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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsOfficers' Quarters: The plight of 25-man raiding guilds
by Scott Andrews 
Jan 30th 2012 at 1:00PM
With today's column, I'd like to illustrate a point by getting personal. Normally I don't like to do that very often, but my guild's own experience is dovetailing too neatly with an overall trend.
In reviewing the guild experience in Cataclysm and in looking forward to improvements we might see in Mists of Pandaria, I've mentioned how hard it's been for 25-man raiding guilds to survive in the current environment. I've noticed people voicing the opinion that if you like 25-man raiding, you can go find 24 other people who do and make it happen. I can understand how someone might believe that -- and in an ideal world, it should be that easy. Finding those players isn't easy these days, but that is in fact the easy part.
The hard part is finding people who want to lead said group.
My guild's raid leader stepped down from the position this week. For years, he led raids for the guild, often three or four per week with alt runs in the mix. His knowledge of class specs, abilities, encounters, and strategy was absolutely unparalleled in the guild. He was a huge part of the guild's success. And he just couldn't do it any more.
I've heard from officers throughout this expansion that have reached that same point of burnout. Let's talk about why that is and why fewer and fewer people want to take on the extra responsibility in 25-man raids.
Roster challenges
That's step one, right? Well, realistically, you need more like 27 to 28 people, minimum. It depends on attendance and spec flexibility. You never want to cancel a raid, so you need a diverse and robust roster to make sure the runs always go off.
As a natural consequence of a larger roster, 25-man guilds experience more turnover. The slow pace of content updates means people burn out and/or quit during every tier. This was worst in the 4.1 patch, which added no new raiding content at all.
The result of all this turnover is that most 25-man guilds find themselves in a perpetual state of open recruitment. Recruiting is always stressful for officers, and the never-ending cycle of adding and losing players can wear down anybody. When the players who quit are themselves officers, that makes the problem 10 times worse.
Tougher scheduling
Once you have that roster in place, you need to find times when the majority of your raid team can attend. Mine is a guild of mostly adults with plenty of real-world obligations, so scheduling can be rough.
After you've established those times, a player's schedule can change, leaving them unable to raid. With a bigger raid team, the likelihood of that happening is much higher, adding to turnover woes.
Complex assignments
Players who only raid 10-man or only run 25-man in the Raid Finder may not realize just how annoying it can be to set up a large raid's assignments.
Cataclysm has been much worse than Wrath when it comes to raid assignments. In my guild, we have an officer for melee, for ranged, and for the healers. Their job is to assign players within those roles during raids. In addition to the raid leader, that's four people in my guild who coordinate the raid.
Nefarian's three pillars, for example, required splitting up the raid into three teams, each with its own interrupting and raid-healing requirements. If you have the same exact people every week, which is more common for smaller raids, you only have to create these teams once. For us, this was rarely the case.
It's a hassle that no one looked forward to. In tier 11, Al'Akir was almost as bad. Pre-nerf tier 12 was probably the worst ever. Six of seven bosses required a large number of player-specific assignments.
It's part of what makes the larger raids interesting, to be sure, but Firelands took this concept too far. Tier 13 has been better overall with these kinds of pre-encounter logistics. Once you get into heroic mode, though, the bosses get assignment-heavy again.
More loot to manage
Of course, more players means more loot and, for most 25-man guilds, a more complex loot system to ensure fair distribution. Whereas many 10-man guilds can get away with rolling for loot, we have two officers assigned to managing it, one primary and one backup.
We use a DKP addon. Using the addon has a learning curve, so it's not an easy role to jump into.
Longer log reviews
In addition to all of those roles, another player records the logs for each raid and uploads them. It's not a difficult or involved job, but it's one more thing that has to be done, and again there is a learning curve to it.
Between raids, all of the officers review the logs to evaluate players' performance and make suggestions where improvement is needed. Not every guild does this, but it's an incredibly helpful tool for coaching your raiders to be better players. More players obviously means more time with logs and more conversations between raids.
