May News/Discussions

[Skandranon]

I tend to agree with his position on 10 man vs 25 man. As was noted in the DnT incident there is a lot of moaning about he casualization of WoW but if "raiders" really wanted a logistically difficult fight regardless of loot rewards than 10 man versions of raids, etc. wouldn't impact anything, they would still do the logistically difficult fights. If 10 man versions of the 25 man instances were introduced with equal rewards and nobody did 25 man instances anymore doesn't that just imply that people don't want to do those anyway and only put up with it because of the loot?

No. Because "equal" rewards aren't as easy as putting the same items in the same instances. Sirlin isn't looking at his article from the reverse perspective, which is to say, if you make rewards easier to get in the 10-man, people who would much rather be raiding 25-man will raid 10-man instead for rewards, even though they find it less fun. Putting the same items in the same instances inherently makes rewards easier to get in the 10-man because they're easier to organize.

"Easier to organize", by the way, is not, as Sirlin takes it, an automatic indicator that 25-man is less fun and therefore something people only do for loot. Things can be both harder to do and more worthwhile when you can do it. It is more difficult to learn to play chess than it is to learn to play tic-tac-toe, but the rewards of having learned chess are greater. That said, if I won $100 every time I played either tic-tac-toe or chess to a draw, I would never play chess again. That doesn't mean chess is unfun or bad.

Equal rewards means "equally proportionate to the difficulty of achieving them". And difficulty is not unfun. That's what Kaplan gets and Sirlin doesn't.

[Chesspiece_face]

No. Because "equal" rewards aren't as easy as putting the same items in the same instances. Sirlin isn't looking at his article from the reverse perspective, which is to say, if you make rewards easier to get in the 10-man, people who would much rather be raiding 25-man will raid 10-man instead for rewards, even though they find it less fun. Putting the same items in the same instances inherently makes rewards easier to get in the 10-man because they're easier to organize.

"Easier to organize", by the way, is not, as Sirlin takes it, an automatic indicator that 25-man is less fun and therefore something people only do for loot. Things can be both harder to do and more worthwhile when you can do it. It is more difficult to learn to play chess than it is to learn to play tic-tac-toe, but the rewards of having learned chess are greater. That said, if I won $100 every time I played either tic-tac-toe or chess to a draw, I would never play chess again. That doesn't mean chess is unfun or bad.

Equal rewards means "equally proportionate to the difficulty of achieving them". And difficulty is not unfun. That's what Kaplan gets and Sirlin doesn't.

Actually I believe Sirlin makes a distinct point to say that the relative difficulty for doing the 10 man instances should be equal to the difficulty in doing the 25 man instances, leaving the only difference being a players social preference. This is the point that Kaplan uses to defend the creation of 10 and 20 man versions of the same instance yet fails to take to it's logical conclusion. Blizzard has taken great strides to create a more inclusive design yet they still seem to fall back on the same raid design falacies of the 40 man days, which brings with it the same loot related problems.

You reference Tic-Tac-Toe and Chess with the assumption that 10 man instances are somehow inherantly trivial, but the only reason that these instances are designed in such a way is to bend to the arbitrary loot progression rules blizzard has been a slave to since the beginning. If this short sighted loot progression is abandoned however the types of encounters and instances which could be in the game are endless. As is there will NEVER be a 10 man instance which can compare with the challange of a 25 man. Not because of the inherant social taxes related to organizing a 25 man raid but because there is always loot which can trivialize it. Whereas Kaplan and Blizzard seem to say that 10 man should be no less a challange than 25 man their actions in designing the loot progression speak louder than their talking points. As long as the gear progression moves from 5-10-25 the 5 and 10 man instances will always be "easy", not because of the social requirements but because the loot has designed them that way.

Edit: Another point made in the link is how blizzard shy'ed away from Cosmetic rewards from the 40 man raids early in WoW because they didn't believe that it would be enough of a motivator for people to keep doing these instances. I think this has patently been proven false with the success of things like the timed Bear Mount runs. They've already begun implimenting item sets with the same models just different color schemes, I see no reason that the 10 man versions of 25 man instances can have items with the same stat quality as the bigger instances but give the 25 man rewards cosmetic prestige rewards. this leaves the design of instances (both 10 and 25) more open and not hamstringed by the loot designs yet rewards the people that put in the extra effort into the social requirements of 25 man content.

