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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsOfficers' Quarters: Guilds struggled after Cataclysm's raid changes
by Scott Andrews 
Jan 16th 2012 at 1:00PM
As predicted, Cataclysm has had a massive impact on guilds and guild leadership. The changes to guilds in this expansion will continue to have consequences throughout the lifetime of the game. Of all those changes, none have affected PvE guilds more than Cataclysm's new raiding systems and philosophy.
The new endgame
In April 2010, Blizzard announced a major shift in its design philosophy for raiding: The company intended to combine lockouts for 10- and 25-man raid sizes, while placing the exact same items in both. When the changes were first announced, the community -- including part of WoW Insider's own staff -- unleashed an understandable outcry. Memories of the transition from vanilla's 40-man to The Burning Crusade's 25-man cap haunted us. We worried whether our guilds could survive another monumental change.
At the time, I tried to stay positive. I touted the potential benefits of the new raiding paradigm. Looking back on my column, most of these predicted benefits came true. Fewer weekly raids to schedule is, for most guilds, a good thing. The flexibility to shift up or down in size for the same lockout has been great for resolving attendance issues. Running prior tiers in 10-man as a 25-man guild is a great way to train and gear up new players without sacrificing ilevels. Committing to a single raid size is a huge differentiator for guilds that sorely needed one. These are all highly beneficial aspects of the new system.
In that column I was, of course, too optimistic when I wrote about less burnout and guild hopping. In my experience, it's happening just as often as in prior expansions, if not more. Some things never change.
Guilds shrank in 2011
If your guild prefers 25-man raiding, this expansion has probably been difficult for you. The majority of raiders, when push comes to shove, seem to prefer the smaller raid size. Certainly the majority of guild leaders and officers don't want the headaches that come with larger raids.
In most aspects, it's much easier to maintain and manage a smaller roster. Also, if you're starting a new raiding guild, odds are you're targeting the 10-man size, at least at first. Building up to 25 from there is an arduous and frustrating process.
What has been the result? At the end of this expansion, 25-man guilds have become an endangered species.
On my own realm, Khadgar, my 25-man raiding guild is now number one in 25-man progression. For years, we were nowhere close. Sure, we have some really great players, but we only raid two nights a week, four hours at a time. It's hardly an aggressive schedule, and realm firsts have never been our priority. The reason we're at the top right now is simple: We survived. Many of the other 25-man guilds haven't.
From what I've heard, a similar situation is happening on a lot of other realms. It's not surprising, either. Why put all that extra effort in when the benefits to doing so are so marginal? A large part of why my guild continues to strive for the larger raid size is because we prefer it, plain and simple. How long can we go on, however? The coming lull between expansions is going to be particularly rough on us and every other 25-man guild out there.
Saving the 25-man guild
Blizzard made these changes because it wanted raid size to be a matter of preference, not rewards. If trends continue, players who want to be able to run 25-mans with a guild will have a hard time finding people who are willing to do it, especially in leadership roles. In many cases, they'll settle for 10-man raiding even though it's not their preference. Thus, the changes are acting against Blizzard's intention.
Some would argue that doing away with the larger raid size would be good for the game. I disagree, and to prevent that outcome, I would like to see Blizzard reward the larger guilds more than it currently does for dealing with all the extra hassle. The officers of such guilds deserve it. I think reducing the valor points earned in the larger raids was a mistake, and I'd like to see that decision reversed in tier 14. That is just a minor perk, however. More could be done.
10-man guilds have it rough, too
It's not all gumdrops and candy canes for 10-man guilds, either. What was once a raiding niche in Wrath of the Lich King became the mainstream. Suddenly, 10-man guilds found themselves with heavy competition.
Combined with the drop in subscriptions, fewer players and more 10-man guilds meant leaner rosters. Recruiting woes have become a constant source of anxiety for raiding guilds of any size.
In addition, the glacial pace of assembling legendary weapons in smaller raids is remarkably slower. While I think more incentives are needed for larger raids, I don't think depriving raiders of legendary items is the right way to do it. Some guilds wind up running older content for much longer than they ever wanted to because they promised to finish a player's legendary. That's not a healthy situation.
There has to be a better way to incentivize 25-man guilds without blatantly punishing 10-mans in such a high-profile way.
