World of Warcraft

A. Introduction

Raiding in Cataclysm did not go well.
The numbers of characters raiding were lower than ever (counting out LFR ofc)
The community got divided in two factions that were fighting each other rather than fighting bosses in raids.
Activity out of raids was also non existent.

Blizzard is taking some steps to refresh the game once more, some look good
1) Dungeon Challenges
2) Random instanced events
Some other controversial like Pet Battles.

But still we are waiting with anticipation their thoughts regarding Raids (mainly) & Dungeons for the upcoming Mists of Pandaria expansion.

B. Current Problems
What were the main problems in Cataclysm regarding the traditional dungeon and raid system?

For Dungeons
1) Long queues in RDF
2) Grindy feeling, people doing dungeons for the wrong reasons aka to get gear through valors and in the latest patch through instances of much higher quality than it should have been in order to avoid gating people out of raids.
3) Horrible behaviour by people in RDF spoiling the experience for nice people that are also using the tool.
For 10 man raids
1) Raid setup issues. Very hard for the social and semi serious raiding guilds to have the proper setup for each encounter.
2) RnG loot issues. A larger % of items in 10 people raids is getting dissed combared to 25.
For 25 man Raids
1) 25 man raids have the greatest problem, their own existence is in stake. The current raiding model, lets put it simple, is pushing people towards smaller size.
2) The transition from 10 to 25 is complicated (1 25 raid =2,5 10 raids, not 2X or 3X). That makes guilds look for people if they run 2X10 groups, or exclude people if they re running 3X10 groups.

C. The available Data
A new feature in game, offers the opportunity to implement it in raids and reduce the existing problems. More specifically the LFR feature, that allow people to join a fight many times, but being eligible to roll for loot ONLY once per boss kill.

Through the response of a blue poster in the US forums, we are now able to assume, that there will be small and large size raid again in MoP.
The above means, that if things will be left unchanged, we will have to deal with the same problems in next expansion.


I am linking the relevant thread here:
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/3881924701?page=13#259

D. GENERAL CHANGES

1) 6-12-24 Raid & Dungeon sizes.
2) Separate achievements by just adding a 12 or a 24 next to the achievement name, and realm firsts.
3) Separate locks and allow people to raid both sizes but being eligible to “roll” for loot only the first time they kill the boss in the same week.
4) Make a universal tier token for raids.
5) Bring back Dungeon Set available from relevant heroic versions of the dungeons. One new dungeon set each time new tier (and 2-3 new dungeons) are added.
6) Delete valor and justice point system for everything but 1 trinket 1 ring 1 neck and one cloak slot.

E. Positive Impact of those changes in the game

With the above changes we would have.
1) Reduced queues in RDF
2) Increased interest to run the new dungeons to get entry level gear from killing bosses and not from valors. New way to avoid gating in raids, by doing something even remotely challenging and not by facerolling old outdated instances. Dungeon sets will revive the interest of running dungeons.
3) Direct scaling to the large raid size by running 2 small raid size groups. No more problems of having to find extra people or exclude people from raids.
4) Direct analogy of tier tokens per raid size and loot. For example 2 tier + 2 normal items for 24, 1 tier + 1 normal item for 12. Thus one tier for 12 people and 1 normal item per 12 people in both sizes.
5) Keep the equal gear reward but make people happier by acknowledging their format preference.
6) Reduced RnG in tiers a large problem mainly for smaller teams.
7) Keep the potential EVERY class to keep being represented in new expansion in raids. With monks added, we will have 11 classes for 10 slots. By keeping the 10 man size, FOR THE FIRST TIME, there is no chance for all classes to be represented in a raid.
8) Reduced, even by a bit, the setup problems in small raid size.
9) Give to people that want to do larger raids an incentive, by treating the 2 sizes as equal (same loot), but also different (different realm firsts and achivements).
10) Prevent large guilds to claim realm firsts in both sizes, due to faster gearing, since characters will be eligible for gear only once per reset. Those that want to raid in small groups strictly are not affected
11) Removal of the faceroll mode. People will still be able to gear for latest raid after a long break, but to do so by running relevant and challenging new instances introduced with current end raid, and not by facerolling old dungeon content for relevant gear through valor points.
12) In each tier, people will have more things to do with new dungeons, new raid and separate locks for 12 and 24.

