While piss-poor trinket itemization is a definate factor right here right and now, a much better way to get rid of the DST's of TBC is to expand upon the "item+sunmote = different item"-model that SWP adopted.
These 10-mens stink, simply because progression, for most guilds, will end up being measured in 10-mens and the 25-mens would be a mere "heroic mode" that you do when you have cleared the next 10-men zone, outgear the encounters and can apply your knowledge there.
Even if the 10-men needs to be unlocked by a clear of the 25-men zone first, where does that leave a guild like mine? We're like, 5th alliance or so on our server, have 7 Illidan kills under the belt and intend to drop Kalec next reset. I honestly don't see us pushing 3x4 hours a week on 25-men wipefests when you can just easy-mode the same bosses, content and extremely similar loottables? Why bother with keeping a solid 25-men roster + backups happy and involved when you can just grab 9 random people and run the 10-men version?
For any raider that has killed Vasjh, Kael'Thas, Archimonde and Illidan before 2.4 it is flatout impossible to design hard 10-men content. It just doesn't exist.
At the end of the day, as we are all still playing this game well after release, I think we can assume that Blizzard knows a little bit of what they are doing. The people who are worried about 25 mans dying obviously haven't been reading about the part where it states that 25 man loot will be superior to 10 man. Some might do 25 man raids solely for the Lore, but most do it.
(most) People raid to progress and see new content, *not* to get increased numbers on their gear. Why even bother doing 25-mans when you can "progress" at 10-mans and pretty much play the exact same game and experience the same content?
What I'm getting at is if Blizzard only increases the stats for 25-mans and nothing else the benefits FAR outweigh the costs of raiding in 25-man groups.
What I'm getting at is if Blizzard only increases the stats for 25-mans and nothing else the benefits FAR outweigh the costs of raiding in 25-man groups.
As I understand it, there are some jerks who are elitist enough to want to do the 25-man stuff anyway. If the majority of raiders never go from 10 to 25, why is that a bad thing, as long as the folks who want to are doing it? What's the real downside? Are you afraid you won't be able to find a 25-man guild on your server?
Personally, I couldn't be more delighted right now. I'm sick to death of 25-man stuff, but 10-man is just fine with me. I will finally have the option of progressing through content for just as long as my friends who don't mind the 25-man (or, in the old days, 40-man) stuff. Woot!
"The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence"
This sums it up nicely, and is the reason i am going to bow out of this discussion.
1) There has never been a 'task' in a 10-man that could not be implemented in a 25-man
2) There has never been a 10-man which has pushed the raids to levels such as Muru/Brut/4HM etc etc
3) Since 10-man is designed to allow more player base to see all content it is unlikely that 10man encounters will ever get near those of 25man encounters
and more importantly
4) Despite 'raid screw ups', 'connection issues', 'missing raid warning', I and anyone who has raided endgame for a long period of time know for a fact that so long as raid success is not dependant on luck, there is no 'task' that can be implemented in a 10-man that can't be implement in a 25-man. It will be harder, and take longer for the kill, but thats what expected. They don't call is hardcore for nothing.
However....whilst number 4) is true it is also impossible for me to prove this is. There is no formula I can quote to do so. I could wait until the wow servers had shut down and number 4) had still held true, and you would simply come back with......
"The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence"
I could wait until the end of time when 4) had still held true and you could come back with....
"The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence"
It's an impossible circle which is impossible to prove, so as of now i'm going to stop trying.
I think we can assume that Blizzard knows a little bit of what they are doing..
Go open the LFG window and then try saying that again with a straight face.
Blizzard has always been terrible at solving the problems they create. The lack of a viable alternative and the fact that most of my friends are playing this game is what keeps me going. That's what kept me in EQ for 5 years. Then we all jump shipped because WoW was the promise land.
I have faith that the game will continue to be convenient to play for a long time and I doubt 25 man's will vanish into the night. But I'm sure there will be far less incentive for guilds to struggle to maintain that perfect 25 man roster when they could just do 2 10-man's instead for similar loot with the same set bonuses on a far easier schedule.
As I understand it, there are some jerks who are elitist enough to want to do the 25-man stuff anyway. If the majority of raiders never go from 10 to 25, why is that a bad thing, as long as the folks who want to are doing it? What's the real downside? Are you afraid you won't be able to find a 25-man guild on your server?
Personally, I couldn't be more delighted right now. I'm sick to death of 25-man stuff, but 10-man is just fine with me. I will finally have the option of progressing through content for just as long as my friends who don't mind the 25-man (or, in the old days, 40-man) stuff. Woot!
I'm not afraid I won't be able to find a 25-man guild, I'm afraid it won't be worth my time to do 25-mans. I enjoy 25-mans, I think thats a good number to bring along to raids (although I could live with 20-man raids). 10-mans don't have the epic feel of 20, 25, or 40 mans.
