Cataclysm Raid Progression Refinements

[ezrast]

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.

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

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.

Not necessarily. Assuming that a boss can't drop the same piece of loot twice at a time, running 2 10-mans could be better if multiple people need the item. If just one person needs it, then 25 will definitely give better odds, for essentially the same reason.

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.

I've wanted this for so long.

[Sjofn]

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.

That would be nice, although I could also see tanks and healers being abused in that sort of system. Many, many DPSers seem to think it's the tank and healers jorbs to help the DPSers gear up. And tanks and healers sort of go along with it, since shitty DPS makes their lives harder.

[Rendakor]

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. 

An additional benefit is that it would make Cross Server Raiding a real possibility; loot drama aside, managing lockouts is one of the biggest barriers to that.

[Lantyssa]

Perhaps, but it might mean I get to see the inside of a raid for once in my life.  I don't have to feel completely terrible for stopping someone else getting loot, nor does it mean I'd have to bump someone who is far more capable.

[Kageru]

Very happy with the change. After getting used to 10 man raiding I find 25 man's is just too many people. The roles become too specialised (spam this button all night) and you can't chat because it gets too noisy. 10-12 is a nice number in terms of "I know who all these people are".

My guild runs 4 * 10 man raid groups (and a collaborative 25) which is very convenient for supporting different cultures in the guild. The weekend warriors have their raid, the hardcore guys have one and everyone is happy.

[Selby]

Some fights are much easier on 25-m than they are on 10-m, and vice versa.  The only thing I've really found is that we have people begging to come on the 25-m raid who aren't even geared enough to run the 10-m version, and getting upset when the raid leader says no one gets carried (we're on Sindragosa in 25-m, so it's definitely not a night for those who've never done it before).

I raid both 10-m and 25-m multiple times a week, and both have their ups and downs.  Equalizing the gear between them I feel is a *good* thing and managing raid lockouts IS a pain ;-)

[Sjofn]

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. 

It's mostly left over bitterness from before the random dungeon finder & badge madness on my part, really. Once that went in the clamoring for the tanks to drop what they're doing THIS INSTANT and tank something dropped a lot, thank God.

It annoyed me at the time 'cause we'd have a looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooot of people who could not be bothered to even gem their shit properly, let alone actually farm badges for upgrades, who didn't seem to even realise they were being taken for piggyback rides by the rest of the guild. I can understand not wanting to spend a bunch of money to gem shit you may or may not get an upgrade for in the raid your guild is working on, but it was still frustrating. Now they buy their T9 and that's awesome ENOUGH that they'll actually spend money on it. <3

Now it's mostly taking people who still have trouble with "get out of fire" for piggyback rides. That annoys me less, for whatever reason.  


FAKE EDIT: I also think 25s are too crowded. I haven't been on one since Naxx but ... I dunno, they just didn't ring my bell.

[ezrast]

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.

[Rendakor]

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.

Shit like this is generally why I prefer 10s to 25s. Having everyone 10 yards apart is simple in a 10m: rooms are big and space is plentiful. Cramming 2.5x as many people in the same space makes the fight a clusterfuck. Saurfang and Blood Princes immediately spring to mind as fights that are only more difficult on 25 because of crowding issues.

[Simond]

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.

On the other hand if Blizzard stick with their planned "two raids per tier with fewer bosses" rather than ICC's "Dozen bosses wait what do you mean raid lockout?" then you'll still be better off overall.

[Wolf]

I LOVE THIS.

I don't even care that item levels are the same, I'm just so happy I don't have to raid 25m to get current items that have no 10m equivalent (non hit offhand, SECOND TRINKET? MAYBE?). And not having 25m people zerg my stuff is also a nice addition.

I've never really done 25 content, outside of pugs. Quit around the time we killed Ragnaros in vanilla and came back around the time totc was launched. But I still have nightmares about 15+ idiots in the raid from way back when, 10m just feels so right. One thing I really hope they think about when designing 10m encounters is to not force raid setups. I don't mind a DPS check fight, where 6 DPS is required, but not being able to kill a boss, because you don't have 4 ranged DPS on a particular night is super annoying (heroic saurfang, I hate you so).

[Merusk]

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.

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

Yeah, I initially misread it then went back and read closer later last night.  I do suspect that people are reading too much into the loot part and not enough into it being more badges/loot/gold combined.  Particularly after they clarified it doesn't necessarily mean that a boss will drop 6 pieces in a 25.  Time will tell, however.

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.

Actually, it'll probably stay. What needs to happen to compensate for the lesser number of people while keeping the same level of challenge probably won't.   (Which is the goal, here, remember.)  That being, since there's fewer people you  have to spread out MORE.  Say, 5 yds in 25 man but 10-15 in 10 man.   It doesn't have to be Saurfang/ Blood Queen level of punishing unless you're trying to create a very hard-to-learn fight, however.

[kaid]

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.

Exactly this change allows them to much more easily pin down difficulty for their encounters without having to assume people in 10 mans may have 50% or more of their slots full of 25 man gear. I think ulduar at its start was a good example of this where it was pretty clearly geared to 10 men with naxx 25 gear. Going in there with just 10 man gear was a curb stomping.