F. Difficulties

The only draw back the proposed model has, is the UI modification to 6 people groups, and the need to adjust previous content accordingly.
The change would also apply to BGs, by having WSG category bumped to 12 people, AB category to 18 people, and AV reduced to 36 people.

This means cost.
But since old places are not tuned to be challenging even at the appropriate level, it is not so hard thing to do.
And the changes in numbers in BGs, are minor ones and not game braking by any means.
The biggest cost is the change of the UI itself, and the adjustment of the auto search tools to it.

The benefits though are so many, that I strongly believe that every working hour of game developers and designers would be well invested.

G. Conclusion

A 6-12-24 Raids & Dungeons model combined:
a)With separate locks and achievements but with equal loot per person and loot rights once per reset, regardless raid size
b)With new heroics for every raid tier, awarding relevant entry lever gear for latest raid, adding depth to the game.

Is a win – win situation for game community and the company.
-Reducing the small vs large size, war
-Giving more viable options to raid at the size you prefer
-Refreshing the interest for the raids
-Putting back the dungeons as an option to spend sometime with few friends and prepare for raids after breaks, by doing content of relevant difficulty and preparing for raids the new players.

I honestly come with those thoughts, after a lot of frustration that cataclysm had to offer to me and many others.
Tried to keep my thoughts constructive and I hope fellow posters, if you have to offer some feedback on the matter to do it in the same way.

Lorac, unfortunately I can't agree with your statement of problems and actually with the the very first sentence of you post - I think raiding in Cata before 4.3 was as good as it can possibly be for current state of this game.

However, I would like to address your main idea of modifying group sizes in order to ease setup of groups. If the problem was only about the number of people, than the current system is actually better - If you are somewhere near 25 people, you do one 25-man, if you are closer to 20 you do two 10-man groups. Unfortunately this scaling does not work well in regard of number of tanks needed. A 10/12/20/24-man group will likely need 2 tanks for 'default' encounter. So as far as I can tell your changes not only will reduce the possibility to organize raids in guilds that do not have tight roster, but also won't address one of the main reasons why it is hard to swap between 2 smaller and 1 bigger group.

If you have 1 tank per 6 people for dungeons then to scale properly you need 4 tanks for 24 people.
Now, we have 1 tank for a 5 people dungeon. To scale properly you need 5 tanks in 25.
Thus you have less scaling problems.
Also you seem to ignore the part talking about seperation of the locks for 12 and 24.
Also you seem to ignore the data regarding character participation in raids published by various sites.
Also you seem to ignore people in those forums including me complaining about their problems regarding the current system.

In other words, i am glad you liked it, but that does not mean that majority liked it.
You wanna talk with numbers?
View the reports of the company regarding the impact of cataclysm in general in number of subs.
View the number of first kills scored in this expansion vs previous one at ANY boss fight.
View the blend of those kills to realize that access to raids is reduced.

You wanna talk with opinions?
View the various 10vs25 threads created
The 10 man loot issues threads created
The 25 man is dying threads created
and so on...

Overall thanks for your reply, but i don't agree with you, regarding keeping things as they are.

Scaling up does not affect how many tanks you need. What affects how many tanks you need is encounter design.
If your dungeon only have bosses that do not apply stacking debuffs on the tank (=tank rotation) or do not call for over-balanced adds (=require additional tank), you'll only need 1 tank - be it 6man dungeon, 12 man raid, 24 man raid or 128 man raid.

Scaling the sizes was not suggested by me to adress tank issues in raid only.
I suggested a raid & dungeon change model.
In a dungeon you decrease the tank needs to 16,6% of the group vs 20% of the group that it is today.
In a raid keeping small and big sizes sharing content, realistically you have to keep a max of 2 tanks encounter in 99% of the cases.
For 12 people raid 2 tanks represent 16,6% of the raid as it is with the dungeon group.
For 24 people this is reduced to 8,3% since you still have 2 tanks for 24 people.
Now the numbers are 20%,20%(many 10 man fights are doable with one tank), 8%.
I realy don't get why we have this conversation though...it is hardly one of the most minor things the topic is about.

