The Weekly Marmot -- Cataclysm Raid French Fries

[Hammerfists]

I've been in several PUG ICC25s on my alt where we wiped twice on marrowgar and disbanded. I've never joined an ICC10 pug and not gotten to DBS (though it's about 60/40 pre-15% buff on whether you'd get DBS).

One caveat though, today's 10 are tuned to be easier than 25. Cata will have 10/25 tuned to be the same difficulty.

[Mangea]

I've been in several PUG ICC25s on my alt where we wiped twice on marrowgar and disbanded. I've never joined an ICC10 pug and not gotten to DBS (though it's about 60/40 pre-15% buff on whether you'd get DBS).

That's approaching the Cataclysm raid scenario with a WotLK mindset, where the 10 mans really are easier than the 25s. In Cata, it may be that the two raid sizes are of equal difficulty.

At that point, like Spiritus pointed out above, the risk has more to do with unreliable players. But an problem of unreliable players, or a D/C, could go both ways. A 25 man raid may have more people, and thus more opportunities for there to be an unreliable player, but the overall impact of one bad player will be less in a 25 than in a 10. So in that case, a 10 might be riskier.

Then again, this is really all just speculation.

[Chamenas]

One caveat though, today's 10 are tuned to be easier than 25. Cata will have 10/25 tuned to be the same difficulty.

Only if you're doing 10 in gear from the previous tier's 25 mans. If you go strict 10 man, you'll find that the difficulty is quite equal.

[Whatarush]

Blizz is a business, the overall objective is to maximise revenue. There are far more "casuals" than there are "hardcores", but members of both groups pay the same subscription fee. Ergo, it is obvious that their aim should be to please casuals rather than hardcores. It is extremely difficult/impossible to please one group without alienating the other, so, Cataclysm's design will continue to make WoW easier and easier, with every 1 hardcore player who quits the game replaced by 2 new casual players.

[Terence]

yeah i like the little message at the end. nice shirt

[doomdust]

well i like the new changes couse for people like me who is in a guild where we dont have people for 25 man but only 10 man so i cant get as good gear as people that raid 25 man. and i really hate 25 man. lets take an example: my main dont need loot from 10 man but could use some of that 25 man loot from icc but why bother when i know am gonna loose the loot to somone who does like 2k dps and stands in flame (lord marrowgar) and is thinking "why do i have to move? we have healers dont we ?" and still gets loot instead of people who imo should got it. people who take some time to gear them up for it and somone who is learning all the tacts 100%just to be sure and not fuck somthing up. so thats why i think that its a good idea that the same loot is gonna drop on 10 and 25 man modes so i can go 10 man and get the same gear while am raiding with people i like and enjoy plaing with rather than bring 15 people extra where 7-8 of them just runs around and dont know a shitt of what they are doing and what they are suposed to do most of the time.

[Olat]

As the guild leader of a decent 25m Raiding guild, I was mixed with emotions when I read these changes.

Before I get started, I apologize, I know its long. there is no TLR version.

1. The aspect of killing off 25m raiding is still there.
2. Killing off 10m is apparent especially after the video which is a concept i didnt think about
3. More Loot = Bored Faster?
4. Same Lock Outs for Heroic and for 10m. but more Raids to do? Good or Bad?

Lemme go over my 4 topics here.
1. Killing off 25m's are still apparent:
Ponder on this, So day 1. 25 people show up (probably more since the first day of raiding is usually Farm Day IE First 8 Bosses in ICC) they clear up all the bosses not including any off the end bosses. YAY! Day 2. Its now progression day and we all know people stop showing up on progression days. Its a problem every guild has. so you have 19 people that want to raid. Well since you cant raid with 19 people the guild decides to switch it to 10m Mode. 9 people are left out. 9 people are sharing the EXACT Raid ID as the 10 people about to go off and continue raiding.

