10 v. 25-Person Content Revisited

green-vortex

Well, darn. I figured out something last night that should have me eating my hat, or humble pie, or maybe a boiled crow, or else four-and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie. One of my biggest predictions about Wrath of the Lich King turns out to have been dead wrong.
some-very-humble-pie

When I first heard about the 10 v. 25 raid size split in Wrath, I made a logical assumption. To be entirely fair, the conclusion I drew was well-supported by blue comments. I believed that since the rewards would be demonstrably better in 25-person content, as a consequence the difficulty level would also be higher. Either that, or the difficulty level would be exactly the same, the only reason for a reward difference being the Organization Boss that all larger guilds have to face every week.

However, last night I ran two “normal difficulty” raids that took my breath away: Sartharion with two drakes and Malygos. Without a stacked raid, our group–which took out Sartharion 25 with 2 drakes earlier this week after only an hour and a half of tries–just could not make any headway in the 10-man version. We had to settle for just one drake, and since we picked the baby dragon-spawner by accident, that was no cake walk either. And as for the rewards at the end? Nothing anyone wanted, since we had been doing so much Sartharion 25 and Naxx 25. We were pretty psyched to get the achievement, though.

As for Malygos, we took him down with two healers, and boy, was I sweating. Tank healing was tight, and raid healing was even dodgier. Meanwhile, my mana pool dipped to absolutely scary levels–which became an emergency when I made a mistake on one attempt and blew my innervate in the gap between phase 1 and phase 2. In my panic I hadn’t even been checking Mal’s health bar. Malygos is a fight I love on 25s, but I have to say that the 10-man was breathtaking. It’s exactly the kind of challenge I want–one that I know I can meet, or that gives me a chance to make improvements between attempts. It has me tempted to go back again. However, once again the rewards aren’t in proportion to the difficulty. I’d say the loot is about on par with Kel’Thuzad’s from Naxx 25–pretty darn good, but not nearly as nice as the stuff that comes out of the easier 25-person version of the same instance.

Has Blizzard Made A Big Mistake?

Clearly, I think they have, or I wouldn’t have written this post. Knowing what I know now, there’s no reason to separate Emblem loot by normal/heroic raid tier. I think I definitely earned an Emblem of Valor or two for that Malygos kill. I had heard before that Sartharion with 3 drakes was absolutely monstrous on 10s, and I thought that was just a freak thing. But based on my personal experience, I’ve come to think that the phenomenon is more widespread. Nothing in Naxx–either version–is all that difficult for my guild, but I do remember that Kel’Thuzad is harder on both healers and melee-heavy groups in the smaller size. Like it or not, I’ve come to the conclusion that raids who run 10-person content only deserve the same compensation as 25-person raiders.

What Can the Developers Do About It?

A lot of people in this game min/max, and it looks like right now, the biggest rewards for a person’s time and effort come out of 25-person content. This is a disappointment to me, because I want the game design to lead me–and my fellow raiders–to the hardest possible content. The game needs to lure us there with rewards and encourage us not to be lazy. I also want everyone to get fair compensation for what they do. I just feel bad about getting better gear for less work than a smaller guild might do. A 10-man guild who clears Sarth with 3 drakes has absolutely played better than I’m capable of right now–and they get a Heroes’ glove token, while I’m wearing a Valorous one? Ludicrous. Moreover, assuming that Ulduar-10 is harder than Ulduar-25, could that mean that a raid really needs i-level 213 gear to do it? The gear gap between 10-person raiders and 25-person raiders is pretty noticeable. As promised, it is very nearly a whole tier of difference. I think I had smaller upgrades, say, between T4 and T5 than I did between Heroes and Valorous.

For Ulduar and all future raids, I urge Blizzard to do one of two things.

1. Eliminate the i-level gap for 10 v. 25 person gear along with the Emblem difference. Put either equivalent or exactly the same items in each tier. The dichotomy was a nice idea, but the dungeon difficulty doesn’t actually support it. Clearly, I never favor lazy solutions, so I’d rather have totally unique sets in each dungeon size tailored towards the attributes that tend to be more important in that particular raid size. For small raids, survivability and mana regeneration/total mana might be key, whereas you might want higher damage output for the larger raids.

