One of the best — or worst things depending on your view — to happen to raiding in a long time was the inclusion of smaller group sized content. I talked a little bit about this over on BDTU with my pieces on the Evolution of WoW part 1 and part 2.
The trend started with the addition of Zul’Gurub, a troll instance of now infamous reputation, when it broke from the 40-man raid standard and offered 20-man content. It hailed back to the days of Blackrock Spire being a multiple group raid, and people loved it.
Karazhan further stoked the fires of the smaller group raid desire, and did so while offering epic and story filled content. Players loved it so much that the forums were filled countless replies asking for more smaller group . With Wrath came the revelation that all raid content would be be available in 25-man flavor as set forth by Burning Crusade, but also in new raid 10-man flavor (all of the raid, less than half the calories). Different levels of gear purchasable by badges came out (as well as loot tables that varied between 10 and 25 man), and both 10 and 25 man raids dropped the same badges. The trick, and the problem, was that people felt compelled to run both 10 and 25 man versions to maximize badges. Some people felt that you absolutely had to run both to “beat the game”.
This is also a result of how loot was distributed. Badges gave you the entry level gear for the items at the end of this expansion cycle. Badges gave you the “entry level” piece for the tier set, this was considered the 10 man version of the tier. Tokens in 25 man raids would drop that allowed you to upgrade the 10 man piece to the next level up. Heroic 25 man dropped yet another token that allowed you to upgrade it to it’s maximum potential. You can see how it would be assumed the more badges you had the better gear you had and the quicker you could climb the gear ladder right?
Well, the devs didn’t like that, nor did less hardcore players (or those of us who don’t have the time to devote to constantly running raids all week long) and a new system was proposed for Cataclysm. The system says that the same content will be provided for 10 and 25 man versions, and the reward levels will be the same. That is to say that the Ilvl of gear will be on par between versions, and they will share the same loot tables. The major difference will be that 25 man will have more damage and more health to worry about in boss fights and such, and you will get MORE loot drops than the 10 man content does. Also, a raid regardless of being 10 or 25 man, all share the same raid ID and lockout. Do a 25 man version and kill a boss? Cool. Split into two 10 mans of the same thing and that boss is still dead for both groups. You can’t up-convert from 10 to 25, but you can down-size if attendance becomes an issue or some such.
So this brings up an interesting question for a lot of guilds and raid groups right now. Is it worth it to run 25 man content if the rewards for 10 are the same? Is the extra loot enough of a benefit to keep you raiding in 25 man content or do you give up and just say screw it? I know a lot of guilds are going through this debate right now. I know some of them personally. This happened in a smaller capacity when Wrath was announced to have 10 man content. Some guilds decided the smaller size was for them and paired down into tight-knit, more tactical 10 man groups. So now that the gear is equal level between 10 and 25, aside from quantity, I know many guilds that have weighed the pros and cons of both formats and decided to go for the smaller size.
My guild Unpossible recently had this discussion. We pulled all of the officers into a private vent chat and hashed it out. it was about even split on the case of 10 vs 25, and there were a lot of good points made. After a good half hour discussion, we decided that we would stay a 25 man raiding guild. Our structure was already in place and had been since the release of Burning Crusade, and it has been stable and working since. We have a dedicated group of raiders who love the group we are in and the dynamic we have going. We also decided that we just felt more comfortable in the 25 man environment.
For me personally, I voted in favor of keeping the 25 man raid group. I love the logistical challenge of tracking so many players — and yes I know it’s not the 40 man content or raids from vanilla but I served my time in those — and the dynamic we have set up between all the various parts of the raiding group works well together, and I’d hate to break that up. I also didn’t like the idea of balancing multiple 10 man groups. Something I’ve seen over the last few years, people have an easier time being benched for a raid than they do taking part in a raid that is behind another group. I didn’t want to breed an environment of Group A vs Group B and cause any unnecessary drama.
So with Cataclysm on the horizon, has your guild discussed this at all? Has your raid group decided whether it will raid 10 man or 25 man content? Were you already raiding as a 10 or 25 man group? What do you think the benefits of both are? What about the drawbacks? I’d love to hear your opinions on this and see how the community as a whole has decided.