The advent of the Raid Finder
Amid all this turmoil, Blizzard had one more bombshell to drop: the Raid Finder. The Raid Finder is a huge win for the average player. With few exceptions, the age-old dilemma of friends versus content has been emphatically resolved.
In some ways, the Raid Finder is great for guilds. It fills in gaps for loot, and it lets us see boss mechanics ahead of our scheduled raid nights. It gears up our alts without putting pressure on officers to schedule runs. It keeps players who truly don't want to commit to a raiding guild from feeling forced to join and, ultimately, disappoint.
Raiding guilds are no longer the gatekeepers to content, and I applaud that. We really shouldn't be. It makes us do some crazy things. However, I worry about the future of guilds in WoW. When the vast majority of group content can be accessed with the click of a button, where all social ties and the personal accountability they represent are stripped away, how does that affect a game's community? I'm afraid the answer will be "not well."
For now at least, raiding guilds remain a vital part of WoW, but our influence is dwindling. This spring, our rosters may be harder to maintain than ever before. Will Mists of Pandaria bring more changes to raiding, or will Blizzard release its first expansion yet that doesn't shake up raiding in a major way? We'll all find out soon enough!
/salute
Recently, Officers' Quarters has examined how strong new leadership can create a guild turnaround, the pitfalls of promising more than you can deliver, and lessons learned from Scott's own guild demise. Send your own guild-related questions and suggestions to scott@wowinsider.com.
Filed under: Officers' Quarters (Guild Leadership)
Reader Comments (Page 4 of 4)
Faith-lb Jan 16th 2012 3:17PM
cata ended my old guild as we underestimated the raid changes. this is from its old webpage, the post called "end of the road"
"Franky looking back, we dropped the ball when we decided to do 2-3 10m groups at the start of cata, as opposed to 25m raiding. At that time I for sure did not realise the issues it would bring would be so huge as they were. people felt left out if they weren't in my raid group. We underestimated the only 1 raid lock per instance thing. back in icc you were able to do ICC in 10 and 25m flavor in a single week which made it all a non issue."
after that we started to lose people who werent in my own raid group and then we had 2 out of 3 groups struggling, merged them, then that one was struggling until we had just 1 group going.... and then that struggled...
If only we had known...
Defiance...
Vjax Jan 16th 2012 3:31PM
Our guild is going strong, however, our progression raiding has basically been destroyed by the lfr. If people wanted to see the content then they signed up for raids, we were very open about our raid roster and had raids of varying progression going 5 days a week. With the advent of the lfr, we have seen a huge drop in progression raiding sign ups.
Qhen you can see the content and basically "beat the game" the day after the final patch of the expansion drops, whats the point of grinding, a 397 instead of a 384, wiping on a boss in 10 man 10 times to get it down when "lfr is so much easier"
Progression raiding was what kept myself and many of the raiders in our guild playing the game, since the lfr came out we have seen more and more raiders drop the game.
While the lfr is a boon for the casual player and all the alts, it has put a stake through the heart of atleast our progression efforts.
Luckily, swtor is around till the panda invaison.
clundgren Jan 16th 2012 3:55PM
Cataclysm destroyed my long-time guild, but it wasn't so much shared lockouts as the difficulty of tier 11.
We maintained a 25 man raid from late BC and a second 25 for most of Wrath. We were pretty casual but good enough to down LK, for example, while still current content. So probably a pretty typical skill level. In Cataclysm, we would struggle for weeks to get one boss down, then weeks more for the next... People started getting frustrated, not showing up, and leaving either the guild, the game, or both.
Dragon Soul (regular) is much better raid design. The first boss is a pushover, so even the most dreadful pugs can get something out of it. Bosses 2-3 are a bit more of a challenge, but pretty straightforward, so decent guilds can get the first wing down, and most raid nights will start with some successes before the difficulty amps up.
Ultraxion is a dps check, but that's the type of fight that gives you hope because you can see your progression happening: "just 12 more seconds and we got this next week, guys!" Warlord is the first boss to require tight raid coordination, and is a real hurdle for most guilds. If you can combine that coordination while keeping up the dps from Ultraxion, you can do the next two fights and finish the raid.
Smart design, and so much better than tier 11.
ricprospero Jan 17th 2012 8:40AM
I agree completely.
I do think that the strategy of harder dungeons and raids Blizzard took in the beginning of Cataclysm back-fired.