2. For the love of Pete, make the 25-person content different from the 10-person content. It’s not enough to adjust the health and damage values. Make the encounter feel different. Add lots of chaos for the 25s so it feels more on the difficulty level of the 10s. Give every one of those 25 raiders something to do, as in the Lady Vashj fight. I would even go so far as to give the bosses different mechanics–think about, say, the difference between Mechano-Lord Capacitator from Mechanar on Normal v. Heroic. Make the 25-person raiders earn their higher i-level sets.

Don’t Be Lazy

The solution to most of the problems I’ve seen in Wrath so far can be summarized with this adage. Wherever the developers have cut corners, things didn’t come out so well. No one’s complaining about the design of the leveling content or 5-person dungeons. That’s because they clearly show that Blizzard lavished time and attention on them. The same is, unfortunately, not true of the dual-tier raid system. I think it’s time to bring it in line.

43 thoughts on “10 v. 25-Person Content Revisited”

  1. ilvl gap or not, there’s still gear that, at least for Hunters, is best-in-slot in 10-man content, especially from Sartharion 10 2D.

    That’s what Blizzard needs to do more of – sprinkle little pieces of loot for every class that just blows away the 25-man stuff, and leave it in hard 10-man encounters.

    IMO, anyways.

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  2. Odd….. my guild has downed Malygos-10, but has yet to make headway on Malygos-25. I’m not sure that your assertion that the 10-man version is as hard, or harder is true in the general case – perhaps for your crew, but not everyone.

    I completely disagree that the heroism/valour distinction should be eliminated. Afterall, you get emblems of heroism from heroic instances – why should you get raid gear from grinding heroics? Also, I think you underestimate exactly how much harder it is to marshal and organize 25 raiders (or more depending on your guild) week in and week out – it’s non-trivial, and exhausting….. they rewards SHOULD be higher for guilds that can successfully do this. (Also remember that you need to get 25 people, as opposed to 10, who can follow directions, put out adequate DPS, tank well, heal well, etc.)

    Finally, there are a pair of encounters where the mechanics differ from 10 to 25 man. Razuvius has a subtle difference (the crystals) and Grand Widow’s add mechanics are totally different. I’m sure there will be more in future content – but by asking for completely different experiences across the board you are asking the developers to do an enormous amount of added work. That’s fine if you’re willing to wait a lot longer for your next content patch…. but the question is, are you?

    Karthiss last blog post..Kitty gear explained – Now on Resto4Life

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  3. I actually completely agree with you Matt.
    I went into Sartharian the other day with a PUG 25 man where the goal was to down one drake. We were successful and it was actually very easy. The very next day, my guild went into 10 Man Sartharian and tried the exact same thing. Even with better coordination and knowing each other better than the PUG, we were unable to do it. Now, admittedly, we aren’t super geared up but we know the fights well and are progressing rather quickly through Naxx 10 man. We are a smaller guild so it is harder for us to do 25 man content.
    I think your point is well taken on this subject.
    Also, Karthis, there is a simple solution. Make Emblems of Heroism continue to come from all of the Heroic instances. Up the difficulty of the early raids so that you HAVE to run the Heroics to get into them. Then change it so that every raid from Naxx 10 man through until the end drop the Emblems of Valour. It wouldn’t be that difficult of a change and one that would be very welcome for smaller guilds like the one that I am a part of.

    ~Frangus

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  4. @ Frangus
    just a correction. It is Sydera who wrote the post. 😉

    @ Sydera,
    I will agree with the post. I have not had that much raiding experience, but OS10 we were not able to PuG it through… It was not the greatest group, well it was a bad group. We did not down the 1st mini boss. It was that bad. The very next day I was invited into a semi Pug for OS25. It was a semi PuG as it was 3 guilds scraping members together to fill the 25 ppl requirement. It was my first 25 ppl raid, as well as for others, and I was very nervous based on my previous experience there. The outcome? We did it a bit over 1hr with only one death. Kind of anti-climatic. 🙁

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  5. I was wondering this same thing, but more in the area of “Besides the achievements, why do Naxx-10 after being geared up from 25 man’s?” On my realm, we have only a few raiding guilds and the rest are struggling along to do 10-mans. There is something to say about putting together a group of people who can synchonize 25 people and not just run along for any pug request done in trade channel. Also, does it make sense for one to clear naxx/saph/malygos-25, collect emblems/loot and then clear the 10 man versions as well and be able to get the same rewards?

