- Each raid instance will have a 10-man version and a 25-man version.
- 25-man raids will drop loot one tier higher than 10-mans.
- No attunements or keys for any raids.
I must confess that when I first saw this, my immediate thought was, "Wow, that's going to create a lot of work for me." I maintain the Guild Progress thread on the Skywall forums, which lists the raiding guilds, their website, and what bosses they've killed, ordered roughly by how far each guild has gotten in endgame.
With two separate progressions, how would this thread be ordered? Should I have two lists, one for each raid size? Should guilds be classed as 25-man guilds or 10-man guilds, or listed in both lists? I expect the 25-man guilds to do the 10-man instances, and is it really worth cluttering up the list with the same Nexus-25 and Nexus-10 bosses?
Of course, these concerns are pretty trivial. In pretty much all other respects, these changes to raiding are an unambiguous win. Content creation is expensive, and I think that this will allow a lot more people to see the raid dungeons.
I think that 25-mans are pretty clearly pitched as the hardcore option, and probably will be tuned very tightly. The 10-mans will still be complex, but will definitely be tuned lower than the equivalent 25-man. Arthas-10 will be easier than Arthas-25. The loot structure is set up for that. Remember that for raiding, the quality of loot should depend on the difficulty of the encounter. Better loot equals higher difficulty.
Various other people are debating if 10-man encounters can be as epic as 25-man encounters. I'm not really sure I know that answer. Epic has a lot to do with lore and the archetypes of the adversaries, not just the complexity or difficulty of the fight. But really, the difference in "epicness" doesn't matter:
Is it better for Arthas to be an epic 25-man fight you never see, or for Arthas to be a less epic 10-man that you get to participate in?
I think Blizzard's plan strikes the best balance. As long as Arthas-10 is harder then the 10-man bosses that come before him, that there is an actual difficulty progression in 10-man raiding, I think everything will be fine.
The interesting questions will be how guilds react to the changed situation. Will the 25-man guilds do the 10-man raids? Will they recruit from the 10-man guilds? What will happen when someone burns out of 25-man raiding? Will they quit the game, or will they see 10-man raiding as a good alternative (huge wins for Blizzard if people take this path)? Will "softcore" guilds--who work on 25-mans at a slower pace--continue to exist, or will the only 25-man guilds be ones that raid 5 or more days in the week?
Exciting times ahead.
To keep the tally, I think you should up to keep 25-man and 10-man separated, not including 25-man in 10-man. It may depend on how the 10-man version will become unlocked. Currently, Blizz is considering locking 10-mans until the 25-man version is cleared, with the time release option later on.
ReplyDeleteThe epicness of an encounter is very subjective. Matticus did an excellent survey about it.
One thing is sure: there will be something for everybody out there.
10-man raiding is primarily about the players. A good 10-man force is normally built around those folks in your guild who are highly self-motivated for advancement.
ReplyDelete25-man raiding is primarily about the raid leader. If you wonder why your guild is just breaking in SSC/TK while other guilds are doing Muru, there's one guy who primarily responsible for this: the raid leader.
My suspicion is the that dual track nature of advancement will end up killing a fair number of guilds - the middle-of-the-road advancement guilds - because it's simply not worth putting up with a mediocre raid leader when you can get equivalent gear by burning through 10-mans.
Yes, you'll miss the very top end gear at the end of the progression. But you would have missed that gear anyway.
Rav -
ReplyDeleteI wonder where you heard that? The only information that I have seen so far is that they said the 10-man and the 25-man versions are different progression paths, which implies that both don't need to be unlocked. I'm pretty sure that their intent is so that a smaller 10-man raiding guild can just ignore all the 25-man ones and progress through the 10-mans.
It's also a little ridiculous to require a guild to unlock a version of the raid that gives inferior loot.
I'd read that somewhere too, that the ten mans would be unlocked after the 25 man was beaten, or after a set time. I don't recall WHERE I saw that... it might have been one of the many interviews, or it could have been third-party speculation on what Blizzard might do.
ReplyDeleteBTW, the unlocking was (I believe) to be serverwide; a guild doesn't unlock the ten man for itself, it's unlocked for everyone after a server first kill. (This avoids progression guilds training on the ten man version before killing the twenty-five man.)
