A lot of this thread has to do with the discussion around the variance in difficulty between 10 and 25man difficulties from the time period both versions existed on heroic difficulty. Pull count data has proved more difficult then I would have assumed it to be seeing as it wasn't all that long ago and the internet is usually pretty good at keeping data alive. But I did find a few things that might prove interesting to the topic.
First: https://www.wowprogress.com/post/127...on_WoWProgress!
A wow progress post from early mop when they first wanted to implement pull count into boss kills. Its not tracked anymore but this post does list the pull counts of early guild kills on grand empress and will of the emperor.
Grand Empress -
25m: average pull count (first 4 kills) 143 pulls
10m: average pull count (first 3 kills) 133 pulls
This boss was clearly quite balanced and even favoring 10man being slightly harder but over all close enough to say the difficulty was on par. This type of closeness is what most people wanting 10 man back probably want to see.
Will of the Emperor -
25m: Average pull count - 84 pulls
10m: Average pull count - 49 pulls
And now we have a problem. This type of fight was more the problem and with scaled mechanics it was normal to see inbalanced fights favoring 10m. Taking nearly DOUBLE the pulls on 25man along with the data that the FIRST 10man kill took only 19 pulls. Sub 20% of the first 25man kill. This sort of thing is VERY bad for world first race type stuff and heavily promotes doing it on 10man vs 25m even if you are just a normal heroic(now mythic) raider.
Heroic Rag:
Heroic rag was an amazing boss and I hope most people agree with me on that but once again there was significant disparity in difficulty. Sadly I have less great evidence here BUT I have https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads...-DREAM-Paragon , claiming about 500 pulls. And from personal exp that seems on point. My main guild(at the time) took over 300 on 25man heroic which was normal being it was weeks after the world first race. But I also raided with a 10m heroic guild that same tier. The players in my 10m were overall a lower caliber. They made lots of easy mistakes and repeat mistakes but 10man heroic raid took that 10man guild only 97 pulls.
There were MANY balanced fights between 10 and 25m heroic and many fights could be balanced today as well. However, is it fair to claim all of them could be? I would argue no. These kills also point out issues with raid stacking. Looking at the WotE fight paragon killed it with an impressive pull count of 19 and their raid comp only had 5 classes in it! Solid Line, in the 3rd kill on 10man had 8 classes but took over 3 times the pull count! Having the 'right' comp in 10 man clearly has substantial impact.
Another nonsense argument: "you cannot make 10M harder than 25 unless you make it so".
Amount of mental gymnastics people are going over are insane.
- - - Updated - - -
Glad you noticed, esports over the good of game. Esports over vast majority of people and their bond, esports over fun. Yes, this is why game gone downhill really fast as this mindset is prevailing since WoD in every aspect of the game.
- - - Updated - - -
Yes, not all fights could be balanced, does it matter? No.
Class stacking? Can't prevent that -> Uunat.
So how about stop forcing people to play all classes, start balancing them and making underused classes more fun and more viable? Because thats how you lessen stacking.
I don't think you con remove competitiveness from difficult challenges. I'd be interested in hearing how you would do this, but from my exp people are naturally competitive with each other and will often try to be the "superior" player.
I mean it does matter in this discussion though right? The 10 vs 25man discussion how almost always had to do with balance. If they aren't balanced people will usually lean to the easier version if it grants the same reward. So making 10 and 20(25)man versions of mythic doesnt really do much other than splitting the raiding community. Both versions come with their own unique social issues and I don't think either is exclusively better from a social stand point.
You keep linking uunat like O look 20 man has class stacking too but Method didn't even win the world first race with that comp stacking so clearly it didn't have the impact you imply it did. Pieces did, with only 4 warlocks. The example I posted points to pretty stong evidence to the impact of class stacking in 10man and its impact on progression speeds.
You make a lot of great points. My preference would be to remove 20 and keep 10 because it’s plainly superior from my perspective mostly because playing with 10 is more fun than playing with 20.
