Back in April I asked if anyone will bother to do run 25 man raids in Cataclysm, considering the announced changes with shared lockouts and loot in 10 mans becoming the same as the 25 man loot.
As someone who loves 25 man raiding, I was concerned, even though I also could understand why the 10 man raiding guilds welcomed the changes and thought it was about time. The gain of someone is the loss of someone else.
Here we are now, one month - soon to be two, into Cataclysm. How did it go? Has the world changed or were my worries unfounded? Is it business as usual?
Hitting hard
Well, I suppose that it’s still a little bit too early in Cataclysm to make the definite call. People have only been at max level for a month. Players who aren’t on the bleeding edge, but still plan to raid in Cataclysm, are still in the process of gearing up in heroics. And the post-Cataclysmic guild landscape on each server isn’t set in stone yet; it’s a process in progress. We’re only seeing the first tier of several and each one might have an impact on the social structure and how people choose to raid.
So there are a lot of reservations and maybes in this post, in the usual Larísa manner.
However, if I’m putting up my finger in the air to feel where the wind is going, I would say that Cataclysm has hit the 25 man raiding pretty hard.
I can only speak about what I see on my server, but where there used to be at least 15-20 guilds on the alliance side that did 25 man raids back in the days, there are just a handful who do them in Cataclysm, so far.
If you look at the recruitment ads on the forums, there are plenty of guilds who claim that they’ve got plans on 25 man raids. However, when you look a little closer at their raid progression, it turns out that most of their kills, if not all, are from 10 man raids.
Not everyone will agree with me. I read a post by Gavendo at Rapid Fire, who argued that the hardcore guilds such as Paragon still are rocking it in the 25 mans. He also talks about why 10 mans are harder than 25 mans, since there among other things is less room for individual mistakes. So according to Gav we were wrong to worry about the future of 25 man raiding.
And sure, I’m certain that the top class guilds of the world are doing just fine. But the world I live in is different. What we currently experience is a distinct lack of people who want to do 25 man raiding. Recruiting is harder than ever been before. For all the efforts we’ve made, we don’t get many applications, and I find it hard to believe that it would be because it’s not as if we’re not an attractive guild. We’re one of the oldest, most reliable and well organized guilds on the server if I’d dare say so, with an infrastructure that works and a solid record of progression in the past. If we can’t recruit, it’s not just because we’re not good enough. It’s something else going on.
Was it only about the loot?
Last spring we had quite an intense debate going on in the blogosphere about 10 vs 25 man raiding. There was a lot of talk about the loot aspect, where 25 mans always had been at advantage and things now would be more or less equal (although with a little more points awarded to 25 man raids.) Many argued that if loot was all that kept people doing 25 mans and that players really didn’t enjoy it for its own sake, then it was just as good if it disappeared.
And I’m sad to say it, but it seems as if this is what we see happening now. With the promise of better loot to show off in the cities gone, the gravitation towards smaller, easier-to-handle, more tightly knit raiding formats is turning out to be strong, maybe too strong.
Our guild is still determined to defy this gravitation. Loot or not, we think that 25 man raiding has a certain “something” that 10 man raiding lacks. Not that there’s anything bad about 10 man raiding. I enjoy the smaller format immensely too, with the intimacy and cosiness that a tighter team brings. However, it’s a different creature and it can’t really replace the experience of having a 25 man team climb a learning curve, click and pull it together.
But unfortunately, people like me seem to be a dying breed and the question is for how long we can keep doing this. And how much worries and stress can our officers put up with before it’s wearing them down?
History repeating itself?
The other night our officers set a date. If we can’t fill our vacancies before March 1, so we’re sure that we can pull off every raid and progress as planned, we will no more be a 25 man guild, but a 10 man guild spotting only one team, and the roster will be cut down accordingly.
No one wants it to happen and everyone’s prepared to do whatever they can to help out recruiting. Hopefully Adrenaline won’t become one of the victims of the 25 man raiding death of Cataclysm. But there’s no guarantee we’ll succeed.