Why wouldn't you want a progression guild to train on the 10-man version before moving onto the 25-man?
ReplyDeleteI can't wait to change my priestess hair lol.
ReplyDeleteAnd i'm so curious about Naxxaramas!
This system will have two possible outcomes:
ReplyDelete1. 25-mans increase in difficulty from entry level to very difficult (like now), 10-mans are all easy casual-pandering laugh-fests.
2. 25-mans and 10-mans increase in difficulty from entry level to very difficult.
Under the first system 25-mans would become largely dead content. Most people would rather run easy content than farm consumables and spend multiple nights wiping on bosses. There will still be some hardcore players who run 25-mans for challenges, but they would most likely be transferring servers (as recruitment on smaller/less hardcore servers would be a nightmare) to one of the big PvE servers (Korgath, Magtheridon EU, Mal'ganas, etc) to join established raiding guilds. This would further the already rampart problem of talent concentration, making smaller casual servers literal ghost towns where most players only log on for a couple hours a week to farm 10-man Arthas for "phat epix".
In the second situation you will have more of what is happening today. 25-man guilds will still be hard pressed to get new recruits for harder content and talent concentration will be widespread. Most 10-man guilds will come to the first large content block in 10-mans and stop, much like how the Dragonhawk boss stopped a lot of 10-mans guilds now. These guilds will sit in easy content farming it until the next expansion, whining that they still couldn't experience content.
If I come across as elitist... I am. I absolutely hate just how far Blizzard has taken their casual-pandering attitude that is weakening this game horribly.
I used to raid SSC and TK, but started leading a raid into ZA twice a week. Since then, my guild has started running Hyjal and BT, and I find myself less interested. I'm considering just forgetting about 25-man content entirely and focusing on ZA, and maybe leading a KZ once a week for my alts.
ReplyDeleteI might not be part of the "hardcore" audience. I just don't like 25-mans as much because there's too much micromanagement. In a 10-man, I can lead all 9 other people by myself, but in a 25-man, you need to have class leaders, heal leads, tank leads, etc. I spent my time as healer lead for T5 content.
I'm really looking forward to WotLK now because of this news. It tells me that I'll have a chance to do the two things I really want to do: lead 10-man raids, and see end-game content. Win-win situation for me.
On the same interview (which I can't find now), they said that 10-mans will follow the same progression difficulty as 25-mans.
ReplyDeleteThe unlocking procedure, if there is ever one, is still under debate.
@wowgirl: The hair changes is one of those useless updates that will improve the game greatly. :-)
@Dazanna: Don't worry, Blizzard has been catering hardcore raiders too.
1) Recruiting has gotten theoretically easier. Forcing attunements on all paths (like it was on BC before they were removed), meant that the only way the top raiding guilds could recruit was via poaching "lesser" guilds. Now they can also pick up players that have geared themselves via BoJ/10 mans and rerolls from their on guild.
2) Gear available via BoJs. If you visited the official forums pre-2.4, you would have seen several people QQing because they were still running Kara/whatever to get a drop that was hard to replace in T5/T6. With much variety available via BoJs/reputations, they aren't as pressured to continue in lower raids to get the best-in-slot.
In the end, the more open the game is for casuals, the more raiders have to win. Bigger recruitment pools, easier gearing up for people that arrived late, and current raiders more focused on progressing than staying stuck because they've been unlucky.
Yes rav, it is easier to gear someone up. But that doesn't make recruitment easier.
ReplyDeleteRiddle me this. If you can get gear that is ilevel 141 from 2 hours of work or gear that is ilevel 145 from 20 hours of work, which one are you going to pick? Which one will most people pick?
Why are Karazhan and PvP so popular? Because they take little effort (4 hours for kara or 20 minutes for a BG) and get very large rewards (ilevel 141 badge gear and 146 PvP rewards).
Guild recruitment is not based on finding people with gear, its based on finding people willing to put in the time and energy required for progression. Gear is almost never the issue: for example, we took in a brand new shaman 2 weeks ago with all kara gear. He's already running around in 3/8 Tier 6 with 1900 healing. Raiding guilds can and will gear people up if those people have the motivation to raid. The problem is finding those people in the first place.