This would certainly mean more homogenization which I’m fine with. I didn’t mind when I played r druid, r shaman, and h priest and most of the button setup was the same because their spells were so similar in effect. I think they should strive for classes that feel somewhat different to play but mostly bring the same utility and output. I think no class should have unique utility because that’s annoying.
But wow will never do that. So I’d settle for flex lockouts, cross realm, and cross faction.
You aren't getting flex raid sizes for mythic not happening and 10 was a joke there were sub 30 pull endbosses in 10 man.
- - - Updated - - -
25 man will always have a higher max difficulty than 10 man because there are more points of failure and the sheer amount of space taken up by 25 or 20 man is just so much bigger especially when there are mechanics that force spreading. For example Sylv mythic forces a very specific pattern of spreading that would be an absolute non issue in 10 man.
Last edited by Xath; 2021-12-19 at 07:35 AM.
You appear to be on quest to disagree just to disagree. It doesn't matter if 10man was harder(theoretically); it was still objectively a deficient gametype because it's a game of 12 classes; 5man is also crap in terms of that: e.g. ALL the latest 5man world records have a frost mage and others get the bench.
And you insist to not understand the history of the game itself; it was 25man guilds who made the most hard core "10man" raids because they could cherry pick the perfect class setup; the best "10man" players applied to 25man guilds when they changed guild to improve their progress.
- - - Updated - - -
Don't fall into his theoretical trap; theoretically and practically 10man could become harder; e.g. a coder could even say "if 10man: wipe them fast"(as a theoretical extreme example). The actual arguments against 10man have nothing to do with difficulty in isolation to each different raid size: the game has 12 classes so objectively a small gametype will always have a big deficiency at that (including 5man which for example has a frost mage in all the latest world records and others get the bench); additionally: you need a consistent game size in order to balance the game and you avoid the constant flamewar of who had a more prestigious kill.
And the biggest irony in that off topic sub-discussion about difficulty: it was the 25man guilds who made the best 10mans; they could cherry pick the best classes for 1 10man (just like they cherry pick the best for a 5man now and we get the same frost mage in 1,000 world records in a row); the best "10man" raiders applied to 25man guilds when they jumped ship because they knew that's where the biggest "difficulty" could be tackled (whatever the raid size).
Having competitive side is ok, designing game around world top guilds isn't. Good example was nerfing corruptions after race was over.
Trying to turn wow into esport game also isn't ok.
I can guarantee that even if 10 man was literally designed to be little harder than 20 it would still be insanely more popular than 20. Yes that doesn't mean you have to get rid on 20, you just have stop giving a shit what is easier/harder and start having fun.
Thats the thing 95% of guilds can't even do. So who is blizzard designing this game for? Top 5% of 2% of players.
- - - Updated - - -
Until you realize stack/spread mechanics isn't the only type of mechanic you could do. Introduce type of "pass the ball" mechanic and 20M could do that with eyes closed while 10M would shit their pants.
Its amusing how creatively bankrupt blizzard (and players too) became when the only thing they can think of is "confined space mechanics".
- - - Updated - - -
It doesnt matter how many classes game have. You are speaking about something that 99% of raiders dont give a single flying fuck. 1% does because they have enough people and alts to fill any role. Rest will simply bring more skilled players and in worst case scenario where boss design is pure garbage (like ghuun) they will try to level up alts.
So no, its simply irrelevant.
Designing game for "most hardcore" guilds is equivalent of failing as game designer. And again, you dont seem to understand that 25man guilds multiplied by two was still a drop in the sea. You seems to be confused when you think its good idea to look at just the top, not the overall raiding scene.
I agree that designing around the top isnt a good idea, but im not sure how any of my points only relate to the top world guilds. I thought they nerfed echo'ing void before n'zoth died. Like when there were blood dks stacking it in w/e gear they could find even cloth gear just to do insane damage. Maybe my memory just sucks though, corruption def created some unhealthy gameplay.
