Cataclysm Raid Progression Refinements

[Ibbi]

I can see why Blizzard is doing this, to cater for the 85%+ of the wow population that is casual. But if you dont raid you dont need the latest and newest and best shinies, people who spend all day sitting in dala and run 1-2 heroics a day and complain they never get to do anything when they dont actually try are taking over wow and its getting terrible.

If these changes go live Blizzard will lose many of the more serious players, which i suppose is good, cause the next Expansion after Cata is going to be World of Warcraft: Barbie Adventure Island

Serious players? I'm sorry, but WoW doesn't have serious players. :

[Firas]

Serious players? I'm sorry, but WoW doesn't have serious players. :

What WoW have you been playing?

[Zoda]

I like it. We can now focus on one raid size insted of making time for both.

[GW2375]

Not a fan of this change. Not because of the iLvl drops or how many, but in a 25 man raid you usually have more than 25 people rotating in and out. Well, if for some reason, especially with the gating, you only get in for one boss - you're now locked out of that raid for the rest of the week on any level. So even if you wanted to go into a 10 man just to pass the time, you can't.

[khaynadha]

downsize this!

it's just simple business maths...

get about 2 million new "casual" raiders for 10men raids & those 1-1.5mio 25men raiders are instantly no more that important.

1. of course MOST will switch to 10men raids!
2. idol-inflation (For The Ensidragon being only 1day ahead of you with WORLD!!!-firstkills) won't dmg motivation 4 5ur3!!!
3. blizz got some fortune-tellers... business-style of course

all of those that are laughing now about 25men raiders whining today
have fun in about 2-4years when it says...

Casualysm II will change a couple of things to the raiding system apparently. "Too long didn't read" version:

* 5-Man and 10-Man raids will share the same lockout.
* 5-Man and 10-Man raids difficulty will be as close as possible to each other.
* 5-Man and 10-Man raids will drop the exact same loot, but 10-man will drop a higher quantity of items.
* Normal versus Heroic mode will be chosen on a per-boss basis in Casualysm I raids, the same way it works in Uldum
* For the first few raid tiers, our plan is to provide multiple smaller raids. Instead of one raid with six bosses, you might have a two-boss raid as well as a three-boss raid.

Please enjoy!

(Well, we don't care for you no more anyway... NEW Subscribers are the key to success!!!)

[Abnell]

I can't wait until people realize that seeing all or even most content in MMOs is BORING and involves a lot of time waiting for something to reset. But hey, those top 50 guilds get to see stuff and have awesome gear so anyone paying should get the same thing...

A year from know when you're whining about not having enough to do just remember that you asked for this.

[Rootofalleli]

My point was that if guilds are capable of clearing 11/12 HMs in 3 hours, then you should be able to faceroll your way through normal modes in the same time or less. And there are "casual" raiding guilds that raid 2 nights a week and have cleared 10-11/12 HMs at this point, so what's your excuse?

Not having enough time to raid is just an excuse for people who want everything handed to them on a silver platter. You can clear both ICC 10 and 25 in less than 5 hours now. If you can't find 5 hours a week to play this game, then why are you playing it? Sorry, but that excuse just doesn't cut it anymore. People who can't find more than 1-2 hours a week to raid have no business raiding.

Now I'm guessing you'll probably cry along the lines of, "I pay $15/month so I have the right to see HARD MODE content" when, in reality, that content was designed for the serious raider. Not the 1 hour a week casual superstar. Normal mode is their kingdom.

And the typical person plays this game more than your average casual apologist thinks.

Comparing what hard mode guilds do to what other people do is wrong. Casual raiding guilds that are on HM Arthas or Sindragosa or whatever are clearly made up of very skilled players who are doing a lot of things right. Maybe they're only top 200 guilds instead of top 20, but that still puts them in a tiny minority. I checked wowprogress again- as of the last update, about 3800 guilds have killed 25m Arthas. Assuming 35 raiders per guild, that's about 133,000 people. 11,000,000 people play this game.

Again, slowly:
The
people
you
call
casual
are
actually
elite
players.

Read it 'til you get it. I don't even know what your thesis is anymore, except maybe that you hate everyone for not being as good at WoW as you are.

[Deleted]

Comparing what hard mode guilds do to what other people do is wrong. Casual raiding guilds that are on HM Arthas or Sindragosa or whatever are clearly made up of very skilled players who are doing a lot of things right. Maybe they're only top 200 guilds instead of top 20, but that still puts them in a tiny minority. I checked wowprogress again- as of the last update, about 3800 guilds have killed 25m Arthas. Assuming 35 raiders per guild, that's about 133,000 people. 11,000,000 people play this game.

Again, slowly:
The
people
you
call
casual
are
actually
elite
players.

Read it 'til you get it. I don't even know what your thesis is anymore, except maybe that you hate everyone for not being as good at WoW as you are.

