Cataclysm Raid Progression Refinements - Page 3

gavstar · 04/27/10, 4:07 AM

At the high end, I see 25 man guilds making ppl roll/maintain 4 alts so they can do 10*10 mans with 6-7 alts, 2-3 mains to gear up the mains superfast then blitz the 25 man stuff. The precedent for this has already been set with high end guilds running 2-3 sets of alts already to gear up, test fights, unless there is a clear advantage in terms of loot to stick with 25 then i'm pretty sure alts/10's will be abused for gearing purposes.

With the removal of the limited tries system (which i personally dislike) I also see the return of the 9am raiders.

I'm not averse to changes in the system and these very clearly benefit the majority of wow raiders which is a good thing but either they've not thought out the potential for abuse very clearly or they really dont care how much less interesting/fair any progression races are.

I guess this leads to the question of "If you devalue high end pve progression races, does this in any way affect the game?"

Elemento · 04/27/10, 4:14 AM

I'm happy about the changes. I'm in the frustrating position of being a wannabe WOW achievement completionist as well as having a real life, family, job, etc. So the idea of notching up all the raid achievements just running 25 man content and not finding additional time to run it all in 10 man aswell will be a great relief. Also the raids will be fresher. The nightmare of running ToC 10 normal / hard and 25 normal / hard really felt like Blizzard stretching content a lot further than they should. So this is giving us options, without compelling us to take them all. So a guild focusing on 25 man can do that, but a smaller one focusing on 10 man can do that too without feeling they're missing out. Also if you really have all the time in the world can can do 10 man on an alt and 25 on you main or visa versa

Now I agree getting the fights tuned correctly so they are of equal difficulty is a tough ask. But then we're expecting Blizzard to balance our classes and specs within certain tolerances, so why not the fights too? I'm sure they won't always succeed, but we're paying them the money to do their best and to keep us entertained.

Tempestra · 04/27/10, 6:23 AM

The simple fact is that with this change, I'll continue to pay and play in Cataclysm. I love to raid but leading 30+ people, juggling egos and everything that goes with it is simply too much for a game that I've already been playing for over five years.

Even for those who continue to 25-man, this will help combat the "I raid X hours a week 25-man and still feel compelled to put in 3-6 hours for 10-man" syndrome, as many have already pointed out. This is a huge change and I hope Blizzard can pull off the balancing act that will justify them going in this direction.

iwog · 04/27/10, 6:50 AM

What I find funny is that people are predicting the death of 25s if they reward the same as 10s. Doesn't that say that there's something inherently wrong if you have to be bribed to go to them. The bribe in this case is better purple pixels. And isn't this something we've all know for ages? I know my guild has tried to upsize twice and the bitching drama (both loot and general) that came with it just isn't worth the hassle. Plus you have the 10man cliques that form anyway. Sure there will still be 25 man guilds around but they will be for people who love the feel of a 25man, and hopefully 10 man guilds wont be treated as second class citizens any more.

Zaniel · 04/27/10, 7:30 AM

I've got concerns on numerous issues here with the 25/10 shared locks, not the least of which is whether Blizzard will be able to achieve the balance they're proclaiming. To explain how I feel, I think an example is in order:

You want to get from Point A to Point B.
Taking one route, you can climb a tree, hop over a few fences, outrun some angry dogs, scale a cliff, and then whitewater raft through rapids. Taking another, you can walk three blocks and cross the street.
In my opinion, one of these is tons more fun. But the majority of people would shrug, look at the situation, and take the easier way.

That's the crux of my concern.

Markoh · 04/27/10, 7:46 AM

Originally Posted by iwog

What I find funny is that people are predicting the death of 25s if they reward the same as 10s. Doesn't that say that there's something inherently wrong if you have to be bribed to go to them. The bribe in this case is better purple pixels. And isn't this something we've all know for ages? I know my guild has tried to upsize twice and the bitching drama (both loot and general) that came with it just isn't worth the hassle. Plus you have the 10man cliques that form anyway. Sure there will still be 25 man guilds around but they will be for people who love the feel of a 25man, and hopefully 10 man guilds wont be treated as second class citizens any more.