By putting in small versions of every raid dungeon Blizzard is destroying all raid recruitment. People will have no reason whatsoever to run "heroic" naxx if they can do the easy version in less time with no consumables and get nearly equal gear. With no one wanting to apply to raid guilds to replace attrition you will see less and less 25-mans being run.
You can already see this trend with badge gear and PvP sapping the recruitment pools of raid guilds, and this is no different.
Personally? I'd try to get the best in slot. Like, I don't know, the Elemenatlist Bracelets of Shadow Wrath for Shadow Priests working on T4 all the way to T5, with the next clear upgrade on T6. Gee, Blizz should really nerf the AH then.
ReplyDeleteGear is an issue when recruiting. It tells you a lot of the type of player that wants to join your guild. Maybe a player might be full Kara geared, but notice his enchantments and gemming selection. See a holy priest gemming for Agility? Not the kind of player a highly progressed guild would want. See a hunter with all his gear properly enchanted? He might be a good fit.
As for recruiting undergeared players, I've rarely find a guild willing to take an undergeared player and help them gear up. Perhaps your guild should be a role model for other guilds.
Also, if a player is mostly motivated to raid just to get purples, there are chances that they'll jump ship when the going gets tough. So your recruitment catch should not be "Come get purples".
Not everything will be gloom when WotLK hits, just as PvP/BoJs haven't purged raids of the players interested in raiding.
Actually, this may solve a niggling question that's been hanging for a while.
ReplyDeleteDo people do 25 man raids because they want to, or because they have to?
Now I suspect we'll actually get a split comparable to the current raid vs arena arguing which is "tougher" as far as skills and such. Still, in general I think that in terms of individual effort Raid #4(10) is going to be harder than Raid #2(25). And so it'll resolve - at least in part - that question.
Not to mention the highly skilled players who cannot participate in 25 player teams due to out-of-WoW constraints or interests.
But I suspect Blizzard will be watching what happens not least to see if they REALLY need to do 25 man instances for their money.
I think the 25-mans are supposed to be harder than their 10-man counterparts. Now, if this is "harder" means more than "the boss does more damage and has more hit points", 25-man raiding will not die out. One thing that applies to all raiding guilds is guild pride, and guilds that want to be taken seriously as a raiding guild might run the 10-mans for basic training on trash or some mechanics of the 25-man bosses, or even easy badges, but they'll be in the 25-man raids every week. They'll have to be in order to continue to be taken seriously.
ReplyDelete10-manning Arthas appeals to the people that just want to see it before the post WotLK expansion but don't have the time to put into 25-man raiding, whereas the serious raiding guilds will 25-man him for honor and the full experience.
This whole large groups means epic thing has always confused me...Something is epic when it seemingly should be impossible to do. Killing a god is an epic task. However, 1 person killing a god is more epic than an army of 10000 killing a god. In fact, narative epics are generally centered on a single entity, not on large groups.
ReplyDeleteNow, as a practical matter, you can require more DPS from a 25 man than a 10 man, due to sheer numbers, and ridiculous tuning. But that doesn't make the fights worthy of "epic" nature. In the end, WoW will never really have an epic feel because they can never allow a single character to get so powerful as to strike down Arthas alone. But that's what it would take to really be epic.
I, too, just have to laugh at the Blizzard concept of "more toons = tougher".
ReplyDeleteIs doubles tennis really more epic than singles?
Is 2-on-2 basketball really easier than 5-on-5?
Would American football be more epic if they made a 15-on-15 version, or 25-on-25, instead of the current 11-on-11?
And on a team there is often a single hero, a superstar, who is the face of a team and the key to the team's success.
And I agree with the previous poster that it's actually more epic when few, or one, HERO defeats a foe. After all, the game is about our alter-ego toon as a hero of Azeroth.
So it's entirely an arbitrary matter of tuning as to whether a 10-toon or 25-toon raid is "harder".
