Except the problem isn't "looks the same but slightly lower stats", it's that currently too much of the loot in 10 man is entirely worthless (see: ToC10 trinkets) or completely non-existent (see: too many examples to name).

I'd be perfectly happy if 10m loot was exactly like 25m loot, but slightly lower in stats (equivalent to the normal/heroic items we have now), as long as all the same (scaled down) items dropped (in fact, i've suggested this in the past, when i didn't think they'd give up the "better loot" carrot for 25s), and the raids were properly balanced around it. As long as i'm getting regular upgrades and killing new bosses, i don't really give a damn what people in other guilds/raids/etc get. But i'm sick to death of waiting three fucking tiers to upgrade a given slot because there either aren't any upgrades, or the "upgrades" are completely useless - for a while, i was raiding ICC with a DMC:G and Mirror of Truth, because all the trinkets that are actually available to me were either drenched in easily capped stats like hit/expertise (Pyrite Infuser, the ToC10 exp trinket, the triumph badge trinket), or dropped from bosses that we very rarely had time to kill (Dark Matter). I only replaced Greatness when i got the frost badge trinket (to go with a Whispering Fanged Skull that had replaced the Mirror).

But if you're making all the loot the same but scaled down, you have to ask yourself - why is the 25m loot better anyway? Do you really need to give people a carrot in order to do the larger raids, and if so, what does that say about how fun 25s are? That (or something like that) seems to have been the thought process at Blizzard, with the end result being that they've decided that they don't need to make 10 mans second-class after all, and that the players can decide for themselves how they'd rather raid.

On the topic of the Raid ID/Lockout.

Does anyone think it would be possible to change the lockout in such a way, that instead of locking a character out of the whole instance, it will only lock them out of being able to receive loot from a particular boss more than once per week?

For example, I run Ulduar and kill FL, Razor and XT with my guild, I then have to leave. (My guild then proceeds to clear the rest) The next day I am invited to a fresh PUG. We kill the same bosses, however I am ineligible to get gold, BoP loot or PvE points from the 3 bosses I already killed. (I do not show up on the master looter's list, when I click the corpse I do not see any loot, I cannot be traded any BoP items, when the gold is clicked on it is divided between the 9 or 24 other people, I do not get a share. Maybe I can't even de-engineer FLs corpse or skin Razorscale)

When the raid moves on to the rest of the bosses (that I haven't killed that week), I am eligible for any drops, gain PvE points appropriate to the size of the raid, and I get my share of gold.

If this change could be introduced it could solve some of the problems of getting locked out of the instance itself. People who were only in the raid for 1 boss can now run the instance again and kill the remaining bosses in a PUG or with another guild. If a raid was short by 5 and then splits into 2x10 mans, each 10 man can finish out the instance. (And the 5 that didn't show up can pug the rest of the bosses later in the week) People could help their friends out by jumping on their tank that already cleared the instance. (People could even 'hire' better geared players to help out, even if those players already killed that boss!)

Though this could also introduce issues such as which bosses spawn, should people be eligible for achievements on 2nd+ boss kills per week. (If so guilds could attempt the achievements several times per week, or even 'sell' achievements and/or the loot to people who have not killed a particular boss yet)

I know that at least some of this could be possible, but I can't say weather or not it would be practical or if it would cause more problems than it is trying to remedy.

It's not a matter that you have to incentivize 25-mans. Its that people have a somewhat biased view of fairness and rewards, and 25 mans are perceived to be more difficult due to the organizational complexity. Because of that, people feel that there should be a greater reward - whether it be loot, achievements, titles, mounts, what have you, it should have something better.

And if you don't provide that, then you're given the choice of doing two things with the same reward, only one is harder than the other. And even though they probably like the harder one, a lot of people will choose the easier path because it's more fair, it's easier and while it's not quite as much fun, it's still fun.

This is a lot like the halloween/v-day bosses, and has similar problems. This has some major metagame issues. If you do this, what's to stop a guild from running a raid 25 times, one for each guild member, and having them get all the loot? The proposal I've seen that circumvents this is to lock you out from 25man loot and 10 man loot when you down a boss but allow you to run one of each. Which still has the above problem, somewhat - and would encourage gear that way - but would at least allow people from the 25man to run the 10 man.

And that's one of the bigger problems I see with the reserve issue. It's not that the reserves are demotivated to run the 25s at all - it's that they almost certainly can't do the 10s with the other raiders, or at least their mains. Sitting out for a whole run is one thing; sitting out and then not being able to play with the main guys in your guild is quite another.

(To be clear Kharen; I understand that poor itemization is a real problem. I got the misimpression from your first post that you dismissed no-difference-but-lower-ilevel as a solution to poor itemization because it was boring, which is what I objected to. Of course, the itemization of a separate progression path should have the same depth - same number of upgrades - because that character progression is a significant part of the enjoyment.)

