Copernicus

Molten Core. Blackwing Lair. The Temple of Ahn'Qiraj. Naxxramas Necropolis. And nothing else. Looking ahead to Blizzard's expansion for World of Warcraft, Burning Crusade, the aforementioned instanced raids will be the last of Blizzard's 40-man raid content. In Burning Crusade, end game raiding (which occupies WoW's max level players) will be done in groups of 25 or 10. Illidan's Black Temple, the most challenging raid instance that will appear in Burning Crusade (at release), has a 25-player limit.

http://www.1up.com/do/previewPage?cId=3152830


They are also revamping the honor system, turning it into currency as opposed to rankings and adding arena combat.

 

Kasi

OMG. This is going to be interesting.... Why the hell cap it at 25? That is a weird number to put it too. Well at least it means for me as as a new 60 leading towards raiding that I don't have to push 40 man instances, since according to this it will be a thing of the past.

Edit: I guess it might allow those guilds struggling to get 40 revert to 25 man raiding. While the bigger succesful guilds might do 2 raids of 25 men? Or maybe in EJ's case 3? Very strange.

 

Dozer

Wow. o_O

This changes so many things It's hard ot wrap my mind around it

 

◊ Praetorian

I'm in Naxx at the moment so I don't have time to moderate this thread or contribute right now. But let me just say that if you want to vent and spew nerd rage, go here:

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...=new&tmp=1#new

If you have well-articulated thoughts, feel free to post in this thread.

 

Kasi

I can see it being a good idea. And honestly from where my guild stands, this will make it a lot easier for us to raid in the expansion. But what I don't like is how this will really hurt many of the raiding guilds that are currently in the game. Those guilds have 40-45 people. Like quigon said in the other thread, splitting it will cause drama. You might as well sign the death warrant on a number of the smaller end game raiding guilds. Well not the death. Many will just reform to 30ish people, but I'd hate to be in charge of saying who can go and who can't. I just don't think it is a good idea to have a game environment where 40 was optimal for 2 years and now have it be 25. Increasing would be more acceptable, as it is always easier to recruit people than to cut people.

 

• Arawethion

I'm sure that this will accompanied by an uproar that will be almost completely unjustifiable when the time actually comes.

In all honestly, after running a guild that runs 40-man raids for over a year, I can see this leading to a cleaner play experience. The logistics of raid guilds, like most things, grow very nonlinearly with group size. So no matter what, wouldn't that be a welcome change for anyone? A higher percentage or your time spent actually playing with 24 other people, just because less time is spent making the guild exist. And, to be honest, I'm sure many, many raid leaders, when confronted with the option of simply dropping 15 people of their choice, would not have trouble finding some good in the situation.

On the flip side of things, a guild could choose to grow a bit. The EJ model will be a lot more viable now. Recruiting 10 people is not hard, and there will be no shortage of players at that point in time. A successful 40-man guild now could make the jump to 2 raid groups without a massive increase in management power.

Given the flux of players both into and out of the game during the beginning of TBC, it's unlikely that staying at precisely the same size will be an especially easy option--it will probably be just as easy to grow or shrink a bit. As long as a guild plans in advance, the "transition" doesn't have to be a huge strain.

So the real question is, will encounters be more or less fun with 25 than with 40? Would many current enounters become conceptually impossible? Not really. Look at Naxx:
Anub'Rekhan and Razuvious--you could practically do them with 25 right now.
Noth--might require some finesse to make it work. The chaotic zerg-type spawns will be the toughest thing to maintain the feel of on a smaller scale.
Patchwerk--change some numbers.
Thaddius--3/8 less likely to screw up each time.
Loatheb--cheaper
Four Horsemen--hmm. Three Horsemen? Two and a Half?
C'Thun -- just fine.
Emps--remove a minor complication (maybe make mutated bugs something that get soloed), and you're fine.

As I can see it, the only real problem is things that qualitatively require a certain number of tanks. But that problem exists now, not in any really different form. So the design space they're losing is quite small. I expect that it will also grow in some nontrivial manner, which we can look forward to.

Answers to Moonkin questions:
0) Read the TTT/use the spreadsheet: http://elitistjerks.com/f47/t66856-moonkin_pve_dps/
1) Maintain high DoT uptime. Use WiseEclipse.
2) Nothing beats 2T8.
3) Yes, sometimes you cast many Wraths and no Eclipse procs. Deal with it.