But Blizz has this one backwards.
regardless of 25-man-raider-epeening, 10-man raids may be what saves this game. The fact that there will be a progression for 10-man groups through the end of expansion means that core groups can develop, and STAY TOGETHER. People don't have to leave to see more content. This is one of the best things Blizz has ever done. I'm starting to look for a group now that will be capable to go through the 10-man progression.
ReplyDelete25-man guilds may suffer, but that doesn't really concern me, they are "leet" enough, they'll survive, or not.
Blizzard is killing WoW at it will die with WoTLK. TBH, AoC is looking too good to pass up.
ReplyDelete25-mans will always be harder and more complex than 10-mans for one simple reason.
ReplyDeleteRaid/group composition.
When Blizzard designs 25-mans they can assume a certain representation for each class; every raid will have at least one pally, at least two tanks, etc. For 10-mans they can not assume this, as with 10 classes in the game and 10 slots its not exactly fair to assume 1 (or more) of each class.
Thus, you see 25-man bosses with very complex abilities. For example, we'll take the Vashj fight. Every 15-20 seconds Vashj will cast Entangling Roots (just like the druid spell) on everyone in melee range, tank included. It is not dispellable. If your tank gets the rooted though Vashj will run to the far side of the room and start using Multi-shot to wipe the raid. How do you control it? Have Paladins keeping Blessing of Freedom on the tank so he/she can't get rooted.
In a 25-man this works well, it is assumed you'll have at least one or two paladins in a 25-man raid. How would this work for a 10-man? You can't always assume to have a paladin in a 10 man raid.
So you get two possible outcomes. The first is that Blizzard removes any kind of this specialization of roles from all encounters and everything because a kara level tank'n'spank. However, now all the fights are different than the 25-mans. Are you really seeing content or are you seeing the artwork of the dungeon with this kind of wholesale destruction of actual content?
The second outcome is that Blizzard really tightens the content for 10-mans. If they did put in boss abilities that require certain classes (just as with the 25-man) you would need raid stacking for both 10- and 25-man content, meaning you and your pals won't be seeing it. You'll farm Naxx-10 for the next 2 years, just like you're farming kara now. But that is the way real raid content is, you have to work at it with a determined and organized guild.
So ask yourself, do you want to see real content or do you just want to see the artwork? If you want to do the first you'll have to live with raid-stacking, wiping all night to learn encounters, farming consumables, recruiting people who aren't from your core group of friends, etc. If you just want the second go watch a movie of Nihilum and leave raiding alone.
I'd expect 25-mans to be harder and more complex. Especially more complex, and have better loot. Fine.
ReplyDeleteWhat I do hope is that the new 10-mans will allow for a small guild to progress through the content with minimal stacking. The only real stacking should be 3-different kinds of tanks, depending on the fight.
If the 10-mans require a 20-person team due to stacking, then it defeats the purpose. I'll stick with solo-casual then.
But 10-mans tuned so a core of 12-14 people can progress through content would open up a new aspect for the game.
But again Karl, if you're doing a simple tank'n'spank for every encounter are you really seeing content? If you can't have new and unique boss abilities because you can't have group stacking these encounters are going to get boring pretty quickly.
ReplyDeleteSo again, I ask are you really seeing content? Is it even progress to do encounters with no difference other than the model the boss wears? By doing an ultra-watered down version of an instance are you really experiencing new and challenging content or just looking at pretty artwork?
My answer is no, which is why Blizzard will make 10-mans require stacking towards the later endgame. Anything less than that and they completely trivialize the work they put into it. You should not be able to walk up to Arths with 9 friends who play for 2 hours a week and one-shot him.
I recall 2 years back, when it was first announced that WoW was going to move from 40-man to 25-man raid designs, the elite raiders complaining that this was the end of the raid game because 25-man raids couldn't be complex enough to justify their elite status. Hell, 2.5 years ago ZG and AQ20 spelt the end of the high-end raids. Nice to see their worries so were well founded.
ReplyDeleteIt's disappointing that raiders feel their style of gameplay is being marginalised and not catered for. It will be a shame to see an ever dwindling number of players not be forced into a multiple-day per week raiding schedule in order to have any sense of personal accomplishment beyond the numbers on their weapon.