Will your guild raid 10 man or 25 man content in Cataclysm?
- 10 Man / 10 Man Hard Mode (68%, 346 Votes)
- 25 Man / 25 Man Hard Mode (20%, 103 Votes)
- Banana (12%, 61 Votes)
Total Voters: 498
Loading ...Until next time, happy healing!
I’ve been raiding 25-mans with heroics purely because of the loot levels, but enjoy playing in 10-mans much more. I’m very happy that the loot will be the same in Cata because it means I’m not penalised for preferring smaller groups!
I will raid 10 mans even if my guild decides to go 25. I think it’s kind of pointless unless you really enjoy the 25 man feel…which I do not. I have always preferred the intimacy and bonding a regular 10 man group provides.
I think the same way ‘Shot’ does, I’ve been raiding 25’s for loot only… now both 10man and 25man have the same loot which will give me the chance to raid 10mans only without feeling left out on better gear 🙂
Many guilds I imagine, will do 25s on the main raid night with 10man groups cleaning up on the lower attendance nights. The little guild that I co-run probably won’t even have 10 active members when cata launches so my choice will be predicated on how many old-school guildies return and how the recruiting goes.
As long as we’re able to, my guild is going to be doing both. We’ll be scheduling one or two (depending on length and our ability to get through them) 25-man raid instances for our guild Friday- and Saturday-night runs. That leaves any of the other raids for people to do 10-mans or PuGs on their own schedules.
If Cata continues the idea of multiple raid instances per tier, we’re going to stick with that. If they abandon that ideal I have no idea what path we’d take.
Around the time Ulduar came out my guild had up to three 10-man teams and we were able to run 25’s. Some issues rose surrounding the 10 man teams and we ended up losing a *large* number of people. We’ve never recovered from it. We can put together 2, sometimes three separate 10 mans each week, but of the 30 toons going in each week, I’d say there are less than 20 actual people playing those toons.
Right now, a lot of people in the guild like the idea of 25 mans for the loot, but nobody wants to do the work in getting them set up, and most of us really don’t like pugging in 7-10 people to fill up the spots. The change in Cata means that the loot pressure will be off, which is a good thing in my view. I don’t see us making the effort to recruit decent players that also fit the structure of my guild. 10-mans for us!
The poll lacks the option for both! I’m in a guild that raids (rather than a raid guild) and the flexibility of choosing between the options from week to week depending on the amount of interest will be really helpful for us. So my answer to the poll would be both, varying from week to week.
I’ve always preferred the complexity and challenges of 25.
My guild plans to do both. Since there will be three raids available at launch, we expect to do one (or maybe two if they are short) raids on 25 man each week, and then do the others on 10 or let players pug them. We’ll rotate from week to week to vary the experience.
Although I do enjoy the “epic” feel of 25-mans, I much prefer the intimacy of the 10-man environment. Even though the organization of the 25mans is more challenging, I’ve always found the greater challenge in more responsibility for each member of the 10-man team. Every 25-man raid team that I’ve been a part of, it’s really easy to “carry” a couple people (except heroic content). In 10-man, each person has to work to their maximum potential in order to succeed under all circumstances. I definitely look forward to continuing 10-mans with my team.
10s all the way. So much easier to manage. Now by manage I mean personalities also. So sick of the folks with personality disorders and arseholes. As far as I am concerned they can go start thier own 10 and stay the eff out of mine heh. I am sure some could say the same of me, its ok. Just thank our lucky stars 10s is a great viable solution to avoid rediculous conflict/drama and add focus to progression.
My guild was formed at the start of WotLK as a 10 man guild and has stayed that way. We intend to continue into Cata as a 10 man guild. I do not mind being in 25 man raids, but I always enjoy the 10 man’s so much more.
My guild is moving towards 10 man focus, with the end of the expansion here and people taking breaks, we mostly have done 10 mans, and overall people really have been enjoying themselves, so that is where we will focus
I only plan on raiding 10 mans but if the opportunity presents itself I wont walk away from a 25.
