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General Category => General Discussion => Topic started by: Obe on April 26, 2010, 09:15:14 AM

Title: Cata 10/25 man raiding
Post by: Obe on April 26, 2010, 09:15:14 AM
- 10- and 25- man raids in Cataclysm will share the same lockout 
- Normal versus Heroic mode will be chosen on a per-boss basis in Cataclysm raids, the same way it works in Icecrown Citadel 
- 10- and 25- man bosses will be close in difficulty 
- 10- and 25- man bosses will drop the exact same items  25-man bosses will drop a higher quantity of loot, but not quality

http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=13200223842&sid=1 (http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=13200223842&sid=1)
Title: Re: Cata 10/25 man raiding
Post by: monmoth on April 26, 2010, 11:10:54 AM
Even though they acknowledged it, 10 mans are exceptionally hard to tune to be as hard as 25 mans. You can have a group with awful synergy but good players and struggle where a better composed group with worse players finds it easier. These changes are interesting but I bet they miss the mark. It also makes 25 man raiding achievements feel cheaper. We do hard modes because it has the best gear in the game. Knowing that we could just do 10s  instead for the same gear feels dumb. I won't miss doing both lock outs during the week though.
Title: Re: Cata 10/25 man raiding
Post by: Shamlarie on April 26, 2010, 11:36:49 AM
This sounds terrible.
Title: Re: Cata 10/25 man raiding
Post by: Vindra on April 26, 2010, 12:17:19 PM
This is going to be funny.  10mans have been ridiculously easy this expansion sans Sarth3D(which was actually harder than 25man)  The current assumption is that you do not have all buffs in 10mans and it is virtually impossible to get them all with 10 specs that meet the cookie cutter tank/healer/DPS req for most fights.  Add in range vs melee ratios on top of all that and shit hits the fan.

My Cata Predictions:
1.  10mans are overbalanced, the bads all do 25man because it is easier to do(ironically) at the start of the expansion.
2.  Stacking in 10mans will be MORE prevalent not less prevalent.  Just like how Arena put PVP balance under a microscope.
3.  Class homogenization will hit an all time high, every class will have virtually the same tool box but have different colored names.
4.  Boss fights and their kill strategy in 10man will all be VERY simple as the encounter designers can't count on anything but the raid having x bodies and tank/healers.  Expect lots of gimmicks that have nothing to do with your class ala  Raz's Mind control crystals on every fight.


#3 isn't a tough prediction with all the class previews, but I put it there because it is going to get so much worse.
Title: Re: Cata 10/25 man raiding
Post by: Obe on April 26, 2010, 12:58:46 PM
With the class previews there's a bunch of homogonization already...

No Shaman, what about mages?
Cleansing being re-worked

etc...

edit:
Reading some of the responses in the thread, Blizzard doesn't really have a clue who they're going to deal with some of the consequences of this system... sigh
Title: Re: Cata 10/25 man raiding
Post by: Uhuru on April 26, 2010, 01:22:28 PM
Obe, I'm changing your name to Obe.

Also, LOL @ KILLING 25 MAN RAIDING.
Title: Re: Cata 10/25 man raiding
Post by: Improved on April 26, 2010, 02:02:58 PM
i think this change is retarded.
Title: Re: Cata 10/25 man raiding
Post by: Southy on April 26, 2010, 02:11:38 PM
This is going to do exactly what Vindra said and throw class balance under an even finer microscope - which will almost definitely lead to even more of the flavor being sucked out of the game, not that there is much left at this point. Hopefully they at least do extensive (hopefully open) beta testing, and actually listen this time. God knows they ignored everyone during the wrath beta, that's they only way they could've ended up with the abomination that was t7.
Title: Re: Cata 10/25 man raiding
Post by: Vaelia on April 26, 2010, 02:17:43 PM
This will be the death of WoW. This is one of those things that could only have been managed were the game designed with this intent 5 years ago.
Title: Re: Cata 10/25 man raiding
Post by: Deepz on April 26, 2010, 02:24:06 PM
Just a quick fun thing to remember.