And I believe the timing of the change couldn´t be worse. In my server, the finals days of WOLK were a PUGging paradise. We had pugs going on ALL DAY for everything, like achievements hunting, drake farming in Ulduar 10 and 25, Immortal runs in Naxx (some of them were actually successfull!), and guild groups were able to run ICC heroic with little problem in pugging some people. I was even able to take all the drakes from achievements just participating in PUGs, since my guild was essentially taking a break!
Then Cataclysm launched. And then, all of a sudden, even guild groups were struggling to down the bosses in BWD and BOT. And if guilds were having a hard time, what to say of PUGs.
It was plain for anyone to see. The frustation taking over most of my friends. Some of them were even unable to complete Dungeons, after 2 hours of boring, tedious wipes.
The change of philosophy was a death sentence to Wow. No wonder they are trying to return to WOLK days so badly now.
Vejitables Jan 16th 2012 4:14PM
Pure and simple - they need to go back to the Wrath model of raiding while keeping the raid finder.
The problem with Cataclysm raiding was that for many, but not for the select few, Twilight Bastion and Blackrock Depths were insanely hard. The heroic and crafted gear did nothing to forgive simple mistakes that many, many players make in most raids.
Blizzard realized this and refreshed ZA & ZG with the Firelands patch so that Firelands was accessible to most. This is why people left the game in droves and why I even took a year long hiatus from the game. You just couldn't progress or enjoy the game with your run-of-the-mill average gamer, like you could Naxx/OS (as the first tier of raiding).
Top this with some poor design in regards to the story. Deathwing was the giant dragon that they tried to make more fearsome than the old gods and nobody was really feeling it. We killed all sorts of big bad dragons, so why is this one anymore special than say Onyxia or Malyegos?
tl:dr version:
Wrath (and BC) raiding tiers were all good, because there was tons of out of the raid grinds you could do to make your raiding go smoother, not to mention that the first raiding tier was really easy for most casual gamers to get into. Cata raiding tiers were good AFTER the Firelands patch came out. MoP promises a good deal to keep people coming back, but if Blizzard sticks to the same raiding design philosphy that they had in Cata tier 1, then they might as well just hand their fanbase pre-paid subs to SWTOR.
In A World (XBL) Jan 16th 2012 6:33PM
I think it would help if they turned off raid chat communication when in raid finder. Those people are terrible, unhelpful jerks. To compensate Blizzard should make the fights... not easier, per se... but just more intuitive, with onscreen cues telling you what to do based on your role or even based on your class/spec's strengths.
On the flip-side, make the rewards for organizing a traditional raid much much better than their LFR counterparts, so LFR doesn't undermind the community.
DarkWalker Jan 16th 2012 6:56PM
When players are doing LFR just to see the instance, and the end of the story, there's no way to manipulate the rewards so LFR does not "undermine" the other raid formats.
The hard, cold fact is that most of the players that want to see and do the content don't want (or can't) deal with all the hassles of joining a raid group capable of tackling normal modes or better.
In A World (XBL) Jan 16th 2012 9:08PM
"LFR does not "undermine" the other raid formats."
Read this to see what I'm talking about (linked in the above article): http://wow.joystiq.com/2008/09/29/officers-quarters-friends-or-content/
There is also a feeling among a lot of people (myself included) that things like LFD and now LFR that, while convenient, have removed our need to form a tight-knit group of people we know well and who we group up with on a regular basis. I'm not saying they should remove LFR but they should do more to further incentivize NOT using it. The difference in Item level should be even greater than it is now, for one thing. Also have atleast one item for each class that is not available in LFR in any form.
People wax nostalgic about Vanilla all the time. Even though nowadays the game is better designed, less grindy, more convenient... it's also less social than it use to be. I would like Blizzard to strike a better balance.
Malend Jan 16th 2012 6:41PM
Warmaster Blackhorn 10 has a 18.8 % success rate vs 25 of 49.5 %. While Madness of Deathwing 10 man has a 11.8% success rate vs a 25 rate of 26.4%. Those 4 numbers tell you everything you need to know about 10 vs 25 man raiding. Every other fight in DS is nearly even between 10/25.
2 fights were it is critical in 10 man that everyone does their duty and stays alive.
Also of the Top 20 progressed guilds 6 are 10 man guilds.
