Officers' Quarters: The great raid size debate, part 2
by Scott Andrews 
Nov 8th 2010 at 2:00PM
Last week, I received an email asking me for my thoughts on raid size in Cataclysm. As it turns out, I have quite a few thoughts -- three columns' worth, in fact, covering four different categories: gameplay, logistics, rewards and intangibles. My goal is to help officers and their guild members to choose which raid size is best suited for their guild. A week ago, I wrote about the gameplay category.
This week's column will cover two topics that have been linked together throughout the history of the game. From the very beginning of WoW, Blizzard has made a connection between more difficult logistics and greater rewards. Molten Core, Onyxia, and later 40-man raids rewarded the best available gear in their respective heydays. Throughout The Burning Crusade and Wrath, 25-man content yielded the best items. For Cataclysm, this paradigm is shifting.
Let's take a look at the logistics involved with the two raid sizes and the rewards that each size offers.
Logistics
- A 25-man raid requires an intense recruiting effort. A large and diverse roster is essential to field a 25-man consistently from week to week. There will almost always be a player or two who is unable to attend any given raid. Also, there's almost always a spec or a role that you need more of in order to ensure a well-balanced raid, so rarely do you get to relax your recruiting efforts. For a 10-man guild, on the other hand, you can get away with carrying just a few extra raiders. Once you reach a certain point at which you have enough dependable players, you can stop recruiting. If you're starting a guild from scratch, you're probably going to have to settle for 10-mans at first before you can build up to 25-man raids. Finding so many solid raiders is never an easy task.
- "Cat herding" is flat-out easier in 10-man raids. There can be little debate on this issue. Getting 10 people to show up on time and follow instructions is easier to do when you have fewer people to worry about.
- More raiders means more attendance and technical issues. In a 10-man, you have 15 fewer people who unexpectedly have to take a sick dog to the vet or entertain family from out of town. You have 15 fewer people who might have trouble logging in, experience weird addon problems, or DC during a boss fight. Such issues can lead to canceled raids, long mid-raid delays, or frustrating wipes. And the more raiders you're counting on, the more likely it is that some of them are going to disappoint you, hold you up, or make your night miserable.
- Subbing is easier in a larger raid. To counterbalance the previous point, it is generally easier to substitute players when you're working with a larger raid size. There are a few reasons for this. For one thing, if your raiders are using dual specs, then there's almost always someone who can switch roles to replace the person subbing out, if necessary. Another reason is that a larger raid depends less on each individual's performance. If you're swapping a player who does 8,000 DPS for one who does 6,000, that's easier to manage when the DPSer is one of 17 as opposed to one of six. Finally, larger raids are more likely to have multiple people who know how to perform specialized actions, such as using the Magnetic Core against Mimiron in phase 3 or "driving" the abomination against Professor Putricide.
- Scheduling difficulties are easier to manage with more players. The common thinking here would suggest the opposite, but I find that scheduling for fewer people actually creates more problems. The problem with the smaller raid size, especially if you have a tight-knit team, is that each person is so crucial. And because those players know that they're crucial, each one expects you to schedule around their own conflicts. Finding open nights for 25 players can sometimes be more difficult, but with a larger pool of players, it is easier to say, "This is the best night for the most people, so we all have to adjust" -- and get away with it. You're also less likely to cancel a raid due to one or two players' being unable to attend, because it's expected. In a 10, if two of your three tanks are /afk for the night, your raid is toast.
- Loot is easier to distribute in 10-man. Again, it's hard to argue against this. There are fewer items to give away and fewer people interested in each one. Even if you use a complex system such as EPGP, you still have fewer players to track within that system.
Rewards
- 25-man bosses are worth more valor points. According to Blizzard, 25-man bosses will be worth 105 valor points, compared to 75 in 10-man. Due to the weekly point cap, however, players who raid either size can still earn the same amount of points per week. Those who raid 10-man will be required to run a few extra daily heroics to reach the cap. For players who don't have much time to play outside of raids, larger groups will allow them to gear up faster.
- Normal 10s offer the same amount of items per player. In the April raiding announcement posted by Nethaera, she wrote, "25-player versions will drop a higher quantity of loot per player (items, but also badges, and even gold)." However, this is not currently the case in beta. Bosses in 10-man drop two items, or one item for every five players. Bosses in 25-man raids drop five items, or one item for every five players. The ratio is currently the same. However ...