It's the most common argument everytime raid size is discussed - regardless of game - and I'm not sure I think it's an honest one.

The problem isn't that being in an actual 25 man raid, surrounded by people doing their jobs isn't fun.

The problem is that putting that raid togheter, managing the rooster, handling invites, handling loot distribution and, for most "mortal guilds", finding that many good players with whom you're reasonably socially compatible to begin with, is fucking annoying. And pertinent to this discussion; It's more annoying than what it is doing the same thing for a 10 man.

The actual act of raiding in larger groups, by virtue of involving more "negative fun" in the organization department, needs more "positive fun" to end up on equal footing with smaller raiding, that has less "negative fun" in management. The carrot isn't to make people "enjoy raiding in a 25 man environment", it's there to offset all that other additional crap you need to deal with that, strictly speaking, has very little do with actually being in a raidgroup, raiding.


If this game offered what I'll loosely call "sufficient" tools to reduce the organization time, it'd be one thing. But as is, people requiring more of an encouragement to engage in larger raids isn't a good indicator of how fun they think the two raiding sizes are when compared. It just indicates how annoying people think all the out of raid crap is.

(Hell, sometimes/on some servers, it's not physically possible to get a 25 man raid togheter; Opting then to do the 10 man version doesn't mean that 10 man raiding is seen as more fun)

Again, because the perception is that 25man is more difficult than 10 man due to organization. As long as something is seen as more difficult than something else, the idea that it is unfair if it does not provide additional reward will pop up. And it doesn't matter if it's more or less enjoyable than something else intrinsically; this will make many people not enjoy it because they'll feel like they're being ripped off.

Essentially this is the current argument in 10-man: that because 10man hard modes are more difficult than 25-man normal modes, they should provide better gear than 25-man normal modes. But they don't, so that's not fair and a source of a lot of friction. But if that's fun - why reward it any more? It's not like you need that gear to progress in 10-mans or anything like that. The same argument for the 25man getting better rewards can be made for the 10 man case as well.

I'd also say that it's not just the raid leaders that have to deal with the organizational headaches. Other people who have to deal with being backups on certain nights, or have to deal with personalities that they don't like, or have to deal with loot systems that are a bit arcane (10 mans don't tend to need anything past /roll). These are all things that affect everyone in the 25 man. Again, they're more difficult logistically, and you simply can't get around that.

But, don't 25 man raiders prefer 25 man raids? Isn't that a carrot in and of itself? If there is no intrinsic reward in 25 man at all, then why are you currently going through the extra organizational effort?

I agree these are all problems, but I wonder how much of this is due to the size of the raids, and how much of it is due to just having a larger guild. These problems can happen to guilds that run a 25 man or to a guild of the same size that runs two 10 mans with a 3-5 man "bench". There is hardly any need for a loot distribution system when you have a guild of 10-12 people. Once you get beyond that, then you start getting conflicts regarding loot because you have to have more than one set of officers who may choose to distribute the loot differently (so you need a system involved). You also have more subspecs or off-specs so you have conflicts when one person wants the same piece of loot as another player (so you're more likely to need a system to resolve that). You may get segregated do to personality issues or skill level issues so that the two raiding groups become more "clique-ish".

The biggest difference between a successful 25 man raiding guild and a 10 man raiding guild with "just friends" is leadership. Many guilds have broken up because they know how to run a small gang of people, but can't handle anything larger. I think there's no way for Blizzard to fix this, but they can make it so that people who don't want that kind of responsibility (or can't handle it) can just keep their little gang of friends and play. The question then is how to make the game fun for people who want an actual larger guild.

Because the loot IS better in 25. The current system has a carrot. Said carrot is being removed under the proposed new system, where 25 gear will be identical to 10, though theorized to drop in larger quantity. If this carrot is removed, it becomes whether people actually desire to raid at that size.

If people do not desire to raid at that size, why produce an artificial carrot to try to drive that behaviour?

Edit: And if people do desire to raid at that size, they likewise should have no need for an extra carrot. Meeting their desire is their reward.

Again, this is a misnomer. If you have two activities which you consider equally fun, but one has a guaranteed 15 minute delay, which one are you going to do?

It's not a question whether the activity itself is fun - for most people - it's a question of whether the hassle that surrounds it, much of which coud be automated, is worth that fun. It's not a carrot for the activity, it's a carrot as compensation for the hassle.

And while it's true that most of that hassle is handled by a smaller number of people than the entire raid, if we can't raid because we're a tank short, the entire raid feels it. Sure, the tank leader who's been trying for three weeks to recruit a reliable tank works harder to fix it, but everyone's affected. Similarly, a disconnect. It's not as simple as just the officers spending more time.
I'd also argue that most guilds - the kind of guilds for whom these organizational problems are Major Issues - do have systems in place to reward the hard working; Whether it is loot priorities, straight up loot preference, preference to raid spots or DKP bonuses. If they don't, it's because they chose not to - not because they couldn't have it if they tried.