If the 25-man raiding scene requires content bottlenecks in order to perpetuate, and by its very nature prevents many people from experiencing it and hence the majority of new content released in patches, does it really have any right to exist as the sole means of PvE progression in the game? It's worth saying that to everyone not involved in BT+ new dailies aren't content, shiny new Badge Purples aren't new content, and a new Arena Season isn't new content. Similarly, the existence of 5-mans hasn't marginalised Heroics and each serve their own, very defined, role in the game.
Wrath can't come soon enough, and if it heralds the death of 25-man raids because guilds can't convince players that 25-man is more fun than 10-man raiding (and they should put up with their shit in order to get into their raid) good riddance to them. The raiding scene should have to justify its place in the game beyond a snobbish sense of elitism, just as every other form of content does. If the encounters can't be tuned to be well varied (and I doubt this) then so be it, simple content created among similar lines beats one instance of exactly the same content every single time.
@dazanna
ReplyDeleteso, what you seem to be saying is that if I can only raid two nights a week, I shouldn't be playing, and that the game is really only for dedicated raiders?..
sorry, I don't have a consistent 20+ hours a week to raid. I have a wife, and job, and (gasp) a RL.
What I would hope is that the 10-mans are tuned that a core group can do it. It works for Kara and ZA, it should be able to work for others.
Really, it should require more skill. And by skill I don't mean spending 5kG on resist gear for one boss, or an simon-says click-the-cube fight. Those are gimics, not skill. I hope they tune for things where it requires skilled players, who can learn as a group.
Otherwise... I really don't have much interest in it.
It's possible to have different needs, (I'm sure one will require a DK as a tank) without going to 20-30 toons.
Besides, your 25-mans will have higher-ilvls of gear, Blizz has already said that.
Well, I suppose it is harder to convince 25 toons not to stand in the fire than 10 toons not to stand in the fire.
ReplyDeleteKarl, since you decided to default to the normal "raiders have no life" bullshit I'll counter with my own guild.
ReplyDeleteLimited Edition of Draka (US CST) raids 3 nights a week for a total of 14 hours each week. We are currently 2/6 Sunwell and working hard on downing Felmyst within the next cycle. We are people with a passion to improve our WoW experience and tackle new content while still living a full life outside the game.
Yes, if you want to join a world first guild you will be raiding 6 or 7 nights a week. But there are tons of raiding guilds out there that already have very small raiding schedules and still progress. If you really want to raid but can only dedicate 3 nights a week to it you can easily find a guild. Like I said earlier, most guilds (again, world-first guilds are different) are looking more for passion and commitment than gear and experience. The later two come with time.
I'll use an analogy to explain my position since you're so confused. I'm sure almost everyone has played or seen Pokemon before. At the start of the game you set out from Professor Oak's lab with a little level 5 Charmander. Over the course of the game your Charmander grows and learns new abilities and evolves into a Charizard. Finally after a lot of work you beat the Elite Four. You progress through the game. At the start it may be hard but if you have the drive to succeed you can overcome it and win.
Now think about if instead of a little level 5 Charmander Professor Oak gave you a level 100 Charizard with all the best moves right at the beginning of the game. You can go and one-shot everything in the game and clear it rather quickly. But would that be fun? There is no sense of progression, no sense of challenge.
What do pokemon and WoW have in common? They are both RPGs. Both are about slowly progressing through the game. When you take out that progression you gut the game. That is why 10-mans have to have a scaling difficulty, and why casual players still won't see content.
Dazanna,
ReplyDeleteFirst off, I'm too old for Pokemon...
Sorry, but this is a sore spot, as I'm sick of hard-core raiders basically saying the game is for them. It comes up in every discussion in every forum where raiding is discussed.
It's all about level of commitment. Should the clerk at the store check your schedule before you buy WoW?..
Perhaps I should just quit the game. The S4 changes are eliminating any chance for a casual PVPer to advance in area, so there's no point in being there. Getting crushed by anything past 1600ish is just not worth it.
