The whole point is that there isn't a superior format, unless the sole concern is ilevel on gear or e-peen.Originally Posted by KnThrak
The perception that 10-mans are "inferior" is strictly a perception issue. If a 10-man guild upset that it doesn't get a first place achievement on wowprogress (or whatever site is in vogue nowadays) or that they don't get a mention on mmo-champion.com, that's really a e-peen issue imo and doesn't make 10-mans "inferior".
The whole basis right now seems to be that 10-mans should be rewarded with identical gear to 25-mans ... but there has been no real justification put forward why that has to be the case, especially since 10-man drops are sufficient to allow 10-man raiders to clear 10-man hardmodes. Right now, it just reads as "I don't like to do 25-mans (for whatever reason) and therefore should get same gear as 25-man raiders because .. well just because".
Hurting them how? If they're raiding 10-mans for social reasons, why in the world should 25-man drops affect them in any way whatsoever? No one has really addressed this point satisfactorily in my mind (not in this thread, not in any of the WoW forum threads). Why does it even matter that a 25-man raider can get gear that is of a higher ilevel when it doesn't impact a 10-man raider's playing style? In the past, it kinda made sense because PvE gear was crazy good in PvP .. but in a PvE context, how does it hurt a 10-man raider?This is all nice and acceptable until you get a team which plays 10man not for doability-reasons (cannot organize larger guild), but for social reasons. All of a sudden, you're hurting them without having any specific reason why you should.
Unless the argument you're trying to make is that a social guild needs better gear to clear 10-man hardmodes .. in which case I would argue that:
a) that's a skill issue and asking for better gear to bruteforce 10-man hardmodes is not the way to go; and
b) it sets a terrible precedent since social 25-man guilds should be entitled to the same benefit.
I think my real issue here (and if you bother to armory you know I spend about as much time in either mode anymore) is that 25 mans in practice are not generally harder. Keeping all the players in the raid coordinated is roughly as difficult but with 15 more people.
I am fine with the split in loot quality between 10 and 25... as long as the risk versus reward scale works out to match the split.
It's easy, while a lot of people say they don't, after conquering a dungeon once it becomes basically a gear up run. As long as there is gear to get there is motivation.
If both 10 and 25 men would award the same gear, the players who would do both would gear up too fast and lose interest in the game.
Blizzard wants to keep people busy and the way they're doing it with the 10 men, 25 men hardmodes is a smart one: there are just so much (smaller but more often) upgrades to get that people will be motivated to keep playing for long times.
The reason Sartharion three drakes was harder on 10 men was that it was basically a fight designed for 25 men and in 10 men you had problems because of taking three tank and three healers (which would be sensible) lowered your dps to such an extent you wouldn't make the fight. It actually showed the limitations of having to design fights fit for 10s and 25s. Basically we can do most content on 25 men with only 2 tanks at the moment. (where in the past 3-4 tank fights were not uncommon)
So in the end, I'd like to have back some 25 men only encounters or encounters which are substantialy different on 25 and 10 men. (Think as in a High King Maulgar fight where there would be only 2 instead of 4 adds or a magtherion with onlly 2 channelers.)
There are hardly any fights which require 3 or 4 tanks and I miss that.
Last edited by orcstar; 09-28-2009 at 02:21 AM.
Although I think it's wrong to use the word "superior", I think you need to recognise that there are things that can be built into a 25 man raid encounter that you can not put in a 10 man encounter.
When they design a 10 man encounter, they can't rely on you having all the various abilities in the game. So for example, if you don't dispel noths' debuff in 25 man you wipe, but because in 10 man you might not have a dispeler, the damage is tuned down to be healable. Now they don't tend to put too many of these things in these days, probably because designing encounters from scratch with 10 and 25 man in mind they can avoid them, but you can see big differences as recently as the northrend beasts (where the impale dot is significantly harder to manage in 25 man).
So fundamentally, when Blizzard design these encounters, they will sacrifice some elements of complexity/difficulty in the 10 man. There are notable exceptions in some of the hard modes, which you've already noted, but I would put it to you that those are exceptions and in fact mistakes on Blizzards tuning rather than a norm on which you can base assertions.
By doing only 10s, a raider deliberately allows his character to stay weaker than it could be. He is not using all tools available and may feel as if he isn't supporting the raid to the best of his abilities.
If, on the other hand, he gives in to the desire of improving in all possible ways and joins a PuG or other group to raid 25s, he'll return to his social 10s group so much stronger that it doesn't feel 'right' anymore. He is now tortured by the doubt of whether he's so strong thanks to player skill, or whether it's just the fact that he now outgears the content...
