Cataclysm Raid Progression Refinements

[Daedalon]

Forgive me, but I seem to have forgotten what MMORPG stands for? Can someone please help me out?

The RPG part I get, but I just can't seem to remember the MMO part. Anyone?


Blizzard, I don't like having to deal with 9 other people to get the best loot in the game. I just don't really get along with others. Can you please make a single player version of raids as well? While you're at it, I would also like a God mode so when I get frustrated I still can have a means to get my loot.

Thanks!!

How is 25 man (that is STILL the same option as before) more of a MMO than 10 man (that were ALSO in WOTLK) ?

The RPG part was badly broken in WOTLK giving 10 man loot to ppl that did 25 man content. Thus the difficulty level for those players were LESS than those that did only 10 man content (witch was an option). Rewards is based on difficulty - Thats the WOW way through the years. They are going back to that. More ppl in a group will still be rewarded with more items (per person in raid) than those doing 10 mans. There is absolutly nothing wrong with this both in terms of RPG and MMO.

[roboscorcher]

For your viewing pleasure: ignore all users with less than 10 posts.

[Moke]

Consider this, 25-man raiders:

You can only do either 10-man, or 25-man, effectively locking the amount of items you can get based on which ones you run.
Suppose, for a moment, that 10-man drops 2 items while 25 drops 6.
Seeing as the amount of items is tripled but the raid size isn't, we get:

10-man: 1 item per 5 people per boss per week.
25-man: 1,2 items per 5 people per boss per week.

25-man is thus then a valid way to raid, as it gives everyone in the raid items faster than the ten-man raids. In the example provided the difference looks small but it adds up quite fast over time.
Also, it's only an example, blizz might choose to go with 2 items vs 7 items or something, which increases the gains dramatically.

So no, 25-man raiding will not die.

The mistake people make in this thread is assuming the "more items in 25-man" will leave the items per amount of players value the same as in 10-man, which is obviously not the case.

You are totally not getting it mate. The problem is not the quantity of the items, it's the quality. The same gear for doing stuff harder is what you get. And what's the points in gearing up faster? Why gear up faster, there is no goal in gearing up faster cause there is BIS. If you get all the gear you want in 1 run, what good is it for you to ever enter the place again?

[grdja]

Heh, a lot of single digit posters are trolls. A lot of single digit posters are people who registered for this li'l discussion. As its one of most important changes Blizz did to WOW ever.

[wisher]

Blizzard is really amazing. Every time you think: this can't get worse, they find a way to actually come up with some new BS.

They are unable to balance the different classes, how on earth do you think they will be able to balance 10 vs 25 man raids? This will be a desaster.

They say the only one who can kill WoW is Blizzard itself. They are working hard on it again

[kilgreth]

Heh, a lot of single digit posters are trolls. A lot of single digit posters are people who registered for this li'l discussion. As its one of most important changes Blizz did to WOW ever.

You are absolutely right.

I think I am most worried about the balance between 10 and 25. I am just having a hard time seeing how this can be done with out removing some of the mechanics that are currently being utilized. This has been said a number of times already but I will say it again, the size of the room and the space that you are alloted is a HUGE difference between 10m and 25m ICC. Unless the rooms and platforms will be smaller in comparison to the number of people, I just can't see this working out well. Either 25m will become to easy or 10m will be too hard or they just won't be that close in terms of difficulty.

I have also seen several people that are most interested in 10m achievements and server first titles being taken away by 25m guilds that over gear. With that being said, why not just go with the following approach. Use a similar model to what was used to the Tribute to Dedicated Insanity achievement from the Crusader Coliseum.

Basically do not allow anyone with any 25 man gear equipped to be able to do the 10m achievements. Better yet, you can't zone in unless you are under the gear score limit for the 10m version of the content.

Seems like that still lets both sides flex their epeens while at the same time not murdering 25m raiding. It also sets up 10m with it's own progression path a bit better. Not to mention you could also keep the raid lockouts separate this way giving hard core players more to do.

[wisher]

Heh, a lot of single digit posters are trolls. A lot of single digit posters are people who registered for this li'l discussion. As its one of most important changes Blizz did to WOW ever.

You mean people like yourself?

[mostlyharmless]

The thing to remember is that blizz is already working on their next MMO. They're just going to milk WoW for all the money they can until they release the next MMO. More subscribers = more money. Most subscribers are casual players. It will serve as a research experiment - just make the game more and more casual and see if it keeps increasing profits - or if there's a point at which it backfires.

They're breaking down barriers more all the time for casual gamers (random dungeon tool, heirloom gear, raiding tier gear from farming heroics), they're selling account-bound pets and mounts for "real" money, now they're going to pretty much eliminate hardcore 25man raiding (no point, 10man loot is same). All these changes encourage people to play a bunch of decently-geared alts rather than focus on one extremely developed main.

I'm not passing judgement, I'm just making observations. I'm not saying casual is better or worse than hardcore.

I'm guessing WoW will continue evolving into their "casual MMO", and their "next MMO" will bring back some hardcore gameplay (more focus on developing a core character).

[tuoweit]

To the gazillion "Why would anyone raid 25s anymore" replies:

If you don't actually like raiding 25-man for the experience of it, why aren't you happy that you won't have to do it anymore to get top gear? And if you do enjoy it for the experience of it, what makes you think you won't find other like-minded players to raid with?

I simply don't get all the "death of 25 man raiding" stuff.

[Sulph]

Some people seem to think 25s are still worth it because of the extra loot?

Er, notice that there's more people in 25 man raids?

All they're doing is making it easier to get gear in 25 mans than the pre-cata 25s, not easier to get gear in 25 mans than 10 mans :-\

[Rabidthunder]

132 pages of comments are TLDR.