If you forget about Paragon and their buddies, I think it’s a tough time for many 25 man guilds in Cataclysm. I was never around for the 40 man raiding in vanilla, but I’ve understood that the transformation for TBC, when they were removed from the game, was painful to say the least. While we still have 25 man raids in the game, I can’t help wondering if what we see now is the beginning of a repetition of the past.
And the next question that comes to mind is of course: how could Blizzard possibly motivate keeping making content for 25 man raids in the next expansion, if it’s just a small minority of the players who bother to do it? It sure carries a symbolic value, but it also pulls development resources, and the question is how much they can allow it to cost.
Again: it probably is too early to judge out the 25 mans completely. This is not my “The End is Near” post. Not quite yet.
But the situation is indeed worrying for all of us who love to raid in 25 mans, but wouldn’t qualify to do it in Paragon.
As someone who loves 25 man raiding, I was concerned, even though I also could understand why the 10 man raiding guilds welcomed the changes and thought it was about time. The gain of someone is the loss of someone else.
Here we are now, one month - soon to be two, into Cataclysm. How did it go? Has the world changed or were my worries unfounded? Is it business as usual?
Hitting hard
Well, I suppose that it’s still a little bit too early in Cataclysm to make the definite call. People have only been at max level for a month. Players who aren’t on the bleeding edge, but still plan to raid in Cataclysm, are still in the process of gearing up in heroics. And the post-Cataclysmic guild landscape on each server isn’t set in stone yet; it’s a process in progress. We’re only seeing the first tier of several and each one might have an impact on the social structure and how people choose to raid.
So there are a lot of reservations and maybes in this post, in the usual Larísa manner.
However, if I’m putting up my finger in the air to feel where the wind is going, I would say that Cataclysm has hit the 25 man raiding pretty hard.
I can only speak about what I see on my server, but where there used to be at least 15-20 guilds on the alliance side that did 25 man raids back in the days, there are just a handful who do them in Cataclysm, so far.
If you look at the recruitment ads on the forums, there are plenty of guilds who claim that they’ve got plans on 25 man raids. However, when you look a little closer at their raid progression, it turns out that most of their kills, if not all, are from 10 man raids.
Not everyone will agree with me. I read a post by Gavendo at Rapid Fire, who argued that the hardcore guilds such as Paragon still are rocking it in the 25 mans. He also talks about why 10 mans are harder than 25 mans, since there among other things is less room for individual mistakes. So according to Gav we were wrong to worry about the future of 25 man raiding.
And sure, I’m certain that the top class guilds of the world are doing just fine. But the world I live in is different. What we currently experience is a distinct lack of people who want to do 25 man raiding. Recruiting is harder than ever been before. For all the efforts we’ve made, we don’t get many applications, and I find it hard to believe that it would be because it’s not as if we’re not an attractive guild. We’re one of the oldest, most reliable and well organized guilds on the server if I’d dare say so, with an infrastructure that works and a solid record of progression in the past. If we can’t recruit, it’s not just because we’re not good enough. It’s something else going on.
Was it only about the loot?
Last spring we had quite an intense debate going on in the blogosphere about 10 vs 25 man raiding. There was a lot of talk about the loot aspect, where 25 mans always had been at advantage and things now would be more or less equal (although with a little more points awarded to 25 man raids.) Many argued that if loot was all that kept people doing 25 mans and that players really didn’t enjoy it for its own sake, then it was just as good if it disappeared.
And I’m sad to say it, but it seems as if this is what we see happening now. With the promise of better loot to show off in the cities gone, the gravitation towards smaller, easier-to-handle, more tightly knit raiding formats is turning out to be strong, maybe too strong.
Our guild is still determined to defy this gravitation. Loot or not, we think that 25 man raiding has a certain “something” that 10 man raiding lacks. Not that there’s anything bad about 10 man raiding. I enjoy the smaller format immensely too, with the intimacy and cosiness that a tighter team brings. However, it’s a different creature and it can’t really replace the experience of having a 25 man team climb a learning curve, click and pull it together.