 

Brick

25 is definitely an interesting number.

For smaller guilds that can barely scrape up enough folks for ZG and RAQ, it places the opportunity to acquire some of the game's best loot within their reach. For larger guilds who have no problem getting 40 folks together for MC/BWL/AQ/NAX, they could possibly run multiple raid which means they can gear more members in the same time -- as well as having the potential to work out different strategies in parallel. In a smaller group, each member's contribution is typically greater, which was underlined in the article's mentioning of trying to further the flexibility of hybrids. 15 fewer player models to render could open additional doors that were shut out by technical limitations, and less mod lag.

End-game content within the reach of more players, larger guilds being able to gear up faster, hopefully a more involved role for all raiders, and maybe less lag as a bonus? I'm finding little to dislike here.

 

Dozer

New balanced raid (?)

10 Healers, 12 DPS, 3 Tanks

3 priests, 3 Paladins, 2 Shaman, 2 Druids
3 Rogues, 3 Hunters, 3 Mages, 2 Warlocks
4 warriors

Seems about right. Well maybe that's a bit healer heavy; maybe cut a priest for another DPS slot.

 

kharen

Wow. As a guild with ~100 accounts, and typically 60 or so signups for any given raid (right now, anyway, our active numbers tend to fluctuate a lot, which is part of the reason we have so many people), this probably won't be hugely difficult to adjust to (we'll just split into two raids, i guess, although that has potential for immense drama if it's not handled carefully...), but this could completely wreck those guilds who've built up a core of 40-50 or so regular, hardcore players who can be counted on to turn up to every raid...

 

◊ Quigon

I'll just reiterate since this thread appears to be the winner....

The point is that in the past, when games have made groups smaller, the skill does not increase as some might expect - unless you start from a larger whole. In the end that will be shaved off by attrition.

In FPS'ers i've experienced this in, and in MMO's, as you go smaller and smaller the game becomes less and less dynamic.

Individual player skill isn't important in a 40 man? Come on... Thaddius? 4 horsemen? You can absolutely push the envelope with larger raids.

Does anyone actually find ZG or AQ20 anything less than a complete snooze fest? I abhor those zones, and most of it is from the entire lack of anything novel or interesting there... 20 players just doesn't seem fun or fulfilling.

The change is clearly one catered toward casual players, and perhaps an attempt to fix the lag issue.

 

Mist

The fallout from this will be massive. As a guild leader, I'm not interested in dealing with any of it, and I think its just about time to quit WoW.

 

Copernic

There are two people posting here named after Copernicus?

This must be their solution to the epic/casual uber-ness debate. 40 man is pretty exclusive in terms of time, organization, and demands on time. But pretty much anyone can get 25 decent people together and raid.

After all, the advice my guild had for starting MC was 'take your 25 good people, get 15 retard monkeys, collect loot.'

Illidan is now in reach for Casuals!

 

Brilliance

Even with a guild with 50~ raiders, your gonna be forced to cut 20 people.

Dunno about you guys, but I dont want to say goodbye to 20 of my guildmates who I have been raiding with for 2+ years.

Edit: Or be cut from raiding myself :/

 

◊ Quigon

25 man raids are a great idea, but not at the cost of 40 man raids. You should have both.

 

Copernicus

For current guilds, it will involve recruiting 10-15 more players and splitting it into two 25-man groups. It will also give the people who race to 70 something to do while they wait for people to level up their Shaman or do crazy things like work/family/school. The balance will change from trying to maintain 50-60 to trying to maintain 60-70 or 30-35.

It's not a bad thing. It's different. Overall I like it more because I've always liked smaller groups. It also controls things such as frame-rate and mob populations that killed some people's video cards. And it gives a great excuse to nuke DKP systems.

 

Dozer

This really hurts close, smallish guilds such as DnT; do you cut 20 people or recruit 15 and have an "A" team and a "B" team? And deal witht he drama/hurt feelings that is going to result in? :|

 

Phantim

We are discussing this in guild chat at the moment, the only reall options is have 2 seperate raids and recruit a few new people or cut 15 people. It will be hard to have 2 raid groups as every one will want to be in the "main raid" . I can forsee some reall issues you have to remember that in burning crusade we are adding a class so there are more people to fit in way less spots. It should be really interesting to say the least, I do like the fact that things will be getting smaller but im not sure if the cost is worth it.

