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The latest patch 5.4 newsZarhym muses about 15-man raids
by Mathew McCurley 
Aug 11th 2011 at 6:00PM
There are many benefits to 15-man raids that work around the scaling problems of 25-mans and the tuning issues of 10-mans. The big issues with 25-man raids include scaling and filling out the roster. Many guilds cannot field 25 people for their weekly raid and usually have to resort to pugging a few stragglers who aren't in tune with the group. Other guilds who cannot field 25 players choose to do two 10-man raids, but the issue of group composition takes center stage; where two 10-mans require a total of four tanks and five to six healers, the 25-man requires two tanks and six to eight healers. You can get a nasty split if you don't have just the right number of specific classes.
10-mans have the benefit of being an upgraded group in that the regular group dynamic of one tank, one healer, and three DPSers is just doubled (in favor of one extra healer, usually). The biggest issue 10-mans currently have is the class distribution issue -- it is hard to accommodate every class in a 10-man, especially in heroic encounters, making group makeups and careful, specific group fixing the norm in order to progress.
15-man raiding potentially solves the issues on both sides of the coin. With 15-man raiding, you would have less of a burden to field a group consistently, as well as more spots for more classes. Also, Blizzard would have the ability to design encounters around a three-group setup, each with a tank, three DPSers, and a healer. There is a natural progression from 5-mans to 10-mans and potentially in 15-mans that doesn't appear in 25-mans because of the odd group configuration.
Anyway, it's all speculation and just fun to think about. There is no indication that 15-man raiding will become a feature in the future, but there are definitely plusses to the system in terms of design. We haven't seen a Dev Watercooler from Ghostcrawler or Fargo in a while, and I would love to hear their thoughts on the subject from the design point of view.
Zarhym discusses 15-man raiding
Quote:
I think the should add 15 man raids in cataclsym.
10 is too little and 25 is too much. It's like the PERFECT number.
So will we have 10/15/25 man raids. 15 mans will drop 3 pieces of gear following the 1Gear:5Players Ratio.
Please give your thought on this i would LOVE to see 15 man raids.
Edit:10Man-120VP 25Man-140VP so 15Man-130VP
I think the should add 15 man raids in cataclsym.
10 is too little and 25 is too much. It's like the PERFECT number.
So will we have 10/15/25 man raids. 15 mans will drop 3 pieces of gear following the 1Gear:5Players Ratio.
Please give your thought on this i would LOVE to see 15 man raids.
Edit:10Man-120VP 25Man-140VP so 15Man-130VP
I'd actually agree that 15 players make for a pretty optimal number of raiders, in terms of the logistics of forming a raid and class representation. The task of tuning raids for three separate sizes is one you probably won't see on our radar any time soon though.
The news is already rolling out for the upcoming WoW Patch 4.2! Preview the new Firelands raid, marvel at the new legendary staff, and get the inside scoop on new quest hubs -- plus new tier 12 armor!Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Blizzard
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 3)
Hal Aug 11th 2011 8:20PM
Came here to say this very thing. Currently there's three dynamics for two-tank fights in raiding:
-Fights which require a taunt to split up a debuff
-Fights where the boss cleaves or has a shared-damage attack
-Fights with adds that must be tanked
We've had the problem from the beginning that 25m raids don't scale with 5m dungeons in terms of roles for tanks. More roles than you currently support in a raid would require either multiple add tanks (boooooring) or obscenely complicated taunt rotations.
And, as you said, scaling back down becomes a problem.
This isn't to poo-poo the idea of a 15m raid size. It's just that the "logical progression" of raid size stops after 10m.
danawhitaker Aug 11th 2011 6:44PM
The only problem I'd have is if they completely got rid of 10 man raids in favor of 15 is that, for those of us in smaller guilds, it would be a lot more difficult to get a guild group for raids unless they nerfed the requirement for how many players were required to make it a guild run. Back in Wrath, I wouldn't really have had a problem with this, as it's possible to supplement gaps from trade chat. Heck, some of the people we did that with are now members of our guild.
But, from a guild recruitment perspective, being this far into Cata, players who are already established in their own guilds but who are willing to PUG may not be equally willing to leave a guild they're already exalted with and join yours, especially if your guild isn't on the same perk-level as the guild they're currently in. We *have* had some people join us from other guilds in the past few months, but we were more progressed than their guilds. A lot of the people we've been finding lately are already in level 25 guilds.
I can see the benefits of this setup though, too, because there are certain times of the year where we almost have too *many* people to take to a 10 man.
MikeLive Aug 11th 2011 6:47PM
I think it's more realistic (and would probably work) if 10 and 25 man raids were both replaced with 15-man.
MikeLive Aug 11th 2011 6:48PM
Also, they certainly wouldn't do this mid-expansion. This would only possibly happen for a brand new expansion.
Sonburn Aug 11th 2011 7:02PM
Why not let people raid in any number between 10 and 25, and adjust the raid difficulty and loot on a scale?
Arrowsmith Aug 11th 2011 9:06PM
Two words: programming NIGHTMARE.
Picture this: Currently raids are tuned for two different raid sizes. Now imagine tuning it for SIXTEEN different raid sizes instead.
Yeah.