Well 10 man cliques in 25 man guilds would cease to exist if this change goes through (or at least be relegated to alts) so that really won't become part of the equation.

Don't think of it as a bribe but more of a reward because no matter if you make the fights perfectly equal getting 25 people to do something (for example Heigan dance) is going to be intrinsically more hard than only needing 10 people to do it correctly.

I think the fear is that those of us that enjoy 25 mans more will have a much harder time finding 25 good people to do them with b/c some will take the easier route of 10 mans.

Belegûr · 04/27/10, 7:52 AM

Originally Posted by Zaniel

I've got concerns on numerous issues here with the 25/10 shared locks, not the least of which is whether Blizzard will be able to achieve the balance they're proclaiming. To explain how I feel, I think an example is in order:

You want to get from Point A to Point B.
Taking one route, you can climb a tree, hop over a few fences, outrun some angry dogs, scale a cliff, and then whitewater raft through rapids. Taking another, you can walk three blocks and cross the street.
In my opinion, one of these is tons more fun. But the majority of people would shrug, look at the situation, and take the easier way.

That's the crux of my concern.

That's an interesting point, but you might also want to take something else into account: how often do you go from point A to point B? The first time, sure, the tree-fence-dog-cliff-rapids infested route will be fun, but having to do it every other day will soon become tiresome. A typical example of this was limiting access to certain raids by putting in long questlines. Doing them once? Fun, agreed. Doing them on each one of your alts? Hell no.

suicuique · 04/27/10, 8:07 AM

I'm past the state of whining now, so this will hopefully be a civilized post. It might be anecdotal but this is inevitable in this context IMHO.

Coming summer we as a guild will be raiding for 5 years. Coming Cataclysm I expect our guild to break up in many 10-raid guilds. And I expect that, even when assuming 10-raids will be as difficult as 25-raids.
Why?
Because simple logistical issues impose a significant overhead on the organisation of 25-raids. While it all may be pixels as one poster above mentioned, it was the carrot on a stick which motivated most enthusiastic players who constantly thrived to have BiS gear, to top the WOL meters. With this change, why should they endure all the hassles of 25man raiding if the exact same loot can be achieved in leaner, simpler to organize 10man setups?
I seriously doubt different colored mounts, slightly different worded titles or more gold can serve the same purpose.

But is it for the worse, one might think. Experiencing the same encounters (with the same difficulty) with less logistical overhead will result in a better fun:work ratio. And this is what a game should deliver. The raiding atmosphere in 10 mens is mostly superior, there are less people who fuck up und less stress overall.
I can't deny all that, but for me it is just not the same game experience anymore. I'm not dellusional enough to think that my guild as I know it will persist. The epic scope of the game will suffer ... again.
While C'Thun was fought by 40, Yogg'Saron was vanquished by 25 deathbringers, the next old god will mostly be conquered by 10. By default, the old gods seem to get younger all the time.^^

Anyway this might come across whiny, and get me an infraction or worse for that. It isn't intended to be so. I might be just a little bitter and afraid, how most of the 25-raids are supposed to survive this change.
I just can't see that. Even at same difficulties, 10 men raiding is strictly superior to 25 from a guild leading standpoint.
Your mileage may vary. I certainly hope so.

Tinwhisker · 04/27/10, 8:48 AM

Here's a thought about the new point system that's replacing badges. At first glance, this looks like a good incentive to choose 25man over the very likely easier 10man. The idea is that 25man raiders will have to do fewer or perhaps no dailies to reach their cap on the higher level points.

That's not actually the case though. Yesterdays post which started all this discussion clearly stated that Blizzard liked gating and would be continuing to do so. That means when tiers are released 25man raiders will also have to do dailies to reach their weekly cap because there simply won't be enough bosses available to reach the cap.

Fast forward to when all the gates in that tier are open (or soon thereafter). Now we find that the 25man raider has gone the harder raiding route and done nearly as many dailies as the 10man raider to be no more ahead in gear progression. But now that all the gates are open and the 25man raider can shrug off dailies, he's already bought everything he needs to and wouldn't have done them anyway.