Most of these posts sound almost exactly the same as the posts years ago when they announced 40 man raids were cutting back to 25s.
Title: Re: Cata 10/25 man raiding
Post by: maphive on April 26, 2010, 02:28:20 PM
Blizzard son unos come mierdas.
Title: Re: Cata 10/25 man raiding
Post by: Digo on April 26, 2010, 03:25:03 PM
How many of you bitch and complain about having to do 25 mans with people who aren't pulling their weight? Now pretend you don't have to raid with them anymore. How many of you bitch and complain about having to constantly recruit to have enough bodies? Now pretend you don't have to do that anymore. How many of you bitch and complain about getting fucked when you don't have X class to do a specific hard-mode?

Hardcore players complain about this shit endlessly, and when the designers announce that they are solving those problems, you complain that it will dumb things down, or lead to even worse class stacking. You can't have it both ways.

This is a good change for the game. And, like Beepz said, I heard these exact same complaints when they announced the change from 40 -> 25. How many of you would want to go back to 40 man raiding?
Title: Re: Cata 10/25 man raiding
Post by: Kennay on April 26, 2010, 04:05:06 PM
Personally I'm happy with the fact that if you don't have 25 people online, you can switch it to ten man and continue the instance.. instead of having to recruit sub-par players just to fill the missing holes.
Title: Re: Cata 10/25 man raiding
Post by: Viodia on April 26, 2010, 04:21:13 PM
Interesting.
Title: Re: Cata 10/25 man raiding
Post by: Vaelia on April 26, 2010, 06:08:58 PM
I'm not saying there is anything wrong with the idea itself. I am saying this is going to be a massive failure when Blizzard has to balance encounters so that they are of equivalent difficulty for 10 players chosen out of 30 possible talent trees as opposed to 25 players chosen out of 30 possible talent trees. There are currently 37 different raid buffs and debuffs, some of which are provided by only certain classes and some classes provide way more than others. Not to mention things like dispels, battle rezzes, soulstones, innervates, etc. Unless they massively revamp every single class in the game the only thing that will happen is exactly what Vindra said: 10-mans will end up damn near impossible compared to everything else unless you have a very specific raid comp. "Bring the player not the class" will only apply to 25-mans. That, or a complete homogenization of talent specs. Also couple this around the fact that designers have to strike a balance for all 30 talent specs in 5-mans, 10s, 25s, 10 Hard Modes, 25 Hard Modes, 2v2, 3v3, 5v5, battlegrounds, and leveling and I really have zero faith that the current batch of developers will be able to pull it off.

Again, this is something that could possibly work, but not as something patched in 5 years and 85 levels later.

EDIT: When I say 37 different raid buffs and debuffs, I'm referring to the specific effect not a specific spell (like +Haste %)
Title: Re: Cata 10/25 man raiding
Post by: monmoth on April 26, 2010, 06:12:22 PM
I understand why they are making these changes. It just seems like all the hard work that goes in to making 25man raiding more lucrative is being done away with. It will come down whether or not the extra loot is significant enough to encourage 25 man raiding still. In no way does this mean the end of the game, there is no sky falling on our heads. I bet what will happen is that there will be a lot more 10 man guilds that 25s. It will be interesting to see what guilds stay as 25 mans or split in to 10s.

*Edit* I posted as veal was posting. That is what it will come down to,if they can balance everything. If they can make 10s as hard as 25s(by whatever means necessary) it will be a good change for the game. They do have a lot of hurdles to over come though, like the number of buffs and class specific abilities everyone has. I remember reading that they wanted to tone down buffs so its good when you have them but it isn't so punishing when you don't. They have their work cut out for them. I'm going to reserve my opinion until the beta is out for a while.
Title: Re: Cata 10/25 man raiding
Post by: Southy on April 27, 2010, 09:43:57 AM
The difference between going from 40 to 25 and 25 to 10 is that nobody had ever done 25 mans, and they turned out reasonably well. Everyone has done 10 mans, and they have been, almost without fail, disgustingly easy (sarth, lk). Obviously only needing 10 people is more convenient, but if we get the same level of difficulty we have so far then I don't know that the trade off is worth it.

I guess we'll see.
Title: Re: Cata 10/25 man raiding
Post by: fadedtimes on April 27, 2010, 11:47:10 AM
I think they can make the extra loot worth doing 25mans. May be 25's does a guaranteed trinket drop on bosses that give trinkets, and/or weapons. Perhaps 3 tier piece drops in 25m vs 1 in 10m.

