World of Warcraft®

01/25/2013 07:09 AMPosted by Khahan

Which is what Tyrnyx has seemingly been arguing - since they are dead now they cannot be revived.

Glad to see you have spent no time actually reading my posts and instead have just been getting overly defensive.

My question is this. Casual generally implies taking the game less seriously. Casual time commitment, etc.

But 25 currently takes considerable Admin work. Adding more loot to 25 is not going to change that in any way. More players may be interested in doing 25s, but the burden on the Admin is still there. So why are we looking at loot as a solution when the core of the problem with 25 casual is that it is hard to lead a 25 guild casually simply due to the amount of Admin time they require.

25 leading is not a casual endeavor.

[quote="77576275866"]

25 leading is not a casual endeavor.

Well there is one thing we agree on.

01/25/2013 07:45 AMPosted by Siantha

So, I'm pretty comfortable saying the majority of 25 dropoff occurred during ICC, not before Cata

You are largely incorrect. The major drop-off in 25-man guilds occurred over the course of Cataclysm. While there was some shift with the availability of 10s (in much the same way that LFR has left many casual 10s with fewer recruits, because a segment of the population no longer sees a benefit to organized raids) - the "killing blow" outside of serious 25s was the gear equalization.

It's the law of risk - people will always choose the lowest risk activity that produces equivalent reward. They will also violently react to any policy which increases their risk exposure, even if it provides moderate benefit.

That's the hardest part of the necessary changes to incentives. I've looked at every possible way 10s could be preserved, but there simply isn't one. Blizz has to yank the chain and plug their ears. Six months down the road, raiding will be better off because of it.

This thread is supposed to be a discussion, so why don't you go ahead and discuss how each and every possible other option for 25s won't work and gear/removing 10s is the only way.

01/25/2013 08:10 AMPosted by Subrosian

You are largely incorrect. The major drop-off in 25-man guilds occurred over the course of Cataclysm. While there was some shift with the availability of 10s (in much the same way that LFR has left many casual 10s with fewer recruits, because a segment of the population no longer sees a benefit to organized raids) - the "killing blow" outside of serious 25s was the gear equalization.

26K 25 man guilds kill marrowgar, 4K guilds kill Halion, 1.7K guilds kill Nef - again, why do you blame Cataclysm for the dropoff when the vast majority stopped raiding during ICC? It seems to me that what killed casual 25's was Professor Putricide - not shared lockouts

01/25/2013 07:51 AMPosted by Tyrnyx

My question is this. Casual generally implies taking the game less seriously. Casual time commitment, etc.

Or casual could simply mean not hard core progression. I'm casual compared to sub who is casual compared to vodka and the old paragon depending on how you want to define casual.

No, 25 man leading is not a casual endeavor. But you keep insisting its dead and can't come back.

"At what point do we realize that incentivizing 25s is worthless"
"It is obvious that there will never be a revival of a raid form that in itself makes no sense"
"And personally I think it is silly to try to save a dying raid form by killing a thriving raid form"

You also ask us to discuss non-loot options. I have. But lets face it, some of the problems faced by 25 mans are finding people interested. Right now, all things equal within the raid, people are not interested, because all things are NOT equal. Things are tipped in favor of 10 mans. 10's offer the same lockout, the same gear, the same achievements and the same chances at patterns and legendary stuff but they do not offer the administrative work. So what reason do you or I or any other aspiring or worn out RL have to do 25 mans? What incentive does a raider have to want to participate in 25 mans when they can get the same stuff with less waiting around for organization? The fact is in wrath things were not balanced. 25 mans had too much. But they are not balanced in MoP and they weren't in cata.

Blizzard is trying to find that balance. I'm not sure it exists but I'm willing to keep an open mind about blizzard trying. This is A step in the right direction. Loot options do have to be considered because they are the driving force behind the rewards system that causes players to choose which to do. Yes, other options, non-loot related, will help. But loot has to be considered.