And yes, I know the same argument has been said when they went from 40 to 25-man raids. I always thought 40-mans were stupid and people could easily get "lost" in the raid and just afk. I was always a fan of AQ20 and ZG.
I'm really excited about this. I've done large group raiding but it's not a thing I enjoy much. Actually getting the expansion's whole story without being forced into stuff I dislike is a huge, huge change. I had been looking at shifting games but with WOTLK moving my way and Conan going the other way it looks like I'll be sending my cheques to Blizzard for a long time to come.
I'm afraid it won't be worth my time to do 25-mans. I enjoy 25-mans,
This doesnt make any sense. If you enjoy 25 mans then it IS worth your time to do them. I have never understood people who complain about choice. How can more options be a bad thing?
This doesnt make any sense. If you enjoy 25 mans then it IS worth your time to do them. I have never understood people who complain about choice. How can more options be a bad thing?
Because whether or not you enjoy it doesn't matter when you're trying to get some 30-35 other people who also want to do it.
Raiding is dying, there are very few people who will ever debate that. What remains to be determined is whether this change will result in the end of large scale raiding or whether they will coexist just as they do now. My money is more on the former than the later.
People complain that 25 man raids will die out. If they do it will be as a result of player choice. It is hilarious to see people arguing that giving players a choice is a bad thing. There will still be reasons to do 25 man raids: better gear, bragging rights, maybe some titles and specialty items, etc. Some people couldn't care less about that and would prefer to see the content through moderately challenging 10 man raids as opposed to the massive coordination and time sink that can result from 25 man raids.
I fail to see the problem. Ultimately this is consumer choice in action. World of Warcraft and all MMOs are forms of entertainment.
This doesnt make any sense. If you enjoy 25 mans then it IS worth your time to do them. I have never understood people who complain about choice. How can more options be a bad thing?
Because the standards by which those choices are made are being changed, and changed fairly drastically.
I choose to do 25 mans for many reasons. Seeing dungeons, zones, bosses and storyline that I could not see otherwise being at the forefront. Don't get me wrong, the loot is nice but it's certainly not the main reason for my raiding.
With this new system, the incentive to do 25 mans is all but gone. Triple the headaches of maintaining a 10 man roster for what? Different itemization? Any sense of exploration, mystery or the unknown being gone because all the guys in my crew killed this dude months ago in the 10 man version. Only now he has 20 adds instead of 5.
If the trend is indeed swinging to 10 man raiding then that's perfectly fine. Make the change fully and don't piss about with trying to please everyone at the same time.
At the end of the day, as we are all still playing this game well after release, I think we can assume that Blizzard knows a little bit of what they are doing.
It is worth noting that some of us (at least one, typing this message) are not playing this game anymore, but still read forums to find out if Blizzard has corrected enough mistakes to be worth renewing our subscriptions.
I'll definitely be considering re-upping depending on how LK pans out.
People complain that 25 man raids will die out. If they do it will be as a result of player choice. It is hilarious to see people arguing that giving players a choice is a bad thing. There will still be reasons to do 25 man raids: better gear, bragging rights, maybe some titles and specialty items, etc. Some people couldn't care less about that and would prefer to see the content through moderately challenging 10 man raids as opposed to the massive coordination and time sink that can result from 25 man raids.
I fail to see the problem. Ultimately this is consumer choice in action. World of Warcraft and all MMOs are forms of entertainment.
Giving players choice is not a bad thing. I don't think anybody is really too worried that other people might be able to do something they enjoy. Rather, people are concerned that a shift in developer attention towards these things might signal a shift away from the aspects of the game they enjoy. So while I have no real problem with 10 man raids and in fact enjoy them myself, I am mildly concerned that this signifies a continuing trend away from larger scale raiding, which I enjoy more. People are as entitled to be worried about the marginalization of an aspect of the game that they have enjoyed and which has been given attention for several years as you and everyone else who didn't enjoy that particular part of the game has been entitled to voice their own concerns about the lack of content appropriate for them.
Put bluntly, I don't care if 10 mans get more attention, I care if 25 mans get less attention. If that's the way it goes, so be it, but don't come tell me that I have no right to be concerned about a visible trend away from raiding, which has been a historically viable way of playing the game.
Giving players choice is not a bad thing. I don't think anybody is really too worried that other people might be able to do something they enjoy. Rather, people are concerned that a shift in developer attention towards these things might signal a shift away from the aspects of the game they enjoy. So while I have no real problem with 10 man raids and in fact enjoy them myself, I am mildly concerned that this signifies a continuing trend away from larger scale raiding, which I enjoy more. People are as entitled to be worried about the marginalization of an aspect of the game that they have enjoyed and which has been given attention for several years as you and everyone else who didn't enjoy that particular part of the game has been entitled to voice their own concerns about the lack of content appropriate for them.