I enjoyed every tier of raiding in Cata thus far.

My favorite was BWD.

I love the 6-12-24 idea.
Dungeon Set is also a nice idea.
Universal Token, hm, both positive (from a loot!@#$% point of view) and negative (from an RPG point of view). I'm neutral.
Seperate achievements, I am neutral to this since I stopped hunting achievements when I switched mains.

Valor rewards, I'll actually go ahead and suggest they become exactly what they had said before Cata they'd be; the raider's currency. That means, it should drop exclusively from normal and heroic modes. From no 5mans, from no LFR, from nothing else. No, hitting the cap every week isn't something that should feel as a weekly chore, it should feel like a bonus. Kinda like the epic gems in Dragon Soul.


But what I'm sceptical about is the "be eligible for loot only the first time you defeat one boss". I can see exploits here, like people doing a 24man with 12mains and 12 alts. They pass all the loot to the main dudes. Then they run 2x12mans with 6alts and 6mains and they pass all the loot to the main dudes again. This means that after week #1, a guild has potentially geared their mains twice as fast. Sure, this could be seen as a bonus to people who are devoting enough time to have 2+ characters raid-ready, but we saw what happened when people tried to pass loot to mains only in LFR...

I don't like the 6-12-24 idea, mainly because it will change nothing with the underlying problem.

Your assumption is that it will cut queues. I say that yes it will for a while, and actually make some tanks go DPS because of the reduced DPS queue, as opposed to the heartache of tanking. (And yes, as a tank, instead of herding 3 cats, you'll be expected to herd 4 cats then.)

Soon enough, you'll be back to the same problem.

@ Lyxi
The 6-12-24 came into my mind for 3 reasons, not RDF reduction of queues only.
1) RDF. And no there is no way the queue to get worse, even if some people that queue as tank/healer are doing so only for insta group now.
2) Normalization of 2 raid sizes so the large to be a perfect multiplier of the small. This has obvious benefits since you don't have to exclude people and run 3 small groups or add people and run with 2 groups. It was the biggest problem for the transition from 10 to 25 eversince they got introduced back in TBC.
3) Direct scaling of rewards. Now you have a strange loot system with more normal items per person in 25 (3vs1) and less tier tokens per person (2vs1). With 12-24 this abnormality belongs to the past.

Conclusion, if smt is broken fix it. Saying you will have one of the same and stay for ever in a malfunctioning system doesnt serve anything.
If i may remind you when the 5-10-25 was introduced.
1) We didnt have both raids sharing same content.
2) We didnt have equalization of the 2 raid sizes
3) We didn't have RDF.
With all those changes the problems of 5-10-25 increased a lot during Cataclysm.

@Exiasee
In my opinion Valor currency should stop existing, and gearing from dungeons would revive the interest of people running dungeons of relevant difficulty with more tight groups of friends.
Dungeons sets was not my idea, kudos belong to a poster from mmo champion. Still is the greatest idea i've herd regarding dungeon content in a long time.

Regarding the seperate lock/one time loot.
If we allow to big guilds to loot twice they have the upper hand in both the small and the large raid size for better progress.
I asume that tighter guild teams wouldnt like that, after the changes that cataclysm brought in their favor.
I also didn't say that a character can do multiple 24s or 12s.
They should be allowed to visit once the 12 and once the 24, but have looting rights on bosses that are killing the first time.
This way not a single character will get rewarded twice from running 12 and 24 in this week.
And with gear quality equal, larger guilds cannot get better progress due to faster gearing but only due to better skill, as it should be.
As you know, passing loot to characters without looting rights, if it is not fixed, it is bannable, and people that did it, got 8 days ban at the begining of this tier. So yes, the first week there can be a big guild running multiple 12s or 24s with mains and alts to maximize normal mode rewards.
After the first week though, those guilds are focusing on heroics.
And undergeared alts cannot help killing heroic bosses.

I can see the benefits from such a change.
Especially regarding managing the larger group, reducing RDF queue, and keep offering option for -all class coverage - with monks in MoP from the "indimade" raid size.
Direct loot scaling posibility is also good.

6-12-24 is more logical and functional for current wow raid model.
5-10-25 was introduced when things were much different regarding larger raids, and even back then it was making the transtion from 10 to 25 a nightmare.