In other words, with loot disparity, 25s always feel more enticing from a character advancement point of view. Those who prefer 25-man raiding enjoy both their preferred environment and best possible loot, while those who prefer 10-man raiding are always torn between preference and (optimal) character advancement.
Wow, first of all, who are you to judge why people raid? I could raid because I like the colors, I pay my 15 bucks, it is my business. For a guy that is not a "loot whore", all your solutions are gear based.
You had some decent points about content but you turned me off with the I'm not a loot whore....people who raid 25's are loot whores....I want equal loot....but I'm not a loot whore mantra.
I raid 25's and 10's. I like 25's better. I raid 10's to fill in spots where I am having a hard time getting a drop in 25's. My guild is not fantastic. We are okay. I do find 10man content easier but that is probably because I out gear it....the bosses still fall for me like they fall for you.
You made a choice to run 10mans. I made a choice to run both. They are both valid choices. I believe the 10man "by choice" only raiders are a very very small group. On my server 10man guilds pug 25mans. Hardcore I won't step into a 25man guys are few and far between. You are a small niche group. Sorta like the people that stayed at 60 and wanted to still be vanilla raiders when BC started.
I see your frustration but I think you are fooling yourself. You want pretty loot that nobody else has and you do not want to do what it takes to get it. The equality you strive for is what is ruining the game for you. "Everything equal" means someone will get two 170 stam trinkets from a silly holiday boss. Your attitude is what caused the problem with WoW in the first place. Everyone is not equal. Everyone is not entitled.
I often figure 10man is only easier because it highlights each individualy character's gameplay (not gear) more. So if I take a 25man raid, pick 8-10 of the upper half of that raid, ofc relatively speaking the resulting 10man (even with 1-2 less adept players) is better than the 25man.My guild is not fantastic. We are okay. I do find 10man content easier but that is probably because I out gear it....the bosses still fall for me like they fall for you.
You kinda shave off the lower 15. :P
SQUEAK.
-- (The Death of Rats, Terry Pratchett, Soul Music)
I think a lot of people like to think that. I also think a lot of people like to overlook the gear advantage they bring in from doing 25 man normal modes, and overlook the nerfs to the actual encounter design to scale it down to 10 man.
I've raid lead in 10s, 25s, 20s and 40s. The reason I chose to do 10s almost exclusively now is that it allows me to run with people who don't irritate the hell out of me, who I know I can depend on, and who I actually want to spend a few nights each week raiding with. Having recruited for 25s and 40s before, particularly when you're not one of the top guilds on the server, it can be very hard to fill those sizes without taking a few people that just don't fit in well with the guild. You can either put up with them or kick them, but if they're healer #5 and you need 5 healers to raid... then you're really deciding whether your guild will raid that week or not. Some of us just decided that it's not worth the headache and now raid 10s exclusively, not because it's easier or harder but because we want to enjoy our time in the game to the fullest.
Some have asked, why would I want equal gear if I only run 10-man raids? Isn't 10-man gear sufficient for 10-man raids? Well sure, in theory. But the fact is that normal 25s right now aren't really harder in terms of individual performance, and this is fairly obvious because we can pug them. They may have additional mechanics, but they also allow you to bring enough people to deal with them. But the difference between the tiers is arbitrary. To put it simply: Is the 25-man raider really working harder and being challenged more than the 10-man raider? If not, then why the difference in rewards?
That aside, your points illustrate things that are harder for the 25-man group but wash over the parts that are made easier. I'm not hoping to start an argument here, just point out that each level has its own challenges.
Is it ever really that easy? What do you do when you've got all physical DPS? How do you work around only having druid healers? No CC? No misdirects? While there may be fewer possibilities in a 10 man, there are also fewer means available for dealing with those possibilities and a much greater impact in adjusting each piece.Extraordinarily easy to figure out proper player assignments. No question as to what has to be done due to the limited possibilities. My guild spent multiple nights tossing around individuals to adjust for DPS/healing slack on various sides. In a 10 man? Physical DPS right, caster left. Done.