I like the changes, somehow. Intuitive reject of 'simplifying' the game is intuitive, for sure, but there are some issues to consider.

1. With heroic modes optional for each boss, your guild can fine-tune raid for its capabilities.
2. with 10- and 25-man shared lockout, you don't need to actually grind same content up to 4 times a week. You plan your progress, concentrate on kills and get the loot. If I remember correctly, it was really boring and unrefreshing to have same encounter done on 10 man, then on 25, then 10HC, then hundreds of wipes on 25HC.
3. That gives some players possibility to raid without way too much effort put into. I am not crying gogo casuals. Sometimes you just don't have over 20 hours a week for a video game, sometimes you are grown-up working person that has a wife who wants his husband too.
4. Cutting-edge guilds will stay the best, bringing first kills etc.
5. 10-man guilds, rejoice.
6. pretty much the same goes for PvP, too. and considering you can now have enough time to actually raid AND PvP, you can try yourself in both aspects of a game without clipping yourself in both.
7. ??????
8. PROFIT (sorry, couldn't stop).

I will probably RETURN to the game because of 3 and 5. Yes, I have quit because of lack of time and lack of access to 25mans as I was in 10man guild. These changes, if done right, with really lots of effort put into balancing the raid difficulties, can actually increase the amount of WoW subscribers WITHOUT hurting the game too much. I welcome it.

You are still can call me casual, bad or noob. I don't really care, so that will not be as tasty as it could be otherwise.

[Sulph]

If you don't actually like raiding 25-man for the experience of it, why aren't you happy that you won't have to do it anymore to get top gear?

I think I personally prefer 10 mans myself, however if on some rare occassion i manage to raid 25 man in all the lag and fuss, I feel like it's all worthwhile because I'm going to get sweet emblems/gear.

If that makes sense. :P

[Sulph]

3. That gives some players possibility to raid without way too much effort put into. I am not crying gogo casuals. Sometimes you just don't have over 20 hours a week for a video game, sometimes you are grown-up working person that has a wife who wants his husband too.

I do agree with this, however it seems a shame to nerf other player's satisfaction from their effort in 25 mans because some people don't have the time in the day to play :-\

[Jincs]

I remember back in the day when UBRS was a 15 man raid, hard as hell and only dropped blues. You newbies have it freakin' easy.

[Ksmota]

I've yet to see one valid argument showing me how this will make content more accessible. As of right now, content is pretty much as accessible as you can get. Pugs are clearing 12/12 ICC 10 normal and upwards of 11/12 25 normal on a number of servers. How is this going to change anything in Cata? As it stands, the arguments for it are really just masking the fact that people think they're entitled to BiS loot, regardless of how much time or effort they devote to the game. That's fine and all, but acting like it's currently hard to raid 25s is a flat out lie. Really couldn't be any easier.

This change isn't going to make anything more accessible. All it will probably end up accomplishing is making content easier across the board through Blizzard's inability to balance correctly.

[Flameenix]

I can see this being counter productive to guilds too.

I don't know about all guilds but I know that quite often when a 25 man raid is cancelled because there are too few people, 10 man is next on the agenda. But if running a 10 man means that guild can no longer run that same instance on 25 man later during the week, your only option is to do nothing and hope you get enough people on your next raid day.

[Bloodymist]

Sucks to be a QQ'r, cause my guild has already decided that they would rather do 25's then 10's. If your guild currently is a 25 man raiding guild but decides to do 10's, then said guild is a failboat that has set sail. Why change anything you are doing now, as opposed to when this goes into effect (if it even does)....cause its easier to manage 10 people instead of 25? Please....re-attach your sacs and stop being lazy.

[Kranyx]

I raid in 2 guilds. 25man War tank 10 man only guild on Pally tank/heals

Until you are doing hardmodes 25's allow more cushion for folks to be stupid on most fights.

It depends on each fight which feels easier, the 10man guild folks don't sneak in 25's for the extra gear. Many fights do feel easier on 25 but its on a per fight basis. Folks lose sight of when they over gear a fight how it affects difficulty level. Having the same challenge and removing the ease to overgear something levels it all out nicely.

The best thing this change does is remove the gear inflation and the balancing issues it caused from having multiple levels of gear for each raid tier, this wont become evident until later in the expansion but you have to look long term.

[Fasc]

But in fact it IS easier to manage 10 people over 25 people and you do far less messing with recruitment or drama or loot or anything else. It has nothing to do with "sacking up" either because sometimes you just can't get a 23rd or 24th or 25th solid player into the raid to make it a tight-knit crew like you can with 10 players. The major difference between many of the 11/12 ICC Heroic guilds and those still pushing up and those that have killed Arthas is that many (most) of those guilds have a very good Core group of raiders, and 1-3 average to bad players that they are just trying to recruit to replace. Problem is trying to recruit a new Boomkin when you have 100 other equally progressed guilds out there recruiting the same thing.

Why bother with any of that when you can just par down to your best Core members, cut the retards out, and avoid all the hassle of trying to bring new strong members in when you've already worked hard enough to get 15 really good ones?

The decision to go 10 or 25 right now though IS very premature until we see the exact reward structure and incentives to stick with 25man stuff, along with everything else. Deciding to go 10man when the time comes though is by no means a poor decision or a lesser one unless 10man really offers crap for rewards and 25man is still the top notch best thing to do by far.

[Auroya]

hearing a lot of you evil evil 25 man players you're going 10 man and equipping yourself and doing meta achivements thats not right thats wrong cause only 10 man guilds schould be alowed to do that cause they schould, because if only the 25 man guilds would go away then then we would be number one we would be the greatest we would have the epeen that rightfully belongs to the 10 man guilds...
add. Dr. Zoidberg laugh (from futurama)