But unfortunately, people like me seem to be a dying breed and the question is for how long we can keep doing this. And how much worries and stress can our officers put up with before it’s wearing them down?
History repeating itself?
The other night our officers set a date. If we can’t fill our vacancies before March 1, so we’re sure that we can pull off every raid and progress as planned, we will no more be a 25 man guild, but a 10 man guild spotting only one team, and the roster will be cut down accordingly.
No one wants it to happen and everyone’s prepared to do whatever they can to help out recruiting. Hopefully Adrenaline won’t become one of the victims of the 25 man raiding death of Cataclysm. But there’s no guarantee we’ll succeed.
If you forget about Paragon and their buddies, I think it’s a tough time for many 25 man guilds in Cataclysm. I was never around for the 40 man raiding in vanilla, but I’ve understood that the transformation for TBC, when they were removed from the game, was painful to say the least. While we still have 25 man raids in the game, I can’t help wondering if what we see now is the beginning of a repetition of the past.
And the next question that comes to mind is of course: how could Blizzard possibly motivate keeping making content for 25 man raids in the next expansion, if it’s just a small minority of the players who bother to do it? It sure carries a symbolic value, but it also pulls development resources, and the question is how much they can allow it to cost.
Again: it probably is too early to judge out the 25 mans completely. This is not my “The End is Near” post. Not quite yet.
But the situation is indeed worrying for all of us who love to raid in 25 mans, but wouldn’t qualify to do it in Paragon.
27 comments:
The only reason my guild ever did 25 man raids in Wrath was because the gear was that much better - and that was the only way to get the legendaries. While 10m raiding is harder in some respects (not as much diversity, less chance of a mistake) it's also easier in that you've got more room to work and I don't have to coordinate 24 other people.
Unless something really changes to give 25m raiding a big draw, I'm confident in saying I won't be stepping into a 25m guild/raid any time soon. It's just not worth the logistical headaches for a few extra VPs (already hitting my max/week) or some extra tier tokens.
I, too, love 25 man raids. They feel epic and massively multiplayer to me.
We went from five or six guilds on our server doing 25s to two. Maybe more will step up, but maybe not. We're having similar recruitment issues. We've had a trickle of apps, not near enough to keep an ideal roster. We're raiding, but we're squeaking by to do it.
I wonder if the future of 25 man raiding will be cross-server research and apps. I'm not exactly thrilled about the prospect of plunking down even more money to play the way I like, but if I had to, it would be an option.
25man raiding is alive and well on my server. There's maybe 2-3 10man guilds.
It comes down to the type of guild you're in. Guilds with proven progression track records (Ie: Server top 5 or so.) will continue to attract recruits. Recruits rejected or deemd to have failed their trial will move down to the less progressed guilds in the hopes of being able to see content. The few that perform beyond their capabilities in the middling guilds will either look upwards for progression or will have offers to poach them.
The promise of faster gearing and more valor points (which in turn means doing less heroics) will be appealling to many. Some people like the close knit feel of a 10man raid. Others prefer to test their performance and push harder with a 25man.
I wouldn't get too dispirited yet. I'm an officer in a guild on your own server and we are definatly a 25 man guild. Since we started raiding cataclysm 25mans in january we haven't done any 10 mans however we killed most of the bosses on 10 man over the christmas break. Wowprogress is registering our kills as 10man kills. It was quite annoying our first week of 25man raiding to see non of our new 25man kills show up on wowprogress because we had killed everything on 10man already. Our 25man kills are slowly starting to show up but only around half the ones we actually have are showing.
I'm pretty sure that a lot of guilds also started or will start in 10mans as there are often 10 more hardcore players who are ready to start earlier than the guild is ready for 25mans. I would wait a month or two before proclaiming the death of the 25man guild.
I know that one member of my Horde toon's guild left to go do some 25-man raiding, so there has to be some of that going on out there.