Whats "casual" for you? He is absolutely right. There are tons of raids that have downed several hardmodes in 25-man right now. We have seven of them on our server, all have three raids per week at most (we have two and are 9/12).

Waht is a "casual" player? Did you know, that 75% of the players play more than 14 hours a week? That the average player plays 24 hours a week? Would you call that "casual"? I wouldn´t.

"Casual" players play Sims or games on their mobile phone. What they don´t ist paying a monthly fee and play an MMORPG for several hours a day.

btw: It is also a misconception that all players want to raid. They don´t. Millions of players haven´t killed one single boss in ToC. Was that also too hard?

[Falkano]

No, its not.
..Where does it say that, I can't seem to find it. People who do 10 mans now will continue to do them in Cataclysm. So they get the same level of gear? So what? They already said that 25 mans would drop much more loot per player, so people who do 25 mans will be able to gear faster then people who do 10 mans.
...Do you even raid with 24 other people? It is not easy. At all. In an old guild, we barely got past beasts in 25 man ToC, but our 10 mans would clear the entire instance in less then an hour. 25 man requires much more time because not everyone in the raid is competent. 10 mans would be more efficient, with equally geared people, allowing for a much smoother and less time consuming experience. So yes, people really don't have 13 hours to spend on the computer.
There are only a small portion of these people, and you don't get epics from standing around in Ironforge. People who are too lazy to earn their gear aren't going to be doing 10 mans.
Oh, I get it now. Like 95% of the other QQers, this is related to e-peen. "This change is shit, how will I be able to show other players how better I am?"
...Wow, so you really just confirmed that you are pissed because you can't show off? "Oh well, if I can't brag about my gear score, then that is sloppy game design". So you'd rather have trade filled with "LFM ICC 25 pst GS and Achieve", then actually allow Blizzard to do away with all of it? Try to listen to yourself...it really is quite petty and selfish.

And what is with all this bullshit about guilds dying? This change would encourage people to join guilds, which would allow for larger guilds per server, or a lot of 10 man guilds. What would you rather do: Pug a 10 man, wipe at the second boss, and then be fucked, with no gear, for the rest of the week? Or join a guild, clear a 25 man, and actually progress? People need to stop whining, and start thinking.

Firstly don’t come at me with the whole “do you even play in a 25 man guild, line, would I bother to reply to this if I didn’t, for someone trying to come across bright you failed in the first line…..

I have played this game from the start. Have downed every boss in 25/40 man content. I have a job, I have my own house, I have a gf, I have friends.
The whole time thing as others have mentioned is a load of rubbish. I spend a couple of nights a week raiding. The rest I am doing other stuff. It is about balance.
Just because people raid does not mean they have no life. The logic is so flawed it is unreal. So people who do 10 mans do so casually right? Err no. 10 mans require just as much time as doing 25 mans does. The difference is one is a lot harder then the other.
In 10 mans you can make countless mistakes and not be punished for it. In 25 man just one mistake will kill you all.
It is like playing an fps game or something. Some people will complete the game on very easy first time round just to see the ending. While others will play it on normal/hard because they want a challenge.

To counter what you say because you’re totally wrong there are countless ways to get the t10 gear without even stepping foot in icecrown citadel. These ways are designed for people who don’t have a raiding guild. Which is fair enough. They can do the dailies with 4 other people. They don’t even need to have any friends; the game will find them for you. Then you can kill 1 boss twice in voa and get 4 more badges. Then you can go off to some old dungeon that is easy as hell and get 5 more a week in a matter of minutes. All in all that is around 25 emblems in a week without even spending 1 of your hours in the main raiding content. Thus proving you wrong about the easy epics handed out for doing nothing.

As with the rest of what you’re saying about the “it must be about epeen” etc.. err no….again not so bright! It is about changing stuff that does not need to be changed all the time. Whether you like it or not the content in this game was driven by the raiding guilds. Guilds which have been here from the start. Those people are probably the games biggest fans. They are the ones who probably put the most time in. By basically making the experience the same for 10 man makes 25 man irrelevant. Meaning a lot of those guilds will die. That as I said is sad because it is an end of an era. Those days where guilds worked as a team for weeks to complete something have gone. Replaced by people who want shiny pixels on a screen for basically nothing. Welfare epics. So a lot of raiders of which there are millions of this will be a kick in the teeth. We are getting closer to a game designed purely for the stupid. Those annoying players who nobody wants to group with. Probably people like you.

[whetherman]

Jesus, i still need a machette to cut through all the chaos this thread is providing. These changes have not yet been implemented in-game, and if we were to look at it from a historical standpoint, this is just progress. No MMO is without its flaws, and Blizzard is quick to address them. Let's leave it in the hands of the multi-million dollar industry, i think they've worked a rubric by now.