If you're counting, that's six total raid jobs in my guild, spread among six players. Our raid leader was actually kind of lucky. Though some officers did double duty, we divided the labor up fairly well among us. For every officer you subtract from that team in a given guild, more responsibility falls on fewer individuals, increasing their likelihood of burnout.
Greater effort, same reward
Of course, 10-man guilds all have to manage the same issues. However, every single issue is more difficult for 25-man guilds. You have a larger pool of volunteers for a larger number of leadership roles, it's true -- but due to the greater difficulty, fewer people want to fill those roles.
I've led plenty of 10-man raids in my time, and I can say with certainty that one person can handle all of the active leadership duties during a 10-man raid. It's stressful, no doubt, but absolutely possible. Asking one person to handle all of the same for a 25-man team is madness.
I haven't mentioned this before, but I actually became an officer in my new guild in September. I switched mains back to my paladin over the summer and took over as one of two healing officers when we lost players during tier 12. Thus, from vanilla through Wrath, I led raids of every possible size, and recently I've helped my current guild with raid leadership. In my opinion, it has never been more difficult to lead larger raids than it is today.
At the same time, it has never been less rewarding to take on all the extra hassle. That, in a nutshell, is why 25-man guilds are dying.
The prevailing belief that 10-man raids have been more loosely tuned during tiers 12 and 13 is, in my opinion, not the biggest factor. It's the lack of players who want to take on the extra leadership responsibilities and the rapid burnout of those who do. Of all the officers in my guild at the launch of Cataclysm (I believe seven total), only one remains an officer today.
Toward extinction
Our raid leader lasted far longer than the average. In the wake of his resignation, my guild has no choice right now but to scale down to 10-man raiding. We've lost players, and recruiting quality raiders is very difficult on our server. We don't want to transfer the guild yet. We're hoping we can get back up to 25 during the next expansion, but there's no guarantee of that.
We are not alone. Many guilds have endured similar difficulties throughout this expansion.
I'm honestly not sure if giving greater rewards in 25-mans is the answer. I just know that if current trends continue, 25-man raiding outside of the Raid Finder will be the domain of a small handful of elite, dedicated guilds worldwide. As someone who prefers the larger raids, that makes me worry for the future of the game.
What, if anything, do you think Blizzard should do to counter this decline?
/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: Raiding, Officers' Quarters (Guild Leadership)
Reader Comments (Page 3 of 5)
HunterSalty Jan 30th 2012 2:15PM
25m is dying because 10m is easier & people are lazy.
slim1256 Jan 30th 2012 3:46PM
Lazy in the context of a damn video game is pretty stupid, don't you think? I get to herd enough cats at work... I definitely don't want to do it as part of my leisure activities.
Maybe you love your game of choice giving you homework. I have enough stuff to do that has nothing to do with colored pixels. That does NOT make me lazy. It means I'm looking for some bang for my buck when I do get time to play.
Scott Clark Jan 30th 2012 2:17PM
Let's set aside the issue of whether one raid size may be inherently "better" than the other. Let's look, instead, at how actual players are actually making decisions.
1) 25-mans are harder to organize. For all the reasons listed in the article, it's easier to manage a smaller team. It stands to reason that - as per the article's thesis statement - those willing to lead are increasingly likely to lead a smaller group. Put in context of Blizzard's philosophy, 25-mans are therefore less accessible than 10-mans.
2) When raiders could do 10-man and 25-man in the same week, many players felt compelled to do both raids in order to maximize their gear. In 25-man raiding guilds, the groups could break up for 10s. In 10-man raiding guilds, players would try to find PuGs. In Wrath, our 10-man core would host a PuG; this combined the worst elements of playing with people we didn't know and a raiding style we didn't like for a consistently miserable experience. Blizzard doesn't want people to feel forced into doing both and (for this and other reasons) combined the lockouts.
3) Similar to the previous points, when 25-man raids provided better rewards (whether better gear, more points or more drops) players would feel compelled to complete the content that would maximize their returns. Blizzard normalized the rewards (Legendary shard drop rates excluded) in order to allow people to choose based on play preference rather than rewards.