We're also on same server Larisa, and as for Heretic, even though i'm not an officer i can give a perspective i hope. Everything in the guild is geared towards 25man, 10man kills are viewed as before: "just 10man", and i think it's largely adequate, as from at least my experience 10mans are significantly easier (Al'Akir anyone). And many people and officers are saying that if we can't do 25man, they're simply not interested. So from my PoV many 25man guilds (although apparently not Adrenaline) will just disband rather than downgrade to 10.
I think a huge factor in the "disapperance" of 25-man raiding is just how hard Cata is, in comparison to Wrath. In Wrath you could get into heroics a day or two after hitting 80. From there you can get into 10/25 raids shortly there after.
I hit 85 about a week after Cata dropped, and I've only been in 1-2 heroics so far. I'm still gearing up and frankly, getting more practice at the bosses before I venture into heroics.
It could just be that since there's less people ready and willing to raid right now, 10-mans are just easier to coordinate. Once there's quite a few more people, I think you'll see more 25-s forming.
Have faith! I truly believe us old school 25s guilds will survive. My guild raids 25s because more than 10 of us have been playing together for years and we don't want to break up our "guild family".
Going from my own experience and the feedback of others, 25s are easier than 10s right now. This difference is slight in the normal modes and quite pronounced in the hard modes. People who are not looking for a super hardcore experience will start to trickle back to 25s.
Gearing up is much slower this time around, and the content is a step up in difficulty. Even Paragon mentions that this is the hardest tier of raiding yet (granted, they did heroic mode). Once more people gear up I think 25s will do fine, but folks need to be patient. Cata has only been out for 6 weeks.
I think you're overstating things just a bit. Paragon's posted their final kill; Al'Akir 25-Heroic. There's plenty of other guilds at the top end with them doing much the same thing.
As for the transition from 40 man to 25 man, I think people have done you a bit of a disservice by saying it was difficult. For most people, it wasn't. In fact, for most folks it made raiding easier, more accessible due to how less people reduced the strain on recruiting. And yes, I raided in vanilla, clearing everything but Twin Emps and C'thun in AQ40 and Naxx after that; the guild I was with imploded due to some poor leadership decisions, which is honestly where guilds had issues. Matticus talked about this a while back, and the issue with the transition wasn't one of content, it was one of vision. Guilds that imploded, in all likelyhood, had major issues at the top and simply couldn't adapt. I'm not saying it's the case everywhere, but I wouldn't be surprised to find out it was mostly the case, even if mostly means 70%.
With all that said, I really do think people are overstating the 'Death of 25 Man raiding'. It's still in the game. However, now you're not hindered or rendered a second class player because you can't get that many folks together, and that's a good thing.
At least on Cenarius US, I have noticed that there is now more LFM raid for 25m in trade and most of the toons I would see in these raids are alts from the bigger guilds so it may be true that most guilds will go to the 10m format for ease of logistic, the bigger 25m format, with its forgiving nature, may be the perfect place for alt raids and casuals.
Since starting in BC, I've been the GM and raid leader of a 10 man guild and the healing class lead of a 25 man guild. Despite the reduced role, the time committed to my guild responsibilities in the 25 man guild vastly outweighed the time spent in my 10 man guild.
Like others, the only reason I ran 25 mans was for the "loot." Not that I cared that much about the difference between "item level 251" and "item level 264" in my gear tooltip, but it was clear in WotLK that 25 man raiding was "srs bzns" and 10 man raiding was mostly a consolation prize.
I got so burned out being an officer in a 25 man guild that essentially led to an incident where I became completely unhinged and ended up taking an immediate 3 month break from the game. Whereas a 10 man raid was delightfully simple in comparison. Form the raid, juggle some classes/around, kill bosses, win loot. Performance issues were much easier to identify. I didn't need a half dozen addons to ensure everyone was flasked/buffed. Providing flasks and other consumables were an order of magnitude easier. Loot was literally a gentlemanly affair of, "I could use it, anyone else want it?"; "No you take, I insist." And I truly loved all the people in my raid, because I didn't have to tolerate people like the group of 3 high schoolers who were RL friends and total jackasses who collectively gquit once one of them got their Shadowmourne (true story), or whatever winners you'll find when needing to compromise to fill a 25 man raid.