I do think people would be more likely to face mechanical challenges over social ones. We are on the internet and most players would rather hit keys harder then communicate better. Part of the fun for me is overcoming the hardest challenges in the raiding environment, but its incredibly unlikely they could make 10man consistently a bit harder then 20.
I'm not convinced they really design around the top few world guilds and I think my examples kinda show that. Raid stacking in 20man doesn't guarantee WF wins as per your own example with uunat. Not gonna pretend it doesn't help but to only make mechanics that certain classes don't excel would probably be impossible or every fight being patchwerk. If we don't want fights designed around class stacking(we agree on this) we need to address how to prevent 10man comps stacking not making the raid an absolute joke, I hope we agree that comp stacking has huge impact in 10 man.
I think the only way to make 10man feel inclusive to all specs/classes being "viable" would be to just make the expected difficulty lower so raids even in the top 500 don't feel like class stacking is going to significantly raise their success chances. I don't want mythic to be easier.... but if you think it being easier isnt a problem its probably the end of the convo because we would just be arguing about whose opinion is more right.
The other option which is probably more agreeable is to lower the impact of cds, things like combustion, wild spirits, moonkin cds(forget the names) do such INSANE spikes in dps that they turn those specs into essentially multiple players for their durations. This results in situations that support the damage profile much easier. I don't know if you play atm or raided SoD at all but moonkins in particular have really strong uses late in the raid on both KT and Sylv, mentally trying to convert this to 10man would probably be sending 1 moonkin per phase into the KT room and 1 moonkin 1 tank 1 healer to the colossus side in p2 sylv. If you don't have moonkins though suddenly you need to send 2 players to replace them which is gonna to make the other group have a much harder time. This also needs to apply to unique class utilities like gateway and mass dispel which can effect the whole grp where they either need to exist on multiple classes or somehow not be useful on the important end tier fights. I don't really want to see all this class ID stripped either.
Do you support 1 of these ideas and if not how do you address the impact of class stacking in a competitive and difficult 10man environment?
Its unlikely only if you cannot design interesting encounters and the only thing that makes encounter hard is to move a damn camera to see shit. Where is reaction time mechanics? Where are orientation mechanics?
WoW absolutely had nice stuff like jadefire masters multi sided strike, oregorger, trains boss, hanzok and fransgar "dance party".
Meanwhile bosses where you "needed classes" were utter garbagio.
Stacking never guarantees anything. Having 15 monkeys playing best classes won't give you boss kills. And if stacking classes gives significant advantage then it means blizzard failed miserably at balance. You are barking here at wrong tree.
Raids should be inclusive towards PEOPLE not towards classes. And again, if some spec isn't "viable" then blizzard failed at balancing.
Impact of CDS is the right answer, blizzard failed to learn for a fukken 5 expansions in a row that giving some broken shit that produces giga burst of damage is going to break raids.
MoP - rune of reorigination, assurance of consequence, warrior trinket, cloaks.
WoD = mages blasting bosses in 18 seconds, ring that deleted bosses, and probably other stuff i dont remember rn.
Legion = whole class design was about blasting shit to oblivion, weapons, broken trinkets, broken leggos
BfA = mages again, some azerite powers, some essences, corruptions
SL = some covenant abilities, some trinkets
Like what the fuck, how bad can you be at your job to not realize for 8+ years that burst is the problem?
So 10 man was poorly tuned. There's nothing that says you can't make it harder.
- - - Updated - - -
I would make classes more homogenous. Stop actively trying to give every class its special niche.
- - - Updated - - -
Interesting because in your last post you claimed that 10 man was "objectively deficient" which isn't true either. The hardest part of this argument is the pro 20 man people keep claiming ridiculous absolutes - it's impossible to make 10 man harder, 20 man is objectively better because "blah blah I don't know what objectively means."
