Raiders respond to 25 man caps
by Spencer Callaghan 
Aug 22nd 2006 at 1:00PM
Since the announcement of the new 25-man raid caps for the Burning Crusade, there has been much debate as to how the new limit will affect guilds. Of particular concern is how will the new cap will affect hardcore raiding guilds with regular 40-man rosters that will now either have to be paired down to 25 or split into two groups by adding a few more recruits.Of course the well publicized rant by Death & Taxes guild leader Xi has been all over the Interweb, but 1up.com has an interesting interview with some representatives from hardcore raiding guilds getting their thoughts on the pros and cons of the change.
The responses are very well thought out and surprisingly reasoned and calm relative to some of the expletive-laden diatribes we have seen in the past, however in the end I think they all end up making a stronger argument for the new caps than against them.
Of course the breaking up of large raiding guilds is unfortunate, but in the long run the new caps will help more people access high end content.
Personally, I feel the only reason this is such an issue is because the Burning Crusade has taken so long to be released, with so many people sitting at level 60 for as long as a year and a half, a sudden change of this nature was bound to catch them off-guard when all they have known for over a year is 40-man raids.
Hopefully the time between expansions will be significantly reduced from this point forward to reduce the stagnation when people hit the level cap and get a little too comfortable.
Filed under: Guilds, News items
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Mark Aug 22nd 2006 1:35PM
Ok, the expansion has no 40man raid content...my money is that 4-5 40man raid dungeons are in the works...so who cares.
Cedric Aug 22nd 2006 2:03PM
Guilds that do regular 40-man raids will have no problems fielding two simultaneous 25-man raids, I really don't see what the problem is. Plus, reducing the size of the raids might make the fighting more interesting, because, to tell the truth, except for some technical bosses, most of high-end instance fighting is pretty mindless for individuals. It's hard to feel that you really add much to the fight with that many people...
Rupi Aug 22nd 2006 2:40PM
Yeah, 2 months after the expansion is there we will get the preview of a new 40 man instance.
25 man cap is just a marketing trick to keep all casuals paying. It's obvious that it will take 'em at least 3-6 months to level up so all Blizz wants for now from them is just to buy the exp.
Ceej Aug 22nd 2006 2:56PM
I have to agree with #2. Would it really be that hard for a Raiding guild that can get 40 people together to get 10 more and split into two? I just can't think that it would be for most.
Inconveinient? Absolutely, and I feel badly for them. The raiding guilds are put together specifically for 40 mans, after all.
But tragically, game-alteringly, screaming-at-the-top-of-your-lungs, outrageous? I can't buy it. From the raiders I have spoken with privately, many are kind of looking forward to it, as a smaller group is easier to get together, easier to manage, and more intimate - with better oppertunity to get to know the other raiders personally as well as play style. Some even say that this will give them oppertunity to "trim the fat" out of the guild. Sounds mean, but take that as you will.
Chubby Aug 22nd 2006 3:07PM
Cedric,
Let Me guess, You are not a raider?
The issues that this is causing raid guilds like mine goes much further then just"Recruit more to field two groups"
Comments like this tell me you do not belong or have anythign to do with a 40 man raid force.
Chubbs
Chubby Aug 22nd 2006 3:36PM
Yes Ceej it is a problem let me explain.
Solution: Recruit 10 more and create two raid forces.
Problem:
1)This will basically create an A and B Team.Noone wants to be part of B team
2)I have about 32 friends I have been playing/raiding with since Everquest days, Now I have to choose which freinds to play with.
3)My guilds barely fields 40 every raid, We are not one of the top guilds neither the worst, Recruiting is slow and painful for us. So this is not an option.
Solution:Rotate players in raid to raid.
Problem: This while it may be doable, is a horrible solution. This will take guilds forver to gear out a full guild meaning falling behind on progression, and for those that dont know: For raid guilds, slow or no progression means death to a raid guild.
Solution: "Cut the Fat"
Problem:again, I have about 32 friends I have been playing/raiding with since Everquest days, Now I have to choose which freinds to play with. This is not fair, this means having SEVERAL freinds move on to other guilds. Sad after 2-3 years of playing together.
As you can see their are TONS and TONS of guild leaders in these situations that are really rackign their brains on WTF they are going to do.
Now,
While their a few casual guilds who have been very successful with AQ20 and ZG, these guilds are few and far between. Most casual guilds think arent structured to be successful with end game content.