[Lantyssa]

They'll just bring people from the next step up.  It may slow it a little for people at the last released dungeon, but it won't change in practice as long as there is gear progression.

[Musashi]

In my experience, early in any given lockout, you have high attendance.  This is because the early bosses are invariably easier than the ones you'll be facing later in the week, and thus loot rains down.  So what you end up with is all 30 guys show up on Wednesday (If you raid on Tuesday, you're nuts).  Then you have like 18 - 24 show up on Thursday.  There are probably more reasons, but that's what happens unless you make your guild bigger, and the headaches increase exponentially with every dude you add past that 30 man sweet-spot.  Not the point of this post.

The ability to save a lockout for however long you wanted gave people the ability to alleviate that problem in several less than ideal ways.  In any of them, what it meant for those 18 guys who do show up on a consistent basis, was that they got less loot.  You're saving lockouts, so the easy early bosses aren't getting killed as much.  Lots of badges wasted because of those 7 dickheads that can't commit.  This is important because no matter how you chose to utilize the ability to save lockouts, you essentially punished the people who were there for you the most.  Not a big deal as long as everyone had all their badge shit towards the end of a patch cycle, but essentially the lockout holdover idea was useless until you wanted to really push for the end boss.

So here's where this change makes it's money.  The next time those 7 fuckwads don't show up on Thursday for 25's, I can just drop down to 10 man and kill all the good bosses with the people who show up.  And I can do it too, because the people who show up on Thursday with little hope of a drop are the good raiders.  It kind of sucks that those 8 - 14 guys are locked out, but in reality they were still locked out in the old system.  So they still wouldn't have been raiding.  So they'll either start riding those 7 assholes who don't show up on Thursday, like the *hard* kind of asshole riding those non-committing fucks deserve.  Or they'll get rotated in next week - still plus loot over the old system, so long as their super guild leader explains it to them properly.

[bhodi]

[WindupAtheist]

The forum tears over this are delicious. Two hundred pages of screaming from hardcore raiders who apparently don't realize that Blizzard quit giving a shit about them ages ago.

[Ceryse]

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.

[Evildrider]

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.

[Ingmar]

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.

[Merusk]

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.

Depends entirely on your 25 players.  Last week my guild went from the first trash pull to starting to practice on the Lich King in 2 1/2 hours.  The week before, with a difference of only 4 or 5 players we couldn't get past Sind at all.  I've seen 10s both struggle to get two wings cleared in the same amount of time AND have more AFKs than the 25s.

[Musashi]

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.

I find a music bot fills the silence quite nicely.  It's less social, but I don't know another way around it.

[Merusk]

Meh, never had either problem for longer than a raid or two in 25s, really.  Takes time to find good guilds, though.

[Paelos]

25s can get to be a lot of fun, but they have to be cultivated from ground zero as a certain fun playstyle. I still as the leader struggle at times to log in on raid days, but it's my duty to run them, and when I'm there we actually have a lot of fun. That initial, "well fuck, I'm going to have to deal with the setup of this behemoth," still exists. None of that is even a question on 10 mans. It's totally different in terms of the commitment and social aspects.

And to be fair, it existed when I ran 40s just as hard. In fact, I lasted a hell of a lot less time in 40s after we become farm status. I just handed that shit over to people who cared and moved on.

[Sjofn]

Given I don't really even like doing the assembly of 10 mans (which of our 57562834568736534 DPSers get to sit this week, and how many of them are going to start going RABBLE RABBLE WE SHOULD DO A 25 oh God we have nothing but paladins for healers this week and there's a bunch of raid damage in our upcoming fights and SHIT why am I the only tank signed up arghghghghghghghghghgh), I imagine I would find 25s my own personal hell.

Also, I will never not laugh at the RIDE with HITLER poster. Ever.

[WindupAtheist]

Hilter? 

[caladein]

I'll risk the sarchasm here:



plus

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.

[WindupAtheist]

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

[caladein]

I genuinely didn't notice that you or the poster spelled it that way .

[bhodi]

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

A joke on the frothing hardcore lunatics, sperging out about how blizzard has betrayed them, all with poor grammar and spelling.

[WindupAtheist]

Needs more exclamation points then, with a few superfluous 1's thrown in. You know, "hilter!!11!!" or some such. IMHO.

[Fordel]

hilter!!1!one!!1!


The official Raid Change thread is nearly past the Druid TreeForm QQ thread already, it's pretty glorious.

[Dren]

I often wonder how you can capture the segment of players that like something about the game or a change, but really don't care enough to find the official forums and post 500 times about it.  Maybe they should just start a thread and title it "Only post here if you really like xxx change."  If they get no responses, they can feel confident the unspoken majority have "spoken."

[WoopeeTuralyon]

I don't think I like not being able to do a raid on both 10m and 25m. I like raiding usually, and I would really like to be able to do all I can.

[Azuredream]

I don't really care about the change either way. All I do right now is 25s, so nothing will change for me come Cata. Except with the possible bonus of if we don't have enough to raid we can just do do 10s for the same loot. I just hope they manage to keep the difficulty the same between the two.