[Conus]

Here's the problem I have with this new system.

There are six of us know each other in real life that play together. Three of us are from EverQuest, where we enjoyed raiding with a ton of other people in huge raids of epic proportions. Us three want to join a guild to raid the 25 man content.

The other three are from Dark Age of Camelot where they're used to running with only a handful of people. They all want to do the 10 man content.

Two from each camp have done both Kael encounters and we both agree that the more epic of the two is the raid version. To prove that size does equate to epicness, I offer everyone the example of the two attacks on the Death Stars from Star Wars. Compared to the second one, the first attack was boring.

Personally, I would like to see them save some of the encounters to be exclusive to the 25 man raids. As it stands now, people in my position have no incentive to raid the 25 man content when part of our group doesn't want to because there's honestly no reason to.

[protonly]

Source: Krashtork I'm really starting to get sick of "Gives us small guilds a chance!" People having loyalties to small guilds are a big reason that it's hard to get 25 man guilds going! Most existing small guilds don't wanna do the work it takes to get "big" because that may require "effort" /gasp /rantover

I can see your point. I've been in big and smaller guilds that had different content goals. For some of us, the main issue with 25 mans is simply the organization nightmare that entails maintaining an active raiding population of about 40 people of specific class/specs to fill a 25 man roster. That is more of a time sink than anything else with the website, the forums, the scheduleing of events, people bitching, loot systems, lulls in progression, etc, etc. Goofing on vent, killin bosses, talkin strats -- these things we enjoy. Dealing with people issues, meh, I gotta deal with those things at work enough as it is.

[phaze]

If you take a small close-knit guild and grow it to a large one, it is no longer a small close-knit guild. That's the core problem.

Source: Krashtork People having loyalties to small guilds are a big reason that it's hard to get 25 man guilds going! I'm sick of this bullshit catering to the people who don't wanna put in the effort of making a good guild.

Are you complaining that you don't want to put in the effort to get a 25-man guild going?


There are people who prefer 10-man raids, and there are people who prefer 25-man raids. What's wrong with having both?

[Honorshammer]

Source: Worldie As long as 10 men versions require finishing the 25 men version i'm happy with it :P

Clarify: Do you mean your guild has to clear the 25 man before your guild can do the 10 man or do you mean that any guild has to clear the 25 man before any guild can do the 10 man?

They have described 10 mas as being their own progression, I don't see how linking it to the 25 man changes either.

[Honorshammer]

Source: Krashtork People having loyalties to small guilds are a big reason that it's hard to get 25 man guilds going!

Actually, you bring up an intersting point. It's not scientific but I've talked to any number of people who are looking to start/join 10 man only guilds for Wrath. The inarguable conclusion if that premise is true is a shrinkage in the available player pool from which 25 man guilds to recruit.

[Krashtork]

No, i've put plenty of effort into making a 25 man work. I used to put in effort to make a 10 man work. The 25 man was far more rewarding.
As far as making a small guild into a big guild and losing the "close knit" feel i've been in my share of big guilds and they are just as close knit.

Just think of all the personalities in your guild, multiply by 2, and add 5 or so drunks. There's your "big guild" experience.

And the issue i have with having 10 man options of all the content is that it will make recruiting for larger guilds even more of a nightmare. Small guild loyalty is the bane of my last guild's recruitment. No one wanted to leave their friends to come raid with us. That's their choice and it's fine and all, it just makes forming, and recruiting for, larger guilds more difficult.

Plus i feel having 10 man versions of the encounters will lead to a loss of epicness the 25 man encounters give.

I really really hope the 10 mans drop blues and the 25 mans drop epics. That would make me very happy.

[Honorshammer]

Source: Krashtork I really really hope the 10 mans drop blues and the 25 mans drop epics. That would make me very happy.

I forsee great sadness in your future. The way it's been described to me, and translating it to tBC would be BT10 would drop loot close to TK25.

[phaze]

Source: Krashtork No one wanted to leave their friends to come raid with us.

Why would you want to make people join a large guild, when they aren't interested? That doesn't sound very close-knit to me.

Plus i feel having 10 man versions of the encounters will lead to a loss of epicness the 25 man encounters give.

Discussed to death on the WoW Forums, but short response: Assuming both sizes are tuned properly, they will both be challenging for their target audience. If it's that big of a concern for you to preserve the 25-man feel, then just skip 10-man raids. That path will be available.

I really really hope the 10 mans drop blues and the 25 mans drop epics. That would make me very happy.

If you really wanted an epic encounter, the 25-man raid would drop lesser gear for harder bosses. Viva la challenge!

The real question is: why do you care what items are provided for a 10-man raid, if you're not interested?