Most casual guilds(From what I have experienced)think with the 25 man cap that now they will be able to come in and on a casual basis get Free Purples, That it will drop like rain, while what they are not realizing is that no matter what the cap size they are not structured to be succesful in this type of enviornment.
What is going to happen is while they may be able to field 25 people on a day to day basis, come after expansion time, when they get stuck on a raid boss that they wipe over and over again for days and sometimes weeks, they will start having less and less people log in.
And eventually these 25 people dwindle down to 15 maybe 20 players and they are back to the same point as they are now. Crying and screaming on the wow boards that they now want more 15-20 man zones.
While I completely understand Blizzards motivation for this change as they are trying to please their masses (casuals) I dont see how this change will benefit the causuals more then it will be hurting the current Raid Guilds.
Chubbs
Cedric Aug 22nd 2006 3:42PM
Chubby,
I am a raider, and my guild (a merge of three guilds, so we have a lot 60's) has MC/ZG/AQ raids scheduled every week. Can you expand on what these issues are exactly?
If anything, there are usually 5-10 people on raid nights who didn't sign up in time and just hang out in the guild channel in the hope that a member of the raid will have to leave so they can join the raid, so the new 25 cap would help for this as well.
Cedric Aug 22nd 2006 3:45PM
Chubby,
Ok, I understand your reaction: you belong to a guild that hardly has enough people for 40-man raids. Fair enough, I'm sure quite a few guilds are in your situation. The solution to this is usually to merge with another guild, and once you do that, I'm pretty sure you will enjoy the new 25 cap.
Also, realize that the fact that you have been raiding with the same 30 people for 10+ years makes you a very *very* rare case.
Chubby Aug 22nd 2006 4:05PM
Merging with another guid?
No Offense to you man, but I dont get the feeling you understand what a 40 man raid group consist of.
Scheduling MC,AQ20,ZG is very doable by a guild that just merged a bunch of people together.
But it wont get you very far in BWL and beyond.
You need to have a solid raid force as everyones effort is needed to be succesful.
Again, I reiterate, The change to the cap is going to hurt more of the raid guilds as it will help the casual raid guilds.
Chubbs
Cedric Aug 22nd 2006 4:16PM
Chubby,
The guilds merged a year ago, we know each other pretty well by now.
And your insistance at depicting me as someone who doesn't know what he's talking about bothers me. I'm not questioning your credentials, please have the courtesy to return the favor.
Pougen (ER) Aug 22nd 2006 4:26PM
It's a game.
Evolve your strategies and roll with it. If you can beat the bosses with 40 people, think how much more fulfilling it will be when you can use personal tactics and the group actually relies on the skill of fewer participants.
Or you could QQ more because Blizzard is making it known in no uncertain terms that it values the casual players money.
Chubby Aug 22nd 2006 4:27PM
My apologies if you were offended, but your original comments you posted in the Blog, Are thoughtless and incorrect.
The comments
"Guilds that do regular 40-man raids will have no problems fielding two simultaneous 25-man raids, I really don't see what the problem is."
Will not be made by someone who is affected by this change
Which leads me to believe either you dont have a clue or are one track minded.
At first I thought this might not be to bad of a change, but after carefully thinking this through I cant see the true benefit for this cap change and can only see harm in the change.
Chubbs
Cedric Aug 22nd 2006 4:38PM
Maybe I'm clueless. Maybe I'm one-track minded. Or maybe I'm in a guild that doesn't see anything wrong with the upcoming 25-cap and is already preparing itself for the change.
A lot of talks have already happened among the class leaders (yes, we have class leaders that are in charge of assigning the class pools for each raid, which -- I believe -- at least qualifies us as a guild that knows a bit about raiding).
Let's talk again once your guild has more than fifty 60's, I'm sure your perspective will change then.
Jolygreen Aug 22nd 2006 4:55PM
It’s interesting to me that so many people are polarized over this issue of 25 man raids. As if players can’t adapt to changing situations and limitations in the game. “Changing the game after so long and in such a big way...” So what? This type of game was meant to be tweaked hard or soft, big or small in any way the developers and their bosses decide.
