f13.net

We're continuing to refine the raid progression paths in Cataclysm, and we'd like to share some of those changes with you today. Please enjoy!

The first of the refinements being made is that we're combining all raid sizes and difficulties into a single lockout. Unlike today, 10- and 25-player modes of a single raid will share the same lockout. You can defeat each raid boss once per week per character. In other words, if you wanted to do both a 10- and 25-person raid in a single week, you’d need to do so on two different characters. Normal versus Heroic mode will be chosen on a per-boss basis in Cataclysm raids, the same way it works in Icecrown Citadel. Obviously the raid lockout change doesn't apply in pure Icecrown terms though, as this change goes hand-in-hand with a few other changes to raid progression in Cataclysm.

We're designing and balancing raids so that the difficulty between 10- and 25-player versions of each difficulty will be as close as possible to each other as we can achieve. That closeness in difficulty also means that we'll have bosses dropping the same items in 10- and 25-player raids of each difficulty. They'll have the same name and same stats; they are in fact the exact same items. Choosing Heroic mode will drop a scaled-up version of those items. Our hope is that players will be able to associate bosses with their loot tables and even associate specific artwork with specific item names to a far greater extent than today.

Dungeon Difficulty and Rewards
10- and 25-player (normal difficulty) -- Very similar to one another in difficulty; drop the exact same items as each other.
10- and 25-player (Heroic difficulty) -- Very similar to one another in difficulty; drop more powerful versions of the normal-difficulty items.

We of course recognize the logistical realities of organizing larger groups of people, so while the loot quality will not change, 25-player versions will drop a higher quantity of loot per player (items, but also badges, and even gold), making it a more efficient route if you're able to gather the people. The raid designers are designing encounters with these changes in mind, and the class designers are making class changes to help make 10-person groups easier to build. Running 25-player raids will be a bit more lucrative, as should be expected, but if for a week or two you need to do 10s because half the guild is away on vacation, you can do that and not suffer a dramatic loss to your ability to get the items you want.

We recognize that very long raids can be a barrier for some players, but we also want to provide enough encounters for the experience to feel epic. For the first few raid tiers, our plan is to provide multiple smaller raids. Instead of one raid with eleven bosses, you might have a five-boss raid as well as a six-boss raid. All of these bosses would drop the same item level gear, but the dungeons themselves being different environments will provide some variety in location and visual style, as well as separate raid lockouts. Think of how you could raid Serpentshrine Cavern and Tempest Keep separately, but you might still want to hit both every week.

We do like how gating bosses over time allows the community to focus on individual encounters instead of just racing to the end boss, so we’re likely to keep that design moving forward. We don't plan to impose attempt limitations again though, except maybe in cases of rare optional bosses (like Algalon). Heroic mode may not be open from day one, but will become available after defeating normal mode perhaps as little as once or twice.

In terms of tuning, we want groups to be able to jump into the first raids pretty quickly, but we also don’t want them to overshadow the Heroic 5-player dungeons and more powerful quest rewards. We’ll be designing the first few raid zones assuming that players have accumulated some blue gear from dungeons, crafted equipment, or quest rewards. In general, we want you and your guild members to participate in and enjoy the level up experience.

We design our raids to be accessible to a broad spectrum of players, so we want groups to be able to make the decision about whether to attempt the normal or Heroic versions of raids pretty quickly. The goal with all of these changes is to make it as much of a choice or effect of circumstance whether you raid as a group of 10 or as a group of 25 as possible. Whether you're a big guild or a small guild the choice won't be dependent on what items drop, but instead on what you enjoy the most.

We realize that with any changes to progression pathways there are going to be questions. We're eagerly awaiting any that we may have left unanswered. To the comments!

Kind of sucks for people who actually like raiding regardless of loot. Fewer lockouts means you run out of stuff to do in a shorter time each week.

Kind of sucks for people who actually like raiding regardless of loot. Fewer lockouts means you run out of stuff to do in a shorter time each week.