I voted 10s, but not because I hold any negative feelings toward the 25-man raid. Over the past several months, my main purpose in raiding 25s has been for loot and badges, to go along with the small sense of satisfaction made by any progress.
The people I hang out and raid with in-game make up a smaller group, and I have always had more fun (and we’ve had more success) in 10-man raids.
You make a great point about remaining a 25-man raid team because your guild has a stable, long-standing 25-man structure in place, and really, when that is the situation, it becomes a case of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” I have a lot of respect for guilds that can take on 25-man content on a regular basis with a stable team! Not being in this kind of situation myself is why I prefer 10s – it’s where I’ve both enjoyed playing and made the most progress.
We’ll be doing 10s, but only because our guild has suffered a lot of defections with the summer hiatus.
However, you don’t address the fact that bigger guilds will get better “guild progression” benefits—achievements and the like. Once that is taken into effect, I think we’ll see a LOT of guild mergers or other activities to enlarge guilds, which will probably lead to a lot more 25-man raids.
@Kestrel the reason I didn’t include that yet is because it is still technically a variable and it may change. Until it comes closer to release, I’m not counting that as a factor, yet.
Actually, based on trends since Wrath, my guess is “no raids at all” – the whole gearscore thing has made raiding all but impossible for anyone who didn’t already have top-notch gear before GS.
Q: “How do I get better gear, so I can raid?”
A: “Run heroics.”
Q: “How do I get into heroics?”
A: “Get better gear!”
Yeah, bugger that for a lark.
Yes, I am *The* Icesnake.
Got to be 10 man. We split off from our old guild as we wanted to make progress rather than be an also ran 25 man guild. This worked well for us with the guild getting their drakes both in Ulduar and ICC.
Also I prefer the chance for all players to make a big difference in 10 mans rather than being part of the crowd as you can be in 25 mans.
Zetter
I am hoping for a 10 man feel. I did the 25 man cutting edge thing for a while, and these days, I’d rather take 10 friends and progress at a twice a week pace. I am really looking forward to that option.
What do you guys think about guilds that do 25 for the extra loot, give all their loot to their 10 best players, then slim down for the end boss or the super hard heroic? I know a few guilds that are leaning that way since it seems like the only way to compete in the progression race…
Where’s my…. “I’m skipping the expansion option?”
Nothing beats the epic feeling of 25s!. I don’t get how gear could be such an important core motivation for people to determine which content to tackle in the long term. Isn’t that a bit backwards?
>< I am sort of feeling the opposite of almost everyone – I will probably raid 10s, but not because I want to, mostly because all of the guilds I know and like will cut down to 10s for easiness. Part of the problem is, it's obviously easier to find 10 people …. but what if 15 people like to raid a 25 man? It's going to be a lot harder to find 25 people who are very strictly "I only want to do 25 man" because honestly, I like both, and if I had to choose it would be only 25 man. Most would choose 10 for the ease, or because they don't know 25 people all that well, whereas it's more likely that you will find a group of 10 people who know each other comfortably well.
I miss the chance of being able to do both :/ If I wanted to be in a 10m guild I would have joined one … which there were actually plenty of in WotLK on my server (I even left one for my 25 man guild, and the guild I left had a literal waiting list for applications there were so many people interested in doing 10m only the way it was set up this expansion).
Ah well… guess everything is going to be super-clique-ish now…. ><
I would say that most people who think being in a 25 man is just "part of an anon group" hasn't had the chance of doing a lot of the difficult content this expansion .. there are plenty of ways you can wipe because of 1/25th of the raid not performing perfectly in those fights … or maybe everyone is just amazing at WoW.. I dunno o_0
edit: oops … for some reason my other comment was marked as spam … trying again ..!
>< I am sort of feeling the opposite of almost everyone – I will probably raid 10s, but not because I want to, mostly because all of the guilds I know and like will cut down to 10s for easiness. Part of the problem is, it's obviously easier to find 10 people …. but what if 15 people like to raid a 25 man? It's going to be a lot harder to find 25 people who are very strictly "I only want to do 25 man" because honestly, I like both, and if I had to choose it would be only 25 man. Most would choose 10 for the ease, or because they don't know 25 people all that well, whereas it's more likely that you will find a group of 10 people who know each other comfortably well.