[Krashtork]

Gee, why doesn't Blizz just mail everyone a free set of epics?? FFS It's like inflation of loot or something. Purple is the new blue. We need a new color or things to get fixed.

I demand full legendary drops in the last few 25 mans!

:P

[mero12513]

Source: Krashtork Gee, why doesn't Blizz just mail everyone a free set of epics?? FFS It's like inflation of loot or something. Purple is the new blue. We need a new color or things to get fixed. I demand full legendary drops in the last few 25 mans! :P

If you're being sarcastic, I apologize, but it's hard to tell on forums. What I don't understand is why the color of your gear matters so much. Take these two statemets:

1. "I have full Sunwell gear"
2. "My guild downed Kil'jaeden"

While both are obviously impressive, the latter seems more worthy. Caring about your own gear just makes you seem selfish and vain, instead of caring about progressing though and completing content with a group of people, whether it's 39, 24, 9, or 2.

[Megatrohn]

Source: Krashtork No, i've put plenty of effort into making a 25 man work. I used to put in effort to make a 10 man work. The 25 man was far more rewarding. As far as making a small guild into a big guild and losing the "close knit" feel i've been in my share of big guilds and they are just as close knit. Just think of all the personalities in your guild, multiply by 2, and add 5 or so drunks. There's your "big guild" experience. And the issue i have with having 10 man options of all the content is that it will make recruiting for larger guilds even more of a nightmare. Small guild loyalty is the bane of my last guild's recruitment. No one wanted to leave their friends to come raid with us. That's their choice and it's fine and all, it just makes forming, and recruiting for, larger guilds more difficult. Plus i feel having 10 man versions of the encounters will lead to a loss of epicness the 25 man encounters give. I really really hope the 10 mans drop blues and the 25 mans drop epics. That would make me very happy.

If having 10 man versions of the raids introduces recruiting problems for 25 man raid guilds, wouldn't that mean that most people don't REALLY like the 25 man raids, and would rather run the 10 man versions if they were available? Currently, people have to make a choice between raiding with friends (in a 'small guild') or raiding with you, and in TBC, they don't really have a choice because their choice of 10 mans is Kara or ZA full stop.

Also, it has already been stated that the 10 mans would drop loot that is slightly inferior in comparison to 25 mans, why is this still an issue? If Blizzard mailed you a full set of epics from the 25 man raids at the start of the expansion, would you quit WoW because your gear is already 'maxed out' so to speak?

Or, to further expand on your point of Blizzard giving gear to people who 'deserve it', why not make it so that the first few server kills of a raid boss drop legendaries, with kills that come later on yielding purples, then blues?

[Krashtork]

Or, to further expand on your point of Blizzard giving gear to people who 'deserve it', why not make it so that the first few server kills of a raid boss drop legendaries, with kills that come later on yielding purples, then blues?

This would actually be a radical idea so long as the boss is an end boss. I'm in favor. Would I be among the people who will see the legendaries? No, but I would say that the server first killers earned it.

And why can't you raid with 24 friends as opposed to 9? People make it seem like 25 man raids are HUGE and that joining a 25 man guild means having to play with complete strangers who you hate. Maybe i'm just a more social person than most, but I have found that making 25 buddies is not that hard.

If people want to play with 10 people, fine by me, but it will mean that people looking for 25 man raid guilds will probably be more than willing to settle for 10 man guilds which will decrease the pickings for 25 man guilds to recruit from.

If Blizzard mailed you a full set of epics from the 25 man raids at the start of the expansion, would you quit WoW because your gear is already 'maxed out' so to speak?

Yes i would. More and more they are headed in this direction, which makes me sad. There are enough welfare epics out there that NO ONE should ever need to wear a blue after a week or so of hitting the level cap.

And yes, I am happy that 10 mans drop worse loot.

[thedrawrf]

I think 10 and 25 mans should drop equal loot. Why not? Who would say that ZA, at least the 1st through Farm times you went, was easy? Who could say that, even IF you were over geared?


25 mans are hard because you have to get people to work en-masse. Is that hard because the mechanic involved (Gronk no stand in fire, Gronk get hurt!) is difficult, or is it difficult because it is FRUSTRATING? Ke'al, the 5 man, is a reasonably hard and reasonably complex fight. The 25 man version is harder BECAUSE there are more people there who can screw up! Bosses are hard BECAUSE PEOPLE SCREW UP. But, to say that a 25 man boss is HARDER mechanics-wise than say, Hex Lord, is incorrect. Imo.

[Krashtork]

Hex lord is not as hard mechanics wise as 25 man Kael'thas at all.

25 man Kael'thas not only doesn't allow for people to screw up, it also requires a great deal of precision mechanic execution.