Was 25 man raiding more "epic"? I guess. They made my computer have epic lag sometimes, that's for sure. I knew that once 10 man raiding was no longer just a side diversion for guilds but a legitimate progression path, that this would happen. Because the every guild is exactly as strong as the hearts of their officer core, and the size of those hearts for a 25 man guild need to be massive.
I see this as everyone is collectively realizing, "Wait, you mean I can have the same kind of progression and achievements for a fraction of the work with people I actually like?" And thus the death of 25 man raiding is a no-brainer for me.
"If you look at the recruitment ads on the forums, there are plenty of guilds who claim that they’ve got plans on 25 man raids. However, when you look a little closer at their raid progression, it turns out that most of their kills, if not all, are from 10 man raids."
I'm not sure if you are referring to progression sites such as WoW Progress or GuildOX here, but you should check out Beru's recent post.
http://fallingleavesandwings.wordpress.com/2011/01/26/have-progress-rankings-lost-some-of-their-credibility/
To echo Masith's comment, there may be more guilds out there running 25s than you would see just looking at progression websites.
My own guild, for example, is not a bleeding edge raiding guild but we have killed Magmaw, Omnotron, Maloriak, Halfus, Valiona & Theralion in 25s. Our rosters are packed with a robust 30+ sign ups for each night, and we are progressing strongly.
According to WoW Progress we are only 3/12 in 25 progression... but are listed as 7/12(!) in 10s progression. Truly this does not accurately reflect my guild.
What's going on here is that we have a couple of 10s team that run on weekend, after the guild's 25s progress is finished for the week. They pick up from where the 25s left off, and get to skip right to the newest boss, spend the entire raid night on the new boss, and then they have typically obtained our "guild first" kills.
The next week, we speed through the early bosses we've killed before then get to the new ones...but when we do kill it in 25s, it no longer counts to our progress since those sites only watch for "guild first" kills. I fully expect we'll have Atramedes down in 25s this week (killed in 10s last Sunday), and I'm sure we wouldn't have much of a problem with Conclave of the Four Winds if we ever bothered to look at it (killed in 10s two weeks in a row, just haven't had time to fit the raid instance into our 25s yet with all the bosses in BoT and BWD). Both those bosses would bring us to 7/12 25s, though WoW Progress would continue to list us as 3/12 25s...
Anyways, this was a long and rambley comment, but my point is guild progression sites are kinda sucky right now and you might actually have more 25s guilds floating around than you think!
I believe you are mistaking general dissatisfaction of players with Cataclysm raiding and/or instancing with dissatisfaction with 25-man raiding. (I don't understand why are people unhappy with raids and 5-mans but they seem to be.) 10-man guilds are suffering from the same problems, if not worse, because they cannot switch to 25-mans if people leave in droves.
There is a couple of logistic difficulties in 10-mans that 25-mans don't experience. The initial recruiting is harder because it is possible to start a 10-man with about 12-13 people while for a 25-man I'd say 30+ is needed. However, managing the replacements is easier when you have a lot of them - that means 10-mans are likely to get to the situations when people get to warm the bench often (if you have a lot of replacements) or have to give up for the day even when they have 10+ people because the key roles are not filled.
Do not get confused by forum posters unhappy about the "death of 25-mans". They are pushing their own agenda most of the time (which is usually to make a system that recognizes them as exceptionally good, i. e. most of the others are worse) and they intentionally forget to say what advantages do 25-mans have.
Talking about advantages - many of the 10-man "advantages" are noticeable when you start with a 25-man roster and trim it down to 10-man. Do not forget you can only do it once and it's an one-way road. (For example the "10 aces and 15 bads" argument; you will get the same recruits after you trim so the 10-man advantage is lost after someone from the original team decides to stop raiding.)
People still claiming that 10 mans "punish individual mistakes more" are still raiding Lich King - when that was actually true.