Your numbers only account for raid wipe mechanics or fights where every single member counts. More often (especially in normal modes) you really need your tanks, healers, and top performers to survive while a couple lower performers are somewhat expendable. Despite that, flip your math around and consider the value of any given member of a 10 man raid vs. a 25. Each member of a 25 contributes to only 4% of your raid, compared to 10% in a 10-man. You can't pad any part of your 10-man raid without significantly hurting another. Swapping one DPS for an extra healer reduces your raid DPS by nearly 20%, compared to only 6% in a 25-man. Dual specs help here, but 25-man groups still come out far ahead on flexibility.Tiny room for error. 1/25 causes a wipe vs 1/10. Given the same playing ability and a arbitrary 1/5 chance of error. In a 10 man you would have a 10.7% chance that nobody would make in error. In a 25 man you would have a .378% chance for no error. SIGNIFICANT difference. The 10 man group would have 28 flawless attempts before the 25 man group had one.
The only reason the mechanic doesn't work in 10-man is because you can't expect 3 hunters in the raid. It doesn't mean the designers couldn't come up with an appropriate similar encounter for 10-man raids. Most fights don't have every single raider doing a distinct task. The Muru example only applies to fights where everyone has a critical job that isn't simply dps/tank/heal (and stay out of the fire!). And Muru was at the top end of BC raiding, well before hard modes- it was supposed to be hard!Right, in my previous example, 10 man M'uru. We relied on a 3 hunter rotation for misdirection for sentinels. A luxury not available in 10 mans. No option to remove that facet and, thus, an easier fight by a small degree.
Consider an alternate model in which encounter difficulty is balanced around complexity per individual, rather than the overall. It's possible in that model to require each tank to spend x% of their attention on the boss and y% on adds, for DPS to spend x% of the fight on boss DPS, y% on adds, and z% on unique environmental things. If you were to pull 10 players from that 25 man raid and balance around how hard the fight is for them, you'd have the 10-man equivalent. And don't discount the fact that most guilds aren't on the bleeding edge, we're watching videos here and reading strats before we even enter the room. Raid leaders still need to adapt the strat to their group, but we're not going in blind anymore. The learning curve people are concerned with is irrelavent shortly after the encounter hits the PTR and the world first is claimed. There's still room for a first 10-man and first 25-man success.
All that to say... there are challenges on both sides, and creative design can allow each to be equally difficult for every member of the raid team. I'm biased toward 10s because that's my current choice. I honestly think Bliz could chose to make either mode more difficult, or make both equal. Right now they've clearly decided for whatever reason that 25 is supposed to be harder than 10 and some of us just have to live with that.
personally I wish they'd go back to 40 man raids. I always felt those had a more "epic" feel to them. (of course, I LOVED everquest's 72 man raids...)
It is now a bit off topic but I do not and never will believe 10mans are the same difficulty as 25mans. The problem is how the loot is done. I do not believe that there are any real 10man only purests out there. People get upgrades where they can. An accomplished 10man raider can pug into anything and BAM now they have gear that is a couple tiers above their current content thus making things easier on them.... They made a silly achievement for purests, but what is hilarious is that most of these hardcore 10man people will have to take off gear to do it.
Now lets throw out gear and take personal experience. In my experience, Ulduar and ToC were easier on 10man when they both started. My guild does 25's Wed/Thurs....a group of us jump into 10man Tuesday night. Usually kick more butt than we do on Wed/Thurs. The thing is, it is a fluid group. Tanks usually stay the same but DPS and Heals are constantly switching....so the taking the "top 10" and leaving the lower 15 does not really mean anything to me.
This is the bit I'm going to object to.
You are quantifying your effort as being more or at least equal to that of a 25-man raider and therefore you are entitled to the same gear.
1) Your method of quantifying your effort is purely personal. I could just as easily say that 25-man raiders work just as hard or harder than 10-man raiders and therefore we are entitled to better drops. I can PuG a 10-man too btw so should I therefore say that 10-mans are retardly easy?
2) Speaking as a raid leader, 25-mans are harder than 10-mans. In 25-mans, you need to organise 24 other people of varying skill. In a 10-man, you can cherry pick who you want to bring to an instance. There is a level of organisational difficulty there that is completely different.
3) Using Heroic ToC as an example: our best 10-man group has cleared 10-man Heroic ToC. Our 25-man hasn't even come close to killing the first boss in 25-man Heroic ToC. It's overly simplistic to say that 25-mans are easier because we have more people to throw at the encounter ... a well-tuned fight makes it challenging and exceptionally so on 25-mans.
4) What I get doesn't detract from what you get. Why should it? Again, why does it matter what a 25-man raider has in terms of gear compared to a 10-man raider if the 10-man raider has the tools available to clear the content he wants to raid? Still no real answer to this besides "epeen".