I see a lot of complaints about “Free Purples for casuals”. Assumptions that casuals think, that because of the lower caps, that epics will drop more frequently is insulting to their knowledge of the game. Of course they won’t drop more frequently; they are still epics and are meant to be rare as hell. Though having the opportunity to run a 25 man raid will be more readily available then say a 40 man one. Just the fact that it will be easier to field 25 men not only for smaller guilds or pugs, but also for the larger ones that are short for whatever reason. Yeah you might have to leave a few behind. I have myself bowed out of raid slots just so some one who really wanted to go, can. I had no problem with it. Next time I was allowed a slot just for being cool about it and not expecting anything, which I didn’t. There is always other stuff to do besides raiding, like farming gold or mats, or maybe clearing a few quests. Hell you could even go to some lower instances just for the asswhoop value. Nothin better the brining the smack down on that assmuch that caused you so much pain the first time you run up on him. The lower caps on instance will increase the chance of loot and perhaps unique quest item distribution since fewer people will be competing for the same loot when and if it drops. It won’t guarantee anything, but will give a greater chance at possible acquisitions.
Logistically running multiple raids is all about delegating leaders for said groupings and how much you trust your people. Micromanaging multiple events is what gives people wrinkles and frown lines. If you have the dedication to run any 40 man raid it’s only a small step to dedicating yourself to multiple smaller raids.
To those who see this as a destruction of long time guilds: how can this be such a big disaster? You say splitting isn’t an option, more time outfitting, possible defections to other guilds and the need to chose who will be A and who will be B. Wow, is this really about who you get to play with this week? Are your friendships so vested in whether or not they can play with you this week or this raid that a little time away from them will result in catastrophic meltdown of said friendship and defection to another guild? If that small a thing, and this is a small thing called a GAME, can lead to breakups in relationships…in game then maybe you all should step back and figure out why you play these games. Maybe analyzing what the motivations of your guildies are will give you a better understanding of a more underlying problem in your guild’s synchronicity and purpose. If all are focused on the same goal then a little disruption probably won’t devastate your guild make up. Though if this new cap is used to condense the elite just for the sake of the elite then your guild was circling the drain long before this.
If it’s about fat loot then it will take a little longer and you will have to work a little harder. If it’s about game progression then the same applies: a little more work and a little harder. We all are paying to play a GAME every month. Is it going to be so bad that you will need to play just a little longer before possible reaching burnout on the game? If in fact you will be susceptible to the burnout that is. What really happens when you get all the epic loot for your self and have done all there is to do? You complain about not having anything to do. Well now you can experience a different take on raids where you don’t have so many people around. Where knowledge of each other’s skills and play style will affect the out come of the battles more that how many are in the raid. Won’t the victories be sweeter when accomplished with a smaller group to share it? Or is it all about “I took down 1 hard Boss with 39 of my friends…..”?
Edale Aug 22nd 2006 5:03PM
I have to disagree, Chubby - I think that if your core of people have managed to survive together for multiple years (I'm actually in the same boat, although with fewer than 35 people), including switching over to WoW and five-man instances onlyn until you reached raiding levels, you can survive a 25 raider cap.
Remember, at this point we don't know enough to make a judgement as to what the new zones will be like. For one thing, there may be a short saved-to-instance time, so you mixing and matching raid teams could be entirely plausible. There may be a couple of dungeon instances that are roughly the same level, preventing the A and B team issue in a completely different way, as people rotate through raiding nights. I can come up with a number of solutions off the top of my head that don't even bother adding a half a dozen people to your team - but adding those people could also be a benefit. As is, you mention that you barely have enough people to field a 40 man raid - making it 25 could provide actually *more* flexibility and time spent together with your guild, unless you're already currently raiding five-seven days a week.
Personally, I'm looking forward to the 25. I'm not in a super-hardcore raiding guild - we raid do 40 man raids twice a week and then toss in a 20 man raid midweek, when we have less players. So for us, it'll provide more opportunity to raid on nights that we can't summon up a full 40 (and we do have a good 60+ 60s, we just have a lot of people with busy lives!). But even more importantly to me, and I know this is a personal opinion, I simply find smaller raid groups more appealing. It's more intimate, since with less people overall, everybody becomes a little more vital to the fight and their role in it. And we simply have more *fun* on small raid nights, because there's less chance for drama, less spam and more opportunity for conversation.
Argent Aug 22nd 2006 5:37PM
i really don't feel like going into great detail on this subject, simply because it's kinda pointless at this juncture to pre-speculate so much, but nevertheless, here are a few points:
1. anyone who thinks this will adversely affect bigger raiding guilds is just plain delusional. if anything, the 25 man cap will allow them to pare down some of their 'weaker' or less focused members and get even stronger. in that regard, these changes *AID* raiding guilds more than anything.