- Heroic 25s will drop more items per player than Heroic 10s. I don't think this fact is widely known, but Ghostcrawler said exactly this back in June, and I haven't heard anything to contradict it since. If your guild plans to tackle heroic bosses, then there will be more loot to go around per player if you're raiding at the larger size. We don't know the exact numbers yet, but with heroic raid testing happening in the beta, we should find out soon.
- Fewer items will be sharded in 25s. Although the same ratio of items will drop in either size at normal difficulty, larger raids will be able to put more of those items to use. In 10s, you simply can't have every spec represented there, even if you count dual specs. In most cases, you probably won't even have every class represented. Larger raids will usually be able to field at least one player from each class. If you count dual specs, such a raid will generally have someone who can make good use of every item, at least for the few first months until the instance is farmed out. This issue is somewhat alleviated by the elimination of spec-specific stats like armor penetration and defense, but given the new armor specialization bonuses, I'd say the sharding issue will be worse, not better, in the expansion.
- Legendary items should be available for both sizes. In the same thread I linked above, Ghostcrawler confirmed that legendaries will be available in both 10s and 25s, unlike today. This intention was reiterated at the open Q&A at BlizzCon 2010.
- Achievements are equivalent. No distinction exists for either raid size as far as achievements are concerned, so players will earn the same achievements and achievement rewards, such as drakes, regardless of their preferred raid size. On a side note, remember that raid groups must consist of at least 80 percent guild members to earn guild achievements. That's easier to pull off in 10s if your guild has a smaller roster.
That's it for this week! Next week, I'll cover the intangibles category for the two raid sizes, as well as draw some overall conclusions to help you make this extremely important decision for your guild.
/salute
Send Scott your guild-related questions, conundrums, ideas and suggestions at scott@wow.com. You may find your question the subject of next week's Officers' Quarters! Filed under: Officers' Quarters (Guild Leadership)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Necromann Nov 8th 2010 2:08PM
Great article
Spellotape Nov 8th 2010 2:13PM
10s really seem like the way to go based on this information, but as an aside, I've been in very few progressive 10 man groups where it was possible to carry one or two (or more) people - I feel like 25s are much more forgiving of mistakes in that respect and losing a person in a 25 to something silly is more easily covered than it is in a 10.
Finnicks Nov 8th 2010 2:50PM
This here is the one of the main ways 25s will have an advantage over 10s. While it *is* harder to get 25 people to follow instructions, it's also not as big of an impact of 1/25 screws up and dies (unless it's a tank). Note I'm not trying to say this means 25s will be easier overall, I'm just saying it contributes to evening the playing field.
In a lot of discussions I've had with 25-manners who are angry about the issue, the common theme is that they cannot imagine how a 25-man could be easier. All of them cite examples like 25-man LK versus 10-man LK. None of them seem to want to consider the fact that in Wrath, 25-mans were balanced to be less forgiving. We simply don't know how 25-mans are going to balanced in Cataclysm in relation to 10-mans.
This is also the reason I like 10-mans better. Call me a little selfish, but whenever I find myself in a 25-man I feel like I'm participating in a massive spam fest, and that I could run over and jump off the cliff and no one would know the difference.
My personal contribution to a 10-man is much greater. I feel like I'm actually part of a team working together, and not a faceless member of an army that's indistinguishable from the others.
Huzurahh Nov 8th 2010 3:00PM
I agree that this should be put in the 25man 'pro' list. Our 25man raid guild always had a couple not-quite-pro performers that we liked playing with because of their personality as opposed to the button pressing skill. It worked out okay in the larger raids, but when you start decreasing the number of people, each person takes on an increasing larger responsibility for wins and losses.
My guild is planning on switching from 25s to two 10s, mostly due to the 'cat herding' issues, and neither of the raid leaders wants to take on our 'special' raiders. I, for one, am going to miss the 25mans. 10mans were always just a way to kick back and relax on a Friday, while the 'real' raids were on other nights.
Firestyle Nov 8th 2010 3:27PM
@ Finnicks. Many of the most tightly tuned encounters have mechanics where a single player can wipe the raid. In a 10 player environment, that wipe risk goes down dramatically if you are cutting out the "special raiders" from your otherwise 25 man raid.
