Cataclysm Raid Progression Refinements

[Nii]

They really are positioning WoW as a "pick up, put down" type MMO. Anything that required some level of continued involvement is being gradually eliminated.

As someone earlier in this thread stated... a raider who ran a 10man and a 25man side by side before now will have less to do after their 10man is done for the week, but they'll still be paying the same monthly fee.

I completely agree with this statement, and that illustrates precisely why I hate this change.

[Yukari]

To all the 10 man raiders saying about how you can now 'stay competitive' with the same loot as 25 man raids...

Why? Your loot was competitive for the challenges you faced in 10 man. Obviously this is about 10 man raiders wanting higher quality epics. If you don't run 25 mans, it simply doesn't matter whether your loot is ilvl 251, 264, or 277. Your gear is tailored to your experience.

Stop hiding behind silly excuses and own up to it. You want the same loot as the 25 man raids but can't find enough raiders. It's good to see that Blizzard saw your flood of tears and are jumping to the chance to please you, but it doesn't change anything.

To those who said this is the return of 10 man strict raiding? Not really. It's the death of the 'strict' part. Congratulations on just being a raider now.

[Cilraaz]

Our alts cleared ICC in TOC10 and TOGC10 gear :\.

You're one of the few. The vast majority take ToC25 and ToGC25 gear, clear ICC10, and bitch that it was easy.

[Belial-sama]

This opinion is from a PoV of a high-end hardcore raider:

Great changes for the normal and the hardcore player. I personally believe this system will solve some of the issues that high end guilds have with managing multiple runs and having their players burn out. Also from my experience I've seen many guilds disbanding/merging or canceling raids during holidays and vacation periods due to inability to fill up 25 raids, while with this change you can easily manage 10 man run with more or less same quality and continue raiding during the "dry" periods.

I've been raiding for 5 years now, did all 40, 25 and 10 player raids and this is the best system Blizzard invented so far imo. In WotLK it felt too tiresome and repetitive to run the exact same instance on both 10 and 25 man, then run it again on alts twice per raid size. This will give a chance for the normal player to finish the instances within ~2 raids per week on normal mode, or in case of a hardcore player to run the instance on heroic mode and get better rewards and then run it again on his/her alts without wasting shitloads of raid time per week to complete all ID's.

Haters will hate, lovers will love and welcome the changes but before we see them in practice we can't really judge how this will play out. So stop the crying and accept the fact that the game is evolving. Sometimes towards better, sometimes towards worse but in the long run the game has become miles better since the first time I logged on the servers 5+ years ago!

Pretty much spot on. Burnout is one of the biggest issues hardcores and those close to them are facing atm, this effectively eliminates it.

[Korv]

Thats not even true. 95% of the guilds that cleared 10 man first did it in TOC gear.

Yes, 10man HC / 25man / 25man HC gear. :

[Pachycrocuta]

I personally prefer this method, and wish it would have been implemented earlier. It helps out the smaller guilds, but the larger ones who can do 25-mans wont get the shaft. I am guessing people didn't read the entire blue post, and just went with Boub's TL;DR part (which is fucking pathetic of you people). 25-mans wont become obsolete in the next expansion. You get rewarded for doing it 25-man. From what I read, say 10-man bosses drop 1 badge/emblem/whatever the next raid currency will be, the 25-man bosses will drop 2 (maybe 3) badges. As well as 25-man bosses dropping extra loot. And more money.

WotLK screwed the smaller guilds pretty hard. Especially when it came to profession patterns (luckily, ICC changed this) and upgrading tier gear. Also, with this new raid design happening, it won't screw the people with the lower-end computers (such as me). Did Marrowgar on 25-man last night for the weekly raid. I was tanking at 1-3 fps. Made sidestepping the flames interesting.

I for one am happy with these changes.

[kenneth044]

Do you support these changes?

As I mentioned in a post before your flaming began, I do support these changes, for the sole reason that I can focus on 10 man raids. I never liked 25 mans, as either you have to go hardcore, and invest a lot of time into the game, which I don't have as a student, or you will be dragged down by others.