Personally I'm fine with them sharing the same ilvl. I'm fine with keeping loot drops at the same ratio (2 for 10 and 5 for 25. Each has a 1 loot to every 5 player ratio). I'm fine with patterns and legendary items dropping in both 10 and 25. But give us separate lockouts and separate achievements.

And with the thunderforged items I think the idea that they have a higher drop rate in 25 mans is right in line with 25 mans dropping more individual pieces. They're keeping ratios the same.

You hand 25s better gear and you solve the recruiting problem of finding 3x as many people *instantly*, because a large number of players will be drawn to do the content that provides the better gear reward. It's not rocket science.

Right now 10s provide the better gear reward. It's much easier to find a 10 (on most servers) that's doing progression, you're most likely the only player of your class, and any gear that drops is yours. There's low risk and high reward - especially given the move from 25s -> 10s produces more guilds, meaning even if you burn your bridges with group X, there's always group Y.

Honestly, it's not that hard - we just have a bunch of 10s who are utterly dependent on the currently slanted tables to continue existing in their current form - and any threat to that unfair advantage in both recruiting and reward (one that would actually properly compensate the increased difficulty of both running and playing in a 25) makes them nervous.

Were incentives that made it decisive to be announced, many 10s would easily be able to go 25 because there would be a huge influx of people who wanted to do the more-rewarding content. The "inbetween" state, where they still give 10s the same things, doesn't work, and makes it impossible to go 10 -> 25 because there's nothing to gain from doing so.

Or casual could simply mean not hard core progression. I'm casual compared to sub who is casual compared to vodka and the old paragon depending on how you want to define casual.

No, 25 man leading is not a casual endeavor. But you keep insisting its dead and can't come back.

I think you are reading too much into certain words and missing the point.

"At what point do we realize that incentivizing 25s is worthless" - There will be a point when there are no more things that can be done to incentive 25. Because removing the other option is not an incentive, it is a lack of choice.

"It is obvious that there will never be a revival of a raid form that in itself makes no sense" - Yes, it is obvious that there will never be a revival of a raid form that does not make sense. 25s currently take more than a casual amount of effort to run. So until that issue is fixed, or as I said before the removal of the other option, 25s will never be fully revived because there are core issues with how 25 currently works in game.

"And personally I think it is silly to try to save a dying raid form by killing a thriving raid form" - And I do think it is silly to save a dying raid form by killing a thriving one. Other than Sub I have not seen anyone who has argued that it makes sense to just kill 10s, a large portion of the raiding population, for the sole benefit of 25s. So lets talk about what issues 25s have at their core that can fixed.

01/25/2013 08:37 AMPosted by Khahan

So what reason do you or I or any other aspiring or worn out RL have to do 25 mans? What incentive does a raider have to want to participate in 25 mans when they can get the same stuff with less waiting around for organization? The fact is in wrath things were not balanced. 25 mans had too much. But they are not balanced in MoP and they weren't in cata.

The point of any discussion is to find the balance, which can be doable, but it will never be perfect. There is no way to change the fact that 25s have to deal with more personalities and for some people that is never going to be worth it. How much should we incentivize having to organize more people?

When Blizz put 10s and 25s on the same lockout with equal gear they did it to give players the option to play the game in the raid size they preferred more. Ideally Blizz should be able to work off of that basis to create a system where players in leadership roles can make a more easy choice about what size raid they would rather lead. Currently I do not think that 25 is well suited for casual leadership and that is the major issue it faces. The game is getting more casual, as much as Sub or anyone else wants to argue that. With LFR there is little need to even be in a guild to see raid content. The game is far more casual now than it has ever been, and that is a fact.

Blizzard is trying to find that balance. I'm not sure it exists but I'm willing to keep an open mind about blizzard trying. This is A step in the right direction. Loot options do have to be considered because they are the driving force behind the rewards system that causes players to choose which to do. Yes, other options, non-loot related, will help. But loot has to be considered.