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  6. The thing that makes 10 man seems more difficult is that there is less margin for error on the part of the players. 1-2 people screwing up is much easier to get away with on a 25 man, with most 25 mans often filling in a few holes with people who simply aren’t as good. In a 10 man, the behavior that can be overlooked in a 25 man can cause wipes.

    As well, there is the matter of raid buffs. In a 25 man, its fairly easy to assume you’ll have pretty much every buff you’d want covered, while in a 10 man, its very unlikely.

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  7. Actually, this article’s mine.

    I think that Emblems of Heroism could come only from Heroics and Valor could come from either size raid.

    I still can’t think of a fight that isn’t a little bit harder on 10s. Even Razuvious is merely a bit more picky for class balance on 25s. It isn’t actually harder. Also, raid stacking continues to be an issue in 10s, whereas it’s pretty much a thing of the past in 25s.

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  8. My guild is planning on starting Naxx-10 this week so I can’t comment on Naxx yet. But we did do a 25-man VoA with mostly pickups, and then the 10-man version guild only right after that. And I did notice a difference in that the 10 man version was slightly harder, and I believe that is due to the fact that as Atros mentioned you have a smaller margin for error on the 10-man content.

    I didn’t have to break a sweat on the 25-man version. As a member of a small guild that doesn’t have 25 raiders, I wouldn’t mind working harder on these encounters if I got the same gear. In fact I love a challenge.

    Darias last blog post..Raiding – A Look Back

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  9. It’s an odd mix, really. The hardest fight in the game right now is 10-man Sarth 3D, and some 10-man fights are dependent on proper class balance (such as having a decent kiter on Gluth, or a healer with HoTs on Maexxna … which is very helpful at low gear levels).

    However, I do believe that they tuned the 25-man fights a bit harder in general. Malygos, Patchwerk and Thaddius all have more difficult enrage timers in the 25-man versions. Razuvious requires two priests to be effective at timing their taunts … something that dedicated tanks can do on the 10-man version.

    Overall, I’d give the nod to 25-man difficulty being a bit higher. Your point is well taken, however 🙂

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  10. I completely agree with you Syd.

    We just downed H-Sarth 3D last week. We found that the healers weren’t being pressed enough so we dropped a healer and put in an additional DPS and it was a one shot. We’ve been farming 25 man content for weeks now and even with our “All-star lineup” we can’t do N-Sarth 3D. As far as I know, its the only thing on the server that hasn’t been done, even by the “more advanced” alliance faction.

    They should definitely close the gap in i-lvl to make this fair. I feel like I have to start by doing 25 mans to move down to 10 mans now 😛

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  11. I belong to a small raiding guild composed of some hardcore and a few casual players that runs 10mans and a pug 25naxx weekly with another guild. I can certainly say that naxx25 feels a tiny bit harder on some bosses (patchwerk for one), which I am really disappointed about. As a small, but dedicated, guild I don’t want 10mans to be treated as pity raids, easier than 25mans just because we don’t have the numbers to run a 25man. I want to be challenged just the same (or more) as 25mans. For that reason, I think I’d be a little disappointed if the 25man version was too different from the 10man version (but it would be nice if you ran both versions to change things up).

    My guild downed Malygos 10 this week and I agree that it was a great fight. We only had 1 ranged dps so the 2nd stage took a while, but it was a fun fight for both dps and healers. We did most of the attempts with 2 healers and boy was that fun, unlike in 25mans where you’re certain to be healing the same target as someone else, it really feels like you’re making a difference. We haven’t downed Sath + drakes yet, but I’m looking forward to attempts.

    I really hope that ulduar is much more difficult that naxx, that the 10 and 25man versions are equally difficult, and that those geared from 10mans now will be able to stand on equal footing with those geared from 25mans in ulduar without the 10man ulduar instance being easier.

    As for the emblems of heroism/valor debate, I think it would be great if the harder fights on the 10mans (i.e., sarth + drakes or malygos) would award an emblem of valor and 25man quality loot as a pat on the back. That would be nice and help bridge the gear gap for 10man and 25man raiders.

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  12. Syd,

    I might represent a tiny minority, but as a hardcore gamer in a small guild that only does 10 mans, I prefer the Normal versions to be the most challenging. I don’t want to play a watered down care bear game. 🙂

    Alternatively, it makes sense to me that a player who focuses on 25 mans would feel the same way about the Heroic versions.