Most of Cata bosses already punish individual mistakes by encounter design, much more severely than any WOTLK boss did (except the King himself).
Making sure 25 people are "trained" to get out of fire, or fall in on blackout is much harder than doing it with 10 man.
Atramedes, the double dragons, Chogall, Maloriak, Magmaw, The council *all* already have mechanics that severely punish individual mistakes. When you take into account that 25 versions target more players than in 10man, you get harder encounters by design.
Also, when you take into account that every boss that demands the spreading out mechanic uses the same room for 10 man and 25 man, hopefully it becomes obvious how much complex 25 man raiding becomes.
I think it is very good that Blizz separated 10s and 25s, if for nothing else, for the fact that I dont have to waste time on 10s anymore, making me sick with boredom after 1 month of raiding.
I have no issues with people raiding 10mans get the same gear as 25, since I dont see raiding as a job where more effort/knowledge should be 'rewarded' by more pay.
Game should cater to all kinds of players, its what makes it strong in numbers, and allows Blizzard to invest in it further.
One thing about recruitment: it isnt slowed down just because of the 10man/25 man divide: it is the guild levels, perks and reputation which is painfully slow that makes people stay put. Once guilds have achieved level 25, and players got exalted and bought stuff they wanted, there will be more guild hoping.
My advice to your guild: hang on to 25mans if you enjoy it, and if you have 20 people ready for it right now. As someone already said in comments: once you break up into a 10mans and people leave, it will be hard to recruit back for 25mans again. until you have enough, do 2x10 man raids, or even 1x10 man with fair rotation (seems to me your guild is more than capable for fairness and reason!).
In any case GL :)
10 men is much easier to organize and easier to fix errors as it's almost always obvious who messed it up. So it's preferred by most officers, except on the very bleeding edge where the +loot and +points make difference.
I have two suggestions:
1: merge with another guild struggling to get 25 men. You not only get more members, but more officers.
2: if you'll be one of those who don't get into 10-men Adrenaline, you can always transfer here to The PuG
What about homogenizing classes to the point that challening 5-man 'raids' are possible? Would people play 10-man if 8-man was available? And what about 2-man or .. Single player?
Honestly, I don't really get what Blizzard is doing there, although I always disliked 25-mans. They were too small to feel epic and too large to feel personal.
Loot was not the only advantage of 25-man raiding in WoTLK. 10-man raid encounters were often oversimplified versions of 25-man encounters to compensate for possible unavailability of all raid buffs an lack of people in general.
A few examples: no mind control in 10-man Kel'Thuzad and Deathwhisper (normal) encounters; automatically successful control in 10-man Razuvious; anyone could do damage on any slime in 10-man Putricide (heroic); only one val'kyr in 10-man Lich King vs. 3 in 25-man; and finaly, consider the relative difficulties of setting up bite sequences at Lana'thel (I think it is beyond mere human abilities in 25-man and addon was required).
In Cataclysm raids, no such discounts are made, which is why 10-man raiding is more difficult than 25-man if you don't have an optimized raid.
But the best players can now group only with those they like and access top challenge nische on their own without needing another 15 warm bodies. This is what kills 25-man raiding, not the loot.
I'm in a medium tier raiding guild; in Wrath we did a 25 man raid twice a week. We also had three separate 10 man groups within the guild, who each ran 1-2 times per week, on different nights/schedules. Since the raid lockout changes in 4.0, we've not done any 25 man raids at all.
I attribute this mostly to the fact that although everyone loved the bigger 25 man raids, the 10 man groups were at very different levels (all farther than the 25 man). When Cata hit, the more hardcore group powerleveled and were raiding ASAP; I think they have 3 or 4 bosses down. The middling group (whom I run with) leveled a bit more slowly, and has just started raiding (downed Magmaw last weekend). The third group is having issues since their tank disappeared, and their leader is semi-afk due to some RL happenings.
People miss the 25s, but they just don't want to lock their toons to slower progression. There's been talk of trying to get 25s going on alts, but right now we only have a handful of people whose alts are level capped and ready for heroics, much less raiding.