[Pantalaimon]

Also, if 25-mans went away, I can only assume alot of the "bring only one to a 25" classes, e.g. PvE arms, Boomkin, Ret palies, etc. would find life very difficult. For challenging fights, 10-mans are much more stringent on having "pure" classes, unfortunately - marginal specs are a liability, since there aren't enough people around to benefit from their synergies to be worth bringing over a pure class. Considering how much Blizz has accomodated these hybrid specs, suddenly turning around and with one stroke rendering them meaningless would be... well, a bold move to say the least.

[Pantalaimon]

As long as the gear progression moves from 5-10-25 the 5 and 10 man instances will always be "easy", not because of the social requirements but because the loot has designed them that way.

But why would you bother doing a 25-man if you could do two 10-man locks with the same group of people, get twice as much equivalent loot, and continue on your merry way? As noted in your quote, the powergamer views things from an "economic" point of view, and the clear choice between receiving two carrots and one is two. :lol:

Again, stemming from the risk vs reward objective analysis, if 10-man loot = 25-man loot, 25s will never be run. Or at least will be about as common as "old world" runs - things people do for the hell of it once in a blue moon, but not "srs business".

[Chesspiece_face]

But why would you bother doing a 25-man if you could do two 10-man locks with the same group of people, get twice as much equivalent loot, and continue on your merry way? As noted in your quote, the powergamer views things from an "economic" point of view, and the clear choice between receiving two carrots and one is two. :lol:

Again, stemming from the risk vs reward objective analysis, if 10-man loot = 25-man loot, 25s will never be run. Or at least will be about as common as "old world" runs - things people do for the hell of it once in a blue moon, but not "srs business".

Which is exactly the point. If we assume that by introducing equal loot in 10 man instances as there is in 25 man instances would turn the 25 man instances into ghost towns than that just goes to show there is an inherant problem with the design of the 25 man instances. I agree with Skan above insomuchas that 25 man instances should, in their own right, provide an enjoyable enough experience that were they to offer relatively equal rewards people should still want to do them! If, as it stands, (and is my, and i believe sirlin's argument) the removal of the loot benefit from 25 man instances would remove the desire of people to play that content it just shows that there is a problem with the design of that content.

You offer the example of "why do a 25 man when you could do 2 10 man instances in that time!!!!" but that argument still relies on the faulty idea that the instances need to be designed the same way they are now (because of the loot progression). But there is no reason why there can't be 10 player instances which take just as much time and effort as a 25 player instance. The only reason it's like that is because of loot progression.

[Skandranon]

Which is exactly the point. If we assume that by introducing equal loot in 10 man instances as there is in 25 man instances would turn the 25 man instances into ghost towns than that just goes to show there is an inherant problem with the design of the 25 man instances.

Or it could show that you are getting two and a half times more items from the ten-man. This is what I meant by the fallacy of "equal". If you put the same loot in both instances, merely by virtue of numbers, the ten-manners get more, even if the content is equally difficult and time consuming.

I'm not sure how you're misunderstanding the point, but Pantalaimon put it perfectly. If I, as a self-maximizing raider, have a choice between getting two items and one item, that's obviously going to be a massive factor in the choice of the content I play. That doesn't show that something's wrong with 25-mans. It shows that you get more items per person from the 10-man, and it shows that people like getting items. Neither of these are contentious propositions.

[Kevin]

You offer the example of "why do a 25 man when you could do 2 10 man instances in that time!!!!" but that argument still relies on the faulty idea that the instances need to be designed the same way they are now (because of the loot progression). But there is no reason why there can't be 10 player instances which take just as much time and effort as a 25 player instance. The only reason it's like that is because of loot progression.

ZA is harder than most of SSC in my opinion and took more attempts on most bosses to kill them for us too and we already had a bit of gear advantage on it compared to what we had when learning SSC. It's certainly harder than Mags and Gruul. So even with the progression stuff the way it is, I think it's been proven that a 10 man can be harder than a 25 man.