4) Blizzard is constantly juggling the tension between being inclusive not just in social and gameplay aspects, but in technical aspects as well. Players want better graphics but they also want to play on aging machines. My system has never handled 25-man raiding well; the improved character models and game engine enhancements people expect are going to require further compromise. People with systems that could barely handle 25s pre-Pandaria may need to step down to 10s while people that could only do 10s may stop raiding altogether. Blizzard is already exploring ways to maintain the player base; players who would feel compelled to stay in 25-man raiding but need a system upgrade to do so, may just stop raiding altogether.
When we look at all of the above, we see that Blizzard is consistently removing the need for players to feel forced into 25-man raiding and, as was the point of this article, when players are allowed to choose their preferred raiding size, the majority of the population chooses 10-man raiding. Previously, Blizzard tried to shoehorn people into 25s through various incentives; the remaining incentive (faster Legendary progression) simply isn't enough.
I'm sure there are arguments that could be made, such as 10-mans being undertuned and therefore more attractive to some players, to support the idea that Blizzard is (intentionally or not) promoting 10s over 25s. I would argue that 10s are not inherently easier; I would also argue that, if 10s were easier, you're not going to find much success in a "harder" 25-man raid by forcing "weaker" players to step up to a harder level.
The bottom line here seems to be that, with a greater emphasis on player choice, players are quick to abandon 25-man raiding. I feel for those that prefer the larger raid sizes and, inconveniently, would require a larger player pool to choose from. This is evolution at work; 25-man raiding seems to have been kept alive only by Blizzard imposing competitive advantages, and I don't see it being in Blizzard's philosophy to go back to that model. In the absence of Blizzard's influence, player support simply doesn't justify further developer support, and I see us going exclusively to 10-man raiding post-Pandaria.
jude_rulz Jan 30th 2012 2:23PM
I agree with Ian, the top guilds are and will remain 25 man because of the simple fact that anyone raiding in the Heroic 25 man environment simply don't want to move to a 10 man just to ensure the challenge will always remain (They are stubborn that way, I believe... at least I am). I have, and always will be a 25 man heroic raider, and I would never consider going 10 man because I enjoy the challenge of getting 24 other capable raiders to go in and kill dragons on heroic ~ That, in itself, is already more of a challenge than 10 man.
I think achievements and or mounts should be different than 10 man, only because I still see them as different levels of raiding... Don't even get me started on the joke that is LFR.
Just my 2 silver
venicide Jan 30th 2012 2:27PM
as a former GM---i xferred off my server to just be a raider again, to just play the game.
there is no reward for leadership, only endless dealing with drama in most cases.
in a 25 man raiding guild, on average, thats 10-20 more people to constantly create drama.
honestly even some of the best guilds admit to carrying some people
the writer of this article sounds like he is in a position where there might be weak links that just have to have things spelled out for them all the time.
in a 10 man raid, you can see this address it and fix it -- easier then in a 25 man.
so many problems with 25 man--if your playing to have fun....and you look at the pros and cons---everyone is prolly raiding 10s because...why stress like that
WHY
velutina Jan 30th 2012 4:37PM
So what could they do to make 25 man raiding more attractive? I believe that was one question the columnist asked. Blizzard could create software tools that would make the logistical and organizational challenges easier. Perhaps these are really the domain of add-ons, but the argument still applies. Figure out what information the raid leaders need, and then figure out how to get them that information as painlessly as possible.
Bhoz Jan 31st 2012 2:38AM
Along the lines of Velutina's constructive comments, anything Blizzard could do to reduce the overhead for guild officers would help, including:
1) Making the loot system smart (no useless or redundant drops) or switching to an all-currency loot system whereby everyone earns at the same rate. This would eliminate loot system maintenance/upkeep/drama.
2) NPC-led raid encounters, whereby an AI would organize, instruct, and "call" the boss fights.
3) A return to gated content to pace the players and help offset progress-based drama and membership churn. This is especially important during the first few months of a new expansion.
4) When reworking classes and roles, balance, balance again, and then balance a third time to get things right. Especially if Blizzard is reworking something like healing. Get it right the first time, folks.