The possibility of having a 10-man raid of friends is what still gives me hope for WoTLK. The best times I've had in this game were with a solid group of 5 that I was running 5-mans and heroics with. Good times. If that can be replicated with a group to go through the 10-man progression, that would be awesome. If I have to deal with 25 people fighting for slots in a 10-man and raid politics JUST to see the content, no thanks. I want no part of it.
Dazanna,
ReplyDeleteAnd I still think it's possible for casuals to see more of the content with a 10-man progression. Perhaps my group wouldn't make it to Arthas before the next expansion. BFD.
As long as there is a moderate chance of progression, that's fine.
But if it's clear raiding is not-for-casuals as PVP now is, and with crafting progression being restricted to raiders, then there's no point in playing the game.
As I was told by another "raider", "you're a casual and lvl 70?.. cool! You've won the game! Now quit and go away".
Are you aware of WowJutsu?
ReplyDeleteIt might be a big help in updating your thread, or you might just replace your thread with a link to it.
See:
http://wowjutsu.com/us/skywall/index_alliance.html
It lists alliance guilds on Skywall, in order of progression, including what bosses' they've killed.
It works by scanning the armory for loot from bosses and automatically updating.
@anonymous
ReplyDeleteI'm a graphic artist and a terrible typist... :-)
@ the zebra with a death wish ....
ReplyDeleteIm sorry, but the tone of your entire post seems like you are mad because you couldn't find a 25 man for you QQ if you want but in the end its not that you don't want to do 25 mans, its that you find you cant. thats fine. just don't try and kill my fun by saying there shouldn't be 25 mans
@ Anonymous
ReplyDeleteI think you missed the point of my post.
The idea is not to eliminate 25-man raids, the point is to provide an alternate progression path to cater to everyone so that people aren't forced into raiding as their only means of accomplishing anything meaningful in the game long term. 25-man raiding, and all that entails - committing to 4+ hours for 2-7 nights a week and a guild of a realistic minimum of 30 - should be a positive choice. Players should be saying to themselves 'hey, you know, lets all do 25-man instances because we all find it more fun'.
Currently, and pretty much since release, for any player to progress in the game they have to raid with 24 other people. That's not an affirmative choice, but rather 'well, either I cancel my subs, level an alt in the same content, or 25-man', IMO not acceptable.
Raiding should have to stand on its own two feet in terms of people who want to play it, and that means that given plenty of other content for other forms of play at the level cap it should have to be able to sustain itself. If you can find 30+ people who want to 25-man then you've not got a problem, but it means that those who actually want to experience new content aren't forced into a mode of gameplay which they dislike. If 25's aren't able to sustain themselves because you can't tempt people away from 10's, well tough cookies that's the way competition works. And having seen arrogant raiding guilds lord it over their servers whilst overwhelming forums with QQ's about how raiding is dying and 25/40 mans are the only form of end-game content there should be, not many people will be weeping over their demise.
They'll be too busy having their fun in 10-man Naxx etc.
As for me, I'll be looking at both 10-manning and 25-manning in Wrath if they decide on entry-level 25-man (rather than forcing people to go through 10's to get to 25's), which Naxx is supposed to be, and if I can reliably set-aside the time. But I've been on both sides of the game in the past and so I don't find it difficult to get some perspective.
alcaras, Wowjutsu is good, but I feel that forum threads serve a slightly different purpose than simply showing progression.
ReplyDeleteFirst, they're a place for a guild to state, "We've just defeated X", to actively show some pride in their accomplishments and for the rest of the server to recognize those accomplishments.
Secondly, these threads have the guild website attached to the listing, making it a really good resource for recruitment. If you are on server X, and you're looking for a new guild, you can see exactly which guilds are at your level, and jump to their websites right away.
I believe that the attunment statement was: that you would not have to do 10 man content to attune for 25 man content and vice versa. e.g. Kara to unlock SSC.
ReplyDeleteNot that there would not be any attunement at all.
I think 25 man raiding is doomed. The 25 man raiders are ticked off, because they can see what the future holds.