I am sceptical about developers going through the cost and work needed to change the group ui from 5 to 6...

Ok.

Why not 5-10-20, then?

16/02/2012 23:24Posted by Lorac

1) RDF. And no there is no way the queue to get worse, even if some people that queue as tank/healer are doing so only for insta group now.

O'rly?

I can think of at least one way to have queue worse. Double wait time for DpS. There. I just made it worse.

You are a mean person Lyxi, offer smt that is not a flame bite or a controversial statement for a change.
A group with 4 dps rather than 3 cannot have longer queues.
Nobody said that it will reduce queues by 33,3% (1/3 more dps) but to double it?

Way to go, keep posting like that.

accually i posted a possible anwser on this forum about that issue with the raid system the link is here http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/3313136685

-6-12-24 system might be a good idea needs attention.
-Separate achievements for realms first kill was how it should have been
-Separate locks, tbh i'm not sure if i'd do same bosses twice in a week when noone my group has a chance to loot sth. I'd reather speding time on alts that i enjoy playing and might use in the future but again having separate locks with a chance of looting once a week wouldn't make any change for those who wants to join them.
-Universal tier tokens might be a good way to reduce RnG
-Dungeon sets, if we say that this sets will have most desired stats for their ilvl instead of same crap for everyone items in dungeons they might be good. Although i must say that (once i posted about this issue) i dont see any difference between buying lower ilvl tier sets with VP looting them from LFR or having a so called dungeoun sets. I see VP items as a chance to gear up my alts that enjoyed playing but dont have time to raid properly. For example almost all of our healers had to stop playing in last 9 weeks we lost 3 really nice healer and we were planning to do 25-man raiding in 4.3 one of our best dps had to switch to healing. This week 4th one had to stop playing for a while and i replaced him even though i dont like LFR a few pieces i won from it and a few pieces i bought with VP gave me the chance to heal DS. This is the reason why i support being able to buy low ilvl versions of tier items with currency. You wont be as good as a raider with them but you'll be able to perform quite good when you are needed.

i like the general idea of this post... with regard to the achievements are you saying we should go back to the wrath model or for there to still be a single achiev just with an indicator of which size raid it was completed in?

why do people seem to make comparisons that 25 man is dying ( tbh while your idea is decent, it seems like it's a QQ over 25 mans dying)

25 mans have their place, many hundreds of thousands of people that ran 25 mans back at level 80 had no choice, it was better gear, no one cared about how good or bad a 10 man guild was. I hate 25 man raids, Almost everytime i have pugged a 25 man and the RL has done what seems to be a decent try at making the best team he can ( armory checks and some questions to ensure if the person has lower gear or is an alt that they know what they are doing which is better than someone with 1000 ilvl and no clue...) there is nearly always someone slacking or failing on simple mechanics what what ever reason.

In a 10 man if someone is failing you very rarely can carry them through the raid unless the rest of the raid out gears the place ( DS is probably an exception) and if all 10 people are not working hard then you will not down the boss it is that simple.

As to your other points about dungeons, yes I fulyl agree, dungeons should be something you do for gear or something that you want to get and not something you need to do because you have to cap valor

20/02/2012 17:01Posted by Archermit

why do people seem to make comparisons that 25 man is dying ( tbh while your idea is decent, it seems like it's a QQ over 25 mans dying)

The main problems of cataclysm raiding were
1) Reduced access to raid. 2 Months into ICC and 2 months into DS, numbers of people raiding are way less than 15% (lost subs) combared to those raiding during ICC era, same amount of time.
2) 90%+ Mortality rates for 25 people teams. Now the question is: The death of all those teams was caused because people PREFER 10s, or more because the people that DON'T prefer 10 were also FORCED to raid 10s? It is not whinning though m8, it is "observing an alarming change and try to suggest smt to reverse it".
3) Quality of content in tier 13.

In my opinion all 3 are related. And in my opinion ditching the large scale raiding is a big mistake.
Now there are 2 ways of having large raids.
1) Like it is now, with the company stating "we will continue to support" while in fact they have done NOTHING to support 25s, only to make the situation even harder for them.
2) With minimal incentive, not enough to make somebody that prefer's smaller raids to go for it.