2. anyone who thinks the 25 man caps will help more casual players to get into better gear needs to examine most recent history -- these dungeons will most likely feature encounters that make the (fairly insane) stuff we see in naxx now look weak. if this is in fact the case, even the scalable difficulty setting won't act as a panacea here, simply because as anyone who is raiding at the moment will tell you -- raiding is about a few hours raiding and a lot of hours farming for mats and coin. if you only log on a few hours a day, you won't be able to keep up with the (steep) cost of resources and repair bills that is generally associated with learning new content.
3. taking an existing 40 man raid and splitting it into 2 raids seems a popular notion by those who (imo) haven't done much in the way of leading a raid into places like Aq40 or naxx. you will need resources -- lots of them (someone in my guild mentioned a figure of 4000g a week for consumables...) and you also need to sync schedules over a far greater number.
right now, if a 45-50 man raid (gotta have a few folks sitting on the bench, as it were) is so hard to coordinate in terms of peoples time and schedules as blizz seems to indicate it is -- isn't upping that number to 50-60 completely contrary to common sense?
so what if raid 1 has 25 on and raid 2 only has 22 people on? what if some of the key classes in one raid don't show up or are late one day?
one thing i know from having lead both 40 man and 20 man raids is that in terms of class composition, you can hide a lot of flaws in a 40 man raid. if you're short a few rogues, you can perhaps compensate with a few more mages or even warlocks. in a 20 man group, you simply just don't have those extra tolerances -- you either have a very solid group make up or else the run starts getting supremely tedious (try moam with one warlock some time. or ZG with one or no mages.)
in the end, the only tenor i've heard from the bigger raiding groups is that it sucks that this late into the game they have to basically tell some of their friends and associates that they basically don't have room for them anymore -- and given that WoW really should be about social interaction first and foremost, that is truly unfortunate.
Methodical Aug 22nd 2006 5:48PM
Chubby,
Since you won't respond to anything but spew, here's some: Get your crying out of your system and prepare your guild for 25-man raids, because Blizz isn't changing it.
Or, quit now and save some cash.
Thelna - ER Aug 22nd 2006 6:15PM
It will take a few months to lvl up to 70. half the people in an average raiding guild probably do not play 15 hours a day. that leaves you with about 20-25 strong to do the instances. unless your entire guild will hit lvl 70 3 weeks after the expansion, NO ONE in a guild is going to be crying about 25 man limits for at least 3 2 and a half months. I agree with earlier statements that blizzard will have 40 man instances a month or two away from opening, by that time.
If you are a power gamer and will level to 70 in 3 or 4 weeks, or less, then you also have 5+ alts that need to be leveled. So you will be too busy to worry about 40 mans. You will see that this is a decent move on blizzards part.
Then again, they just nerfed ZF and that makes a person go, Hmmmmm!
Edale Aug 22nd 2006 6:16PM
I just wanted to answer:
>>3. taking an existing 40 man raid and splitting it into 2 raids seems a popular notion by those who (imo) haven't done much in the way of leading a raid into places like Aq40 or naxx. you will need resources -- lots of them (someone in my guild mentioned a figure of 4000g a week for consumables...) and you also need to sync schedules over a far greater number.
right now, if a 45-50 man raid (gotta have a few folks sitting on the bench, as it were) is so hard to coordinate in terms of peoples time and schedules as blizz seems to indicate it is -- isn't upping that number to 50-60 completely contrary to common sense?
Edale Aug 22nd 2006 6:27PM
Argh, my comment cut off somehow and all that saved was repetition.
I wanted to say, I completely agree that I don't think the 25 man change will make content any more accessible to the casual gamer, unless they're putting in more lower-tier dungeons that I expect them to.
But I absolutely disagree with the notion that it will be harder to coordinate two 25 man raids than it will be 1 40. No matter how you slice it, two 25 man raids are NOT the same thing as one 50 - there is no rule hinting that they need to be simultaneous raids or even raids of the same instances on the same night. You don't have to coordinate 50 people on at the same time, you have to coordinate 25. Guilds that are deciding to field two teams can decide if that means they raid more frequently but with fewer members or get a few more members and stick to the same nights of raiding or a dozen combinations of. You don't *have* to sync the schedules of 50 people, you only have to if your guild chooses to go that route (which sounds like a recipe for disaster, IMO).