The Daily Quest: The Cataclysm raiding debate
by Robin Torres 
Apr 27th 2010 at 7:00PM
When the Cataclsym raiding changes were announced yesterday, the blogosphere erupted with reactions that were as varied as they were numerous. I was expecting QQ galore, but instead found quite a lot of analysis looking at all sides of the issue.
- Can Tank, Will Travel has recommendations for tanks as a result of the changes.
- Saresa at Destructive Reach takes credit for them.
- Borsked has questions.
- Wugan at Flow thinks choice is a good thing.
- The 'mental Shaman has more than 10 friends.
- Tales of a Priest gives an elitist point of view.
- Twisted Faith predicts the death of one of the raid types.
- I am a Paladin predicts great things for 25-man raids.
- Restokin sees doom and gloom.
- Gray Matter foresees the destabilization of guilds.
- Dechion does not believe the sky is falling.
- Larisa at the Pink Pigtail Inn wonders if anyone will bother with 25-man raids.
Filed under: The Daily Quest
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Parl Apr 27th 2010 7:06PM
I'm mostly worried about the effect it will have on pugs. With stricter lockouts, I see more and more people leaning away from pugs, but we'll see.
Hih Apr 27th 2010 7:33PM
I see it as the death of 25 man raid pugs at least. It's so much easier to get a 10 man pug together. And since you only need 9 other people instead of 24, you can also include stricter gear/achievement requirements.
dpoyesac Apr 27th 2010 8:09PM
This is probably part of the reasoning behind it. With the changes to guilds (better guild UI, guild levels, a real guild recruitment tool) AND the death of pugs, no more lone wolves in Warcraft.
Good? Bad? Dunno, but certainly different.
windstalker668 Apr 27th 2010 10:48PM
I agree, it seems as though PUGs will (hopefully) go the way of the dinosaur when it comes to top tier raiding. If difficulty is going to upped and evened out, then 10 mans won't be easy mode, they will be "casual raider" mode, tuned for players who can't make normal raid times due to schedules, but are good/hardcore raiders at heart who can now raid with other people with schedules like theirs and don't have to find 24 of them either. This will make casual or weekend guild more attractive.
The other thing that many people are missing IMO are the changes that Blizz said they were making to guilds, namely achievements and titles. If you are part of a guild who has multiple achievements that you helped them attain, you will be more likely to stay in that guild, you will have something "tangible" tying you to the guild. Now people leave guilds left and right, in the future people will want to stay where they earned achievements and made success's. I would assume that just becasue you joined a guild that has say all of the raiding achievements that you would not have access to them because you had no ties to the guild before they got them. This could also make guilds far mroe competative and give players reasons to stay in guilds long term.
TL;DR Raids and guilds will be more appealing in Cata for both casual and hardcore players by allowing them the ability to enjoy more content but forcing them to learn it and interact with the same people raid after raid.
dap Apr 28th 2010 10:15AM
While 25-man PuGs will certainly suffer from this change, as far as I see it, Wednesday's evenings will be the time to do 25-man PuGs, since the lock-out is new, which means the chances of people you want to invite being already locked are low, and players will want to get their chance at more badges/gold/items.
Later in the week (Saturday, Monday, Tuesday) it will be a rare sight to see any 25-man PuG, since people will want to get some items and instead of waiting for hours over hours to find a 24 people who can/want to raid with them, they'd rather go for the easier, safer way (= 10-man).
While things will work differently, I doubt 25-man PuGs will completely die.
Recubi Apr 28th 2010 10:18AM
To clearify Grakaron's position i support currently 10 man raiding is a joke. I took my alt week from hitting 80 with full i232 gear with a group with the same average of gearscore and killed LK with that 10 percent buff. I run around with my shammy in full T9 232 and the two axes that you get out of forge of souls sporting the kingslayer title. 10 mans isnt and never will be hard. They wont boost the difficulty of 10 man to make it comparable to 25 man they will water down 25 man.
Point and fact. You will have a bunch of people that can at least get 11/12 in icc currently but put them all together and they may be able to get 6/12. Another fact going back two contents ago. Algalon's big bag does about 90k damage unmit with the same number of tanks available to soak but on 25 its what 120k? If you apply to current they arent going to make LK's soul reaper hit for 40k in 10 man. Most peoples arguement. . more healers? Thats why? Not really. . with the amount of other damage going out raid wide due to infest. . .defile you still at most have two healers controlling the soaking tank's health through that event.