Put bluntly, I don't care if 10 mans get more attention, I care if 25 mans get less attention. If that's the way it goes, so be it, but don't come tell me that I have no right to be concerned about a visible trend away from raiding, which has been a historically viable way of playing the game.
It's good to see other people have the same feelings as me. I'm not a doom and gloom person - I've never really complained much about WoW (except Arena being recolored PVE gear), but I'm starting to feel like 25-mans will be "tacked" on and Blizzard will primarily develop and focus the the 10-man versions.
Put bluntly, I don't care if 10 mans get more attention, I care if 25 mans get less attention. If that's the way it goes, so be it, but don't come tell me that I have no right to be concerned about a visible trend away from raiding, which has been a historically viable way of playing the game.
I won't deny that making 10 man alternatives to 25 man zones doesn't take away from the potential draw of the 25 man paradigm but I don't know if it necessarily represents a 'trend away from raiding.' Personally, though, I think giving MMO players more options to experience aspects of the game they wouldn't normally have access to is inevitable.
Historically viable? Sure, but that history is relative brief dating back to whenever EQ was in full swing... I honestly don't know when that was but it couldn't have been any earlier than the mid/late nineties. Ultimately we are dealing with a time-span of no more than ten years and over those years the size of raids have gotten smaller from game to game. I don't think that progression (or regression if you want to call it that) is intended to spite anyone, just that it is a reality of the times.
That said I agree with what Gurgthock posted on the R&D Forums: having two versions of the same raid instances will ultimately allow for more time developing new ones. If it is more content you want you will more likely than not be getting it as a result of this change. If your concern is more with perpetuating the 'have' and 'have not' approach to raiding (some also phrase it in terms of 'bads' versus 'goods') in that some people should be 'entitled' to see certain content that others won't get to see then, yes, that thinking is on the way out.
I choose to do 25 mans for many reasons. Seeing dungeons, zones, bosses and storyline that I could not see otherwise being at the forefront. Don't get me wrong, the loot is nice but it's certainly not the main reason for my raiding.
With this new system, the incentive to do 25 mans is all but gone.
Again, not to beat a dead horse, but the incentive for you is gone. For others, the incentive is still there. Its the same reason some people weren't happy to go from 40-man raids to 25-man, because they felt like the "epicness" (in how ever each person defines it) is lessened.
I like this change for several reasons, but mostly, it (as others have said) gives the consumers a choice. I know many friends across the 3 guilds I've been in that felt shoehorned into the 25/40 man raids just cause they wanted to see the content (like it appears you have) but not liking the discipline, concentration, and time commitment needed to do them. On the other hand, while I also raid to see the content, I also like the challenges and complexity that 25-man bosses have that, in my opinion, 10 mans just don't have, at least so far.
There maybe a drop in 25-man raiding guilds with the expansion, but that would only be because people have more fun in 10-mans, which when you think about it, is what its all about. This would also benefit the 25-man raiding guilds, because they will be comprised of people who really want to and enjoy the 25-man raiding environment, without those that feel pressured to raid just to see the content.
I don't know why they can't just make another rarity color above epics but lower than legendaries that can only be obtained from 25 mans to make raiders happy again like they did before TBC.
On the other hand, while I also raid to see the content, I also like the challenges and complexity that 25-man bosses have that, in my opinion, 10 mans just don't have, at least so far.
What about the speculation that the 25-mans will actually be developed after the 10-mans to ensure proper scaling? Obviously we won't know until someone at Blizzard says so but I'm afraid the complexity of 25-mans will be gone and we'll only see increased adds, HP, damage, ect.
Originally Posted by _Retribute_
I don't know why they can't just make another rarity color above epics but lower than legendaries that can only be obtained from 25 mans to make raiders happy again like they did before TBC.
When will people understand? It's not about having a purple, blue, or orange border around their gear slots. It's about UNIQUE looking gear only found in 25-mans. The 10-man gear and 25-man gear are going to look EXACTLY alike with the exception of a different color hue.
I won't deny that making 10 man alternatives to 25 man zones doesn't take away from the potential draw of the 25 man paradigm but I don't know if it necessarily represents a 'trend away from raiding.' Personally, though, I think giving MMO players more options to experience aspects of the game they wouldn't normally have access to is inevitable.
Historically viable? Sure, but that history is relative brief dating back to whenever EQ was in full swing... I honestly don't know when that was but it couldn't have been any earlier than the mid/late nineties. Ultimately we are dealing with a time-span of no more than ten years and over those years the size of raids have gotten smaller from game to game. I don't think that progression (or regression if you want to call it that) is intended to spite anyone, just that it is a reality of the times.