Unless there is a situation where my guild fights your guild for your instance and our 25-man gear prevents you from zoning in, there is very little reason why the difference in gear should matter.
You made a choice to raid in 10-mans for reasons I can applaud. Not raiding with idiots is a really really good choice. But that was YOUR choice. It wasn't forced on to you. Give the same courtesy to others and not try to create a system that caters strictly to your choice/preference.
How about this for gear rewards:
Tier A:
10 Norm < 10 Hard = 25 Norm < 25 Hard
Tier B:
[10 Norm = 25 Norm (Tier A)] < 10 Hard = 25 Norm < 25 Hard
Tier C:
Rinse, Repeat
Justification/Explanation:
The differences in ilvl between 10 and 25 man are justified by the complexity of the fight that Blizzard can present the players. I.e. mechanic changes, and the fight requires more player abilities to complete in 25 man.
10 Hard should reward the exact same gear as 25 normal. These players completing 10 hard have been shown deserving (based on skill and group coordination) to be presented with higher ilvl gear. The entire loot table for the 10 hard boss would just become the normal 25 loot table if the boss is completed on Hard mode. However, not as many loot items would drop per kill in accordance with the smaller raid size.
10 Hards rewarding 25 normal gear, badge loot catch-ups, and 25 normal pugs or occasional guild runs get nearly all players ready for the next tier of content (either 10 norm or 25 norm).
To implement this:
1) All Bosses need a hard or Heroic mode - *solved* with CC's new raid format.
2) 25 man loot should be upgraded versions of 10 man loot - *solved* with new CC loot format.
Advantages to this system:
1) Reduced amount of loot across the board. Easier for players, easier for blizzard.
2) Reduced number of ilvl tiers. Gear scaling is out of control. Limits necessary ilvl tiers from 4 (as in Ulduar) to 3.
3) Hardcore 10 man groups have access to the near highest gear but they must work for it. This is assuming Heroic/Hardmodes remain hard.
4) 25 man raids must still work to get any thing better than what they got now.
5) 25 man raiders still are rewarded for running their 10 man's. Unless you are in a very very good 25 man guild.
Just some thoughts.
//kak
Last edited by Arikak; 09-29-2009 at 12:31 AM.
"A man can learn twice as much from milking a cat as two men can from a very tall fourth man.
- Mark "Alec Baldwin" Twain
If only there was a way of getting gear out of the equation.
Although it's doable one of the biggest things that keeps players playing is the chase for gear.
Gearless warcraft. :P No bonuses, no extra stats, everyone wearing however they look cool, just skills.
First of all, congratulations on a well-structured and nicely argued OP. I've read a number of threads that basically argue the same point and this is by far the best I've read so far and the first I've felt warranted a response in kind.
Before I do though, a quick point on Hard Modes themselves - there are at least two examples of a "Hard Mode" that pre-date even The Burning Crusade, being Dire Maul Tribute Runs and engaging Hakkar without killing each of the Zul'Gurub bosses. The former yields better loot while the latter is simply for kudos. What changed with Sartharian, rather than being loot, was achievements - it was now possible, through Titles, Mounts and the achievement itself to prove your status in a way impossible with previous attempts. I honestly believe that it was the (now demonstrable) kudos attached to these kills which was the primary driving force behind them rather than simply enhanced loot drops.
Which of course, would argue in favour of 25-mans yielding the same (or similar) loot to 10-mans. After all, kudos is a primary factor in tackling these encounters (how many people are still doing Sarth 3D despite its loot being long surpassed even by badge vendors?) and there's no reason to suspect that tackling 25-man content would be any different in terms of getting the kills done.
So it's not an issue of the 25-man content being left untouched, however I believe it would truly be an issue of sustainability. Getting a title for completing a 25-man encounter would be something you did just once before migrating to the logistically-easier gear farming from 10-mans. You identify this later in the thread but I disagree with your argument here.
Primarily you centre your point around the Sarth 3D encounter and the fact that it is notably harder on 10-man than on 25-man. It certainly has a far more slender margin for error in the 10-man version yet, notably, Blizzard have said in blue posts as well (I believe) as at Blizzcon that this was a blip - that the 10-man was never actually intended to be the more difficult of the two and that future Hard Modes would address this issue. For the most part, I'd argue that they have succeeded in this regard.