The other point is raiding efficiency for cat. . .25 man will drop more loot? Well how much is that? Think back we will say voa for an IE. . .some cloth item drops that you want. BUT you have to roll against other priests, warlocks, and mages. Now compare this to 10 man. . same thing drops. . .but there maybe at most two other cloth wearers in your group that you have to roll against where in 25 you may have ballooned to 9 or more. What do you think is your better chances?
Death to 25s? To early to tell but it looks grim. . think back to those raids where you have 3 maybe 4 or 5 people that constant stand in bad stuff, stand in the wrong spot, or kill others due to lack to awareness or even having an once of care. Do you want to have another frustrating expansion pulling your hair out with them? Or do you want to take your 9 best guys with you and kill the content together probably gearing faster than them cause they are still wiping to easy bosses?
Dysmorphia Apr 27th 2010 7:08PM
I was starting to think I was the only 25 man raider who thought the change was awesome. If I may be allowed to plug my own post (rather than hitting with a Wall of Text here)
Why the Homogenization of 10 and 25 Player Raids in Cataclysm is Good for 25-Player Raiding Guilds
http://dys-morphia.livejournal.com/58446.html
cmichaelcooper Apr 27th 2010 7:12PM
Quote from the blog at the Pink Pigtail...
"If you're in a 25 man raiding guild you'll probably argue that getting 10 people come together and play as a team is a piece of cake comparing to the administrative nightmare of arranging 25 man runs. Apart from that it's way more likely that one out of 25 will screw up or just get dc:d in an encounter with tight margins, than that someone will fall off when you only have ten people to worry about. The effort is bigger and the risk for a wipe as well and because of this the reward should be better. Without the incentives, the 25 man raid is likely to die."
So lets rejoice at the death of "administrative nightmares"!
The only reason why people raided with 40 people was because they didn't have another choice. The only reason people raid with 25 people is because they want the better gear. Not because it is actually more fun.
More epic? Perhaps. More impressive? Surely, as the ability to overcome organizational challenges is surely impressive. But more fun? Not a chance.
The question of whether WoW is actually any fun anymore has been popping up a lot lately, and don't you doubt that Blizzard has their ear to the ground on it.
Hih Apr 27th 2010 7:35PM
So what's your point? That Blizzard should just introduce single player raids tuned around you being the only person in the raid? What happened to the Massively part of the genre?
Bistramo Apr 27th 2010 7:38PM
Believe it or not, some people such as myself actually do find 25 man raiding more fun than 10 man raiding. Just as it is your opinion that it is less fun to raid 25 mans because you're only there for the gear, it is my opinion that people who raid solely for better loot are missing the point of playing a MMORPG.
cmichaelcooper Apr 27th 2010 7:42PM
My point is that people generally follow the path of least resistance to whatever goal they are pursuing, and that isn't going to change.
10-man content seems to be the sweet spot of what we consider raids. It is possible to raid with real friends, and not the work-like association of people in your 25-man raiding guild. I believe strongly that these types of groups are more functional, more positively motivated, and more emotionally healthy for players than the larger raids, and should be promoted.
Grakaron Apr 27th 2010 7:14PM
"We have positioned our 25-player content as more difficult and therefore capable of generating better rewards. Managing a group of that size requires a little more effort and we figured if the rewards were the same, we'd steer pretty much everyone towards 10-player raiding. At this point we don't want to do that."
Ghostcrawler himself folks, a Blizzard dev saying if they do this with 25/10 mans that it will push people to 10 mans. But you know i guess the devs are only right when its what you want to hear.
Cyanea Apr 27th 2010 7:20PM
WAY to miss the point.
"Managing a group of that size requires a little more effort and we figured if the rewards were the same, we'd steer pretty much everyone towards 10-player raiding. At this point we don't want to do that."
GC is stating this as an example of what would happen if 25s and 10s dropped the same everything: the same amount of emblems/points, the same amount of gear, the same amount of gold, the same amount of crafting mats, the same amount of recipes, etc etc etc. 25 mans are more of a hassle to run, so GC's saying that if the rewards are the exact same, then nobody would ever run 25-mans.
But if you read the original announcement, you know that the rewards are NOT going to be the same. Sure, the two versions are going to drop the same gear, but 25-mans are going to drop MORE of that gear, plus more badges, more gold, more recipes, more crafting mats, etc etc. There IS a reward for running in 25-mans instead of 10-mans. If the reward was different/better gear, then it would just be creating the same exact problem that exists now in Lich King where people are forced to run 10-mans to gear for 25-mans, etc etc etc.