Here are some clarifications to a few common questions we're seeing.


Correct. There should be no circumstances under which you kill a boss more than once per week on the same character. However, in the same way that you can decide on a per-boss basis whether to try normal vs. hard mode, we might allow you to change between 10 and 25 on a per-encounter basis for additional flexibility. If you started a raid in 25-player mode and then found that you couldn’t get everyone together later in the week, you might be able to downsize the next few bosses to 10-player.


In some of these specific cases, the answer is that we just don’t know yet. We’re going to have to walk a fine line between dropping the same items in both 10- and 25-player modes, versus still offering something extra for the 25s. If we over-reward the 25s, then players who like 10-player raiding will still feel compelled to find more warm bodies. If we don’t provide any extra incentive for 25s, then some players may stop playing with their friends in order to avoid the extra organization required for a large raid.

Overall, our goal is that you make the decision between whether to raid with 10 players or 25 players based on what you find fun and not because of the reward structure.

For perspective, it might help to look back at how we changed lockouts and hard modes on every single raid tier of Wrath of the Lich King to see what felt right and try to fix problems that arose from previous tiers. After seeing the first tier of Cataclysm raiding, we may decide to adjust our design for the next tier.


When we say “25 should drop more loot,” we’re just sharing a philosophy. You shouldn’t assume that this means that 10-player modes will drop 1 item or that 25-player modes will drop 6 items, or whatever. We haven’t finalized how much loot will drop, but our general goal is that 25s should drop more to help make up for some of the logistical cost.


There will just be raid achievements, not 10- vs. 25-player versions in most cases. The achievement won’t care if you complete it in 10s or 25s. If we do meta-achievement mounts, it’s possible we’d still have different colors of mounts, or maybe even different mounts; but for some players that might mean that 25s feels mandatory again, which would be a potential problem. This is the kind of thing we’re going to have to consider carefully, and again, we might try a few different implementations before sticking with something we like.

We’re also not sure about realm first achievements or titles. We don’t want to encourage, say, 25-player focused guilds to run a 10-player raid instead because they think that will get them the ream first title faster. One potential solution is you can earn a realm first title in 10 or 25, but not both. These types of achievements also serve as great content for guild achievements.

Kind of sucks for people who actually like raiding regardless of loot. Fewer lockouts means you run out of stuff to do in a shorter time each week.

In my mind, grouping shouldn't be a necessity at all. I think everyone from the soloer to the large scale group should have a shot at the big score, but I think time should play a factor. I believe that the best solution to the problem would be to make encounters scalable based on the amount of people involved.

In the example of WoW, it would be to scale the monster levels in higher instances appropriately based on if you were alone, or if you had 40 people. You could also scale the drop rates as well based on the difficulty. Ideally, I would love to choose difficulty in an instance. Say anywhere from Super-easy (solo), Easy (five man), Hard (ten man), Very Hard (twenty man), and Insane (40 man). If you gave the people the option going into the instances, the scaling is easy. Just adjust the drop rates, spawns, and levels accordingly. However, DON'T regulate certain drops to the higher levels. Just make them easier to attain with more people. That way all sized guilds and groups could game at their own pace, for uber rewards, and the ubers could get them way before everybody else still.

Nope, per the clarification above there will be just raid achieves, not 10 vs 25, and possibly not even quest/ meta items that are 25 only.

The quantity of item difference between the two will be meaningless unless it's so significant that you feel compelled to raid 25s, which isn't their intent.  Even if it's double the items, the chances are you'll only be 2-3 weeks behind getting 'fully geared' in 10 vs 25, due to the randomness of loot drops.   Also, as anyone who's only running the daily+weekly can tell you, badges get insignificant after a short duration as well..


Damn spammers replying so quick.