ReplyDeletePeople play games because they want to have fun, and experience all that a game has to offer. For the MAJORITY, dealing with the hassles of 25 man's is not worth it. Who needs a second job that doesn't even pay money? Who wants to spend hours farming mats for consumables or running the same dailies over and over so they can have repair money? Who wants to spend weeks whiping on the same boss until they figure out the strats and timing? Who wants to deal with the constant logistical problems of finding 25 people who will show up 3 nights a week on time and fully prepared? None of this spells fun to the MAJORITY of people.
Ever notice how top raiding guilds are constantly recruiting? This is because tons of people who aspired to be part of end game raiding got burnt out and realized they were not having fun. Where did these guilds find their replacements? From the small core of soon to be burnt out hardcore raiders at small casual guilds.
25 man guilds will be a dying breed because these people will have an alternate path in the future where they can stay in their small casual guilds with all of their friends and still experience all of the games story.
In reality, the real loss will not be between the 10 man and the 25 man. As now, people will do the 10 man's until they are good enough then then group to do the 25 man version. People have mention "seeing Content" if that was the sole reason then a guild would only run the instance ONCE. As we saw with TBC - the 25 man did not destroy casual or raiding guilds - it seems they keep sprouting up.
ReplyDeleteThe real issue about loss of content is that the casual gamer (and ne raider) will have lost content but not from WotLK but in the original game and soon to be TBC - when was the last time anyone ran AQ20 let alone AQ40. It is fun to 2 man strat but I do not think Blizzard ever had that in mind when they created one of the hardest 5 man instance.
I started too late in WoW - so Scolo is the only lvl 60 i have seen since it was too easy to continue to outlands - soon that will be true for outland - why would anyone want to run Heroic SL when you can run The Nexus which I am sure will drop better stuff--- who remember that first green that blew the stuff off your hard earned tier 3.
I would like to see Blizzard try to keep players visiting the older areas - anyone for Heroic Strat?
My thoughts anyway
--in game
MPA on anvilmar
I was a leader of a "Casual Raiding Guild". We started out in 40 mans, suffered leavers in TBC levelling and then went through the whole 10 man to 25 man jump.
ReplyDeleteThen we finally hit Hyjal and the summer, weeks ago we collapsed losing majority of our healers while due to vacations being unable to raid.
having experienced the content of all raids one thing has shown to me to be clear, when Blizzard reduces the Raid numbers that makes the content harder because you need more people to be at the top of their game to beat the instance.
In MC half the raid slacked, in BWL about a quarter did. When it came down to beating the content in TBC every raid member was needed, and slacking WAS noticeable.
For those saying a casual guild will clear the 10 man Arthas, I think your dreaming ZA is an indication of what is to come, a hard 10 man where everyone will need to be at their best to win it.
My own feelings however are that raiding guilds are dying generally in this game as multiple guilds collapsed before mine did during this summer. I put that down to the uselessness of PvE gear in PvP and the time needed to run the content.
40 man, 10 man, 25 man, its all the same it all requires time consumables and no slacking.
Its simple. Bottom line, 25 men raids will still be there, but 10 man raids are there as an alternative to the headache. I know you are sitting here Dazanna, talking down on the people that you consider lesser than you.
ReplyDeleteGuess what? I led a top 20 WoW raiding guild in MC and BWL. I led a top 50 guild at the beginning of TBC. The micromanaging SUCKS. You might befortunate to be on a server that has a high population. You are probably alliance. Either way, when push comes to shove, it is a hell of a lot easier, in my opinion, to get with a very tight knit group and do 10 mans. You dont have to worry about the headache of recruiting. You can be casual and it doenst feel like a job. You are sitting here saying stuff like this
"If I come across as elitist... I am. I absolutely hate just how far Blizzard has taken their casual-pandering attitude that is weakening this game horribly."
Why should you be catered to over people that can only play 6 hours a week? Why should you get special privs over people that have a different playstyle? You need to get a grip on reality (in the wow sense).
Alright folks. After reading all these posts i've noticed something. We all take different things out of the game. Some people enjoy spending 6-7 days a week raiding and some people just dont or lack the interest to or time. You know, maybe we should quit complaining about it and just live with the changes? Do your 25-man raids, do your 10-man raids just dont tell another player there playing the game wrong.
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