Cata 10/25 man raiding

[Obe]

- 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

[monmoth]

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.

[Shamlarie]

This sounds terrible.

[Vindra]

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.

[Obe]

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

[Uhuru]

Obe, I'm changing your name to Obe.

Also, LOL @ KILLING 25 MAN RAIDING.

[Improved]

i think this change is retarded.

[Southy]

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.

[Vaelia]

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.

[Deepz]

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.

[maphive]

Blizzard son unos come mierdas.

[Digo]

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?

[Kennay]

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.

[Viodia]

Interesting.

[Vaelia]

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 %)

Call to undefined function show_bottomAds()