They are going to have to do more mechanics where players have to do something, rather than avoid something to make 10 mans harder. 10 man netherspite needed 3 players to coordinate beams. A 25 man netherspite might take 4-5 players and still be easier. Imagine the same setup on Mags with the box pushing. 10 man could also be harder, with the distance of the boxes, and the lack of other players to take over in time if some one dies. Then again, 3 people simultaneously doing something is easier than 5.
mark Nov 8th 2010 4:26PM
our guild is currently planing on running both
blizzard are suposed to be doing several smaller raids per tier - instead of one like naxx/uld/icc are
imagine if we'd had ToC and a different 6 boss one at the same time
you then do one on 25 man, and one on 10, each week - and alternate
with our current 3 25 man nights and 2 ten (broken by flexible raidlocks though)
that works out perfectly
Bruno Nov 8th 2010 5:08PM
While it's not that of a big issue 1 dps screwing up in 25 mans, I usually find the larger the non-pro raids, the lesser is the sense of responsability.
There is a individual mentality of "I have room to screw up, so I'm not going to pay that much of attention" in 25 mans vs "I cannot screw up, I'm paying attention" in 10 mans.
In the end you have a non-pro 25 man working at 75% efficiency, and a non-pro 10 man doing 90% of optimal game playing. That way, 10 mans will reach their objective faster than 25 mans.
This will also lead to attrition between players doing their jobs against those consistently performing badly "because they can".
Anye Nov 8th 2010 5:23PM
Yeah, 25's are easier for carrying not-so-good players... But why do you WANT to carry not-so-good players?
That's why, for me, this is another PRO-10-man difference. Oh what's that? You stand in the fire, or your DPS/HPS is inexplicably low? Sorry, can't afford to keep you in this raid. You can feel free to join our alt runs later in the week!
Pyromelter Nov 8th 2010 6:44PM
I have seen more than just a few people perform better in 10mans than 25mans, simply because they know they are more important and have to perform better than in 25s. That bit of extra pressure forces most people to play better, most likely because they concentrate a bit harder at what they are doing, instead of just facerolling a dps rotation.
Blacksen Nov 8th 2010 7:20PM
You're forgetting that the most challenging and rewarding fights ever seen have had 0 room for error in the 25man setting - one person dying typically meant a wipe. You can trace this through several patch cycles, from heroic Lich King to Firefigther to Yogg-0 to M'uru to Archimonde - if one person makes a mistake, the raid dies.
So yes, 1 person dying in 10man means you lose 10% of your raid, while 1 person dying in 25man means you lose 4% of your raid.
But what you're ignoring are the consequences. If a fight demands 100%, you cannot make a single mistake. It's in this way that 25mans are harder than 10mans.
Spellotape Nov 8th 2010 8:22PM
@ Anye
I did not say anyone would want to. I was merely pointing out it was more easily done.
Spellotape Nov 8th 2010 8:25PM
@ Blacksen
Please don't put words in my mouth. I was not ignoring anything - I was merely stating 25s were "more" forgiving, not 100% forgiving of every error that could possibly occur.
gosubilko Nov 8th 2010 11:03PM
"You're forgetting that the most challenging and rewarding fights ever seen have had 0 room for error in the 25man setting - one person dying typically meant a wipe.
So yes, 1 person dying in 10man means you lose 10% of your raid, while 1 person dying in 25man means you lose 4% of your raid."
@Blacksen I agree with him here. In addition, some raid mechanics favor 10 while some favor 25. Blizzard can opt to make a pseudo-hard mode for the easier encounter to balance it with the harder one. For example, this "hard" mode will punish the raid for letting a raid member die whether it be a 10/25 version. It will require some iteration on the part of Blizzard but hey, that's why they're the raid designers and we're the raiders. They might not be able to nail it 100% all the time, but a close 90% is fine.
10 man too easy you say? Make it so that a death almost certainly a wipe. 25s has 3x battle rezzes! That's a good balance I think.
DavidC Nov 9th 2010 11:48AM
OS-3D-10m ... originally that was much much harder then the 25 man version by a HUGE margin. So yes, Blizzard can make 10's harder then 25's. People seem to conveniently forget that 10's now are tuned easier then 25's cause they drop a lessor tier of gear.
Consider 10m hard modes vs 25m normal mode. Which is easier? the 25 man normal without a doubt.
If the difficulty is _exactly_ the same the question will come down to "how hard is the content". If the content is silly easy, then 10 mans will be the way to go. If the content is hard, as it should be, then 25 mans will be the way to go.
Why? cause in 10's individual performance is more crucial then in 25's. In 25's, there are more players around to carry your sorry ass ergo making success more likely. In a 25, I really don't care that 3 window lickers are eating dirt ... in a 10, having just one of my healers down makes a big difference.
Armill3 Nov 9th 2010 12:26PM
I think 10 man raids will be dominant, and I think we're seeing this now with Icecrown Citadel.