    Optimally, I think we should get the same content, mechanics, and difficulty in both. However, there is naturally a greater challenge in putting together a raid of 25, so I see no problem giving them better gear. I do think the gap in tiers could be reduced though. Perhaps, rather than having different ilvls, 25 man gear gets more optimal stats? The class sets would probably still be identical though.

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  13. It’s nice to see comments on this…something I have no experience with.

    The number of 80s in my guild right now, and the number who are online any given night (a more casual guild that doesn’t have as many “consistent” raiders), doesn’t allow for us to do 25 mans, at least just yet. We have no problem with 10-man OS (with all the drakes down), 10-man vault, and we’re working our way through 10-man Naxx. But yes it’s interesting to hear that some of the fights are harder with 10 people, especially as one of the healers, I really have to stay on the ball. 😛

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  14. I absolutely think that the 25 mans are easier than the 10 mans. To be honest, I think it is still the margin of error, there are fights with room for no errors on 10 man at all, that on 25 can still be done at equivalent gear levels when a couple people die. To me, the 10s are harder, and i agree they deserve better rewards. I would be a fan of the earlier proposed solution of the emblems. You should have to progress through heroics to be able to get into the raids. It is kind of annoying that you can get tier gear just running the easy heroics over and over. I really think that you should have to run raids to be able to get tier gear.

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  15. I think it is a toss up. Sarth 3D with 10 is harder, no doubt about it, but other than that, I don’t see the harder fights on 10s. Gluth maybe but just because of class needs. I found Malygos to be significantly harder on 25 simply because you actually have to do phase 3. On ten you can just zerg with the DoT and win without much problem – not the case on 25 (where you have to play as intended). So over all I think there is not a clear cut “This is whole category is harder than that whole category.”

    Honestly, didn’t Blizzard say they were aiming for parallel raids? Of basically the same difficulty, only rewarding those guilds that have a stable 25 with a +.5 tier? It seems like they almost hit that goal. T7 is better than anything before it, and T7.5 is the same. And if 10 gear was better than 25, every 25 guild would feel obligated to run 10s as well as 25s. Wasn’t the whole point that a guild could do one or the other?

    I am all for parallel difficulty, with a nudge toward 25. Maybe the nudge should be smaller, but I don’t feel I can make that call.

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  16. What, are we now awarding administrative ability? IMHO, it’s ridiculous to suggest that 25’s should get better gear just because it’s harder to put them together.

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  17. Well, apparently we ARE rewarding administrative ability.

    I also think the gap is more than half a tier. The names T7 and T7.5 are misnomers. It’s a full tier of difference–in most cases a straight upgrade in every way. How often did we get that going between SSC and BT? Usually the model has been that you sacrifice one stat for more of several others–like something is a drop in an important stat like spirit but a gain in intellect, stam, and mp5.

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  18. What Blizzard SHOULD do is stop making every 25 man have a respective 10 man version of it. 25 man’s HAVE to have better loot, otherwise what is the point of doing them? They require MUCH more work to organize and require better more structured guilds to maintain.

    There is a enjoyment however with having a larger group and successfuly tackling new content. If they made both sets of loot the same, it would take away from that. Now if they went back and made the future 25 man instances ONLY available in 25’s and threw in a couple 10 mans that are ONLY available in 10s (like Zul Aman) I think that would be the best. Black Temple is still my favorite instance to date, however if they had a 10 man version of it, I know that my experience of it would not have been as grand.

    Oh btw, my first time posting on your site. I really liked your postings about DKP vs Loot Council. We shifted from LC to DKP and I utilized a lot of your information during our conversion. Oh, and is Sydera single? She’s hot.

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  19. You hit the nail on the head with “Organization Boss”.

    Blizzard is rewarding you for entertaining 25 of their paying customers more than someone who entertains only 10 of their paying customers.

    They needed to build in a difference in gear levels because they don’t want you getting TWO chances at best-in-slot items per week. To stretch out the re-playability of the dungeons, they only want you to get ONE shot at top notch gear items per week, so they had to pick 10’s or 25’s.

    They’re using loot to motivate the behavior that earns them the most money.

    Amavas last blog post..Phoot >>> Bang

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  20. @Perzyx Quote “What Blizzard SHOULD do is stop making every 25 man have a respective 10 man version of it. 25 man’s HAVE to have better loot, otherwise what is the point of doing them?”