So relax.
cmichaelcooper Apr 27th 2010 7:24PM
Cyanea has made a good point.
What if the gear that is dropping in the raids isn't the ultimate goal of the raids anymore, and the mats to craft better gear is. At that point, you're going to raid for more mats, not necessarily for the gear that drops.
Grakaron Apr 27th 2010 7:51PM
They already backpeddled on the higher ratio per player drop rate, and with the new valor point changes, it doesnt seem to really matter if it drops more points if your still going to max out either way from 10/25 mans and heroics. Zaraya's post basically even says that they dotn want to give 25 mans special titles mounts etc in 25 mans, anything that makes it different cause it would make people feel like they had to run them.
On top of that, the are going to make 10 mans and 25 mans the same difficulty? okay, so are 10 mans going to get alot harder? and if that happens what happens to this huge casual base they are trying to cater to? Right, they tick them off, so it means 10 mans wont get harder, if anything they will get easier, thereby making 25 mans a joke, thereby making the entire game an easy mode rofl fest. So dont tell me to relax when they basically are sucking everything out of a 25 man that made it fun.
Rubitard Apr 27th 2010 9:17PM
"So dont tell me to relax when they basically are sucking everything out of a 25 man that made it fun."
I'll tell you to relax, because you don't know the whole story yet. No one does. We don't know how all the other changes (i.e.: class and guild dynamics) will work within these new frameworks. Once again, you're making these assumptions based on current gameplay. Neither you, me, nor anyone else has enough information to get this bent out of shape. So, thanks to folks like you, the more rational among us get lugubrious and dramatic QQing that is based on only a part of the equation. Blizzard's worst mistake, in my mind, is telling WoW players what's going to happen in chunks like this, because most can't seem to get their panic-addled brains around the fact that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.
Lissanna Apr 27th 2010 11:08PM
more badges & emblems won't be enough to matter.
Cyanea Apr 28th 2010 4:13AM
"okay, so are 10 mans going to get alot harder?"
Actually, believe it or not...10-mans are pretty challenging when you don't use 10-man raids as a loot pinata between 25-man runs. Wearing gear several iLevels above the stats that the raid was tuned for doesn't mean 10-mans are easy...it just means you roflstomped the bosses and trivialized your own achievements. For strict 10-man guilds, who didn't bounce into ICC10 from ToTC25, the challenge is there, and downing bosses is that much more sweet.
Grakaron Apr 28th 2010 7:08AM
Of course "Dude i'm going to totally tell you to relax cause we have no idea how these changes will effect the game so relax!" Um okay, so if we have no idea how these changes are going to effect the game why are you not telling everyone thats like "OMG THIS IS THE BEST THING EVER IT WILL MAKE THE GAME AWESOMO!" the same thing? double standards much? I'm pretty sure upon my calculation of what will happen not cause i'm an elitist prick, but cause ive been playing the game along time and am very good at predicting trends. If Blizzard does this, without changing it, it will kill 25 man raiding, and will make the game easier. The people that will run 10 mans will complain if they arnt easy. I ask you this, with the current 15% buff in ICC do you not feel like its a joke as is? or even the gated system of releasing one boss every few weeks? Do you think thats a beneficial way to make artificial stops in the game?
Darkseid Apr 28th 2010 9:23AM
"Blizzard's worst mistake, in my mind, is telling WoW players what's going to happen in chunks like this."
-Yep, pretty much...
"Um okay, so if we have no idea how these changes are going to effect the game why are you not telling everyone thats like "OMG THIS IS THE BEST THING EVER IT WILL MAKE THE GAME AWESOMO!" the same thing?"
-You can't argue with that statement. On EVERY topic that has discussed this, anyone expressing ANY kind of doubt about the brilliance of Blizzard's changes to raiding, has be auto-downgraded. No considering their points, no addressing their concerns. Simply 'you don't agree...thumbs down to you...period!' WIth the reasoning always being the same. "dude calm down, this isn't the whole story yet, blizz wouldn't intentionally kill off 25-mans, theres more info to come, just chill" Yet one post above that, someone will simply say "this is going to be awee$ome duDe!!!!!1!!!!1!!". And their post is blue with all thumbs up.
Great. Way to conduct a serious debate.