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y18...de/phantim.gif
Richard Needham:
Strong people make as many mistakes as weak people. Difference is that strong people admit their mistakes, laugh at them, learn from them. That is how they become strong.

 

Dromakis

There is more to that article than just 25 player caps too.

The mention of dynamically scaling instances is extremely intrigueing to me. To be able to go back to old content, albeit TBC content only as of now, on 'hard mode' for the possibility of better loot ups replay value alot.

Shaman finally getting bloodlust, even if it IS at level 70 is a great thing. Maybe I'm biased, being a shaman and all, but it was our class defining ability in the WC games.

And the overriding issue for most of us 'raiders', the new 25 player cap. I guess I am inclined to wait for some more info befor passing judgement but I will say that I wouldn't be overly upset at the prospect. I mean, it does put alot more honus on the individual to execute and play their toon well. No more slacking.. or not as much i guess.

http://wow.tachyonsix.com.nyud.net:8...13206KEXso.png

 

• Thrillho

This frustrates me as a player because there are many excellent players in my guild, and I really enjoy playing with them -- but some of the only times I get to play alongside them are in 40-man raids. I won't see them in ZG or AQ, and I don't see why a 20-man raid would be different. I enjoy their company and they make it fun to play on these raids. It's disappointing.

On top of that, it basically screws with the entire current guild establishments. Having 2-4 mini raiding groups within a guild is probably the best way to breed inequity and bitterness. It'll lead to a situation of haves and have-nots within a guild and to decrease the ability for everyone to feel on equal footing. This isn't a "slippery slope" argument of any kind -- you can see this type of situation in every large raiding guild with more than one raid group already.

I'll probably have more to say later.

It's a shame.

 

Mist

All the 20 man content they have put in the game so far was beaten the day it was released. I have a hard time believing that adding 5 more people will somehow make the content challenging enough to compare to the current 40 mans. Are we just going to see every zone defeated in the first week?

 

Kasi

Bad business decision I think by Blizzard. Than again I guess maybe it is good. Casuals do make up the majority of their population. However an elite 25 man instance will be no more forgiving of casuals than 40 man. Only thing it does is require less people and less management overall, but still I don't find the difference to be that great. I can see a lot of raiders leaving WoW and going to the next big thing rather than letting the changes shred their community. Just makes me glad I don't lead a guild of 40 atm.

As for encouraging diversity. Well I can kind of see the math Blizz is thinking of. 9 classes, 25 people. If they make gimmick fights where more than one of a class is required, that means 18 spots are taken up automatically. 7 spots doesn't leave a huge amount of min-maxing. At most it wille be 5-2, while now it is 8-2.

 

XI-

I dislike the changes, that being said I think DnT is better set up to whether these than most guilds. One of the major keys to success was keeping our raid force around 55-60 active skilled players, and with our reputation I'm fairly certain if we decided our optimal scheme was 70 or 80 raiders to fill 2 groups, we could achieve that based on name recognition. That being said, I know many higher tier guilds who field only 40-50 raiders, and I think this will cause a major schism amongst their members.

 

niss

This will hurt the raiding game. I was excited with all the Naxx encounters. Most of them were difficult, complex and demanding and that's just not doable with a 25man raid. For proof, see aq20 and zg.

 

Kadjan

This is a plus for the average end game guild with a skilled core of 15-20 members, since they can trim the fat and in doing so get rid of the scrubs that are just fillers. It's not so good for the top guilds who have less scrubs.


Edit--the PvP changes will be welcome. It seems people who don't want to pvp 10+ hours a day can still get the top gear, but it will just take longer. 2v2, 3v3, 5v5 "arena" fights are something I've been waiting for.

 

◊ Drauk

Nothing good will come from this for high-end raiding guilds. Yes, small and casual guilds will be happy, but not the current bleeding edge raiders. We'll see how this will turns out, but its first time i seriosly thought about quitting. Recent "T3 in TBC" comments and now this - Blizzard is just sending the message "We dont care about raiders anymore".

Fun is for casuals