My own guess is that when the next tier of raiding is added, and the focus shifts to that, THEN people will probably be willing to go have some fun poking at the old, now current, raids (similar to running TOC for fun once ICC was out). It will be much more of a social gathering than a serious progression attempt.
I think the decision will be based on the core values of the guild.
A lot of raiding guilds are driven by loot. If that it the case, they take whatever path provides the most loot with the least effort.
Other guilds are made up of friends. If they happen to have 20+ friends that like to raid together, then they will probably stick with 25 man raiding.
I think the fallacy of a lot of people is to project their own attitudes onto others. They say "People won't do 25's any more" when what they really mean is "I won't do 25s anymore".
My guild, as an alternate example, raids for fun. We have a few very good players who all share the core value of helping others and bringing the raiding experience to all of our guildies. We have every intention of continuing 25 man raids in order to include all of our guildmates.
Could we progress faster/farther if we just did 10s? Definitely. Progression isn't everything, though.
: I can definitely understand your stance. Even if I’m not an officer myself, I can see what effort it takes. Still don’t you feel that you miss the epic size of the 25 mans sometimes? I know I would.
@Enlynn: Oh, we’re recruiting cross server. At least through the free resources; we’re not prepared to pay a fortune for advertising at some of the more exclusive sites. But still we struggle, currently. We’ll see if it will shift within a month.
: I’d dare say we have a very good reputation on our server. But it might be different from server to server, how big the interest is for 25 man raiding.
@Msith: It’s true that the progression charts are pretty much screwed up or at least very messy and that’s confusing indeed. And yes, I might be a tad early with my worries. But it’s striking how few apps we get these days compared to how it used to be. It appears to me as if something has happened. Maybe the turnover of raiders just is smaller, people sticking to their guilds harder these days, guild perks and all?
: wohoo one willing 25 man raider. :)
@Antoxa: It’s good to hear that you’re doing fine. To be fair: quite a few alliance raiders went horde in Wrath, and that might also be a reason for the very slow recruitment on our side.
@Ron & Talarian: It might be so. We’ll have to wait a bit longer and see.
@Loiore: That’s how we feel too I think. We’ve been raiding together in our guild for such a long time that we’re pretty tightly knit – even for our bigger size. It would feel rather horrible to have to split up the guild. So we really hope it won’t happen.
@JThelen: This wasn’t a protest post claiming that they should change things back. More a testimony about what I see happening, signs. And judging from some comments I’m not the only one to see that 25 mans seems to be on decline. Even though it might not be true on every server.
: I haven’t seen any pugs for 25 mans yet on my server. But it might be that I’m just not online that much outside of raids, so maybe I miss it. My experiences from 25 man pugs in wrath, which I did a little on an alt, aren’t too great to be honest. I would definitely think twice before going into such a thing. I like 25 man raiding a lot – but not with complete strangers.
: I think a lot of ex officers of 25 man guilds think exactly this way and that’s why we see the tendency that 25 mans are growing more rare.
@Leivan: Yeah, it’s true that it’s a bit messed up. Still some of the ads tell the truth when you look closer. They say in the headline that it’s x/12 progression and then you read the fine print and it turns out that they barely have started doing 25 mans, if they’re doing it at all.
: I’m sure that 10 mans have their logistical issues as well but I seriously can’t believe that they’re at the same level as 25 mans. And that’s one of the reasons why people are giving up on doing them. There’s no extra reward for more hassles. (although I understand that you have a different opinion about this).
@m: I agree that the guild perks might play into this as well. People probably hang onto their guilds longer than they would otherwise. So there’s less circulation of raiders and that makes recruiting way harder. About difficulties: well… I think it varies between encounters, surely? Sometimes if you have a “one screws up and kills everyone” mechanics, it’s definitely more risky to have 25 people. And the same with fights where lack of room is a problem. Don’t stand in fire and spread out at the same time and there are people everywhere as opposed to in a 10 man. However, in other fights, with an enrage timer, you might have a harder time in a 10-man, where one single death will be crucial, where the margin is bigger in 25 mans.