The third option would be strong incentives, like those back in wrath, but it would also be unwise, since many people prefer 10 (not all that raid 10 but definately many), and those people have grown accustomed of getting equal rewards for killing bosses in small raids

In the bottom line, there will never be a time like that in ICC with massive amount of 25 people teams per server, if we don't have a total reverse of the Cataclysm changes.

With minor changes though that will not force those that prefer the small raids into doing the large version as well, we can have at least a few large teams on every realm, offering a real option to people to raid in large groups if they wish.

20/02/2012 15:53Posted by Cleggy

i like the general idea of this post... with regard to the achievements are you saying we should go back to the wrath model or for there to still be a single achiev just with an indicator of which size raid it was completed in?

The achievement can just have a 10(12) or 25(24) next to it, according to the format that you killed the raid encounter first time. I have seen many people complaining that the option to get both, will force them into running the raid in both formats.
I can understand it, although personaly i am not achievement driven. I wouldnt mind there to be 2 achievements, but i think it would do with just one with the number defined by the size of the raid when you first defeat a boss.

20/02/2012 14:47Posted by Voodookiss

-Dungeon sets, if we say that this sets will have most desired stats for their ilvl instead of same crap for everyone items in dungeons they might be good. Although i must say that (once i posted about this issue) i dont see any difference between buying lower ilvl tier sets with VP looting them from LFR or having a so called dungeoun sets.

For me the main incentive that dungeon set offers, is that people visit the latest dungeons to defeat bosses and NOT to collect valors. That is a VERY importand detail. People to defeat bosses in the latest, most challenging dungeons for relevant gear and not to faceroll low level dungeons from the begining of an expansion with gear 2 tiers higher.

Overall thank you very much for going through the initial posts.
They re walls of text, but i wrote them in this way, to offer the hole picture i had in mind and not the tittle of it.

Sorry for late reply, Lorac, but Blizzard forums offer me now convenient way to track discussions I participate in. I deliberately not address every part of your post and only focused on the ground I think we could find common ground. For other parts I just do not agree with your identification of problems and development direction.

I believe the game development direction should focus more on having organized groups of friends and guilds than on grouping tools like LFD and LFR. I also believe that raiding model design should put main focus on creating interesting encounters than on loot distribution.
For instance – Increasing the dungeon group size to 6 might indeed reduce the queue time for people using LFD, but at the same time make it harder to create organized groups traditional way, as you simply need more friends online to do so.

I did not enjoy doing ToC with two raid sizes weekly and I dislike having to do each raid achievement twice in Ulduar. I skipped this part, because it is unlikely to have a constructive discussion on personal opinions.

You brought up the decrease in number of subs in Cataclysm as a proof of it being unsuccessful. I believe the game is doing tremendously well, bearing in mind its age and partially even global crisis. It will be losing subscriptions no matter what Blizzard does and I consider the fact that they lost only around 10% subscriptions over this expansion is a big success. There is no other title on the market that does remotely as well as WoW, with second place – Aion – having 1/4th of its subscription and noting even steeper drop in their number than WoW.

I am not entirely sure what you mean by ‘number of first kills scored in this expansion vs previous one at ANY boss fight’. The number of first kills is the same as always (equal to number of bosses) and the only thing I see is the fact that they are scored much faster than before. This would suggest me that raids are becoming easier and more accessible rather than less. Also, thanks to LFR, Deathwing has been slain by more people than any final raid boss so far.

You also bring up 10 vs 25 threads. I do not mind 10-man becoming the main raid size. It allowed me to recruit few friends to WoW and start IRL-aquatinters guild, which I find much more pleasurable to play in than 25. I understand that there are people who might not be happy about that but again – this is a subject to personal preference and there is no objective evidence, that this is bad for the game itself.

Finally all the loot complains threads (most of which are about LFR). I perceive them as being caused by poor progression design. Instead of setting a main goal as progressing on bosses, the main goal became getting the best gear. The fact that most encounters in DS are simple gearchecks does not help as well. If progression was the main goal and gear only a tool to achieve it, there would be less complains about RNG, which existed in game since forever.

I do not believe, that the game does not need any form of change. My only claim is that introducing 6/12/24 sizes just does not push it in good direction.