That being said I do actually find different enjoyment in the different sized raids. Recently I've had very little to do with organizing the runs I just get to go on them. There is less social interaction on the 25 man runs than the 10 man runs. That means that 25 man farm content is way more boring than 10 man farm content to me. 10 man learning and 25 man learning gave me pretty much the same enjoyment. Of course so did 5 man learning in heroic MgT and the PvP fight in heroic MgT is one of the best in the game since the 5 I have on my side has been different on pretty much every run as has the 5 I face. You have to do things differently every single time and you can generally tell pretty quickly if the plan was good or bad. I don't see much of that in 25 mans.

Mt Hyjal is one of my favorite instances though. I do actually like the trash, I do find it interesting. The bosses themselves aren't that great but they aren't bad, there is still enough of a dance to be fun. Of course since that mission in Warcraft III was by far my favorite single player (I replayed it several times and even managed to save the human town, so I saved all the towns) on the hardest difficulty. Nothing else in WoW has really connected with the RTS games that much for me since they were at best references to other things and way more static. But Mt. Hyjal puts you in the RTS missions from an MMO perspective and that gets it a lot of bonus points. The other stuff not so much.

But I get different things from teh 25 and 10 man raids and I do enjoy the 25 mans for the raiding itself. I would love to see a 25 man version of Karazhan bosses (though not the trash, too much trash in there). Some of the stuff that you can do knowing that you'll very likely have 2 of every class (which you don't on the 10 mans, yeah it was designed for 9 + 1, but not so much so that you suffer without it, ZA is a little harder if you deviate too much from 9 + 1) could be fun. Of course some of the Kara stuff shows up in some of the other 25 mans and honestly Aran is better than Solarian.

I do think 10 mans become easier to outgear and trivialize though. The 5K armor I picked up between my first tanking of Kara and what I have currently means a lot more there than it does vs Gruul or Mags. This is simply because 2 healers can't be expected to put out as much healing as 4 healers, the bosses can't hit quite as hard, they can't have quite as many HP. So that extra 400 DPS that a DPS toon picked up in gear means more too. It seems like it should all be a matter of scale but the game mechanics don't work that way.

But I'm fine with that. I'm quite happy that Karazhan went from a challenge in the blues and greens we started with in there to treating it like UBRS and undermanning it or taking alts and just not respecting the place but having a lot of fun because you are goofing with pals. It's hard to get that silly with 25 people, it's just too many people.

Dunno. I like what was announced. I figure we will concentrate on 10 mans. Often juggling stuff to make 2 successful locks but there might be nights where we have 23 or 25 people and then we might just go play in the 25 man version so everyone can be included. It makes a "friends and family" size guild capable of progression and seeing both sizes without really having to recruit.

[Kevin]

Or it could show that you are getting two and a half times more items from the ten-man. This is what I meant by the fallacy of "equal". If you put the same loot in both instances, merely by virtue of numbers, the ten-manners get more, even if the content is equally difficult and time consuming.

I'm not sure how you're misunderstanding the point, but Pantalaimon put it perfectly. If I, as a self-maximizing raider, have a choice between getting two items and one item, that's obviously going to be a massive factor in the choice of the content I play. That doesn't show that something's wrong with 25-mans. It shows that you get more items per person from the 10-man, and it shows that people like getting items. Neither of these are contentious propositions.

So if you get at least 2 drops from a 25 man boss and sometimes 3, but you only ever get 1 from a 10 man boss even if they have the same loot tables how does that work out? That should work out to the same rate of drops unless you end up on the extreme end of the curve for if you got 2 or 3 in the 25 man.

[Frag]

So if you get at least 2 drops from a 25 man boss and sometimes 3, but you only ever get 1 from a 10 man boss even if they have the same loot tables how does that work out?

From the info I've seen (which should not be taken as any more reliable than a blog...:rolleyes:) my best guess is that, e.g., the 10 man might drop 2 ilvl 200 epics, and then the 25 man would drop 5 225 ilvl epics. Thus, each raid is gaining ~20% of the member max (10/25) in drops, but the larger raid is going to be receiving slightly higher ilvl stuff for the challenge of cat-herding 25 people.

Peace,
~FragB)

[Chesspiece_face]

So if you get at least 2 drops from a 25 man boss and sometimes 3, but you only ever get 1 from a 10 man boss even if they have the same loot tables how does that work out? That should work out to the same rate of drops unless you end up on the extreme end of the curve for if you got 2 or 3 in the 25 man.

I suppose i didn't explicitly state this, but I meant to imply in my definition of "equal".