    I’m fairly sure the two sentences above have absolutely no relevance to each other whatsoever. The level of loot doesn’t prohibit the reuse of an instance or its mechanics.

    However I do agree with Syd, that the level of complexity needs to be increased. While I hate the class-reliant restriction of Instructor Raz in Naxx, its an example of the difference. Mechanar’s another great example.

    However, we have to remember that Naxx was a “We want people to see this, we spent so much time on it back in the day” thing, so they didn’t want to change much.

    I am expecting (though its probably more just a hope) that Ulduar will be much better developed along those lines. We’ve seen time and time again, the Blues stress that Naxx is “Entry Level” therefore its a proving ground for 25s to learn their stuff.

    The “organisational reward” is actually quite valid for this first instance and ONLY this first tier. It lets new guilds work their stuff out, get over the loot dramaz etc and make sure they’re really ready for what they want to do. However, beyond this there should be significant challenges to 25s above and beyond 10s.

    That said, I personally have found that 5-mans are the hardest instance type for a healer, with the number of healers proportionally increasing the ease at which the game is played. The exceptions are things like (in BC) Council and Na’jentus which were healer-stressed fights. (I didn’t see past Illidan so I don’t have SP experience).

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  21. I think that Sarth with three drakes is really the exception, not the rule. 10 mans are generally easier than 25 mans in my experience.

    Also, I think that saying that blizzard rewarding administrative ability is missing the point. They are not rewarding your out-of-raid managing skills, but your ability to coordinate 25 during fights, which does most certainly merit a slightly better reward. At the same time though I dislike how doing 25 mans makes doing 10’s feel pointless. In my opinion, putting trinkets, items with procs and other kinds of unique loot only in ten mans might be a good solution to this, though hopefully not to the extent that you’d feel forced to run ten mans.

    Ten man raids definitely need to award emblems of valor however. Higher item level loot is sufficient reward for doing 25 mans, and for most raiders who gear up in heroics then ‘graduate’ to raids additional emblems of heroism gained from 10 mans are simply useless.

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  22. If it’s truly the margin of error that’s making 10s feel more difficult than it should hold up in Ulduar and I would expect you would feel the same way. However, I’m thinking the gear assumptions for Ulduar are going to make this not be the case.

    It is my understanding that for Naxx, both 10 and 25, they assume a certain level of level 80 dungeon and heroic dungeon gearing. For Ulduar one would think the 25 man will assume a fair bit of Naxx 25 gear and the 10 man will assume a fair bit of Naxx 10 gear. If that is true, I’m thinking Ulduar 10 is going to seem pretty easy to a group of raiders with full Naxx 25 gear but might seem pretty hard to a group with Naxx 10 gear.

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  23. Blizzards intention was to create two viable streams of progression with 10man and 25man raids. I was very dissapointed when they announced that there would be approximately a tiers level of difference between the rewards from them. Having seen that each stream has encounters more difficult than the other at certain points it does seem that the 10 man version is still seen as the lesser option rather than a true alternative to 25 man progression. I therefore agree with you that gear level differences should be minimal between the two as long as they continue to be tuned to the same level of difficulty.

    I am however going to have to disagree with you though on giving 10 and 25 mans encounters different “feels” on similar grounds. I don’t think that players should feel that they have to complete both 10 and 25 man raids in order to experience all that is on offer. If this was to be the case then they may as well simply have 25 man raids that aren’t available in 10 man and vice versa (as in TBC).

    I would love to see future 10 and 25 man raids tuned to equal levels of difficulty (taking into account organisational factors etc) and the rewards on equal footing. It would be great not to be penalised (gear and experience wise) for raiding with 9 other highly skilled players instead of having to find the numbers to make a 25 man team that inevitably ends up having at least one person who doesn’t mesh with the group but has the skills to fill the spot.

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  24. whats sad is a lokin heroic fight is harder than anything you’ll fight in naxx. provided you don’t go for the spam mad aoe heal system and have to move.

    and just shorter although less involved than maylgos.

    they have shit ass backwards.

    btw. i’ve facerolled fed a noob guild we run with when we need to fill naxx 25’s on off nights gear, and trust me alot of them are undergeared.

    25’s = easy
    unless people just plain screw up. the buffer on 25’s for general fights seems alot higher. like its tuned for 20’s which makes sense because in 40’s 15 people were afk.