The guild-induced stresses of managing a guild leveling up in the new expansion and the poorly-balanced healing model revamp caused me to walk away from being an active Officer in my 25-man guild and later leaving the game entirely.
eel5pe Jan 30th 2012 2:28PM
Great article, sorry about the loss of your exceptional raid-leader, but I have to disagree with a lot of your conclusions.
I can only speak for my raid and my server, but I think the decline in the number of 25-man guilds is also matched by a similar decline in 10-man guilds. At the start of Cata my server had 3 25-man guilds and 9 10-man guilds (going by my server's progression table). Now we have 0 25-man guilds and 5 10-man guilds- one of them a downsized 25-man. So maybe what we're seeing is not so much a decline in 25-man raiding but a decline in raiding in general, due to LFR and the especially glacial patch rate of 4.x content.
I dont' buy a lot of the scaling arguments in the article- a lot of your problems cited in this article may seem more dire numerically, but proportionally are equivalent. For example yes 25-mans require more people to lead, but a larger raid size means that there also should be proportionally more people willing and capable of leading. As Scott says, a ten-man requires one (extremely stressed) officer (let's call it 1.5 for the sake of argument*), and for your 25-man you have 4 officers. 1.5 multiplied by 2.5 the number of players = 3.75, sounds about right to me! You need 27-28 raiders, I need 11, that's ten percent for both of us. And yes, you probably have numerically more turnover and more players to replace each tier, but percentage-wise I bet it's about the same. If anything I'd argue that churn is worse for ten-mans, because statistically the odds of some really random life event taking out a tenth of your raid team is much higher than it would be in a twenty-five man (law of large numbers).
I'm glad that Scott didn't propose, as some other commenters have, making 25-man loot better than 10-man again. This really put pressure on my raiders to do 25-mans whenever they could (even if it was just Vault), and proportionally cheapened 10-man raiding because you could overpower the content with 25-man/VP gear.
*I say this as the leader of a 10 man raid. I take on most of the responsibility but there's no way I could keep track of everything without spontaneous proactive leadership from other members in the raid
Vilhelm Jan 30th 2012 2:29PM
I feel like you have the answer here, but you're just facing the wrong direction. If people aren't doing 25s because organizing them isn't fun, then Blizz should let them die. Why would you play a game that isn't fun?
Towards the end of WotLK, my guild leader took a break, to keep from burning out. As a favor, I stepped in and ran the guild ICC25 for about 6 months, approaching the release of Cata. Let me tell you, when I officially called an end to that ICC25, it was like putting down a giant weight that had been bending my back.
It wasn't that we didn't have good players...in fact, it was the nice folks in my guild that kept me in there, bringing a raid together by main force every week. But you just can't swing that many people without constant headaches. There will always be a key player out. There will always be one guy who's Vent is "broken" and who doesn't know the fight. And since you will always have some people out, you will always have the puggers who think that (insert obnoxious behavior) is totally OK, and why are you guys getting so worked up?
Any prizes or rewards that Blizz put out there to encourage me to go back to 25-man raiding will fall into one of 2 categories:
1. Things that are so good, that I just have to have them, so I will *suffer* to get them. (Suffering is not usually a hallmark of good game design.)
2. Things that I will be sad that I will be missing, because I do not want to suffer to get them. (Being sad that content is hidden behind the "Suffering boss" is not so hot either.)
My proposed solution: go ahead and design raids for 10 players, and only 10 players. With the design/development time you save on having to make 25-man versions, make a new content patch or dungeon or world event or something. Oooh, how about shared achievements across my account, so I'm not stuck on one main forever, as long as I'm ranting anyway? ;)
redikolous Jan 30th 2012 3:04PM
Just because 25-mans aren't fun to organize doesn't mean they aren't fun to raid.
And I've been through four dedicated 10-man guilds since Wrath that collapsed because the GL/RL hated leading....does that mean 10-man raids should die?