Loot is a bandaid fix though. Providing more or better loot will certainly push players into 25s because they want the best loot. But it will not remove the negatives that 25s face other than the recruitment drive. More loot will not make it easier to manage 25 players, it will not make it easier to gather the mats, to set up events, to lead the raids. All it will do is create an artificial fix by pushing more players that may or may not want to even be there.

But give us separate lockouts and separate achievements.

I do not think separate achievements would be an issue, but with separate lockouts that allow double loot gains per week a huge burden is placed on the hardcore scene. It would mean going back to raiding multiple raids per week of the same thing just to keep your loot up. And with LFR instead of doing doubles per week players would need to go triples. I am not against this solely because I think it would kill 10 progression, I am against double loot per week because I think it would lead to massive burn out of all progression guilds as it did in Wrath.

But I do see an issue in letting raids work similar to LFR, where you can run a 10 or a 25 and only receive loot once per week. It could open the door to the "fun" runs with friends that many players have asked for without creating a system that essentially requires hardcore guilds to run a 25 and 10 per week so that they can get as much loot as possible.

01/25/2013 08:42 AMPosted by Subrosian

You hand 25s better gear and you solve the recruiting problem of finding 3x as many people *instantly*, because a large number of players will be drawn to do the content that provides the better gear reward. It's not rocket science.

And it is not rocket science to know that removing a choice is not a real incentive.

Right now 10s provide the better gear reward. It's much easier to find a 10 (on most servers) that's doing progression, you're most likely the only player of your class, and any gear that drops is yours. There's low risk and high reward - especially given the move from 25s -> 10s produces more guilds, meaning even if you burn your bridges with group X, there's always group Y.

On most realms it is easier to find 10m guilds because most realms cannot support 25m guilds due to population. When you want to raid doesn't it make more sense to pick the raid best suited to your schedule? So when people do this, doesn't it make sense that in a smaller population realm where very few 25s exist, it is easier to find a 10 that fits your schedule than a 25 simply because of the options?

Honestly, it's not that hard - we just have a bunch of 10s who are utterly dependent on the currently slanted tables to continue existing in their current form - and any threat to that unfair advantage in both recruiting and reward (one that would actually properly compensate the increased difficulty of both running and playing in a 25) makes them nervous.

Read what you wrote. "Honestly, it's not that hard - we just have a bunch of 25s who were utterly dependent on the formerly slanted tables - and any threat to not returning to that unfair advantage in both recruiting and reward (one that would actually force players from having a choice) makes them nervous.

Were incentives that made it decisive to be announced, many 10s would easily be able to go 25 because there would be a huge influx of people who wanted to do the more-rewarding content. The "inbetween" state, where they still give 10s the same things, doesn't work, and makes it impossible to go 10 -> 25 because there's nothing to gain from doing so.

I think it is impressive that you are so sure that 10s can so easily just merge. All of us here in the leadership boards have seen posts asking about mergers and the pros and cons and all of us here have seen just how difficult it is to successfully merge 2 groups.

Maybe it is because you assume that all 10s are just parts of a 25 that are running 10s antagonistically, but in relality, each 10 is different. They run their own schedules that generally do not have much overlap on their own realms, they run their own atmospheres and rules, that do not always overlap too. Just because 10+10 = 20 and 20 is almost 25, does not mean that if 10s were to be destroyed all the players could easily just pair up and make new 25s.

25 tables were never slanted - they received appropriate compensation for their higher amount of work.

10s have hugely slanted tables right now - same reward - 1/3rd the roster - zero class competition - same achieves. You require less commitment, difficulty and talent for a better outcome. It's not hard to see why that's hurting 25-man raiding.

If you can't rationally see that the so-called "option" is literally removing the option of 25-man raiding for the majority of servers, then that option needs to be removed entirely. If 10s can't handle the idea of actually making it an option by providing higher compensation for increased difficulty - then they don't get to continue to exist. Pull the plug and let them whine now, rather than deal with the slow, endless whine of entitlement.