There are arguments to be made there - 20 man has tended to be better balanced, it's easier to have more variety in 20 man. But as soon as you start talking in absolutes you're typically wrong.
Last edited by Coniferous; 2021-12-19 at 02:16 PM.
Do you not understand simple logic, if the larger raid difficulty puts a mechanic on 3 times more players you have to deal with 3 times more mechanics, using up more space and team members, some small number of 10 man bosses have only been harder because the boss fight was broken for the content and thats it, but then again harder is subjective.
There is plenty of evidence that proves you wrong, 25 man was harder thats a simple fact.
You have obviously not done higher raiding, you cant just carry through players, many of the fights in CN mythic required players to play properly, if even one person was dead weight you wont even clear half the raid on mythic, to carry through mythic the other 19 players need to play properly, you have just proven you are talking BS claiming an average guild can carry players through mythic, an average guild in WoW wont even kill 6/10 M before next tier. One player making a mistake with current mechanics means a wipe.
10 man was cleared in most cases much faster than 25 man was, the fights were not harder in 10 man they were tuned to require more gear so in some cases they only took longer because players needed more gear. If you do both the content with the same gear 10 man was just facerolled, it was not even slightly a challenge.
STAR-J4R9-YYK4 use this for 5000 credits in star citizen
The problem with smaller group content is that at some point difficulty just becomes "how big number go" versus how players defeat the big number. That's why infinite scaling on M+ works as well as it does. I don't think the same thing would work as well in raiding. (As I've said before, the closest thing we have to this actually happening was 10M H-Garry, an encounter that isn't exactly fondly remembered by people who progressed on the pre-nerf version of the encounter.) At some point you're sacrificing encounter design for faux difficulty which isn't exactly an exciting way to design a raid encounter, imo.
I find it quaintly ironic that in almost any other thread about the problems that WoW has, you see page after page of people saying that Blizzard doesn't innovate enough (or, more commonly, that they're incapable of innovation). Yet, for some reason, people who want 10M Heroic are perfectly content with Blizzard doing the exact opposite of innovation.
Last edited by Relapses; 2021-12-19 at 05:58 PM.
Complexity is the enemy of innovation. Blizzard has bogged themselves down building these incredibly complex raids with an overwhelming number of mechanics and difficulties, so they have a hard time releasing anything. Simplifying class balance and lowering raid size would allow them to move faster than their current glacial pace.
Given the insane amount of tertiary non-raid content each patch has, I'm very weary to say that a majority of their development time goes into them. Also, "complexity is the enemy of innovation" is not a universal truth. You are actively arguing against Blizzard making individual experiences for each class when you say that homogenization is the only way they can balance the game. And worse, you're only arguing for it because it supports your selfish position that smaller raid sizes are better for the game.
Last edited by Relapses; 2021-12-19 at 06:32 PM.
It's not "logic" its bullshit. Its not "group" who deals with mechanic, but people.
Just because suddenly 2 out of 10 people instead of 3/4 out of 25 has to soak something doesn't mean its "less mechanics". The amount of mechanics is the same, just the number of targets changes.
Please learn how argumentation works before you claim fallacies. Your supporter explicitly said "99 percent of people like what I like" and I said the game objectively has 12 unique classes which is objectively deficient in a gametype which can't even use them at all.
So you have someone who imagines virtually everyone agrees with him and everyone else is a liar and someone else who talks about objective technical issues that make the game imbalanceable; you call them the same; good job.
The BS is everything you are claiming, mechanics change in larger groups, they require different ways to deal with them and more of the group has to deal with them, 10 man also limits the way encounters can be designed.
You are simply just wrong about 10 man being more difficult than 25 man, noone here agrees with you on that and you have nothing to back you up.
You can prefer or like 10 man more, but dont claim BS saying 10 man is more difficult when it has been proven to be a lie.
STAR-J4R9-YYK4 use this for 5000 credits in star citizen