So that means if those 10 people kill ANY of the last 4 bosses in ICC those other 9 are excluded, saved, and screwed. This will happen and it will definitely cause for ALOT of in guild drama. Causing people to leave their current guild. Hell we have drama like this with the 30 or so people I have now. I pick my best 25 and or people who have better raid attendance and thus higher rank in my guild, and people complain. So imagine if not just 2-3 people get excluded but 9 or more?

2. Killing off 10m is apparent especially after the video which is a concept i didnt think about:
10m's hard or 25m Easier. Either way it seems to be a problem. Most serious, notice i didnt say hardcore, 25m Raiding guilds didnt have much trouble on bosses until the end bosses in each wing of ICC 25m. Ya Saurfang and lady deathwhisper gave some trouble but blizzard nerfed them or a work around was found out and they became boring and a joke way too fast. If you scale the diffculty down for 25m you can effectively kill off 25m Raiding or make it soo simple its boring. If you scale 10m Difficulty up with the limited number of players, the mechanics of the fight become way more drastic if a mistake occurs. Say a DPS dies or something in 25m No big deal you have alot more to cover it up. in 10m. You only have at most 6 dps (with 2 tanks 2 healers). Like was said in the video: this could lead to stagnant guild progression.

3. More Loot = Bored Faster?:
This is something that worries me greatly, that no one has even talked about yet, atleast that I have seen.

So you goto 25m you get 6 peices of loot now. YAY! Really? so you run 25m for about a month. Your now 100% geared out. You cant get a single upgrade any more. So you get bored. Why show up? No loot in it for you. Some people just enjoy raiding like my self, so we go because were a Raid Leader or Guild leader and just love the thrill of downing a boss. Can you say that for every guild member? of course not. Some people are in it for loot and if you say thats not true your kidding your self. Its a loot based game.

Now multiply this with the factor that the 25m difficulty might be scaled down to make it more like 10m? Imagine how fast some guilds will be sharding everything in Normal mode and only need like 1-2 upgrades from heroic. I say give it 1 month maybe 2 before you get bored with the level of challenge with no possible reward besides just downing a boss you think is trivial anyways.

4.Same Lock Outs for Heroic and for 10m. but more Raids to do? Good or Bad?
Already mentioned how the 9 people getting left out for the 25m guilds are gunna feel. Well now imagine the said raid lock outs for Heroic on top of that. Hell I hate that idea now. I enjoyed being able to go into ToC 25m knock it out , then go push on ToGC. Atleast if you couldnt down a boss in ToGC you accomplished something got maybe a possible upgrade for a few people and some badges. Now in ICC you just breeze threw ICC 25m and then spend hrs on a HM boss, just to turn it off and kill him if your guild couldn't do it. What about if your guild just downed LK 25m. and now you wanna work on HM's. Oh wait ... Nope cant do that. Raiding for the week is done.
--------------------------------------------

All in all I think Blizzard is forcing casual raiding on us. Its where the money is and so as a business it makes sense. As an avid gamer, I think its trash. I will give it a chance. Im not that biased, to just shrug it off. I have been playing MMO's since before the internet was invented on my local BBS MuD Door game for those old school games you know what I mean. These changes leave a stale and bitter taste in my mouth and TBH I dont know if I will be able to stomach this all when it finally comes out.

-Olat
<The Catalyst>

[Hammerfists]

Only if you're doing 10 in gear from the previous tier's 25 mans. If you go strict 10 man, you'll find that the difficulty is quite equal.

I totally agree. Thats why i find this as a poor example of what things are to come in Cataclysm. Similar "difficulty" is the x factor. All we can do is take them at their word right now and hope that this pans out alright.

[Atromar]

I have a question that I'm unsure was addressed yet but with the new 10 and 25 man raid group sharing the same lockout can the raid size be changed during the lockout?

Our guild is a 10 man raiding guild but lets assume we could get 25 people. Generally our first raid night of the week tuesday all of our raiders show. It seems that in our second and third night we sometimes have trouble getting the rest of our raiders. Could we then go down to 10 man version for the remainder of that raid so that we don't get hurt by 10 people who couldn't make it?

[Spiritus]

I have a question that I'm unsure was addressed yet but with the new 10 and 25 man raid group sharing the same lockout can the raid size be changed during the lockout?