I see the loot ratio being 2 to 5, 10m vs 25m in quantity. I doubt they go with a 1 to 3 ratio. Badges may be they go with the 1 to 3. They have to make the 25 rewards worthwhile or a lot of guilds will stop running them all together.

I played EQ with 72 and 54 man raids. Vanilla with 40. Going down to only 10's sounds awful.
Title: Re: Cata 10/25 man raiding
Post by: emi on April 27, 2010, 12:05:06 PM
They wont make 10s as hard as 25 bc of group comp and catering to casuals. Look around Dalaran and you will see terribads in full 251 at least right now. This is just gonna make it as if they were in full 264.
It's lame, because 10 man can never be as interesting or complicated as 25. Raid comp just won't allow it.

I wish they would just make 10 man specific instances like in the past (a la Zul XYZ) but God forbid they use our monthly fees to make more raid content.

I think that's what makes this even worse. The fact that we HAD 10 man specific instances and then they took it away. It wouldn't feel so crappy if we'd never known it to begin with. It makes them look lazier, emphasizes the fact that when you're in a 10 man version of an instance you think "this COULD have been a completely different and new zone but instead bc they're lazy I'm farming the same old content." It makes you feel like they've cut something whereas you wouldn't have noticed a lack of content implementation otherwise.
Title: Re: Cata 10/25 man raiding
Post by: monmoth on April 27, 2010, 04:26:28 PM
I think that's what makes this even worse. The fact that we HAD 10 man specific instances and then they took it away. It wouldn't feel so crappy if we'd never known it to begin with. It makes them look lazier, emphasizes the fact that when you're in a 10 man version of an instance you think "this COULD have been a completely different and new zone but instead bc they're lazy I'm farming the same old content." It makes you feel like they've cut something whereas you wouldn't have noticed a lack of content implementation otherwise.

I wouldn't agree with this. If they went the route your suggesting we wouldn't magically have twice as much content (a whole new 10 man instance as well a whole new 25 every major content patch). In fact I bet there would be fewer 10/25 man raids becuase they have to spend a more time making up two new zones instead of one. Your suggestion would only work if they hired another team of people to work on 10 man raids. That doesn't even take in to account the extra artists they would need to make the art work for 2 separate raids. If you want to argue they have the money for that I'm sure they do but they could easily hire those people to do both 10/25mans.

Going this route kinda sucks for the players that like having better quality items than someone who only does 10 man raids. That's only a small portion of the population though. On blizzards end it must be a nightmare coming up with 4 tiers of loot that are all fully itemized and all have different art work. Instead they will only have to do two tiers of loot with this system. I would almost argue the fact that they can do more content this way.

One last thing to think about is if they did 10 mans separate from 25 mans most people wouldn't see 25 man content. How many people saw more than just the first or second boss in Sunwell. This was a big problem back in the 40 man days. As a developer you don't want to spend months of dev time on something only 2-3% of your population is going to see. Like I said before though it will all come down to their tuning and we'll see how that goes in the beta.
Title: Re: Cata 10/25 man raiding
Post by: emi on April 27, 2010, 04:32:36 PM
I'm saying it makes it FEEL like we're being screwed out of content. Right now it certainly feels this way cause we have to do the same instance 2x per week. And I'm saying what makes it feel that way is that we used to have separate 10 man instances.
Title: Re: Cata 10/25 man raiding
Post by: Vurin on April 27, 2010, 04:37:57 PM
Its almost going to be a given that the release cata content is by and large going to be tuned to be quite easy. at least the normal modes. so there will be plenty of time to feel out the differences between 10 and 25 mans loot drops and how difficult hard modes are.
Title: Re: Cata 10/25 man raiding
Post by: Deepz on April 27, 2010, 04:46:31 PM
It will be hilarious to see how much more loot 25's drop, since a 30 man roster can either get one 25-man's worth of loot per lockout, or three 10 man's worth of loot.
Title: Re: Cata 10/25 man raiding
Post by: Dleduc02 on April 27, 2010, 05:59:30 PM
It will be hilarious to see how much more loot 25's drop, since a 30 man roster can either get one 25-man's worth of loot per lockout, or three 10 man's worth of loot.

You mean one 10 man's worth of loot, and 3 guys who get to whine on the forums because nobody showed up.