As someone who raids both 10-mans and 25-mans, I can say that absolutely yes 25-mans are harder and require more time, therefore should have better rewards. Yogg is a million times harder on 25-man, for example, and that’s just boss difficulty. Coordinating 25 people is a major undertaking, far more so than 10. The day Blizzard says 10-mans = 25-mans is the day I stop raiding. (Unlikely as it is!)
Codi´s last blog ..re: The Wrath Effect

my guild pretty much only does 10 man content. there are many reasons for this. i personally would love to do 25 man content but some of my guildies don’t feel the same way and i’m ok with that. thankfully, because blizz has made the game more accessible, i can do 10 man content with them, and join some 25 man pugs in my spare time here and there. we are all very skilled, very knowledgable players and many of us are real life friends as well, which makes our guild very friendly and easy for other ppl to fit in, although this is not always the case.

one thing that i think is happening is that blizzard is trying out new ideas of raid structure as far as boss mechanics, length of the raids, linear and winged raids, gear tokens, trophies, badges and emblems, etc…so it seems like things are disjointed, but it’s not so bad when you look at how quickly they are releasing major content patches…the way i see it is that they are getting better everytime, and if they make a mistake, it only lasts a few months and something better or a new way of doing things is just around the corner. this is the reason i think wow is the best mmo. it contantly changes and listens to the player base, both as a whole and as individual camps of ppl (hardcore, casual, solo or guilded, noob or elite, etc…)

i for one would like to see something change more than anything else….gear needs to be the same or nearly the same for both 10 and 25 man raids. the current thought that if 25 and 10 man raids rewarded the same gear, then no one would do 25 mans anymore, i think this is a bunch of bs. i don’t think that guilds that have more ppl than another guild should get better gear than a guild that has less ppl. i hate that the legenday shards only drop from 25 man ulduar. did our 10 man raiding guild do any less work than the 25 man? spend any less time than the 25 man? spend any less money per month on our subscription to wow? did we not research our toons and gear and stats and become skilled less than another guild with more players? no, i think not. 10 man guilds should have the same chance and same access to the same gear that 25 man guilds do. period. it’s only logical.

i mentioned ulduar above as my first example. i mean, the way i see it, i know blizz doesn’t want everyone to have a ledgendary healing mace, and that’s fine, but it shouldn’t be only available to 25 man raiding guilds, 10 man guilds should have a shot at it too. this discrepancy is even more glaring with the new ToC and ToCG raids because the rewards are so far apart with gear.

i think the answer to keep the hard core ppl happy, and to make sure 10 and 25 man guilds get the same gear, is to make the 10 and 25 man raids have completely different fights. what i mean is the bosses are the same, but the fights and mechanics be much harder and TOTALLY different in 25 man. let’s face it, the hardcore raiders don’t really care about the gear, it’s the hardness of the fight and the testing of their elite skill and the challenge to their pride that they care about, and maybe a special title that they can show off, and maybe make their gear look cooler or something…but make sure that 10 man and 25 man gear and rewards have the same stats and same chance at the gear.

i remember the first guild was in back in vanilla wow and we did 40 man content in motlen core, and i really really loved that feeling of being in an epic sized raid, there’s nothing like it anymore. but i also remember how frustrating it was to keep that many ppl in line and how hard it was to get gear. i think ppl would still do 25 man raids over 10 man raids, even if they don’t get better gear, because it’s a different experience just to have more ppl, and that should be reward enough on principle.

the only other idea i can think of to equalize this disparity between raids and content and gear and skill between 10 and 25 man guilds is to do away with 10 and 25 content and just make all content into 15 mans. the reason i think this is a good suggestion is that it seems like many many 10 man guilds have around 17 or 18 members, which is too many for 10 man content and several ppl get left out of the fun, and many 25 man guilds struggle to have 25 ppl on all the time and have to pug 3-5 spots. it’s just a thought, but i think it could work.

well, i just thought of another idea, 10 man content and 25 man content could be still viable if blizz changed things in this way — make 25 man content only able to be run with guild alliances, in other words, 10 man content could be run by anyone, either as a guild memebers only run or by a pug group, but 25 man content could only be accessed by 2 or more guilds in “guild alliances” where two more guilds would have to join up together to access it. that way you could keep all the gear discrepancy etc and just change the way ppl and guilds group together.

in any case, i am very happy in my 10 man raiding guild and we are actually one of the best/top strict 10 man guild on our server on the horde side and our server “blade’s edge” has horde in an extreme minority and has a horrible majority of alliance on it, although i hope that the faction change service will slowly balance it out over time. i’d like to see more access to the same gear that 25 man raiders get as i see it as unfair seeing as we have the same if not better skill than many 25 man raiding guilds.

@vsureaper – good to hear opinions on other aspects of WoW, too. You say that you facerolled through zones – are you saying that you think WoW as a whole has lost challenge, or not in every way? What effect do you think that has?

@Matticus – just so. It may be that a lot of players may just have heard all of the basic variations on tactics, and can adapt them to the situation. Many fights seem to require “don’t stand here/kill this first/spam heal” – a lot of movement rather than precise timing and thought, which is what Blizzard said they were aiming for in Wrath. Is that fine as is, or should Blizzard start considering some tactic innovation?

@Vixsin – fair point, hard modes *are* there for a reason. Although, a lot of commentors have stated that hard modes are not for them, for various viable reasons – and I don’t think everyone is who says that WoW is easy is actually whining. Indeed, a lot of people aren’t even saying it is easy – I’m not, for one. Everyone has a different opinion on what that statement means, how people are actually saying it – and of course whether it should be said at all. What do you think the effects are, deep down, of this tug’o war on individual players?

@Ooke – aye, I’m looking forward to the “old raid” weekly quests. Do you think there should be similar quests for other types of forgotten content in WoW? Raiding isn’t the only part of the game, after all.

Keep the comments coming – I appreciate them, and it’s good to read the heated debate both here and on other sites!
The second half of this article will be going up soon, but til then, this really does seem to be something that everyone can pitch in their 50 pence on. Keep it up!
Mimetir´s last blog ..Juddr: Interesting posts at Moar HPS http://bit.ly/3o3VbC and C.H. http://bit.ly/j6SME focusing on ease of raids following my Wrath Effect article