Our guild is a 10 man raiding guild but lets assume we could get 25 people. Generally our first raid night of the week tuesday all of our raiders show. It seems that in our second and third night we sometimes have trouble getting the rest of our raiders. Could we then go down to 10 man version for the remainder of that raid so that we don't get hurt by 10 people who couldn't make it?

It is difficult to say. The folks who communicate for Blizzard [to the player base at least] are notoriously cryptic and their comment on this was none too enlightening. I wouldn't think much more of it until someone has had a chance to play with the system in beta.

[Hammerfists]

Blizz is a business, the overall objective is to maximise revenue. There are far more "casuals" than there are "hardcores", but members of both groups pay the same subscription fee. Ergo, it is obvious that their aim should be to please casuals rather than hardcores. It is extremely difficult/impossible to please one group without alienating the other, so, Cataclysm's design will continue to make WoW easier and easier, with every 1 hardcore player who quits the game replaced by 2 new casual players.

This is a two dimensional argument. It holds that all a player can provide for Blizzard is his $15 a month. This is simply not true. "Hardcore" players usually go outside the box and provide theorycraft, add-ons, and sites just like this one which help promote the game. Without contributions from both parties a game can not be as hugely successful as WoW is today.

Furthermore the classic WoW forum catchphrase of "Hardcore vs Casual" doesn't apply here. Nor does this change somehow arise from a "majority". I've seen people throw this last one around a lot and I can't fathom how you can quantify that when taking all of WoW's raiders around the world (I doubt even Blizzard could either). The change comes from certain aspects of raiding that Blizzard feels need to change to make it more enjoyable.

1) Slower gearing and less experience per boss per week increases the lifespan of a tier
2) Allows for clear distinction of two raiding ladders (10 or 25) with the player's choice to choose which one to participate in
3) For areas like Europe 10 man format helps in creating guilds of the same language without feeling like raiding inferior content
4) 25 is still getting a bonus in more loot, this has yet to be seen by how much and if this will be the only reward. Point is it's something

To see the pitfalls that may arise just read Spiritus' post at the top of page 2

[Bodasafa]

Says the 15 extra people in the 25man who could possibly remember that it is their grandma's sister's birthday party so they type "OMG I'm so sorry, gtg. kthxtho, bai!" and /camp. Just because the difficulty as pertaining to iLVL may be the same, doesn't mean there is the same risk of a PuG raid hitting a brick wall in both raid sizes.

That is, of course, unless they make the first boss of every raid a hardcore coordination fight, which I seriously doubt will happen.

EDIT: Or, if you prefer a less colorful example, a simple D/C.

Late to the party again, but Spiritus communicates what I was speaking to Lore. Put aside the difficulty between the 2 versions and just look at the simple logistics, 15 more people = a greater chance of failure in WoW, especially in a PuG environment.

[mero12513]

My thoughts on the D/C and absent raider issue:

How is this any different from today? If we have people D/C during 25-man, or if people don't show up on night 2, then I'm stuck for that week. Sure, I can still raid 10. But I don't need gear from 10. I need gear from 25, because it's different gear. Gear-wise, the effect is the same. It doesn't solve a problem we have currently, but it doesn't create that problem.
I feel like people are pretending that being able to run both 10s and 25s makes missing one of them less of an issue. That's not the case. Current badge prices exist assuming that you run both 10 and 25-man. Missing one still hurts from that regard. And when gear is different in 10 and 25, missing one still leaves you out of all the gear you need in it.
To be fair, that is only the gear perspective. There's also the issue of just not having anything to do, which is certainly a legitimate concern.

On another point, having more, smaller raids is a huge reduction to the cost of losing a lockout do to player problems. Most likely, we'll see raids get less numerous and longer as new tiers open up, but in the beginning, we'll probably see instances similar to what we had in wrath: 3 instances, 2 of which were very short.

Because there will be shorter instances, one of the most apparent and important issues with the new system (the player substitution and reliability problem) is largely alleviated. This allows them to test out how well the new design feels out in the wild, which is almost always different than how we predict it will feel.