There is still no gain in accomplishing the more difficult task. As I said before, 25man raid guilds will slowly lose people through normal means but there remains no incentive that they can offer recruits. All raiders will eventually be forced into the 10man model whether they want to raid that way or not.

Unfortunately, like S2 arena when everyone was forced there, Blizzard will call this a success only to later realized that they f'd up. At that point though you can't bring back 25man raiding without offering huge rewards over 10 which negates the whole premise of the change.

Exemplar · 04/27/10, 9:11 AM

I would expect a lower Valor Point weekly cap than people may expect, and lower purchase costs than the current gear. Something such as first lockout bosses on 10 + daily random equals or exceeds weekly cap. 25 first lockout would equal or exceed cap without daily randoms. As lockouts open and you progress then you will be able to cap in 10 or 25man and entirely ignore daily random until the next tier (which may have a new 5man or two to spice it back up, or nostalgia 3-6 months of no 5mans makes it not feel painful). If your guild cannot complete all the bosses at 25 on release, then you can still supplement with dailies to reach the cap.

"Forcing" 25man to run the daily heroic to reach cap does not seem to "reward" them. Part of the "reward" incentive for running 25 over 10 should logically be less/no requirement on running dailies. Recall that in the first tier a 5man will not take 15 minutes because you're horribly overgeared - you're looking at those 1-2 hour experiences with people who have never run it before and who are in quest greens and 1 or 2 blues. Daily random worked well at end tier to revitalize 5s, but fresh out of the gates in a new x-pac it will feel far different.

As has been said, gear prices seem scaled around maximum possible income: 10 + 25 + dailies + weeklies. If you can hardcode the maximum income, consequently making it more approachable by the median player, you can set prices around this number.

Regarding 10/25 raid size, anyone else think it's odd that we continue to have 10 and 25 as the numbers? In Vanilla you had 40, then later 20. 20 + 20 = 40. Made sense. Then in BC suddenly we had 10 and 25. Going from Kara to SSC/TK was often difficult because two 10man teams did not fill a 25. We still have a 10/25 split and it appears to become more important in Cataclysm. Why don't raids transition to 15/30 (unlikely + unwieldy) or (preferably) 10/20? Why intentionally make the scales disparate?

I like the idea behind the current proposal. They want to prevent people feeling they must run 10, 25, and daily heroics for badges to gear ASAP - or create a disparity between those willing to do so and those who take a more casual single-raid experience approach. Call it softening the hardcore/casual divider further. Which tends to get the hardcore up in arms and please the casual. They also want to ease loot creation on their end to level the playing field (it completely removes the "best item happens to be in smaller content" issues). Fine tuning it so it doesn't destabilize other sectors of their game (such as guilds) is where they will be doing the most work.

I am very surprised they didn't test-drive this with Ruby Sanctum prior to announcing this is how Cata will work.

To finish on a lighter note, and don't take this as real Blizzard motivation, just something one of our guild members posted on our forums.

TBC: 10 and 25 man raids are different content with different loot.
WOTLK: 10 and 25 man raids are the same content with different loot.
Cataclysm: 10 and 25 man raids are the same content with the same loot.

Looks like they're testing just how lazy they can get before people stop taking it.

Blutelf · 04/27/10, 9:18 AM

I think some posters here are absolutely missing the main point: There needs to be a unifying goal for 25 man raiders and with this change there is not going to be one. Differently colored mounts? Tabards? Titles? These are merely cosmetic issues.

Right now it is the fact that 25 man instances are the hardest and that they drop the best loot ingame.

Remove both of these things and there will be no incentive, no reason to raid 25 man instances. Unless you "feel like it". But you shouldn't have to invent a reason to do so, or else what is the point of doing it in the first place? Why have 25 man raids in the game at all now unless the only reason is to gently fade out the 25 man raids during Cata?

This is how it seems to me right now, and I am fairly confident that this is what most people have in mind when they are talking about "destroying 25 man raids".

Tinwhisker · 04/27/10, 9:19 AM

Originally Posted by Exemplar

To finish on a lighter note, and don't take this as real Blizzard motivation, just something one of our guild members posted on our forums.

TBC: 10 and 25 man raids are different content with different loot.
WOTLK: 10 and 25 man raids are the same content with different loot.
Cataclysm: 10 and 25 man raids are the same content with the same loot.