I don't give a rat' ass about loot, when it comes to progressing. An upgrade is always nice, but calling me a loot whore?

[Rainlights]

Change happens deal with it. I think its a bit meh for combining the loot, but i'm all for it (moar badges)

we can had beta plx?

How are there more badges when both 10 and 25 man share the same lockout?

[Naturae]

Aye this exactly, having 15 extra people will always lead to more mistakes, and problems with positioning. Really I have no idea how they will tune 10 and 25 man to be exactly the same, because at the moment, they are definitely not.

Eggzackly! >.<

[sluggs]

How are there more badges when both 10 and 25 man share the same lockout?

gotta read the whole thing. The 25 man bosses will drop more badges then the 10 man bosses. so doing 25 man is more badges then 10 man.

[Kryos]

This is a giant slap to the face. 25man will be more or less pointless now and with only 1 lockout a week people will clear it in 1-2 days and then go afk for the rest of the week?

exactly my thoughts. This will kill all 25 raids.

[Deleted]

Eggzackly! >.<

Wasn't OS 3D harder in 10 man, than in 25 man?

If that's the case, they can probably tune the encounters like that.

[videotape]

The common thread among all crybaby "reasoning" throughout WoW expansion history is essentially this:

"Things are changing. I like things the way they are, so this must be a bad thing. Now please let me take a moment to elaborate upon all of the worst possible outcomes I can imagine, so that I can cite them as reasons why Blizzard is obviously trying to destroy WoW, raiding, and everything I personally love about the game."

It's an incredibly short-sighted and selfish line of reasoning, and if history is any indication at all you'll not only accept, but love Cataclysm when it's released. Then when the next expansion is announced, you'll find a million reasons why its proposed changes are terrible and going to destroy the wonderful game that Cataclysm brought us.

I would also like to give props to Nejm because his post above expresses my own sentiments more eloquently than anything I've written. Dead on. I cannot wait for Cataclysm.

[edel]

Not sure if this has been said yet, but to all of you who are so quick to point out that 10m is faceroll: there has yet to be a hardmode LK kill by a 10 strict guild. Yes, it's likely because there are far fewer "hardcore" strict guilds out there, but this doesn't detract from the fact that 10m raids are in fact a challenge if you're doing them in the appropriate gear.

Please refrain from the QQ until you fully know what you're talking about. Once cata hits try running with a guild with a dozen skilled players and you'll most likely see what I'm talking about. If not, there will still be 25m raids that you can join.

[Jathro]

Clearly they want us to be in 10mans. 10mans are more about a close-knit group of guildies. Blizz stated they screwed up with the new LFG tool and how it's too much about pugging with randoms and that they want to get back to it being more about the guild (see: path of the titans, etc.)

But if they want us to be in 10mans, why not just remove 25mans and call it a day? This is masked laziness from a design standpoint. Especially with gear being identical in both 10 and 25. And I can only hope that we will have multiple raids of equal content. I enjoy raiding. That's great for you if you only like doing 10mans and raiding once a week. But I enjoy both, and I like raiding several days. I enjoy the fun of a 10man and the challenge of a 25man.

I'm not saying I want Blizz to cater to me and players like me, but seriously why act like you're offering something for everyone when really they're just pushing us towards 10mans and alt runs?

[Tore]

Everyone saying "25-mans are just 10 smart people and 15 people being carried" have obviously never been in a 25man raid for anything farther than maybe Normal Festergut. If just one DPS fucks up early on Heroic Blood Queen Lana'thel, you won't meet the enrage. If one healer slips during the last 30% of Heroic Deathbringer Saurfang, a mark dies and it's a wipe. If one caster fails at getting out of the raid for his stacking debuff aoe in Heroic Sindragosa, it's a wipe. If one spore'd player is an idiot on Heroic Festergut, there won't be enough stacks and it's a wipe. If one ranged gets too close to the melee on Heroic Rotface, the melee will get the vomit debuff and it's a wipe.