I miss the chance of being able to do both :/ If I wanted to be in a 10m guild I would have joined one … which there were actually plenty of in WotLK on my server (I even left one for my 25 man guild, and the guild I left had a literal waiting list for applications there were so many people interested in doing 10m only the way it was set up this expansion). The hardmodes this expansion were definitely not the typical "25 mans are just a large anon group of people doing w/e and being carried " … there were plenty of ways to wipe the whole raid because 1/25th of the group didn't play perfectly…
Ah well… guess everything is going to be super-clique-ish now…. :<
It will be 10 man for me. But I don’t do 25’s now, never liked them. I have never understood why having 25 people vs 10 people in a raid made it more epic. The encounter is what makes it epic in my imho. I found TOC boring, and having 10 or 25 people in the raid wouldn’t have changed that.
@JohnG228 TOC was like Highlander 2… it never happened and we don’t speak of it!
Yep, Icesnake, it’s impossible to get into heroics. If only Blizzard would implement some form of automatic group forming system so you weren’t at the mercy of the elitists forming heroic groups who refuse to invite you unless you already have top-notch gear. That would be a wonderful idea!
Our guild will probably “try” both. I like the idea of being able to downsize a 25 man into 2- 10 mans. It seems that as the night progresses, we always lose a few people. So, having the option of splitting up into 2 10 mans is great from a raid leader perspective.
I loved Karazhan and Zul’Aman. Those were great times, especially when the *same people showed up to raid every week*. In Wrath, 10 mans were frustrating because it was hard to keep people around. Early on, they’d graduate out of badges, so they wouldn’t have a reason to run 10s anymore. You were just the offhand, JV team. Later on, once you needed badges, it was better, but still not great because you couldn’t always depend on attendance, and there wasn’t really this burning need to waitlist like you would have for 25s (where drops were more important than just badges). However, I had a great time with a set group that ran 10 man TOC and 10 man ICC.
10 mans definitely seem to cause some drama. You can easily get that “B team” feeling, where you just don’t get invited to the good club unless you’re hot stuff (which can also be an attractive part of 10 mans for the more hardcore in the guild who are tired of carrying 15 iffy players).
25 mans you do end up on the waitlist a fair amount of time, which is fine if people don’t mind switching out. You have to be careful, or you get into the situation we had where raid team members would get bored and we’d bring in the “B team” and wipe on farm bosses which just made the raid team get more bored and frustrated (I think the smaller raid sizes will help here, because there won’t be so much pressure between players who want to maximize time working on progression versus players who just want early bosses to gear up on).
So, overall, unless the loot system changes the dynamics and people take 10 mans seriously, I’d rather run 25s. People just don’t take 10 man seriously enough, and you can’t depend on personnel.
I’ll be doing 10 mans. I’ve never really liked doing 25 man raids…I suppose that would change if I were to get involved with a raid group that can frequently field 20+ competent people.
10 mans all the way! Me and some friends started our guild in April and it’s been a blast. We’re not against 25-mans, but they’re much more of a pain in the ass and I personally like to chat on Vent without 3 other people talking over me. We have a pretty tight group of 9 people plus 2-3 that come and go and I hope to keep it that way in Cataclysm too.
Our guild has decided to go down to two ten-man groups. Since shortly before ICC released, we were beginning to have problems with attendance for full 25-man raids, and unfortunately, for the months since then, we haven’t had many full raids. Since that is the case, we are always short people to actually do our progression kills (Blood-Queen Lana’thel, Sindragosa), even on normal. The downside to this is that we’re so short on tanks at the moment – and to a lesser extent, healers – that if things don’t improve, we may end up going to a sole 10-man group in Cataclysm.
I love 10-mans, and generally, they’re astronomically more challenging than 25-man groups currently because of your overall lack of being able to balance to be “the best” group in normal guilds. That said, getting LK down without Replenishment is not fun as a healer.