[Mwawka]

25 people show up (probably more since the first day of raiding is usually Farm Day IE First 8 Bosses in ICC) they clear up all the bosses not including any off the end bosses. YAY! Day 2. Its now progression day and we all know people stop showing up on progression days. Its a problem every guild has.

This could actually work out better for 25 progression guilds with the new system. There are many people who would prefer to bang away at a new boss for a whole night than farm the bosses up to content that hasn't been cleared. I'm in a guild that often chooses the path of least resistance and at times it frustrates me. If it is truly impossible to make 10 man as challenging as 25 man, I would expect the players who are just in it for easier loot to take that route. Guilds that choose a 25 man progression path could see an infusion of players who have a like minded approach to the game and you may end up with a more reliable group of players who chose their game path for the same reasons rather than people who are just there because they want the best loot possible, but only when it's easy to get.

[Spiritus]

If it is truly impossible to make 10 man as challenging as 25 man...

I haven't read every single post on this subject, but speaking for myself, I believe its is truly daunting to make 10mans and 25mans equally challenging without abandoning, or at the least simplifying, interesting encounter mechanics. It isn't a matter of 10s should be easy and 25s should be hard, its just that adding or loosing 15 bodies drastically changes how an encounter must be designed. When you must have two different design paths, the stasis of "equal" becomes subjective. However, since this is the interwebs generation, one will ultimately be perceived as more difficult than the other. When this eventually occurs, Blizzard will have a choice to make. Do they allow one progression path to be the perceived "least resistance" or do they continue to tinker? Remember 2v2s? Blizzard was having such a nightmare trying to balance 2v2s they eventually just said: "We cannot properly balance all class comps in 2v2s without fundamentally changing how we do class design. If you want the best gear, do 3v3s or 5v5s where we can promote more synergy and individual advantage is weaker. We know 2v2s are popular, but we want you to play 3v3 or 5v5 instead because it prevents us from having to overhaul the entire balance of the game."

Not particularly an elegant solution to a challenging problem. In this situation, 2v2s were the most popular option because it required less coordination and you relied on less people to play AND it offered the same rewards as 3v3 & 5v5. How did Blizzard solve this dilemma? They removed rewards from 2v2. Now 3v3 is the preferred team size for Arenas. I do not want to see this happen to PvE, where the community agrees on something that flies in the face of Blizzard's design goals, which in turn prompts a "godmode" fix to satiate the situation.

[Mwawka]

I don't for a minute think that it will be easy for Blizzard to tune 10 and 25 man equally and I do believe that the basic logistics of 25 man will make it feel more challenging. There are certain mechanics that are just harder with 25 people. However, I also don't think 10 mans are tuned as easily as people think they are. Most of the people saying 10 mans are a joke haven't run a 10 man in the intended gear levels since Naxx, so it's not fair to just dismiss them so easily. I think 10 mans can be tuned to be closer to 25 man in difficulty, but the smaller number of people to manage makes assembling a group without weak links easier and will certainly minimalize the difficulty of certain mechanics. Here's hoping Blizzard can actually find some new boss fight mechanics that can equally challenge both group sizes.

[veeman88]

Very good analysis in the upcoming changes and I enjoy how you touched on every available bit of information to raid changes. As far as the issue of not killing 10 and 25 man players goes I believe the issue will work itself out well. Without any interference from blizzard there will already be those that will stick with 25 man raiding and those that choose otherwise in their guilds. I have participated in leading a couple guilds and personally I would rather have a small group of 10-20 reliable players than trying to manage a group of 25. Now their are some Guild Leaders that feel differently and enjoy the challenge of managing that many. I think that the extra loot in 25 is just their to keep the large group raiding aspect alive for those who wish to do it, though there are already those who prefer the small, core raider based guilds that just haven't been able to stay afloat due to the significant difference in gear stats from 10 to 25.
Kudos Blizz for providing an alternative to those of us who do not enjoy the headaches of 25 man.