That said; Hell yes, throwing out carrots to sustain the status quo is a bad idea. The organizational problems should be attacked directly - in-game DKP, raid planners, more reasons to guild (because it makes it easier to recruit), in-game recruitment vistas that doesn't rely on trade spam etcetc - instead of trying to bribe people into ignoring what is essentially lacking social support systems. The real, underlying problem, the problem I see guild leveling as a means to help address, is that WoW has very primitive social system.

I'm all for seeing the hassle removed at the root, but until that happends, a bribe to compensate for being exposed to hassle they could've programmed away years ago is what we appear to get. It's a gifted horse whose mouth I'd stay clear of.

Here is my take on the the problem with this change.

Every raid group has stronger and weaker players. For the strongest 10 people in a typical raiding guild, I fear the problems is that those ten people will be able to get "more" faster than the 25 man raid even given that 25 mans drop more loot proportionally than 10 mans. They will likely be able to clear sooner, move on to hard modes sooner, need less gear in the first place to get to hard modes, etc.

So those ten strong players will always fee like "maybe we should just go it alone and get to hard modes faster." The rest of the 25 man guild then loses its best players and starts to get stuck in the recruit/gear-up/leave treadmill.

When you combine this with the reserves problem, good luck holding onto any reserves not on a timer once the weekend hits I have a very hard time seeing how 25 man guilds survive this. The blow will hit initially the hardest on the people that already do the most heavy-lifting in making a guild work, the officers and leaders.

Fixing this in a 4.1 patch is just not going to do it, there are guilds out there that have several years of assets built-up in terms of web sites, history, relationships among the players and that just can't be reversed. Maybe Blizzard isn't concerned with long term strong guilds that are going to get hurt...But it really seems like this is trying to fix a problem by making everything more like PuGing. Why not instead come up with a solution that gets more people forming stronger guilds? This certainly isn't doing that.

Really it would be better if Blizzard just went all the way with this. If they prefer a smaller raid then make that the premiere (or only) raid and be done with it. I would prefer more than 10 man which is a bit small to organize a guild around, but 15 or 20 would be fine. Guilds can much more readily adapt to certainty, which they did with the 40 -> 25 change, the problem here is that there is large uncertainty and that make planning difficult.

If Blizzard is intent on this path I can see a couple of things that could help:

- Consider reducing 25 man raids to 20. At least they are an even multiple of the 10 man raids making it easier to combine on the fly.

- Consider not having every instance reset on the same day. I believe it could be very helpful to the subs issue if there were overlaps in the instance reset. That way you have more options to start up a fresh instance to pick people up each time you are out raiding. Really the best with the model they are pursuing here would be to have each tier be 4-5 instances each with its own timer reseting throughout the week. Then if someone sits out for Instance A on Tuesday, they know Instance B is resetting on Wednesday that they can get in for. If your group for Instance A doesn't show up again in full the rest of the week, you are only losing out on a boss or two instead of up to half the bosses for the week.

I had this exact same feeling, and posted as much earlier in this thread. However, having had time to reflect on it, I believe my thoughts were premature.

To simply say that people who don't continue to run 25 mans without additional reward simply don't like 25 mans is too simplistic an argument. Pretend for a moment that Blizzard decides to have 5 man heroics, 10 man raids, and 25 man raids all drop the same gear. Now our discussion would include the death of 10 man raiding. I mean let's take it a step further and just remove all drops from the game...you hit 85, a vendor in Org or SW gives you a full set of purples, and you are all set to hit raids. Would everyone who raids now still do it just because they enjoy it?

Nope. Without badges, drops, etc. you'd see the death of WoW really. We enjoy playing this game, those posting here enjoy raiding, but part of the reason we do it is to get better gear and progress. We need a carrot as motivation to do anything in this game, from Arenas to BGs to heroics to raids. So if we are to make the case that "if people stop running 25 mans because the carrot is gone that means they do not like 25 mans," then we have to defend the idea that people like 10 mans so much they would continue to run them without a carrot (i.e. loot better than 5 man heroics, the next step down for PvE group content).

And I think if 10 man raids and heroics dropped the same loot, we would most certainly be talking about the death of 10 mans, while those who really enjoy heroics and never raid would be lauding the change.

So what does this mean? I'm not sure, I need to mull it over more. One thing is certain: even if 10 man raids and 25 man raids are 100% equal in terms of encounter difficulty and player skill needed to overcome that difficulty, 25 mans are still harder due to the logistical and political issues created by the large group of players needed to sustain 25 man runs week to week. So they absolutely have to have an additional carrot, as WoW players need a carrot for doing anything in game, even when they enjoy it.