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  25. @Syd:

    “I still can’t think of a fight that isn’t a little bit harder on 10s. Even Razuvious is merely a bit more picky for class balance on 25s.”

    Thaddius is another example of a boss that’s tougher – his enrage timer is much more tight on 25-man. Patchwerk was also mentioned, above.

    I’m assuming that your guild is filled with the cream of the crop, which is why you don’t see the differences at all – the 25-man versions of everything except OS are generally less forgiving, and have way less tolerance for people screwing up.

    Karthiss last blog post..Kitty gear explained – Now on Resto4Life

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  26. Hear hear! While I can spot some issues with making the loot equal in both forms of raiding, it is unfair to make the differences in gear so enormous. It is definitely rewarding administration over skill, and it’s a shame to see the bums on seats factor work in such a way. Of course, if the 10 man rewards were greater, the reaction from the hardcore-elitist contingent would be unbearable.

    Note: by ‘hardcore-elitist’, I don’t mean all hardcore players are elitist!

    Saresas last blog post..Predicilictions

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  27. I really disagree.

    For starters, making 10 and 25-man loot be the same ilvl (and presumably drop the same tier tokens) will essentially double the amount of time raiders will spend each week. Simply, it is far more valuable to progression to get more people geared up faster by doing the same bosses multiple times than it is to try and fail on a hard boss. If everything’s on farm, this means you have double the farm duties. If instead you have 10-man gear being a stepping stone to 25-man, you will have a clear path of raiding that naturally limits how much raiding is done.

    Organizationally it’s a horrible idea. Instead of organizing around 25-mans, you need to make sure you have enough people in your guild to run the 25-man successfully AND have enough to run 10-mans for at least two groups and hopefully 3. Hope you have 6 reliable tanks and 9 reliable healers, and a good class balance amongst all of your DPS. Oh, and I hope you have 3 good leaders too.

    The primary reason right now that 25-man content is harder than 10-man is that both are really, really easy (with one exception). When content is that easy, basically the margin of error is going to be bigger on 25-man than 10-man. A screwup by one person in a 10-man is naturally going to be magnified since it’s 1/10th of your group. With the 25 man, if the content is poorly tuned or made that simple, you can carry a lot more people. I think you’ll find that as you get more tightly tuned content, you’ll have a much harder time of it in 25s than 10s; it’s much harder for 25 people to be on their game and not make a mistake than it is for 10 to.

    Kals last blog post..[General]Where’s the friggin bear (and debuffs)

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  28. There are some bosses that 1 person’s mistake can wipe a raid (Grobb, Thaddius) and with 25 people there is more opportunity for those mistakes. Like Kal’s comments this will be magnified in Ulduar, and therefore 25’s will reign more difficult.

    Sure Naxx25 is easy to pug, however, 10 man’s have always been the EASIEST to pug. It would be a shame to see Pug guilds running around with the same or better gear than raiding guild, who have put months of hard work into growing and developing.

    If Blizzard made the loot identical in both 10’s and 25’s many people (including myself) would say forget 25’s. Although 25’s are the most fun when successful, they are too much of a headache to lead and to organize (dealing with people’s attendance, drama, loot drama, class balancing, etc). I think you would see the end of 25 man raiding. Loot systems would out the door, who need’s DKP when you only have 10 people? and in many cases only one or two of a particular class.

    In fact who needs a guild if we can choose to do 10’s instead of 25’s? Smaller guilds or just bands of friends across multiple guilds would suffice, less drama, less QQ, less babysitting. Sounds great in those respects. However 25’s would be lost. And with the sour comes the sweet. Although 25’s are a pain in the ass, it IS the reason that I am addicted to the game and probably the reason for many. And that would be lost.

    IMO, dump 10 man’s altogether except for a couple Kara/ Zul’aman type instances and make 25 mans only available with 25 people 🙂

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  29. I have serveral issues with the comments:

    “It would be a shame to see Pug guilds running around with the same or better gear than raiding guild, who have put months of hard work into growing and developing.”

    and

    “If Blizzard made the loot identical in both 10’s and 25’s many people (including myself) would say forget 25’s.”

    So, to summarize what I get from your comments, your first argument is basically a form of elitism and your second arguement is that 25-man content is only worth the hassle because of the loot?

    Disregarding the elitist overtones of the first comment, I see little reason that the number of people in one instance should dictate the ilevel of loot.