I've heard my fair share of stories, and from what i hear, Cataclysm will prolly be met by the biggest reinsurgence of players in the history of the game. I don't know what you think, but from where i stand, thats a pretty fucking huge deal. It means that regardless of what changes are criticized and QQ'd about in these forums, people have been waiting, and listening, and like what they see. A step towards casualcraft you say? Maybe...but who in their Right mind spends 10 hours a day on a video game and calls it healthy?

[Corpsegrinde]

My guildmate described the new expansion very precisely it's:



CASUALISM

Like I mentioned in my earlier post back on page 114

Wow the same loot for 10 and 25 man /sigh I have 4 words that is all to explain this.

World of Casualcraft: Casualysm

[Ksmota]

Comparing what hard mode guilds do to what other people do is wrong. Casual raiding guilds that are on HM Arthas or Sindragosa or whatever are clearly made up of very skilled players who are doing a lot of things right. Maybe they're only top 200 guilds instead of top 20, but that still puts them in a tiny minority. I checked wowprogress again- as of the last update, about 3800 guilds have killed 25m Arthas. Assuming 35 raiders per guild, that's about 133,000 people. 11,000,000 people play this game.

Again, slowly:
The
people
you
call
casual
are
actually
elite
players.

Read it 'til you get it. I don't even know what your thesis is anymore, except maybe that you hate everyone for not being as good at WoW as you are.

You
are
confusing
"casuals"
with
"bads".

Read it 'til you get it, retard. There are multiple guilds that raid 4-6 hours a week and are currently 7/12+ in ICC 25 HMs so your "casuals don't have time" argument is just dumb. It has also been mentioned multiple times in this thread, but the average WoW player is playing anywhere between 10-20 hours a week, which is more than enough time to raid both 10 and 25 ICC. It takes 3 hours for an elite guild to clear 11/12 ICC 25 HMs, probably takes a solid guild 4 hours or so to clear 11/12 normal modes and a terrible guild can probably do it 5-7 hours. Let's take 4 hours for example. There are 168 hours in a week. 4 hours raiding = 2.38% of your week spent raiding. If you can't afford to spend 2% of your week raiding, then you have NO BUSINESS raiding. It's a raid, it's supposed to be epic. It's supposed to require that some time be invested into it. I'm sorry that you think you should be able to step into an instance and be rewarded with full epics for having made it through the loading screen. You're not entitled to all the loot in the game just because you pay your $15.

The scaling buff was put in place for guilds that aren't capable of clearing all the content so I don't know why you're bringing up the number of guilds that have killed 25 Arthas as if it means anything. The buff scales to make it so that these casuals (bads) eventually see the content. No one said they have to be able to clear the content the second it comes out nor will that ever be the case. The buff is there to make sure they eventually do it.

And how is raiding currently inaccessible for the typical player? You can literally be raiding ICC 10/25 within 24-48 hours of dinging 80; that's how easy they've made gearing for it. There are thousands of pugs going every day for the "casuals" and the instance is tuned to be a joke. Anyone claiming that raiding 25s or 10s isn't currently feasible for most players is just flat out lying. Or is your argument that everyone can't clear all of ICC right now (which shouldn't be the case anyway)? 40,000 guilds have killed at least 4/12 ICC 25 bosses. Are they not able to access raiding despite doing just that? Fact of the matter is that if you hit 80 today and you're interested in raiding, then you can easily get into raiding. Cata isn't going to make raiding anymore accessible than it already is. All it's going to make accessible is BiS loot for more people which has nothing to do with accessibility.

Oh, and there are 11,000,000 accounts, not players. Never mind the fact that just because someone plays this game doesn't mean they raid or that they're even interested in raiding. Another useless point in your dumb argument.

[Nuveena]

In 10 mans you can make countless mistakes and not be punished for it. In 25 man just one mistake will kill you all.

At a guess, you raid 10 man content mainly with a 25 man geared character? You seem to be basing your entire chain of argument on the idea that 10 man content is super easy. I used to raid 40, then 25 man, but swapped to 10 man only for TotGC and onwards, which gives an interesting perspective. Progressing in ICC has been feeling very much like progressing in any 25 man content before, neither harder or easier to any larger degree. But if you do a place with gear that is one tier ahead of that content, then yes, it would be very easy. It would be like doing TotC25 with ICC25 gear, basically.

[Devíne]

Don't like it? Quit.

problem solved.

Somthing many people will do nodoubt; including me as for me part of the game centres about being different.

Having somthing that is hard to get, less obtainable as you have put in more time, effort and commitment to achieve whats was neededed to get the said item. Be it a mount, title, ledgendary or achievement, Unique-ness is somthing that erveryone seeks as who wants to be wearing exactly the same gear or mounts as everyone else?

Why should everything be accessable to everyone in the game? If somone puts in more time than somone else then why shouldnt they have somthing more unique?