My sources are worldoflogs.com and wowprogress.com
DarkWalker Jan 16th 2012 7:08PM
I would risk saying that the average skill level of the raid skews the content difficulty in favor of 25 mans when dealing with top raiders.
To be able to make 10 and 25 man raiding roughly the same difficulty for average groups, Blizzard has to make 25 man raiding far more forgiving of small errors; some boss mechanic that wiped the raid with 2 players failing on 10-man should only wipe the raid with 5 players failing on 25-man.
For raid groups above the average Blizzard used, each player makes less mistakes on average, meaning that 25-man groups will have more spare "errors" on each encounter, and as a result a lower chance to wipe, than similarly skilled 10-man groups.
For groups below the average, they will often need a luck break - where a number of players that usually fail manage to not fail - to defeat the boss. This kind of luck should happen more in 10-man groups than in 25-man ones, so for raiders below the average, 10-man content should be easier.
Sab Jan 18th 2012 5:09AM
I know I have seen LFR 25 logs on world of logs. Does it post information separately? from normal modes?
DarkWalker Jan 16th 2012 7:30PM
I completely disagree about making 25-man content more rewarding. The rewards for doing 25-man content instead of 10-man content should be just that the player finds it more fun to play in larger groups. If a player don't find 25-man more fun than 10-man, he should be doing 10-man content, and the game shouldn't be trying to force him (or strongly suggest, as it may be) to jump into 25-man raiding.
Offering better rewards for 25-man just forces players that like shiny things, but actually prefer 10-man content, to instead do the 25-man content they don't like as much.
What can "save" 25-man raiding - and should be the first thing players ask of Blizzard - is making raid recruitment, planning, organization, and running easier. Focus on making the non-gameplay tasks as easy and painless as possible.
In short, cut or scale down the non-gameplay stress out of 25-man raiding.
WoW should still have a couple million players on the US region alone; even if only 0.1% of those were willing to do 25-man raids, the sheer number of players would still present the potential for tens of thousands of 25-man raids to happen every day.
So, instead of asking for ways to force 10-man raids to put up with 25-man raiding, ask for ways to make the non-gameplay aspect of 25-man raiding as effortless as possible. Ask for ways to create regular raiding groups without messing with guilds. Ask for tools to find potential raiders, interview them, and add them to a permanent raiding group. Ask for ways to assemble cross-realm, semi-permanent raiding groups. Ask for better in-game looting systems for PUGs, tailored after what successful and long running PUGs actually use (because Need before Greed is a disaster in a raid environment). And so on.
WoW, thanks to it's absurd number of players, has the potential to meet almost everyone's raiding preferences - including preferred group size - if Blizzard would just build the right tools to allow like minded players to meet and form groups together.
virtutis Jan 16th 2012 11:22PM
This is the whole sentiment and idea that got Cataclysm into the mess that it is currently. It is what is colloquially called a "noble idea" where the description and logical arguments can be very eloquent but where reality is and sometimes unexpectidly so, contrary to the idea.
People as a group will always gravitate towards the path of least resistance when wanting to achieve a goal. The logistics of running 25 man are central to the raid size - the primary difficulties that come about, both in recruitment, retention and just plain fight execution are magnified by the raid size. It does not matter how many tools you implement in the game - even if you were magically able to find a one button tool like LFR and actually get reasonably competent people to just show up to a 25 man, the issues carry on.
The added data and events happening during raids, particularly high AoE encounters frequently cause more Disconnects. Ragnaros heroic was a classic example, first week of trying that fight and we averaged 4 disconnects an attempt. I have also yet to come accross a 10 man heroic version that I have completed that required even 1 half of the pre coordination and execution planning that their 25 man counterpart does. Combatlog analyses and death reports are 2 and half times the size. Working out whos not performing well is more difficult, working out who is holding progression back is harder. I can spend all day talking about why logistically 25 mans as progression bosses have so much more stress involved and it is why people are gravitating away from doing them.
None of your suggestions makes an iota of difference to what is involved in running this raid size and we have now had a whole expansion of "play the size you want" and anyone that thinks it was a success is living in a fantasy world. The whole notion of "play the size you want" was an abysmal failure this expansion and the raid changes based around it are the primary cause for the drop in raiders this expansion.