Vilhelm Jan 31st 2012 1:06AM
I will concede the point that 25s can be fun to play, but not to organize. But how are you going to play without an organizer? That is the whole point. The fun-fun-25-good-times don't just magically happen. You need some officer or officers willing to put up with the administrative crap, and the payoff may not be good enough for them to do so. Which is kind of the whole point of my post. So, have fun showing up and playing, but don't be surprised if your raid goes away because no one wanted to run it.
And no, I don't think that 10 mans need to die. I'm sorry you had some groups collapse, but, in my experience, a 10 man is much easier to run. Roster, loots, assignments...all much easier to manage. Plus, you can actually get to KNOW the people in your raid, and cultivate a tight group of friends...who, in turn, need less leadership just to get going every day, and will work together as a team better.
HunterSalty Jan 30th 2012 2:32PM
@Scott Andrews I'm sorry to hear your raid leader quit and you have to settle for 10m. Hopefully you guys can get back to 25m for Mists. Your excellent book has helped me recruit great players to our 25m team. Best of luck.
Lissanna Jan 30th 2012 3:08PM
The problem isn't just that 25-mans are becoming 10-mans, but that NO NEW 25-mans will ever get started. The ones that exist will just slowly die out and never have new guilds take their place. It's so much easier to start a 10-man, and up-scaling from a 10-man to a 25-man is totally unfeasible.
I'm desperately holding onto my guild's 25-man raiding team because once it's gone, we will never get it back again.
Kyrt Jan 30th 2012 2:36PM
I'm honestly not sure if giving greater rewards in 25-mans is the answer. I just know that if current trends continue, 25-man raiding outside of the Raid Finder will be the domain of a small handful of elite, dedicated guilds worldwide. As someone who prefers the larger raids, that makes me worry for the future of the game.
I don't think it bodes ill for the future of the game.
I think it bodes ill for the future of 25 man raiding.
Its dying. Its sad to see, but 25 man raids are dying. 10 mans give you the same loot, are easier to organise and manage and are in mnay ways less stressful. There's usually less room for error, but thats tuning issue. Unfortuantely, the current state of the system developed for very good reasons so it is difficult to advocate turning the clock back.
If 25 man raids are to survive, then they need to be made worth running. Currently, they aren't. You get more gear, some peopel love the larger raid size but overall the difficulties inherent in the raid simply aren't worth the extra rewards.
But thats the question....SHOULD they survive? As things stand, my answer to that would be....no. Blizzard now has to balance for threee difficulties and 2 raid sizes. That eats into development time, resource allocation, adds to problems with the loot tables and even creates esoteric issues such as having a ten man raid in a field designed for 25 players. I think that sooner or later, Blizzard will collapse the raids into one standard raid size....10 or 15 man raids. This has some drawbacks - namely, the effect on existing 25 man guilds, as well as feel, but overall it offers a lot.
Other than that, the central problem is simple....its going to be very very difficult to rewards 25 man raids in a manner that rewards the effort put into organising them and the guilds that take part, but which doesn't make the 10 man raider feel like its a mandatory requirement.
Pyromelter Jan 30th 2012 9:06PM
"I just know that if current trends continue, 25-man raiding outside of the Raid Finder will be the domain of a small handful of elite, dedicated guilds worldwide."
Will be? It pretty much is like that right now.
lmborghini Jan 30th 2012 2:36PM
The future of wow raiding (25 mans) is on the massive population servers. They are the only place where most 25 man guilds will survive the turnover that comes with the steadily declining wow subscriber numbers. If you guild is struggling, move now or disband, boredom with the tier will not make the future months any easier on low population islands.
slim1256 Jan 30th 2012 3:56PM
Alternately - it seems like Blizz is working towards bringing more options to cross server grouping.
At some point, it seems likely that they'll bring current content raiding to cross server groups. When they do - all of these people orphaned from their dead 25 man raiding guilds on low and mid pop servers have an opportunity to come together and run in 25 man groups.