Its very say that wow is catering for all of the people that want fast gear, quick dungons and easy game p[lay.

WoW will change no doubt but whether i want to continue is somthing yet to be decided.

Unimpressed.

Devine.

[Fuzzbutt]

Somthing many people will do nodoubt; including me as for me part of the game centres about being different.

Having somthing that is hard to get, less obtainable as you have put in more time, effort and commitment to achieve whats was neededed to get the said item. Be it a mount, title, ledgendary or achievement, Unique-ness is somthing that erveryone seeks as who wants to be wearing exactly the same gear or mounts as everyone else?

Why should everything be accessable to everyone in the game? If somone puts in more time than somone else then why shouldnt they have somthing more unique?

Its very say that wow is catering for all of the people that want fast gear, quick dungons and easy game p[lay.

WoW will change no doubt but whether i want to continue is somthing yet to be decided.

Unimpressed.

Devine.

You'll never be a unique snowflake in an MMO with over 12 million accounts. That's just the way it is.

If you want to distinguish yourself through raids, do hard modes. It's that simple. You'll still get the best achievements, mounts, etc. You will get some special shinies that people on normal modes don't get. Shinies that people on normals can get will have a slightly different skin and a [Heroic] tag, which is actually about the same difference as gear between current 10 and 25 man content.

[eigen]

A lot of people seem to be making a broad number of negative assumptions in this thread and accepting the conclusions they draw from it and then berating one another for not complying with their vision of the future.

Well, I can make assumptions too regarding these changes. But instead, I will be looking at it from a more optimistic point of view.

Assumptions:
- Due to equivalent iLevels in the gear dropped, 10m will be tweaked to be harder than 25m. Less room for error, Less people for equal number of roles, more pressure to succeed per person. It would be as if, 3D Sarth 10m gave the same ilevel loot as 3D Sarth 25m.
- 25m will become the raid for PUGS/Casuals/Alts and Bads.

Scenario that plays out:
- Upon the start of Cataclysm, everyone will opt for a 10m raid with the assumption things will be the same as WotLK with regards to technical difficulty in 10m vs 25m raiding.
- Those that succeed will stay with this format
- Those that fail 10m raids as a guild or pug will quickly realize that 25m may be the only option for them for the time being since 10m presents a greater risk of failure.
- As time goes on, more instances will be added and 25m will be choice for alts, pugs, new players and terribles. While those that have done completed the 25m version of the raid will be more competent to attempt the 10m version.

Conclusion:
10m and 25m raiding will flourish in Cataclysm each catering to a different category of players.

Doesn't that sound like a better outlook with the opposite set of assumptions?

[Agent999]

QQ MOAR PLZ

[Arean]

I fail to see how the "it's harder to find 25 skilled players" argument is valid. Fair enough, it is a true statement, nobody can deny that, but should that really be the challenging part of raiding? The challenge should be about coordinating players and getting everyone to do their job, which agreeably is harder in 25 man, but the format is also a lot more forgiving towards individual mistakes.

Also, how does this change compare to the 40-25 transition? While there are no 40-mans anymore, there is absolutely NOTHING that's stopping you from doing a 25 man if that's your preferred format. This change shouldn't really put a stop to 25-mans, because there is absolutely nothing to stop you. It however, does put a stop to mandatory 25-mans. So what the changes actually do is give you the option to choose what you want to do. And if u think that that 25s will die out as soon as people don't HAVE to do them, doesn't that mean nobody wants to do them in the first place? The logic confuses me

[tradicas]

I'm hoping in the next expansion they will allow us to do all the raids in a 5 man group.

10 man raids are too hard to form.


Maybe they will allow you to do 1 man raids.

[wiesliek]

Well i think blizzard introduced this to get moar! people buying wow and capable of playing wow (casual-lesser skilled players),
But they forgot that when they changed 40men to 25men is that they lost alot of strong hardcore raiders who only played whit reason to be hardcore.The numbers who lest arent huge (i heard was around 200.000 people) Atleast i know 7 people irl for that reason,
Still that number wont kill wow if they get more players thanks to these changes,Well seeing that 25men carries around 1.24milion players,
What from 10%=casual and than you get mid raiding/end raiding,The chance blizzard will lose more than 300k players is possible.
Including me ofc,Since i know i will not get an spot in 10men (ret paladin)they prefer rogue/warrior/ench shaman,
So applying somewher els is useless aswell.
I never thouth Blizzard will do such thing becaus WoW=Known for irs group of casual players and its big group hardcore pvp/pve players.
Changing all into casual=losing very much hardcore playing since theirs nothing harcore anymore.
The people that want their challenge are mostlikely gonna stay until all 25men raids collapse and than i think we all are going back to Call of duty :P(wich i find boring).
So blizzard youl get ya money from cata, but youl lose youre strong community!