Well the "slight" in this blue post:
means its not a big deal...Getting better loot has always been a part of this game and in Patch 5.2 the variety is being increased. We think this is a good thing. However, calling 25-player raids less favorable in unfounded and an unfair assessment. Tons of players would love to do 25s, but the coordination and effort to do so is more difficult with very little additional reward. 10s aren't more popular because the entire community agreed they're more fun, it's just a simple case of effort versus reward.
There are two main points we're trying to address with this change:
Raiding in 10- and 25-player dungeons already provides the same item level rewards for everyone. Engaging in the logistics of the larger raid format, however, we feel should be rewarded and the slight increase in chances to receive a Thunderforged item in 25-player is our effort to strike a better balance between both raid sizes.
"Blizzard is not incompetent or stupid and they are not intentionally screwing you over"
The difference is this though...
at present, the average ilvl of a 10man team and a 25man team will equalize after a few weeks. (if anything an 'average' 25man team may have a lower ilvl due to more turnover and attendance issues).
*if* the droprate is low enough in 10man vs 25man, its possible that a group WONT get fully geared by the end of the tier, while a 25man guild may have the chance. (or they may not)
the new system is actually a hybrid of the old raid system and the current raid system. in ICC, you had a 100% chance to get higher itemlevel versions in 25man, and a 0% chance to get them in 10man. the difference now is only in the %'s. if there's a 1% chance in 10man, and a 99% chance in 25man... well... yeah.
the amount of items potentially stormforged is also a factor, if there's a maximum number of stormforged items dropping from 10 and 25, that may favor 25s as well...
but again, this isnt much of a change, its more like a return to the older loot systems without actually acknowledging the issues that are killing 25mans.
Last edited by Halicia; 2013-01-24 at 02:40 AM.
25s are harder to organize and just require more effort to make happen. I think the difficulty is about the same. Some fights are harder on 10s some on 25s. The loot is the same. 25 obviously drops more gear because there's more players. Now they are just making it so that 25s have a slightly higher chance to drop the thunderforged drops then 10 man. It doesn't mean thunderforged won't drop in 10 man, just that it as a slightly less chance. For most people this change will have almost no impact on 10s vs 25s.
So it's basically like ICC?
Oh I was going to say "why are people complaining about something that happened two expansions ago".
I don't think 25's should get any extra incentives at all personally. If enough people genuinely like 25s enough to do them, they should get together and do them. If there aren't enough people willing to do 25s, then that should indicate something.
Adding all these extra bonuses to try to force guilds to do 25s seems ridiculous to me.
I like ponies and I really don't care what you have to say about that.
This sucks. Due to having a larger sample size and class diversity, 25 mans already gear up a lot quicker than 10 man guilds. 25s don't need any incentives. If they're dying because nobody does them anymore, let them die.
---------- Post added 2013-01-24 at 05:00 AM ----------
In 10s its not uncommon to shard things week 1.
Good idea poorly implemented. I'm glad to see some more incentives. If Blizzard could go back in time I doubt they would have ever made 10=25 in terms of reward. Big mistake they are now desperately trying to patch up. Of the 10m players are going to cry but they need to suck it up and take it like champs. After all they are the ones that essentially butchered raiding to the point it is at now.
I guess its a free bonus to 25 guilds but I can't see this as a deciding factor for someone choosing 10 or 25.
yay free stuff I guess?
Hi Sephurik
Which depends on how much of a "slight" increase in drop rate 25s have. Blizzard says they are rare drops, and 25s have only a slightly higher chance to get one. I don't think that the raid being fully geared is going to be likely, nor does it appear to be what Blizzard are aiming for....which appears to be a bonus "thank you for putting up with 25s". Things may differ by the time 5.2 releases.
They've acknowledged the issues that are killing 25s. They just aren't fixing them.but again, this isnt much of a change, its more like a return to the older loot systems without actually acknowledging the issues that are killing 25mans.
EJL
It's a solution that is currently in effect on the live servers and its a solution that hasn't worked to date.
If Blizzard could go back in time, we'd be seeing fixed size 15 man raids. But your point is taken. Its wrong....if Blizzard can't go to one size raiding then the current system works well for them. It's not like they haven't had the opportunity to evaluate it and replace it if they didn't like it or it was causing too many problems.
EJL
Last edited by Talen; 2013-01-24 at 05:13 AM.
What prompted them to scrap 10 vs 25 man were all these casual guilds getting a whole lot of casual players together to go down 4 bosses out of 16 or whatever in 25 man getting rewarded with better gear than 10 man guilds doing full clears, and equivalent gear to 10 mans clearing hardmodes. It's easy to say "get rid of 10 man" when you're sitting pretty on your high pop server with a large pool of willing raiders to pick up and even pug in as needed, but most servers don't have that luxury. 10s exist because logistics are less of a hassle and you can keep more loot in your guild by pugging less if you are short people. I suppose this was easier to appease the 25 man crowd with freebies for being able to get 25 people online for raid than making them actually work for the ilvl upgrades on gear labelled "Elite"?
Sorry, I have to disagree with you here. While there is a chance a 10 mans average gear level will equalize with a 25 mans after a few weeks, I think that chance is much much lower than it should be. I've raided 25 and 10, heroic endgame in server first guilds. Loot is the most drastic difference I've seen between the two tiers, the difficulty arguments are a joke as far as I'm concerned. Some are easier on 10 some are easier on 25. Gear however, that's a very very big difference. My 10 man DS guild had 2 Conq users and 5 vanq users, by the time we quit DS after everyone had their mounts and such the conq users had 2-3 full sets of heroic tier+offsets stuff. 1 vanq user had finished their 4pc heroic. We never saw a heroic vial of shadows, never saw the bracers/shield of the boat, never saw a few of the rings, etc. The gear system of 10 mans is just absolutely horrid and this new system will make it even worse because of the extra chances at redundancy+sharding of what should be progression gear.
They should just axe 10 and 25man and go 15man for all modes, including lfr.