As a person with not a lot of time to raid and as a member of a small guild, my raiding options are either pugging ICC 25 for a shot at better loot, pugging ICC 10, or raiding ICC 10 with my guild. Ideally, I would raid ICC 10 with my guild, and if I have time, pug ICC 25.
Since we can't do this anymore, though, my ICC lockouts are going to the guild ICC 10, and this is why: even if players are not necessarily the best, having a consistent team that progresses together will get farther into an instance than a pug of people who have not progressed. Sure, GDKP raids will blow them out of the water, but those folks have by and large finished progression. Folks who are learning the content de novo will benefit more from dedication and accountability on the part of their fellow raiders, and it's much easier to organize a group of 10 for a regular effort.
I suppose it's different if you have the time to devote multiple entire evenings to raiding. My life, alas(?), does not permit for this.
Finnicks Nov 10th 2010 5:17PM
@Blacksen
And YOU'RE forgetting that throughout Wrath of the Lich King, 25-man encounters were SPECIFICALLY TUNED TO BE HARDER.
This seems to be 25-manners favorite line... how much harder 25s were in Wrath. THEY WERE DESIGNED to be harder. They weren't harder "because they required 25 people". They were harder because Blizzard decided that 25-mans would be harder, and tuned them that way.
Blizzard isn't taking that line anymore. They are going to specifically design both versions to be of roughly equal difficulty. The only way they can do that is to make the output requirements equal. 10-man raids have 5 DPS (usually), so they balance a DPS race to require (say) 50,000 DPS for the first tier of raiding. 25-man raid usually has 17 DPS, so they balance the same DPS race to require 170,000 DPS.
10-man raid: 1 DPS screws up and dies halfway through. 10,000 DPS lost. 20% of total output. You're probably going to hit enrage around 10%. The other 4 DPS will have a very hard time making up for the difference, even if they push very hard. Do you commonly find is easy to ramp up your normal output by 20% over a long period?
25-man raid: 1 DPS screws up and dies halfway through. 10,000 DPS lost. 6% of total output lost. Every other DPSer only has to push themselves 6% harder to make up the loss. The raid still has a chance. Even if 2 people die, you've barely incurred half the loss that a 10-man would suffer from so much as 1 death.
That's what we are saying.
And for the love of God, stop touting the "omgz 1 death in H 25-man LK wuz wipez" because like I said, it was specifically designed to be harder than 10-man. You can't compare that to Cata, where the design approach is completely different.
Homeschool Nov 8th 2010 2:19PM
Something else you don't mention - your odds of getting a particular item will be better in 25s.
For example, say you're going after the Legendary Trinket of Epic. It only drops off boss 3, who has a table with 10 items. (For the example, say they all have the same drop rate.) In a 10-man, he'll drop 2 items, which means you have about a 1-in-5 chance of seeing it on any given week. But in a 25-man, you have a 1-in-2 chance of seeing it on any given week.
Granted, the odds don't always work so nicely, and there's always the risk of two of a given item dropping, instead of them all being unique, but the fact remains that you have a better chance of seeing an item in a pool of 5 than a pool of 2.
Of course, you also probably have competition for it, unless you're the only hunter in a raid of mages.
Blacksen Nov 8th 2010 2:50PM
This is completely false due to the number of people who want said "Legendary Trinket." While there's a better chance that it drops in 25man, there's a much lower chance that you'll win it over the others who want it. In 10man, there might only be 2 other healers who want an item. In 25man, there are like 5-6. For caster DPS, that number goes up even more. To top it all off, it appears that bosses can't drop 2 of the same item in the same kill, making those "elusive trinkets" even more annoying to get.
Homeschool Nov 8th 2010 3:07PM
@Blacksen - If two of the same can't drop, that makes it more likely to see a given item on 25, since (RNG being what it is) there's always going to be that one single-spec item that drops EVERY week, leaving only one other item on 10 but four on 25.
As for competition, that part is true. Your odds of WINNING it are lower, since there's more likely to be someone else who wants it. However, if you're more likely to see it, it sort of balances out, right?
If you've got a DKP-system going, 25 will be the way to go - since you're more likely to see the item sooner, and all you have to worry about is having the most to spend. For a random roll, it probably evens out. But then, that's "random" for you.
falc Nov 9th 2010 4:06AM
Two of the same item can drop off a given boss.
I've seen 2 times now the LK10 drop 2 of the exact same weapons.
Once it was 2x http://www.wowwiki.com/Warmace_of_Menethil
Other time it was 2x http://www.wowwiki.com/Valius,_Gavel_of_the_Lightbringer