25 mans SHOULD get better loot drops because they will more than likely be much harder. Getting that many people online, getting them all to co-operate, executing a difficult plan and all that sorta stuff is harder to do with 25 people. Yes, it's harder to screw up with 10 people, but that only makes the win with 25 people more awesome.

[thedrawrf]

25 people is an excercise in frustration sooo much of the time. :P 25 people is 25 chances to screw up. It's like having extra parts in an engine, and then saying the engine is a better design. A good mid-way point would be to make it clear that 10 mans can be, and are sometimes, hard, and deserve no less reward.

[phaze]

Apologies; this one's long.

On topic:

25 mans SHOULD get better loot drops because they will more than likely be much harder.

This is a fallacy; you're assuming that both the 10-man and 25-man versions will be tuned for the same level of difficulty. This is not the case for LK; the devs have stated that the 25-man version will be 1 tier ahead by design, and will thus be tuning the instances accordingly.

If the instances were designed to be tuned for the same difficulty, there is no reason for the two raids to have different item quality.

To tie in the earlier example: I consider Malacrass to be a more challenging / better tuned encounter than any of the other T5 fights in SSC/Eye that drop iLvl 128 items. In turn, I consider Vashj and Kael'thas to be more challenging, and they both drop better loot accordingly. I'm very pleased with ZA's tuning, both for difficulty and for its item rewards.

My perspective:
My guild's raiding has stalled out due to summer inactivity. We're a relaxed group of friends, so we probably won't be doing any active recruiting in order to 'bulk up' for LK. This means I'm looking at mostly 10-man content in the near future, possibly 25-man later down the road.

If the devs properly tune the new LK raids so that the 10-man versions allow progression without requiring the 25-man drops/progression, then I'm happy. I couldn't care less what iLvl or quality-color gear they give me, and I certainly don't care about the quality of drops for people not in my raid. As long as the gear is sufficient for the intended progression, I'm sold.

I do feel that making the 25-man drops higher iLvl will mean that the people participating in 25-man raiding won't be able to enjoy any challenge with the 10-man version; but that's a design choice, and not something I plan on worrying much about.



Off topic:

Source: Krashtork Maybe i'm just a more social person than most, but I have found that making 25 buddies is not that hard. [people] will probably be more than willing to settle for 10 man guilds

For someone who claims to be social, you have a very poor understanding of why other people might prefer a different raid size.

Adding more people to a guild doesn't make it better, or worse. It just makes the guild bigger.

You bill yourself as an elitist. This is someone who
A) feels they are highly skilled
B) feels they deserve better status accordingly

However:

would you quit WoW because your gear is already 'maxed out' [at start of expansion]? Yes i would. And yes, I am happy that 10 mans drop worse loot.

From these statements, you fail (A) because you're not interested in skill/achievement. You're only interested in (B) - being better rewarded than someone else.

You're not subscribing to elitism. What you have instead, is an inferiority complex.

If you stop worrying about other people's gear and just focus on your own raid group, you'll probably be a lot happier and less likely to get so upset at the achievements of others.

[thedrawrf]

I think I hear the fat woman belting out a tune.

[Conus]

Source: phaze <Phaze's synopsis.>

That's fine.

But what about in situations like mine? For people on the fence, what motivation is there to do the 25 man stuff when you can just as easily do the 10 man versions?

[Conus]

[Double post]

[Arrivan]

I don't think the question of what quality loot drops in the raids should be brought into question here. As long as the gear you get from the raid instance size you choose to do is sufficient to let you do the next raid instance of that size, why does it matter exactly? PVP? No, you'll suck equally as much wearing 10 man or 25 man raid gear in PVP against people in PVP gear. So why else do they need equal gear? Daily quests and farming? A 25 man raider may kill mobs a tiny little bit quicker than someone in 10 man gear. Who cares? Leveling in the next expansion? I'd venture a guess that people wearing gear from 10 man Arthas or 25 man Arthas are still going to level pretty damn quickly regardless of the one tier difference in their gear. The only possible cause for concern I can think of is if someone tries to go from 10 mans to 25 mans somewhere down the track. However, their gear should be sufficient to hold their own in the 25 man they're doing and also be good enough for them to perform well in the previous 25 man to gear up to the rest of the group's standard. I know this is possible now because I have made the jump from Kara/ZA to BT/Hyjal and still pull my weight with my new guild.

Just to clarify my opinion, though I still think discussion about loot differences is unnecessary, I do agree with 25 mans having better loot. However as I have stated already as long as the loot you get in your chosen raid size is good enough for you to progress to the next instance without needing loot from the other size instance, what difference does it make if one gets purples and the other greens, except to peoples' egos?