Seriously, stop talking about things you don't know about. 25man hardcore Heroic raiding is not an easy carry fest. It requires attention, communication, and skill from each person in the raid, and each person is just as liable as the next to screw everything up. This is what 25man raiders like. They like that things can't be walked over and they like that 25 players have to play in unison. They like the endless wiping until they finally get it down. They like the effort and the trial. And most importantly, they like the recognition for going through all that. These things naturally make 25-man more difficult than 10-man. It will always be more easy to handle Defiles on Lich King in 10-man than it is to handle Defiles in 25-man. Doing it right in 25-man is what deserves a reward.

What is recognition and reward? A nice 310% mount. Oh, wait 310% will be given to everyone in Cataclysm, I guess we'll just get a special model that does nothing else. How about some nice tier gear that no one else will have? Oh, wait, oh no, tier gear has been free loot since Naxx, but here as a consolation prize you'll get different colored tier gear. Well, at least I have this awesome axe I can only get out of 25-player --OH NO!-- never mind. Guess you'll have to settle for a title that no one will ever see if they play with their camera zoomed out, like 99% of WoW players.

Getting the same reward in 25m Heroic raiding as you would get in 10m Heroic raiding is a slap in the face and quite honestly an insult to everyone who has put forth the time and dedication of hardcore 25m raiding this expansion. There is no reason to do 25-mans in Cataclysm. Badges become obsolete after about the second month of that tier. 25mans and 25man guilds will be dead.

[Deleted]

Clearly they want us to be in 10mans. 10mans are more about a close-knit group of guildies. Blizz stated they screwed up with the new LFG tool and how it's too much about pugging with randoms and that they want to get back to it being more about the guild (see: path of the titans, etc.)

But if they want us to be in 10mans, why not just remove 25mans and call it a day? This is masked laziness from a design standpoint. Especially with gear being identical in both 10 and 25. And I can only hope that we will have multiple raids of equal content. I enjoy raiding. That's great for you if you only like doing 10mans and raiding once a week. But I enjoy both, and I like raiding several days. I enjoy the fun of a 10man and the challenge of a 25man.

I'm not saying I want Blizz to cater to me and players like me, but seriously why act like you're offering something for everyone when really they're just pushing us towards 10mans and alt runs?

So 10 mans is all about the "fun" and 25 mans is about the challenge?

Why can't 10 man be about the challenge? That's the problem, 10 man is basically being face-rolled (overgearing it), while 25 man is the real shit.

[Klokie]

Thank you so much. I was already thinking that I was the only one remembering those factors. :-\

same here. Everyone that poste here seems to be all about the gear, and not about the actual content this can creat!

No more 4 item lvls pre raid instance!

And Less Lockout means more time to lvl alts and explore the new world+getting more Lockout hen you get to 85!

[Luph]

This is probably the first thing in Cataclysm I can't get behind. I just don't have the confidence that blizzard can accurately balance between both 10 and 25-man difficulties and offer the same rewards. Wrath of the Lich King demonstrated if anything, that 10-man encounters have see-sawed back and forth between harder and easier than their 25-man counterpart.

Even putting that aside, taking into consideration how classes configure much more wildly/imbalanced in 10-mans than 25-mans. I just don't know that this is the right direction to take. Not to mention we're basically cutting free content out of the game by doing this.

[Hópe-Terenas]

So tell me mmo-champs... What do u preffer

Raid same maby 2 diff instances with 39 Retarded players for 6 hours a day, 5-7 days a week.

Raid same instance, 2-4 times, with 9 AND 24 retarded players for 4 hours a day, 3 days a week.

Raid 2 diffrent instances, with 9 OR 24 Retarded players for 4 hours a day, 2 days a week?....

Tbh theres lots of diffrent things to do if u really wanner play 7 days a week. But the game aint made for that anymore, U might call it casualsme, i call it progress... The Right way....