[Stillkillin]

Interesting changes. What it will do (imo) is push the hardcore 25 man players more towards 25 man only raiding, possibly causing the 10 man raiders to be at a disadvantage in progression overall (but still get the nice gear ocasionally).

I'm not sure what they mean by making 10 man harder than 25 man? Currently 25 mans offer more room for carry and better overall raid dps (per person) than a 10 man group. Meaning, 10 mans have two tanks and two healers (3rd healer on some fights). This takes up 40%-50% of the raid group leaving the other 50%-60% for dps on any given fight. Most 25 man raids use two tanks and five healers, one dps has a tanking offspec, leaving 68% of your raid members as dps at all times and 72% of your raid as dps on the fights that only require two tanks. Consider the extra buffs from a 25 man group and 25 mans quickly come out ahead of 10 mans, only having to contend with a few extra mechanics and extended boss stats. In 10 mans each player also accounts for more of the group, deaths cause major problems in 10 mans and only minor setbacks in a 25 man. Taking these things into account and personal experience I would have to say that 10 man is currently more demanding than 25 man raiding (beyond the basic problem of getting everyone on the same page which only covers a few very technical demanding fights) if the player has followed a strict 10man only progression route.

To put this into perspective, the last raiding guild I was in went farther in 25 man than in two out of three of their ten man groups. Their best ten man group went 8/12 in 10 man and went 7/12 in 25 man with the lesser geared players tagging along. If the 10 mans were currently that much easier I would assume to see a larger margin of progress in the 10 man groups than the 25 man group(especially considering the best 10man group had 25 man gear on each person).

[salscorpi]

To answer Scyla above, no Blizzard has only stated that they wished to bring the difficulty level of 10s & 25s in-line with each-other. While most people are seeing this as 10s becoming more difficult (because it would validate the larger 10m raiding population), it is possible that 25mans could be tuned down. This is purely a wait and see deal.

Is Blizzard trying to kill 25man raiding? No, that would be extreme. However, it isn't like they haven't removed incentive from popular things in the past (see 2v2 Arenas) or outright removed raiding formats (40mans). Regardless, I believe you sugar coated your presentation by not bringing up the most problematic issues this change will bring:

(1) Reduction of both quantity and quality of PuGing. With only one lockout, you will not have 10man raiders PuGing into 25man raids or 25man raiders PuGing into 10man raids. Without this, the only people who will be availible to PuG in any given week are the unguilded & those who missed their guild's raid. This will be a very small percent of a server population every week. Furthermore, it will exacerbate the "Reserve" role problem even more because it will be infinitely harder to PuG in a few people when Joe Shaman & John Priest are on vacation [which affects both 10s & 25s].
[B][U]

Spiritus' post reveals a few more issues regarding shared raid ID, however this one hits myself and my guild mates the hardest by in essence eliminating a fun and valued raid opportunity. Our guild currently runs only ten man content, however for the past 11 weeks we have been hosting a 25 man ICC run on Saturdays where others from 10 man only guilds, people who missed their guild run, or alts of folks from 25 man guilds get together, have a blast and get another raid night.

This event has had many positive side effects and many have expressed that it is a highlight in their raid week. Obviously with single raid ID for 10/25 man content it will not continue. Thus for the "casuals" or people who really enjoy their smaller, tight knit 10 man guilds, options are limited or nil if you wish to see and participate in 25 man content.

You could:

a) leave the guild you enjoy and people that you raid with regularly for a 25 man guild
b) attempt to "merge" with another guild (try not to laugh)
c) accept the fact that your experience will now be limited not by your desire to participate but by a shared raid ID

Boo. Just Boo. Perhaps I am missing something obvious here, but other than higher ilevel items dropping in ten man encounters I do not see the upside.

[Spiritus]

...options are limited or nil if you wish to see and participate in 25 man content.

Be careful with the word "content," as it is a disputed term that could be used to invalidate your argument [if it is not defined first by you]. For the future, I would use the word "experience" as I have yet to have that term disputed when talking about the differences between 10s & 25s.