Looks like they're testing just how lazy they can get before people stop taking it.

Something similar was said in our forums and I like the reply it got.

...no way is this Blizzard "being lazy." Even if a decision reduces the time it takes for them to do something, they just spend that saved time doing something else. It's not like they're trying to figure out ways to change things solely for the purpose of getting out of work at noon ;P

That's probably as true as it gets. I still think Blizzard is going to hurt 25man raiding here but at least we're likely to see a lot more content. And if we don't see substantially more content here I'm going to be very disappointed.

Xieon · 04/27/10, 9:24 AM

Xieon · 04/27/10, 9:40 AM

My main concern with this potential change to raiding structure is how 25 man raids will fare when up against the hardest level bosses. Using some examples from the WoWProgress numbers, which are valid enough for this argument, less than 4% of all guilds have completed Call of the Grand Crusade in a 25 man enviroment. In contrast, almost 50% of the tracked 10 man groups have completed the 10 man version of ToGC. If this level of disparity isn't addressed, a 25 man group will dead end on a boss and then deal with their 10 best breaking off to finish the encounter and collect their achievement points. I completed the Dedicated Insanity challenge, it wasn't that hard with a decent group.

From what I've heard so far on my realm forums, many people have a bad taste in their mouth with 25 man groups. There is a whole subset of player that never gets to enjoy a rapidly progressing group or have fun with a decent group of people in a 25 man raid. Quite often they are subjected to questionable loot rules, poor leadership and a generally miserable raiding experience, all in the name of trying to advance their character as defined by the game. Most of us here, I'm sure, try to rise above this level but for the average player, they'll never see the light of day in a solid raiding guild. Imagine your only impression of 25 man raiding is some screaming kid with a vent server running a group of horrible trade chat pugs to their death against the Morrowgar trash. That's what some people see as raiding.

This change is going to, and already has, put serious pressure on established 25 man guilds of all levels of advancement. The guilds that will be hurt the most will be the 'middle of the road' guilds that are part friends, part progression, which attract better players more interested in loot. I don't consider it bribing people to play at that point, they seek out an enviroment that suits them. This change has the potential of distilling talent down to 10 mans and trimming down the 25 man raid population substantially. The potential for guild crippling mutiny will skyrocket.

I'm holding out for the 25 mans surviving with the promise of more loot and incentives. If player skill levels, encounter difficulty and gear is all similar, the only defining difference will be the amount of gear. While people argue that skill is more important than gear, you will not be defeating end bosses in quest blues. All things being equal, the groups with more gear will get the first kills. The 25 man will retain its position of being the progression raid. I hope with the badge plan that a 25 man raid will also satisfy a large portion of the time requirement for each week, with its promise of more loot/badges.

I'm a proponent of the changes as well as 25 man raiding, I disliked having to run 10 mans to gear for 25 or just to acquire badges. As it is I'm in horrible shape from taking a few months off and coming back to a server entrenched in heroic modes with minimal badge income.

The main point I've been making to those asking me to join their 10 man is the fact that their elite groups haven't raided a single 10-man in wrath in the appropriate gear. In all cases these have been main raiders in multiple guilds utilizing higher gear levels to trivialize portions of 10 man raiding. This will be new ground for spoiled 25 man raiders in 10 mans, hopefully.

For now we wait and see what updates Blizzard makes to this plan and I move forward planning on continuing to administer and help lead my 25 man, provided enough people still want to play together in the fall.

Ukerric · 04/27/10, 9:54 AM

Originally Posted by Exemplar

I would expect a lower Valor Point weekly cap than people may expect, and lower purchase costs than the current gear.

I expect a much larger valor cost. Much, much larger. In the thousands/ten of thousands range...

Noticed the little paragraph about converting PvE and PvP points to each other at a loss? I expect the heroism and valor points to have about exactly the same kind of scale that honor and arena points have currently. Meaning bosses will award you something like a hundred valor points, not 3 frost emblems...

In theory, I wouldn't be surprised to see PvE stuff having exactly the same costs as the PvP stuff - except in PvE points instead of honor.