@Gevlon: We are actually prepared to absorb for instance a 10 man guild that is interested in bigger raids. We’ll see if someone’s interested.
If worst things happen and we’ll go 10 man and I don’t have a spot in it, I’ll look for a new home. PuG might be an alternative, but to be honest I would probably rather be in a slightly tighter knit guild. I’m sure I’ll blog about it if the situation will occur.
@Nils: since I never experienced the 40 mans I’m used to the 25 mans and to me they’re a very good format, personal and epic at the same time.
And I agree that everything seems to be going smaller and smaller. When will we see the first 5 man raid? That’s the question…
: Well… sort of. But back in the days the extra loot was enough to compensate for it. Now it isn’t.
: Times really have changed, haven’t they? To me the natural thing still is to do 25 mans on my main and possibly dabble with 10 mans on my alt if I ever get time to level her. But yeah, why couldn’t it be the other way around? I suppose… Although the thought feels weird. I’m stuck in the old mindset I guess.
: We’re definitely not driven by loot. We’re driven by our desire to beat content in 25 man raids, because that’s the format we prefer. And we’re stable so most of us have been around for a long time. However, if the option is to cancel raids and mess around from raid to raid, juggling, considering whether to make a 10 man or cancel or whatever… it becomes just too messy and not the kind of well organized raiding we’re used to. I really can’t blame the officers if they finally give up on this, even if I know it’s the last thing they’d want to. But in the end, there is a limit to how much time and effort you can poor into recruiting and organizational issues.
Larisa:
Sorry for not being clear in my previous post. Yes, the logistics are harder in 25-mans although the difference is slightly less than some people (not you) try to say.
The main point of my post was supposed to be: 10-man guilds are having similar problems because a lot of people are not raiding for various reasons while others might be quite impatient to start - it seems your guild is experiencing similar problems.
And they do not have an option to trim down their roster as the 25-man guild have. I understand that many 25-man raiders do not think 10-man are as epic (because I think similar about 25-mans) so the change would make some of the raiders unhappy. Maybe it's not a viable option for most of the 25-man guilds because their members do not want it and I'm just envious?
10mans are much more difficult than 25s for our guild because there are so many fights that need precisely timed interrupts, and if you don't have a good interrupting class you're screwed. We have 12 very well-geared raiders, about 15 fair-to-middling geared, and we're having real trouble progressing with just the 10s. When we get all 25 on at a time we have it much easier.
The thing that bugs me is this assumption that only people who raid 10 mans have friends (in particular 9 friends who are good raiders who play desired classes and specs.)
*vibes* anyhow and good luck with your 25 man raids. We have our raid group up and running and have downed a handful of bosses - but there's a cost with the new lockouts. People who miss one night can't run a 10 man over the weekend to learn the fight. The players who considered themselves the most hardcore (not necessarily the best) ran off to do 10 mans on their mains and are deigning to grace the 25 man raids with their alts.
Raiding just isn't what it was.
Speaking as someone who's loosely shopping around for a 25 man guild, I've noticed a distinct reduction of my options.
I'm not sure why I'm so deadset on 25 man raiding, but I guess it's a mental association:
10 mans = relaxing, fun time with friends.
25 mans = srs bzn.
I love both, but if I have a to choose, I prefer 25. I know people say that 10 mans are harder because there's less room for mistake, but that hasn't been my experience, except maybe Sarth 3D. Yes, if a 1/10 players die, it's tougher than if 1/25 players die, but althrough Wrath, boss abilities that one-shotted on 25 man were survivable on 10 man. So 10 man left way more room for error.
Larissa, you have my best wishes on this one. I know that for us fielding a full 25 has worked, but recruiting better players to flesh out the roster has been a tough sale.
We can't even find a Shadow Priest. I mean, really...
In the aftermath of the Cataclysm I've noted dozens of "new" guilds that are apparently working their way through 10 man content. Now, we're down to about 4 25 man guild on my server.
Keep the faith, and good luck.
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