    Look at the difference between normal dungeons and heroics. There’s no difference in the number of people you can take, only the mechanics and difficulty of the bosses themselves. Why can’t this apply to raids? Adding 15 people doesn’t make a raid more difficult!

    Getting back to “Pug guilds,” I am seeing that 10 mans are where a majority of the guilds–at least on my server–are puting in the “months of hard work” my guild was just starting SWP around the time of the patch, and we cleared up to maly in the second week of release. It wasn’t any effort at all for us. We have 3-4 Normal naxx runs a week, and we also do a 25 of everything as well.

    What I see more of is smaller guilds getting off the ground, slogging it out in 10-man naxx each week. Why should they be rewarded any less?

    Hell, all the gear looks the same anyways. There’s no reason in the current end game to have different levels of loot or badges, other than ego. But that’s what achievements and titles are for.

    If loot is the only reason a guild runs 25 mans, then there’s somethign wrong with the raiding structure. I raid for fun, and 10 mans are way more fun for me atm. Sure there’s more accountability per person, but also there’s this sense of connection. Inside it’s me and my 9 buddies, I know how my healer heals, I trust my tanks more, I know exactly where I stand, I talk on vent more.

    In 40 man raids it was “that melee” in 25s it was “the rogue”… now it’s bob, the verbos HaT rogue who loves to pull things with his racer. But that’s just my opinion, and I could be wrong.

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  30. Karyss said “So, to summarize what I get from your comments, your first argument is basically a form of elitism and your second arguement is that 25-man content is only worth the hassle because of the loot?”

    Sure, call it elitism, call it whatever you like. Personally I feel that the extra effort justifies the extra reward. IF 10 man content was truely more complicated and harder to pull off then it would change my feeling about the subject. i.e. Zul’ Aman was more dificult than Gruul’s therefore had better items (sans DST). But currently this isn’t the case. There is just in most bosses, less margin for error which is the OP’s basis for the post.

    And I never said 25 man content is ONLY worth it because of the loot. My first post stated that 25 man content is the REASON I play this game. I think the larger group with a MUCH higher degree of dynamics is truely awesome. I love trying to max out our group composition and over time tweak our raid group into a machine. Having 25 people execute their roles on queue is a natural high. However, if they took the loot out of the equation, then 25 man raiding would fall apart at the seams. Even though I don’t raid solely because of the loot, but as in life you have to have rewards for the efforts you put in, otherwise people migrate to the easier routes.

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  31. To those who take issue that 25s are a form of elitism, I have a question. Why aren’t you doing 25s?

    This is not to say you should, but not doing 25s is a choice in one way or another. If you’re a small guild who is having trouble recruiting more before you get there, then you’re attempting to join that “elite” group anyway. If you’re a group of 10 who refuse to get more because you only want your small group of friends, then that’s just as elitist in its own way. Whining (and it is whining) that the 25 man content gives better loot is more of the “I want my cake and I want it now” attitude that society is leaning further toward. What’s wrong with taking the parameters of the environment presented, and playing by its rules. If 25s give better loot and you want that better loot, get 25. Don’t whine that it should be the same because the “entry-level tier” is not very well differentiated.

    Those guilds who can put together and manage 25 people are doing it harder, not just in the actual requirements (Somone pointed out Thadd which is much harder on the enrage in 25s) but because running strategies with 25 people to progress a tier of dungeons is hard work.

    In the current tier, the differences are minimal, but I don’t think this argument can really go much further till the next tier comes out and we see the real difference between 10 and 25s. As I said above, I expect it will be much more noticeable and properly tuned, instead of being a photocopy of a 40 man raid.

    And remember, two’s company, three’s a crowd, ten’s a pack, twenty-five’s a herd of cats.

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  32. This is definitely a topic close to many people’s hearts – the difference of opinion in the comments is clear indication of that! I’m kind of torn. I almost think that each type of raid 10 or 25 has it’s own challenges to the extent that they could almost be considered equal… 25 mans requires more people to be on the ball and more organisation of said people, but you could almost say that 10s require a really tight group with less margin for error in some respects.

    I really don’t know which way my opinion lies, clearly the experience is very different for different people – all dependent on the group that you run with I expect. I haven’t done Sarth except for a 25 all drakes down pug early in Wrath. Maly to me didn’t seem all that different between 10 and 25s except for the more people needing to no fail aspect.