Case in point: Hodir Hard. In 25-man he has 32.5m HP and the average raid might have, at most, 21 DPS for this encounter. (32.5m / 21) / 180 seconds = 8597.88 DPS each. On 10-man he has 8.4m HP and you'd likely have 7 DPS. (8.4m / 7) / 180 seconds = 6666.66r DPS each. In terms of what's expected of your raiders, it's clear that the 25-man version represents a significant increase in DPS, even if not specifically skill. The difference in gear you get from 25-man against its 10-man equivalent does not make up for such a wide difference in the output required of your raid, so it would typically be something you completed later than the 10-man version. Thorim Normal is another fantastic example of an encounter being far harder on 25-man than 10-man.
Where I do agree with you is with 10-man Hard Mode loot being placed as equal to 25-man Normal Mode loot. Or, more specifically, that I do not agree that this is right. Typically 10-man Hard Modes are more difficult than 25-man Normals (especially so in the Coliseum). The difficulty here of course being that you'd effectively be bringing four iLevel tiers per raiding tier, perhaps 232 Normal-10, 245 Normal-25, 258 Hard-10, 271 Hard-25. The disparity between 10-man casual guilds (Normal-10) and hardcore 25-man guilds (Hard-25) is even bigger.
While the Coliseum's difficulty level may have fallen far shorter that expected, this tier did get a lot of things right in my opinion - the same badges drop from both 10 and 25-man versions which is definitely a step in the direction you desire. In addition, the mid-level Tier 9 equipment is available to both 10 and 25-man guilds alike, albeit with stricter requirements for 10-man.
Perhaps that is the way it should be? 25-man content, even if exactly the same in most respects, is made harder simply for the fact that getting 24 other people to do things right is more complicated than getting 9 others to. Of that there is no doubt. In addition, as I mentioned at the start, there would need to be some form of carrot in order for people to use the 25-man content beyond simply doing it the first time - why would Blizzard want to spend so much time and effort on tuning a dungeon for 25 people when they know it'll likely just be used for the first few weeks during the rush to Server First?
So while I fundamentally still disagree with the idea that 10 and 25-man loot should be the same, I agree on some aspects - firstly, I think the iLevel budget should be spent in the same proportion between the two tiers - I know how frustrating it can be for people to see loot that's not only got less budget available but that was more poorly optimised to boot. 3.2 did begin to move in this direction and I think it's the right one to be going in.
Secondly, I think that the top level of loot (hard mode drops, basically) should be available to both 10 and 25-man guilds alike, however in order to encourage 25-man raiding, there would be a significant increase in the speed at which you could accumulate this gear - maybe a larger number of drops per boss, 2.5x more badges dropped or that kind of thing. Eventually, both guilds would be able to acquire the best they could, but the 25-man guild would get it quicker to reward the extra layer of organisation and difficulty involved in acquiring it.
The Sarth 3D example that continues to get used is a TERRIBLE choice. The fight was and is incredibly poorly tuned, especially in the original tier when a DK or Warlock tank was nearly a must have, and now it's PUGGED. CONSTANTLY. Sarth 3D 10 is a 60 second burn now because of the higher gear level. Half the server, if not more, has their Nightfall title. You still can't do that with the 25 man version feasibly.
The reality is it's been shown over and over again that players respond only to incentive. They had to incentivize heroics again to get people playing them. If you take away the incentive from 25s, they will die. Almost completely. They had to incentivize 3s and 5s to get people to stop focusing on 2v2 arenas. Players will ALWAYS take the shortcut. The whole achivement system is about offering a carrot, offering an incentive to take on a challenge. 10s and 25s dropping the same loot would totally bork this.
The biggest problem with 10 man content in WotLK isn't the loot levels - it's the itemization. You know why 25 man guilds are still running tens? Because blizzard has built it so you have to to be the best. Let's look at some examples (tanking examples, because of the forum, but others exist):
Naxx 10: Defense trinket trinket was virtually must have going into Ulduar, especially for Hodir (curse my resilience gems...)
Ulduar 10: Best in slot EH shield, First 232 shield available anywhere, BiS EH weapon, 2nd best trinket, best avoidance trinket, highest potential stamina boots (not like Firefighter was an easy 10, but still. That's where they were hiding).
TOC 10: Like... EVERY TOC 10 245 lvl item is better than the 25 man counterpart. By a mile. Why? Simple. Sockets. For nearly EVERY slot, the TOC 10 heroic version is better than the 25 man version, with the exception of the trinket. Bracers, Neck, Belt, Chest, Boots, and for god's sake the Weapons (there isn't even one on 25 man normal.... at all.).... If you want to be an elite tank and push elite 25 man heroic mode content, you owe it to yourself and your guild to be pushing the 10 man.
bah. /rant.