I don't see how it necessarily follows that a guild that already has a working group of people that do 25s together would suddenly throw that all out the window and drop down to 10s, though. I guess it *does* open the door for more I QUIT AND START MY OWN GUILD drama since the super loot whore types will have less incentive to stay with a group that is enabling them to get better gear - but wouldn't you want those people to leave anyway, really?

So, if you start the raid in 25, but they allow the resizing and a group of 10 of those decide to finish it, are the other 15 out of luck?

Yes, but it's a little harder to find a bunch of people to lock a 25-man raid out than to get several random people to fill a 10-man.  I doubt it'll be a huge issue for us, but I can see logistical nightmares for some guilds.

I can see worse ones, too, but considering my experience with raids is one wing of Naxx, I don't know if they're even possible.

Why don't they just institute the stupidly easy fix of simply making raid lockouts work on a player, per boss, basis not group basis?

It would be as simple as saving whether you have killed a boss in a given week and if you have you can't fight it again.

Would fix all the "Someone else did my raid!" problems.

Given their stance being one of "we don't want people to feel forced to run 25s" the amount of loot will be equal to or slightly less than 10's on a per-person basis.  I'm leaning towards the less, somewhere around 2x the loot instead of 2.5x.

A thought I just have - if 25s and 10s have the exact same loot tables, and 25s drop more items per person, then it would seem to follow that for those 'must have' trinkets that occassionally pop up (Illustration of the Dragon Soul/Dragonspine Trophy type stuff) you'll have a better chance over time at getting one via 25 person content. Same thing for signature weapons, etc. That alone will probably keep some guilds running 25s instead.

Why not take it one further: let players kill bosses as many times as they want, but they're only eligible for loot the first time they kill it in a week.

Why not take it one further: let players kill bosses as many times as they want, but they're only eligible for loot the first time they kill it in a week.

True Sjofn, but then its just the tank's (and healer's) job to tell said DPS to fuck off if they don't feel like it. Just like we do to all of those DPS who beg us to run chain heroics.  :awesome_for_real:

I like the crowdedness and chaos of 25s, especially with a lively Vent. I do hope they kill the spread-out-10-yards-or-chain-lightning-wipes-the-raid mechanic though; it's mildly interesting in 10s but a total cockpunch in 25s.

Kind of sucks for people who actually like raiding regardless of loot. Fewer lockouts means you run out of stuff to do in a shorter time each week.

No, they said the opposite of that in the quote in the OP.

I like the crowdedness and chaos of 25s, especially with a lively Vent. I do hope they kill the spread-out-10-yards-or-chain-lightning-wipes-the-raid mechanic though; it's mildly interesting in 10s but a total cockpunch in 25s.

They also finally realized you can't have a difficulty and progression curve for 10 mans if every 10 man raid can just nullify it with 25 man gear.

Don't like the emphasis on smaller and smaller raids, personally. I didn't like going from 40 -> 25 either. I always found the larger raids more enjoyable. Its one reason I stopped playing awhile back, but the changes are, like many in the past expansion+, good for the vast majority of the players. Somewhat surprised these weren't introduced even earlier.

Huh?  How is someone going afk every 3 minutes fun?  Let alone waiting for everyone to get together and get ready.  25 man's can be pretty brutal.. considering it usually takes twice the time to do all the stuff that a 10 man group can do.

The biggest problem with 25+ raids is the probability of assembling a raid without at least one seriously annoying asshole approaches 0%.

The other thing I hate is just the giant spam collision of raid chat and voice chat with 25 people. I like the level of banter 10 creates, 25 is just annoying unless you make people shut up, but then that sucks the social aspect out of it.

(http://www.filedump.net/dumped/azjsez1272395510.jpg)

We of course recognize the logistical realities of organizing larger groups of people, so while the loot quality will not change, 25-player versions will drop a higher quantity of loot per player (items, but also badges, and even gold), making it a more efficient route if you're able to gather the people.

I'm aware of the original WW2 poster. The WW2 poster spelled Hitler correctly. I don't know who Hilter is.