I do not feel that you should be able to go into a 10 man and get X amount of loot and have that be equal to the amount of loot that you would get in the 25 man version. Just that the Tier of loot should be the same. If you can get 10 loot drops in a 10 player you should get 25 in a 25 player (and even slightly more from the 25 allowing people that do the 25 to gear up a bit faster than would in the 10).

I feel that blizzard's solution to the "25 player raids require more social effort and frustration" by giving them stronger items has only compounded the problem. And the end result is a weapons race of loot. Not only do you have to deal with the inherant social issues of getting 25 people together but you also have to deal with the fact that many people are there not because they want to be, but just because it is the next stop for them on the loot train. I think this shows in the epic collapse of DnT which was linked above. If, however, you could alternatively gear up in the corresponding 10 player instances much of these added pressures would be alleviated. It would be much easier to transition people in and out of raiding so burnout would be less of an issue as well as the need to find new people to fill spots that are empty.

[Kevin]

From the info I've seen (which should not be taken as any more reliable than a blog...:rolleyes:) my best guess is that, e.g., the 10 man might drop 2 ilvl 200 epics, and then the 25 man would drop 5 225 ilvl epics. Thus, each raid is gaining ~20% of the member max (10/25) in drops, but the larger raid is going to be receiving slightly higher ilvl stuff for the challenge of cat-herding 25 people.

Peace,
~FragB)

Yeah that is what I've gathered as well and that the 2nd tier of 10 man will be dropping ilvl 225 (or whatever the first tier of 25 man was dropping). I don't actually have a problem with this either.

I was just wondering if I really did miss Skans point when I asked my question. I understand the powergamer mentality of optimization. I'm not that type of player but it does factor in. Everything else being equal I tend to go for the biggest gain when making choices. But for me social factors and other things tend to get a lot more weight than just what the gameplay itself has to offer. If the gameplay was a bigger factor I wouldn't be playing WoW anymore because honestly the gameplay is still relatively simple and I can get more challenge from several other games that I have. But WoW still offers stuff that I value that I can't easily get from other games.

All you need is a 5:2 ratio on loot drops and the same loot table to keep them even. If you assume the difficulty is the same between the 10 and 25 man on the gameplay level will that still have the power raiders not doing 25 man content? Is the social aspect that much. See I do still like 25 mans for social reasons. It's different than what I get on 10 mans but I do want it at times.

I don't mind that 25 mans offer bigger rewards. The issue with 25 mans is honestly do you know 24 other people that you always like to be around? Do you know 9? Do you know 4? It's not that the gameplay of the 25 mans isn't fun in and of itself. But you do have to play with others that aren't as fun as you might like. See I think Skan was saying this too. 25 man gameplay is not inherently unfun the overhead is. Should you get the extra joy of better loot for those extra headaches? Yeah I think you should. Should others who don't want to deal with those extra headaches be locked out of the content? No they shouldn't.

I'm fine with 25 mans getting extra stuff. As mentioned I like the idea of 10 and 25 man versions. I don't think 25's will die but I do think you'll see less guilds actively trying to stay in them and I do think that you might end up with more people in those guilds that really prefer the 25 man experience and aren't just there because it's the only way they can progress.

The problem with different loot tables though is that sometimes and ilvl 200 item might be better than an ilvl 225 because of how the budget was spent. I actually think if Blizzard feels they want to have lower ilvls and if they want people playing the content level that the person prefers and to avoid farming something they don't want just to get that best item and that if they do want to provide a little extra to those that they may just want to simple design the loot set and then just drop the ilvl down and shrink the stats a bit. The 25 man version would always be better then but will it be enough better to really annoy the players that much? Losing 5 stam, 2 agi, 3 AP, and 2 hit rating is clearly a worse item for a rogue but are you going to really feel that the extra work of a 25 man is worth it to get that much of an upgrade? Some might, some might not. I don't know. And then if you get in the 25 man and the same item drops it will still be an upgrade for you, just not as big.

Yeah it still leaves a clear 5 - 10 - 25 man path, but I'm OK with that. 25 mans will always require more effort to make work but that doesn't mean they aren't fun. 10 mans require more effort than 5 mans. Even if the content is the same difficulty. But I don't want people that really prefer 25 mans feeling they need to farm a 10 man (or even an old 25 man like with the DST) to get an upgrade. I don't want people that prefer 10 mans to feel that some super itemized item will never be available to them. At least they'll get something pretty darn close. I don't want the power gamers to not have something that is clearing better for them to powergame for. They pay their monthly fee, if they should have that carrot to chase.

