for a none mmo mmo.

[Antisocial]

You doomsayers are hilarious.

[ravean]

The amount of ignorance on this issue is astounding!

Your going to be rewarded for getting more members together and raiding in a 25man lockout than you would be if you decided to raid in the 10man lockout.

Example:
10man bosses might award 2 points, 25man bosses might award 7 points.
10man and 25man bosses drop the same iLevel gear (thus dramatically lowering the gear inflation in the process), however 25man might have extra trinkets/weapons/equipment to use should you choose that lockout.
10man and 25man lockouts may provide reputation depending on the raid, however running 25man might grind up the rep at a faster rate.

Sheesh people, its really not that hard to understand. You're making this seem ALOT worse than it really is.

If you think 25mans are going to be no different to 10mans besides the amount of people, you're an idiot... No offense...

Smart 25man raiding guilds will not be affected much by this change, so if you think this change was the end of 25man raids your just another Harbinger of Doom creating a fuss about something which isnt bad at all.

P.S: Lol @ the crybabies cancelling their subscriptions over change.

Exactly

you are correct on the fact that you'll get more. You are wrong to thing 10 mans can ever = 25 mans. You put more people together the chance for someone screwing up goes up. Therefore the difficulty is inately more. Beyond that one fact it depends on how well blizzard tunes the fights that decide how much of a difference there will be.

Yup, Its ALL down to how blizzard tune it, and in all honesty i think they do understand the risks of having 25 people to start with.

IF bliz pull this off, this is just bringing raiding back to the BC style, but with the added extras of being able to choose your preferances. Those that choose 25 recieve more in the long run because of the added disadvantage of having to gather 25 compitant people

Also i saw a post that mentioned the "weaker hybrids", im a ele shaman thats been running a 10man strickly raid group for some time untill recently, ive always put out more than adiquate dps and they get the added bonus of totems and bloodlust, youv gota remember half of the time if your a hybrid its not always what dps your putting out (not that ive had a problem with that) its what you bring to the raid.


on another note

At the same time look at:
1. Sarth 3D - significantly harder at 10 when you couldn't faceroll it. Good guilds with 25man gear had serious trouble with it.
2. If you lose 1 DPSer at a hard 10man heroic (and i mean when you don't outgear the encounter), it may pretty well mean that you have to call it a wipe. You need to lose like 3-4 in 25man.
3. 25man means that will be a lot of people around with cool CDs that can use them and help with critical moments in a fight (e.g. after last air phase of Lanathel). You also have all available buffs and you can balance the raid's DPS and Healing plans better.
4. Especially at the start of wotlk, 25man difficulty was a joke with the amount of AoE healing priests and druids could do.
5. You might get away with 1 DCing and coming back after some time...
I can go on...

So, yes there are fights that are easier in 10man and some that are easier in 25man. I could even settle with 10mans being harder than 25mans intentionally.
In fact, I'd welcome it. Also remember that there are examples, like ToC, where we had 25's normal giving better loot (and easier) than 10's heroic, which were
a lot harder when you didn't outgear the content. Finally, about those that do statistical analysis to prove that it will be harder for them to get a piece of loot
in 25's and thus there's no point in raiding 25's... I just laugh. I mean, yeah, you can be as shallow as this and play this game in the way that will give you teh
epix in the easiest way and play the game in only that way, your choice. Still that doesn't mean that all of us are like you.

Mhmmm, most of you do raid 25mans as your main guild focus, in wotlk 10man for 25man guilds has become just a added way to boost the badges/loot

Atm 10man guilds can raid to there hearts content and still get lesser rewards than a 25man guild, did they put more effort in? i doubt it, in the current raid situation raiding is uneven, i mean it changes for every boss like orsraunia said, some bosses are easier on 10 than 25 and vice versa for other bosses.

just sit tight, wait for blizz to try to balance the raids and test them abit, and make your judgement when its done. this is probably the most complicated change to raiding theve done. its not only making fights, but making two completly different types of the fight equily demanding

its just one of those things that no one can judge untill its been implicated on PTR or whatever. all boilds down to blizz now

[Zamien]

This change is very sad and unnecessary imo. I really didn't think Bliz could make the game more casual but I guess they found a way.

What ever in the blue post made the game more casual?

I remember when MMOs were truly massive, you needed large groups of people to accomplish raid events. Ah yes the good ol days in EverQuest with 72 man raids, no add-ons or modifications that helped play the game for you and many guilds didn't even use vent. It took skill to learn an encounter but when you finally got that boss down it felt truly "EPIC" and it meant something.
Later raids were changed to 40 man, then down to 10/25. Heck you can even get "epic" loot from 5 man dungeons (which doesn't feel very "epic" to me).

If you believe that playing with more people feel more epic why would you run 10 man instead of 25? It is not Blizzard that developes add-ons. It is the "hard-core" raiders that need assistans for all the "face-roll" content.

I have more of a life now and play semi-casual and generally raid only 2-3 nights a week. I think the changes they are implementing here will kill he point in doing 25 man content. The same rewards with fewer people to coordinate to accomplish an encounter. Even in WOTLK many players only do 10 man raids because they are easier, fewer people who can screw things up.... Just get a solid 10 man group and your golden.

So the point in doing 25 man is loot only? If you feel it is more epic to down in a 25 man group why would you not?

As mentioned already Blizzard is a cash cow, they are constantly trying to make the game easier vs more challenging so that anyone and everyone will be able to play n' pay. Soon enough it will be simplistic enough so that a 3 month old monkey could figure out how to play the game and toss them a check. Go Bliz!

So be creating bigger steps between the tiers the game gets easier? Would it not be harder to go from T11 to T12 then from T9 - T9,25 - T9,5 - T10 -T10,25 - T10,5? Is it easier when you cannot over gear a 10 man version to learn tactics for the 25 man version?

Why do you people read more into the post then what is written?

[Sorja]

Bad changes is bad

[omglazor]

Awesome! ;D

I have a few buddies playing the game, about 8 of us in total - just 2 people short of 10-man. We've been wanting to make a guild to raid 10-mans, but are basically forced into 25-mans by the current lack of challenge in 10-mans and superior loot. I've been wishing for exactly this move from Blizzard - harder 10-mans and superior loot!