Naryn Aug 11th 2011 7:03PM
I'd be fine with 15 mans, but instead of replacing 25 mans, in my opinion they should replace 10's, but many are right, this will obv never happen mid expansion
themightysven Aug 11th 2011 7:07PM
If they add a class at any point they will proly feel compelled to raise the lower raid number, so we'll probably see 15 at some point
Frase32 Aug 11th 2011 7:14PM
How is it that people struggle to fill 25's these days. There are more raiders than EVER. I don't seem to remember having a hard time filling out our 40's back in Vanilla. We had 40 plus people on that were benched, but waiting to get plugged in in case we had a DC or an emergency. i certainly don't remember having any trouble getting 25 in BC. What gives?
redikolous Aug 11th 2011 7:41PM
Some servers are sparse or dying, especially when it comes to progression.
A lot of people also prefer 10mans. Easier on the computer, easier to start up, closer when it comes to people, less arguing about gear at times. Hell, in my old 10m runs, we didn't have to roll half of the time, and loot council/EPGP was pointless. 10m lovers were thrilled when they learned about the change, except they were afraid it would kill the 10m (and that it certainly didn't).
Even people who would like to do 25s have difficulty, because you have to convince people that 25s are doable. You have to go through the grief of recruiting people and making arrangements to sustain 25mans in guild if possible, because more than 5 people makes it not a guild run, and those 5 people need explanations and you have to switch to a different loot system than usual, which is painful, when your resident healer loses the piece they wanted forever to a pug on /roll.
Also someone mentioned something about how guild explosions happen nowadays. It used to be that most progression guilds would explode and the other ones on that server would get all that talent, but nowadays the talent is making their own 10m guilds, and progression guilds are looking off-server for talent, or settling for less.
Of course, there's lots that aren't easy about 10m, but people don't find that out until they're deep into it.
Basically, it takes very determined people to make a 25m guild and/or a guild with a name and reputation that inspires people to join it.
PvtDeth Aug 11th 2011 9:31PM
Frase32, from your description, your experience was extremely fortunate and entirely atypical. The consensus from the community, and even from Blizzard, is that organizing 40 was the hardest boss.
joeleejr Aug 11th 2011 7:42PM
I am 100% with Matt on this one and have been since BC. Why the hell is it not 10 and 20?
Easier for them to tun- presumably. Easier to field, easier to combine from existing 10s.
Duh Blizz.
butter Aug 12th 2011 11:18AM
As long as you have two different raid sizes with the same bosses, things will never be perfect, due to TANKS. You'll never just be able to take two 10-man groups and merge them to form a perfect 20-man.
Either the team has to redesign the larger encounter to require twice as many TANKS or simply ask the TANKS to re-spec.
DarkWalker Aug 11th 2011 8:39PM
Just to point out, group size progression in:
- SW:TOR - 4-man (dungeons/Flashpoints), 8-man, 16-man (raids/Operations).
- DCUO - 2-man (duos), 4-man (Alerts), 8-man (raids).
- LotRO - 3-man (half fellowship), 6-man (fellowship), 12-man (raid), 24-man (large raid).
Seems like scaling bigger groups to multiples of the smaller groups is the norm, and not the exception.
Though my favorite is still CoH: their instances / bosses have minimum number of players, and scale for any number of players above that. If the minimum is 8, for example, you can go there with 8 players, 13 players, 16 players, whatever.
Zetsubou Aug 11th 2011 9:56PM
maybe the problems with numbers of tanks can be solved by either
-making tanks more viable dps (when not getting hit) the only problem here is blizzard wants tanks to deal less than dps, which can already be a problem
or
-making dps more tank like, which seems to be the exact opposite of where blizzard is taking dps. it would raise the usefulness of classes like warrior that offer little beyond a couple shouts and talent buffs (excluding experience, stuns interrupts and the like because they can be filled by other classes. not hating on warrior, i love the class) it would also unfortunately hinder other classes that couldn't perform those duties, although it might not bother them if they would have been replaced by a tank anyway.
if they were gonna do tankable dps id say warriors,dks,ferals,ret,enhancement, beastmastery and demonology would be good candidates.
Nyold Aug 11th 2011 11:19PM
Maybe if they design 25 man encounters (not some, but most) with requirements of having 4-5 tanks and 5-6 healers, the issue of breaking them into two 10 mans could be solved. This could also solve the lack of tanks in LFD.
I'm not saying it's easy, but surely you can insert additional mechanics, say a large strike that needs to be divided among 4 targets in front of the boss, and for less than that it hits for a lot more? Or introduce four waves of adds at the same time from four corners of the room.
Lipstick Aug 12th 2011 6:26AM
I would be on board with a 15 man. The only real issue I see with this, is that the idea that 15 mans could kill both 10's and 25's and average in the middle. It might be interesting as an experiment for one part of a tier to see how popular it really is. But it has the potential to kill both the other 2 if it caught on.
Elpizo Aug 12th 2011 6:50AM
So, What, in a 15-Man Hypothetical raid-setup:
3 Tanks, 4 Healers, 8 DPS?
extomar Aug 12th 2011 8:04AM
Creating a 15 player raid is only a patch to the real problem. The real solution is having instance have an engine that dynamically creates boss events at any number you bring. If you bring 17 to the instance today you can send 7 away or wait for 5 (or cancel) while it would be nice to just jump in and the instance is still throwing a challenge at the raid that is adjusted.
Grimnir Aug 12th 2011 9:41AM
I remember a long time ago, in a Vanilla Wow far, far away...
I played on Mal'Ganis in a guild called Myths Fury that fielded 3 40-man raids. That was epic. Remnants of that guild still play as horde on the same server.
Until recently, we had 3 10-man raids but each one started to have trouble keeping their regulars attending. I think it will always be an issue no matter what size of raiding is offered.