I fear that the viability of 10-man raids will end up greatly encouraging cliquey behavior, in all but the most unbiased guilds (which is, basically almost all guilds). One of my troubles throughout my time on WoW was being the “new guy” – and although I consider myself fairly easygoing and (very, in fact) competent as a raider, I lack the charisma to make myself “loved” and worm my way into existing guild cliques. With my last guild in WoW prior to quitting (25-man progression raiding), I was being constantly ignored and never invited to the casual off-day 10-mans, even though I made it known that I was interested and available at scheduled times (and don’t die in fires while keeping up high DPS). (I was also benched for ex-raiders who had retired from WoW for many months but recently came back and instantly got raid priority.) 10-mans will really kill the feeling of (large) guild unity, since.. well, you’re only raiding with up to 9 other people in your guild at any one time. Friends will be able to raid with friends –you don’t need a huge ring of 24 friends– or for the more goal-oriented, with the “cream of the crop.”
Having said that though I am generally in favor of 10-mans being an *option* although it’s really hurting my chances of securing a spot in a group. I like 10-mans because it’s always a lot more intimate (on Vent) and wipes, etc can generally be traced to a specific player. Not for pinning the blame, but for improvement and the general higher responsibility and raid-wide consequences for your actions (or lack thereof).
@Elumine you got it right.
I think 25-mans will drop to 10% or less of all raid groups in Cata because it won’t be worth the extra pain to do 25-mans any more. 10-mans will *always* be easier, and for those who wish to argue that statement, think of this first:
* same size room so 25 people are always harder to position than 10
* no, each person in a 10-man is NOT more important because of the simple fact that the 10-man boss uses fewer abilities a lesser number of times and hits much gentler than in 25’s
* the loot is the same in 10’s and 25’s so why bother running a 25 when you can run 2 10’s much easier and faster to gear up even more people? two 10’s going through at the same time will net more usable loot than a single 25, and much faster and easier also
* some people are not playing WoW for the social aspects of it. I don’t consider any of the people in my guild true friends, more like “work acquaintances” and I dislike Blizz for forcing this change on me
* I raid and play the game (which I pay for) for *myself*, not for others. I am not here to boost or give away my crafting or spend time helping others unless I want to or it helps me in some way
* guilds will form way more cliques than now and pugging raids will become much more difficult, which forces everyone to join a guild in order to experience endgame content (grrrr)
I could be wrong but the amount of gear dropping was said to be significantly higher in 25s to make up for the fact you have 150% more people to fight for it.
Upy
We have been and will always be a 25man raiding guild. Our plan is for raiders to nominate an alt they will to use on what are now our 10man nights. So basically each person in guild will have 2 raiding toons.
This will help the guild out in the long run as people come and go there will be more geared alts to step up to take a position of need.
Upy
I was originally thrilled about the IDEA behind the change. As the GM of the #55 guild in the U.S. (raiding 3 nights/wk), it really sucked feeling a necessity to do 10mans for badges, gear, achievements, and fight experience. So when Blizzard announced they’d have the same gear, same achievements, same badges, and same lockout, I was overjoyed. No longer would my weekends feel pressured to do 10man and 25man content.
But what they’re doing with Legendaries and vanity items (mounts) is real overkill. The simple fact is that WoW is the only MMO which successfully has large-scale raiding, and making it “optional” for success really kills the game.
I also have a real problem with sharing realm firsts. 25man guilds get a HUGE advantage due to gearing speed and being able to split a 25man raid into separate 10mans. Imperative technically only raids 25mans 3 nights per week, but we raid 10mans on weekends. This would give us a huge advantage in pursuing realm first over 10man guilds. (Full post here: http://blacksen.com/archives/625)
We’ve decided to stay a 25 man guild, but we are spawning off an alt-10 man raid inside the guild to allow us to formulate fight strats a bit quicker.
I think that considering the ability to break 25 man saves down (That does still exist, right?), there’s no reason not to shoot towards being a 25 man guild if you think you can handle the stress.