That said I agree with what Gurgthock posted on the R&D Forums: having two versions of the same raid instances will ultimately allow for more time developing new ones. If it is more content you want you will more likely than not be getting it as a result of this change. If your concern is more with perpetuating the 'have' and 'have not' approach to raiding (some also phrase it in terms of 'bads' versus 'goods') in that some people should be 'entitled' to see certain content that others won't get to see then, yes, that thinking is on the way out.
I also agree that there is no spite involved. Nobody is slapping anyone else in the face here. Blizzard may well be bowing to consumer demands, or may be following some overarching artistic vision they've had planned out for years. Whatever the case may be, WoW as a game seems to me to be moving further away from raiding as it was implemented at release. 40 mans to 25 mans, PvE/PvP gear from raiding to solely PvE gear from raiding. Special models on armor to shared models with palette shifts. Now WotLK will continue this trend, making 25 mans lose even the attraction of being the pinnacle of lore and story progression, and the height of encounter design. I am not arguing any particular value on any of these actions, they have happened and are happening. My position is that Blizzard is continually removing incentives for people to raid. At the same time, raiding has the most obstacles to entry and success of any available path of progression. It is undoubtedly more difficult to create and maintain a raiding guild that makes continual progress through instances than it is to maintain a guild to move through 10 mans, or 5 man heroics, or PvP. So we are facing a situation in which the path of progression which is most onerous to walk down is constantly losing reasons to walk down it. The loss of incentives is not a problem for me, I will continue to raid 25 mans as long as I can because it is and has been the activity in this game that I enjoy the most. The issue I see is that it becomes increasingly difficult to do so, because all of those people that I need around in order to do perform this activity are losing their reasons for doing so. While in theory it would be nice to raid only with people who raid solely because they enjoy raiding, in reality it is overwhelmingly difficult to create and maintain a group of such people on any given server, or even across servers. That is the problem I see, and the only real issue I have with the continuing loss of reasons for people to raid.
One potential problem I do see with ten-mans is the introduction of future hero classes. While we're fine in Wrath, it will mean that, eventually, it won't be possible to have all classes in the ten-mans. That can only make designing the encounters harder. Maybe it's not that big a deal, but I'd prefer a 15 limit myself for that reason.
One potential problem I do see with ten-mans is the introduction of future hero classes. While we're fine in Wrath, it will mean that, eventually, it won't be possible to have all classes in the ten-mans. That can only make designing the encounters harder. Maybe it's not that big a deal, but I'd prefer a 15 limit myself for that reason.
Weren't two of the recent world-firsts done with a) no druids, and b) no melee group. And those were 25-mans. The 10-mans they've put out demonstrate that this is not an issue, and they already design them that way. 10 is a good number.
When will people understand? It's not about having a purple, blue, or orange border around their gear slots. It's about UNIQUE looking gear only found in 25-mans. The 10-man gear and 25-man gear are going to look EXACTLY alike with the exception of a different color hue.
Exactly. People complained, bitched, moaned, etc about pvp gear looking like pve gear. But you know what? PVP gear has an entirely different function.
Now we're getting items with the same purpose looking the same. Raiding wotlk 25mans will be in no way similar to the population raiding 25mans today. I don't think this will kill wow, since its obviously designed to appeal to more people, but it will change or kill the game as many of us know it, even if there is a very vocal "hey I'm posting on EJ to show my support against those 'hardcore raiders'".
I couldn't be happier if the raid size change made a lot of people quit doing 25 mans.
You lose the people who don't want to be there, and you have a higher concentration of people who actually care about the challenge of the encounters.
I'll be very, very curious to see how this plays out.
My biggest issue (in that I actually have any issue at all) is that 10-man progression is such a tricky beast. Due to vastly different synergies, some classes/specs simply shine far too brightly in a 10-man, while others simply do not at all. Balancing classes around three or more optimal specs (PvP/PvE-10/PvE-25 plus obviously more for some classes) and balancing raids around 10 or 25-person situations is a nightmare of complexity. Even min-maxing a 10-person around a specific and quite artificial situation like ZA has proven to be well, slanted to some spec/class combinations shall we say.
The other issue is a recurring one. Replicating set bonuses across acquisition methods may sound interesting but it certainly relies on well-crafted set bonuses. If Blizzard has shown me one single thing though in the last few years, it is that they don't know how to design set bonuses equitably.
I couldn't be happier if the raid size change made a lot of people quit doing 25 mans.
You lose the people who don't want to be there, and you have a higher concentration of people who actually care about the challenge of the encounters.
10 man bosses are not complex. There is something to be said about even a simple boss like Brutallus, where you can design soak groups so differently with 25 people. 10 man is a bottleneck and I've always felt this way.
05/09/08, 9:44 PM
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