There are certainly logistics to work out (how do you account for cross server world and server firsts, for example), but - to me, that is where the future of 25 man raids is, if they DO have a future.
hakmajik Jan 30th 2012 2:45PM
I've run a guild (and still do) that has run 40, 10 and 25 man runs. (7years+)
Let's back this up a bit, in my opinion, and look at it this way:
- The current shared lock-out is positive and flawed in several mechanisms (for example: why can we toggle between 10n and 25n but not between 10h and 25h the same week?)
- Blizzard could've opted to meet the goal of 10n and 25m raids and truly 'helped' both by having either separate bosses or zones but instead opted to reduce content. They didn't - (reminder that AQ 20 and AQ40 and ZG20 and ZF10 were active at the time of 25 and 40man raids), and thereby reduce development costs (and lore/selections)
- With regards to T13, there's no doubt that LFR < 10n < 25n < 10H < 25H in terms of difficulty. This has been talked to death, it was apparent in T12, and it's overt to a degree that really hasn't been seen since Crusader's Coliseum now. That's OK- it is what it is. (I've cleared on 3 different toons/types)
- 25m is more difficult to recruit for, prepare for, execute upon and ... largely more rewarding. It's herding cats - but that means the kills are more rewarding on 25.
Specific to anecdotal evidence of my own
- 10m guilds to much larger degree arrive and disappear. The tenuous nature of survival is a form of caveat emptor that favors 25ms. (Or as Chris Rock once said at the Grammy's 'here today, gone later today!')
- A significant # of applicants we receive indicate displeasure at settling upon 10m raiding. These are those that have raided and frankly enjoy all the mess that is 25m.
- LFR is a mixed blessing: it's fun, it's great for Alts, it allows people to gear up relatively quickly. However, the absence of damage increases the 're-learning' for those who ignore bad things in LFR (or, as we often say at the start of our raid week 'it's time to wash the LFR off')
In closing, I'm all for choice. I'm OK with the business decisions that have forced Blizzard into reducing raid content to increase the # of 5mans (for example) in a given expansion.
However, I for one will retire from WoW, if my only choice for 25m is LFR. I'm sure there are others that feel the same for 10m.
Blizzard's job- their requirement from me- is to create challenging, interesting and rewarding content at all tiers.
Along those lines, I thoroughly agree with the OP that, at the current moment, 25m (or 10m++ sized) raids need attention.
Lipstick Jan 30th 2012 2:53PM
To be honest, I'm not really sure why there is all this pro 10man, anti 25, or vice versa debate in this thread. Raiding at it's heart, isn't difficult ... people are difficult. The boss mechanics themselves are rarely truly taxing, so much as the expectation, that each player within a team is able to carry the same amount of weight.
I have raided hardmodes in 10 and 25 man guilds, I've been in large guilds and small guilds. I am a well rounded, well versed player but these days I prefer 10's. It has nothing to do with me being "lazy" or wanting something which is "easier" as people claim, so much as these days I want to feel closer to the people in my raid group. 10m's just feel more intimate to me, than 25's and always have. Less voices to recognize on vent, few of you fighting against the big bad (where as 25's when everyone is stacked up is utterly blinding display of spells and effects going off, where as 10s you can actually see a bit better).
When blizzard merged 10s and 25s lockouts in many ways they killed pugging on multiple non high population servers. Advances such as LFR and LFD have all been great advances in one way, but the wow community on various realms paid the cost by losing what bound them together. At the end of wrath many people I knew in the HM 25's scene were sick of "carrying dead weight" as they put it, where 15 people did the work of 25, while ten others slacked off. Many of these people coupled off into 10m teams they started of their own. Further complicating the issue, of multiple 10 man teams competing against each other for members, where as before they might have all been united under the same umbrella, further making recruitment in general difficult.
These days not just 25s feel the recruitment burden, so too do 10s. The consequence of no one knowing each other on their server, means that no one knows whom is "good" and whom is not from trade.
The Dewd Jan 30th 2012 5:32PM
That raises an interesting question. It was "general knowledge" that Blizzard went from 40 to 25 because "all" the 40-mans were made up of 25 people who carried the other 15. Now you're saying that a lot of 25-man raiders are finding that they are the 15 people who are carrying the other 10.