This is one of the important parts that a lot of people tend to forget. Almost every time someone points out that "25m content is harder, so it deserves more!", they don't recall the reason behind it: it was designed that way to start with.
If 10m content were tuned to be more difficult than 25m content, then the roles would be reversed.
Encounters don't become harder just by having more people around. They have to be designed that way.
If you can cherry pick for 10m raiding, you can cherry pick for 25m raiding. Same rules apply: you need a sufficiently large squad to pick from, for that respective raid size.
Gear from the larger raids trivializes smaller raid content. If this were prevented, you'd be able to value 10m progression substantially more than currently. 10m raiding has the capacity to be epic in scope similar to 25m raiding, if the designers wanted it to.
Then there are the players who want to raid both 10m and 25m content. If they are primarily geared via 10m raiding, they are undergeared compared to other 25m raiders on the same content. That's a disadvantage which restricts the flexibility of the player wanting to switch things around.
Also, the age-old concern of where you can use this gear is revisited. If gear from 10/25m raiding was only usable in that particular endeavor/raidsize, there would be no conflict. But you can use that gear to make your character better at lots of other activities (solo, 5mans, PvP), not just killing bosses at that specific raid size. With dedicated PvP gearing, this is less of a concern than it once was. However it's still important to consider, particularly with respect to weapon itemization.
Mert's post makes some excellent points and analysis. A few comments for him:
/nod. But does this need to be rewarded with higher iLvl? Or, as you mentioned, could it be rewarded through faster gains instead?
I think the same argument could be made for 10m content. The current carrot for 10m? Easier to farm slightly-inferior gear, since encounters are designed to be easier. If this carrot were given to 25m raiding (faster gains as you mentioned), I don't see 25m content disappearing.
Blizzard has the capacity to design 10m and 25m content to be equally challenging, and equally rewarding. That's what I'd like to see in the future.
I'm guessing we have a disconnect. How do players not get to still chase gear? In fact its nearly the current system except for 10 hard dropping 25 normal gear. Plenty of gear, bonuses, stats, etc.
"A man can learn twice as much from milking a cat as two men can from a very tall fourth man.
- Mark "Alec Baldwin" Twain
I quite agree, Phaze - faster looting is probably better than superior gear across the board (with some exceptions, of course - see Zothor's post above).
The key thing with tuning the difficulty of 10s to be on a par with 25s, however is that in a 25-man it's reasonable for the designers to assume that every possible buff/debuff can be applied so tuning a fight is easy. Replicating that for 10-man content, where it's relatively unlikely you'll get all the available buffs and there's no consistency between what buffs one raid might have over another, is much harder by comparison. It's a big part, to my mind, of why the Hodir-25 Hard Mode has such a steeper DPS requirement than its 10-man equivalent - in short, you can all but guarantee that you have Heroism etc where it'd be unfair to make a Shaman mandatory in a 10-man encounter.
As a result, 10-man difficulty is a lot more fluid due to different raid compositions, whereas the equivalent 25-man encounters are pretty static and easy to balance. Until Blizzard truly does homogenise the classes and make every buff or ability have an equivalent from two to three other classes, I fear we will always see the 10-man being notably easier than 25-man content should you bring the right raid composition (Sarth 3D notwithstanding).
Part of the problem of this is the buff problem.
In 25-man raids, it is relatively easy to have all buffs/debuffs. Therefore, all 25-man content that is tuned to be difficult must be tuned to have all buffs/debuffs.
In 10-man raids, you can get most relevant buffs/debuffs with a good composition, but it is much more difficult.
This means that encounter tuning is tricky for 10-man content, because if you tune it to have a lot of buffs/debuffs, raids that don't have certain compositions that maximizes buffing will have a difficult time making any progess. However, if you tune content as Blizzard has and tune it to have a few necessary buffs, content will be trivialized by those compositions with great buffs.
This makes tuning 10-mans to be equal in difficulty to 25-mans tricky.
No matter what the complexity of a truly complex encounter must be adjusted to match the raid size. An encounter can't require 3-4 tanks in 10-man. It can't require 2-3 Priests or 3 Hunters. In this way, content must have complexity removed in order to make it workable for 10 players.
I believe that no matter what there should be a reward given to 25-man raiders for the reasons stated above that isn't available to 10-man raiders. It doesn't have to be better gear and can be more of it, as mentioned before.
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