So sure, let's just keep going along with "equal" raid sizes and "same rewards" if you so want in MoP. The number of characters in Normal or Heroic progression content was sitting at 1.2 million 6 months after ICC was launched. 6 Months after Firelands the number of characters with normal or heroic progression was down to 450,000. But of course, the loss of over half a million characters raiding is a success yes? Where the bloody hell do you think all of those losses came from? The failure and disbanding of countless 25 mans.
I really cannot fathom the idea that some people are so enamoured with the idea of "choose your size" that they cannot see past the carrot in front of their nose at the gaping maw that is opening up in front of them swallowing half of the raiders that used to raid and yet still proclaiming that all is fine from the rooftops of SW's Cathedral >.>.
Garwulf Jan 16th 2012 7:48PM
Plain and Simple..Blizzard has been watering WoW down since BC...PERIOD!!
40 mans-25 mans
Removing attunment chains/gating
Adding the 10 man format( more a parallel shift when it was different loot)
Mashing the 10/25 man lockouts togeather(groan)
LFD system ( thats cool love the idea )
LFRaid system ( woulda been cool if it wasent a WEAKER instance,and for those that find the LFR runs hard...theres always Hello Kitty Island Adventure for you.)
YES...I am sounding ELITEIST!!!...I ENJOYED THE Diffuiculty!!! NOTHING WORTH DOING is EVER EASY!!..I will still play...I WILL still Bitch about it....and I WILL still tell you to go SHOVE IT if you dont like it. Please downrate me...I dont care!!! TY
lia.ksd Jan 16th 2012 11:57PM
After reading few really good comments, I wanted to say something myself.
I started to play right before Wrath and started to regularly raid on 25man since t12. I had a very few pug 25 experience here and there, but its not even worth counting them as a raiding experience. When Wrath came out and hit level 80, I got a random whisper from a GM and joined a dying 25man raiding guild. It was breaking apart, and the GM was desperate to rebuild back to be a raiding guild again. So, no raiding experience yet I got a permanent DPS position by luck. That was Naxx time. I used to see people with 25man gear envyingly, and personally idolized some toons I saw in SW, knowing 25man was 'different world'.
The guild died soon after Ulduar came out. Last few members since 25man-era left, and GM finally gave up. This short raiding experience haunted and tormented me after the death of the guild. I couldn't forget the taste of completing a content. I wanted to see everything and scream into the vent with my teammates after killing a progression boss. I wanted to wear that 'specially colored' gear of 25man's or Heroic ICC and walk around SW. But I ended up in a social guild for the rest of expansion. I didn't know how to approach to a raiding guild with my experience. I was scared of raiders. On top of it, I was a serious student and playing on a laptop within a limited time. It was almost impossible to raid with 25man setting because of PC, and raiding itself because of time.
When Cata came out, I was no longer a student and eventually bought a new computer capable of playing WoW with 'High' settings. I was thrilled. Finally I can raid 25man contents! But, no, things changed... I found myself a 25man raiding guild, but feeling less excitement. Still, I am enjoying it every bit of it and prefer 25man because there are more than 10 great people; maybe around 20, and 5 are also great people sometimes come online and fill-in, or new members which I always excited to meet. I don't want to 'select' 10 people or run separate 10man permanently - but really, that is only reason I am in 25man right now.
Sometimes, I look back the LK time. The time 25man Heroic was high up there. This isn't what I was dreamed of. I wanted to catch that dream, but it was too late.
chaosdefined Jan 17th 2012 4:45AM
Cataclysm will always be the Guild Killer to me.
I loved the game until this expansion, part of me still does but ever since Cata launched I've been going from one dead guild to the next. 3 Guilds have died over the course of this expansion as the players have grown bored of the generic raid content that was brought out.
And of course any good guild that is still going has now nearly cleared DS and won't accept any applicants who have little experience in there.
Just waiting until MoP to hope and pray it pumps new life into the game and so I can finally find a great and fun Guild that will last...
Rikkitikki Jan 23rd 2012 4:44PM
I understand the reasoning behind guilds moving towards 10 mans with ease of scheduling and such, especially since our guild has been a 10-man guild for quite some time (even back in WOTLK).
Recently however we have been having some success in Dragon Soul and finally have a solid group of people as well as a lot of new recruits and have been recently discussing switching to the 25-man format so we can include everyone that wants to raid as well as being a little less "wipe it out since a dps/healer/tank died". So even with all the changes that might have people leaning toward 10-mans there are some out there switching to 25-mans