01/25/2013 09:06 AMPosted by Tyrnyx

that allow double loot gains per week a huge burden is placed on the hardcore scene. It would mean going back to raiding

They don't have to.

01/25/2013 09:06 AMPosted by Tyrnyx

Loot is a bandaid fix though

No, loot is not a bandaid fix. Loot by itself, maybe. But any 1 fix to this issue by itself can be considered a bandaid fix. Loot, as I said is A fix. Not THE fix. Its one of many that need to be made.

To resolve the issue of recruiting and getting more numbers there has to be incentive for the players. This game's incentive system is built around loot. So making some changes in loot between 10 and 25 is A fix. One of many that needs to be made.

There are some excellent suggestions in the announcement thread. For those who aren't following along, that link is here:
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/7709282055

I'd recommend the following posts for anyone looking for some perspective from people who are currently involved in administering casual 25m raiding guilds:
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/7709282055?page=26#506
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/7709282055?page=28#546
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/7709282055?page=28#554
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/7709282055?page=32#634
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/7709282055?page=39#767

I'm only up to page 40, so there are probably more I've missed.

*edit: Not necessarily in agreement on everything in this post, but the money back guarantee on realm transfers is a great idea:
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/7709282055?page=42#828

We've already had the suggestion - numerous times in fact - from me on this forum that Blizzard needs to give 25-man guilds free realm transfers to hand out. Those transfers would lock the player to 25-man raiding for 30 days (so that people don't try to just exploit 25s for free transfers to other guilds on the realm). That would be a step in the right direction HOWEVER that alone would not solve the issue.

The more I've explored it in the academic sense (i.e. with a bunch of people who get paid for a living to solve problems like this one) the more I've come to the conclusion that 10-man is being incentivized right now, and that has to stop to balance out the populous. Unless 25s are receiving ______________ tangible rewards (be they cosmetic, iLvL upgrades, unique mounts, separate achievements, etc) that attract players to move from 10 -> 25, you won't see 25s come back.

Players aren't "choosing" right now, the balance of guilds and rewards literally forces people into 10s.

It's such a pity you got banned and all those posts of yours about how 10 is harder on the individual and how 10 is equally challenging got deleted.

There is no point in turning this into a 10v25 argument, especially when your opinion has so rapidly changed this tier.

01/25/2013 09:41 AMPosted by Khahan

that allow double loot gains per week a huge burden is placed on the hardcore scene. It would mean going back to raiding

They don't have to.

Are you purposefully only responding to things you can pick at? Because that paragraph you quoted from essentially described how they could make it not place place those burdens on the hardcore scene, and yet instead of discussing those points you quote that single phrase and reply "They don't have to."

If this is indeed a discussion then please, elaborate to make it one.

The more I've explored it in the academic sense (i.e. with a bunch of people who get paid for a living to solve problems like this one) the more I've come to the conclusion that 10-man is being incentivized right now, and that has to stop to balance out the populous. Unless 25s are receiving ______________ tangible rewards (be they cosmetic, iLvL upgrades, unique mounts, separate achievements, etc) that attract players to move from 10 -> 25, you won't see 25s come back.

Players aren't "choosing" right now, the balance of guilds and rewards literally forces people into 10s.

The more you continue to refuse to actually discuss options by ignoring them or by claiming to have talked to important people the more you will continue to come off as just looking for the easy escape of removing 10s to remove the choice.

You can keep making statements about how there is no choice now, but who in their right mind believes there will be more choice if one of the choices is removed. Be as dramatic as you want by saying people are "literally forced" right now as if that makes "literally forcing" them with loot justified, but if you look at realms only the large pop realms are surviving. And on the large pop realms 25s are fine. On small pop realms all guilds are dying. Keep claiming that removing 10s will somehow fix that problem.