    Will be interesting to see if Blizz makes any adjustments. I think they need to do something… but I’m not sure what and not sure if I agree with what you suggest Syd. Do I sound like a fence sitter? On this subject I totally am right now 😛

    Jezraels last blog post..Epic flight – old skool style

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  33. Ummm… I didn’t take the time to read all the comments, but has it occured to you that this is Tier 7 content? That the coming raids will get harder, and that the mechanics might change?

    I would make the conclusion from your conclusion that you based it of a sense you got playing in your guild instead of taking any of the mechanics of the game into consideration.

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  34. i guess i’m about a week late on this post but here goes…
    i’m not sure if i agree with the initial statement that 10 man content is harder than 25 man content. i honestly cannot tell the difference between 10 man and 25 man, even when i pug it. i cleared 10 man naxx the week after it was out and while it was pretty intense i didn’t think it was any easier than the heroic version was later that week. in fact certain fights were noticably harder in the 25 man (patchwork and saph for examply). it took my guild about 3 hours to get heroic malygos and 10 of us 2-shotted the normal version right after that. i can’t say anything about 3 drake sarth. the heroic version took us about 15 hours of raiding to down, and i haven’t really wanted to attempt the 10 man version. i am going tonight, though, and i’m betting it won’t take 15 hours to down it. i’m hopin it won’t even take 5 tries, but maybe i’m overly optimistic. i can understand why people are upset if they perceive the 10 man fights they do gets them worse gear than the easier 25 man versions, but i really don’t think this is the case. either way i like the idea they have for ulduar; if you complete the achievement you get better gear. hopefully that will make everyone a little happier (although i doubt it).

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  35. I still stick with the strategy “If people are going to argue and cry over it, then simply take it away”. If they remove 10 mans from 25 man content and introduce 10 man specific raids (like Karazhan and Zul Aman), then no one will cry over which one is harder and which one should have the better loot. And the best thing about this, is that 25 man content will remain fresh and exciting since it won’t have been done twice a week in 2 different groups.

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  36. @ Seresa, your comment: “it is unfair to make the differences in gear so enormous. It is definitely rewarding administration over skill, and it’s a shame to see the bums on seats factor work in such a way.”… is ignorant and naive on your part. I looked at your blogsite and you state that you haven’t completed either the 10 or 25 man versions of Naxx and a recent blog stated that you only JUST completed the Arachnid Quarter in 10 man.

    You also stated : “Of course, if the 10 man rewards were greater, the reaction from the hardcore-elitist contingent would be unbearable.”

    I don’t think you are in a position to make judgements like that. If you have not done any of the 10 man and 25 man content, you lack the experience to make decisions like that and call people with opposite views as yours “elitists”. Let me guess… you reprimand others who don’t have the same views as you while you lack understanding and knowledge yourself…. you must be a teacher! Lol, per your blogsite you ARE a teacher! NOW it makes total sense.

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  37. @Perzyx RE: Removing 10 man versions.

    Blizzard has specifically chose to implement 10-mans of all 25 mans for the primary purpose of allowing those people who are unable to mount a 25 man raid or prefer to stay at the 10 man level, to experience the contest of power against Lore entities such as Arthas.

    I can’t remember the exact stats but I think pre-3.0.2 something like only 1% of the WoW population had actually seen Illidan, whereas something like 70% had seen Melchazzar. Their aim in 10/25 split is to allow people to experience the game in an ‘epic’ sense, and personally I think they’ve succeeded if they continue their path. I agree there should be a difference in the mechanics and difficulty, but that’s no reason to drop it.

    Also, some people don’t want to have to do 7 raids a week just to experience all the content, Blizzard knows that the *majority* of their players prefer 3 or less raids a week. And unlike the US Government, the Majority has more effect over Blizzard Policy than the Minority.

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  38. @ Matticus, Sorry about that. I guess I got a little defensive when being called “Elitist”.

    @ Perrin, you are correct. That is why they did it, they even stated that publicly. And it is working, Blizz made it easier for people who can’t get into a good raiding guild to see end game content…. but shouldn’t that mean that the loot is also a bit inferior? Which it is, and while being flamed as “Elitist”, I hope the gear quality in 25 man’s continue to be better than 10 man loot.

    Perzyxs last blog post..Proper Spec > Phat Loots

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