My opinion has never changed - I tried to defend progression 10s as they are somewhat different from 25s, and I hoped both audiences could exist. However, it has become apparent as MoP goes on that we've simply had an entitlement-heavy crowd of gamers who are anything but hardcore, who want 10s because they lack the desire or social skills to take raiding for what it should be - a group activity.

You now have a bunch of casual players who would be fine with split lockouts, split achievements, and even better loot in 25s - so long as they could do what they're doing already and then some... and those players are getting shot down by so-called progression 10s.

If 10s could co-exist, I would be fine with it, but it's obvious at this point that they can't, because too many people will throw the spirit and intent of both raiding and MMOs in the gutter in the pursuit of better iLvL. If better iLvL was had from solo content, 10s would be in the same boat.

So, you have to bite the bullet and put the carrot at the most social, most-group oriented activity. In much the same way that Blizzard has to tie conquest capping to do RBGs, they have to tie the best-possible PVE rewards in the game to 25-mans. People can choose to ignore that slight iLvL boost, but it's an incentive there to say "try this, it's something beyond the content you're doing currently".

-

For the record, split lockouts would make my raiding experience worse, as I would be "forced" into doing the same raids twice each week to compete for gear. However, I'd be willing to accept that inconvenience for the greater good of raiding - you can't ask casual players to not have access to 25s (which will pretty much require split lockouts, unless you expect them all to gquit their current guilds) simply because you don't want to do more raiding at the high end.

I love the that 10s are no longer a group activity.

I love that you continue to act as if 10s cannot co-exist with 25s when you have done nothing to discuss any actual incentive that would make 25 casual more appealing to casual raiders.

And I love that you act as if 25 heroic raiders are not just as vocal about the disdain for having to run two raids per week.

As much as you want to go around and make unreasonable statements about how players in 10 lack the social skills to do raiding as a social group, you will never come across as actually having defended 10s. It is honestly laughable that you continue to assert that 10s are not social groups and that 25 is the magic number. And please, I do not care to see whatever random study you find proving that 25 is a magical number and WoW can only be successful as an MMO if it takes that side.

It is so far past clear that you have no interest in having any reasonable discussion about what incentives 25s actually need. You are far too concerned with killing off a separate part of the game to force players to play with you.

01/25/2013 11:59 AMPosted by Subrosian

For the record, split lockouts would make my raiding experience worse, as I would be "forced" into doing the same raids twice each week to compete for gear. However, I'd be willing to accept that inconvenience for the greater good of raiding

I am split on this issue one part I agree and want seperate lockouts and then the other I do not

Blizz took away the seperate lock outs for a wide vairety of reasons

1 players complaining raiding had become too much like a job being forced to raid both 10s and 25s

2. Players gearing in 25s and then coming back to help carry the rest of their 10 man guilds through progression.

Were some of the complaints that were being presented and given by Blizz as a reason for creating shared lockouts.

I am not sure if it really solved any problem or if it did , it just created new problems.

I like the idea of removing Heroic 10 mans and leaving heroic raiding only for 25s. I know a lot of 10 man groups would not like it, but I feel that 25 mans should be the premier raiding form and should be recognized for it, in better gear, different titles and acheives and maybe even a mount that only is available in Heroic mode.

Blizz has tried too hard to homogenize (sp?) raiding and yes players will gravitate to the easier raid, esp if the reward is the same. So why should anyone raid 25s if you can get the same or nearly the same gear in 10s?

I have no problem with the Inncentive, I just not sure it goes far enough to fix the problem

If I take the perspective that if I raid in a 25 or a 10 at the end of the year I should have an equal chance to upgrade my toon as any other guildie, RNG, loot drops, and all averaging out.

That screws tanks and maybe healers. 1/10 or 1/25 chance for loot. I would have to take 10, because there are only nine other players to average against, while the 25 man only needs two tank, but there are 23 other players.

How does better drops in 25s help the minority players?

I know this is much deeper than this, but the truth is that there are fewer slots for tanks if we go solely 25 man.