So I wasn't advocating total equal loot. I do advocate difficult 10 mans though the first tier of raids, and I do like 3 or 4 tiers, should be easier but same for the 25 mans. I do advocate equivalent loot. I feel look should be balanced around how hard it is to get and that includes the non in game aspects like organization. MgT loot I feel should be better than Shattered Halls loot because MgT is harder to finish. I'm fine with stuff like that. I also don't mind a few mostly pinatas to help smooth gearing curves and get late adopters caught up a bit in case they want to transition.

Finally I feel Blizzard recognizes the end of life is coming to WoW. Scaling back and making things easier to get for what is probably going to be a shrinking player base by the end of the expansion life cycle isn't a bad idea.

[Skandranon]

I suppose i didn't explicitly state this, but I meant to imply in my definition of "equal".

Which is fine, except that it's not what Dave Sirlin means by equal. When he talks about scaling down to 5/2/1 and getting the same rewards, it's clear to me that by equal he means same, while by equal you mean proportionate. Obviously I agree that proportionate is the right way to go.

The problem I have with Sirlin's argument is that he makes the logical leap from "there's a version that is easier to organize and one that is more work" to "one is fun and the other is unfun". I could use the rules for any two games I want; if you feel tic-tac-toe is overly trivializing, perhaps checkers and chess? The point I think we can all agree on is that sometimes fun things are more work and a little harder and it does not make them unfun.

More than that, he makes a terrible argument in assuming that people are either motivated by loot or intrinsic value in large-scale raids, whereas people are generally motivated by both in 10-man raids - a ridiculous double standard. Can't I like 25-man raiding and like the loot I get from it? Not according to Sirlin. He doesn't even address the idea that people might prefer 25-man raiding with proportionate loot. When he says something's wrong with 25-mans, he sets up the situation so that defenders of 25-mans have to justify continuing them when they provide no or less loot (and if people don't do 25 mans despite getting less stuff, something's wrong with 25 mans). The flaw in his argument is obvious.

I do not feel that you should be able to go into a 10 man and get X amount of loot and have that be equal to the amount of loot that you would get in the 25 man version. Just that the Tier of loot should be the same. If you can get 10 loot drops in a 10 player you should get 25 in a 25 player (and even slightly more from the 25 allowing people that do the 25 to gear up a bit faster than would in the 10).

That's a perfectly valid point of view to take. On the other hand, note that once you're making this argument, you're into a different kind of discussion altogether. You're no longer discussing whether it is right or not to give 25-mans more (which Sirlin is; he claims that giving 25-mans more implicitly implies inferiority, just as giving 10 mans more than solo content presumably does), but only arguing about the mechanics of how Blizzard is giving 25-mans more. That's a major difference; you've gone from principle to practice. Blizzard has a certain idea of how much is proportional, and yours disagrees, but again, this is quite different from Sirlin's post which is not a proportionality discussion.

I feel that blizzard's solution to the "25 player raids require more social effort and frustration" by giving them stronger items has only compounded the problem. And the end result is a weapons race of loot. Not only do you have to deal with the inherant social issues of getting 25 people together but you also have to deal with the fact that many people are there not because they want to be, but just because it is the next stop for them on the loot train. I think this shows in the epic collapse of DnT which was linked above.

Okay, I have to stop you here. This isn't an argument I prefer to deploy often, but unless you've been in a high end, bleeding-edge raiding guild, you really have no idea what the social situation within them is like. DnT's collapse had nothing to do with loot and it certainly wasn't because people didn't want to be there. It was 100% about ego, which is a problem that is magnified in higher end guilds not because of the gear, but because of relative position and expectations. To assert that DnT's death was because of loot is to fall into the stereotypical trap, as Dave Sirlin does, of assuming all high-end raiders (or an overwhelming majority) hate the game and raiding and are there only for loot. Nothing could be further from the truth, but non high-end raiders take it as such gospel that they merely assert it and do not offer arguments in its support, as Sirlin does in his article. Don't believe it.

[Mavfin]

To assert that DnT's death was because of loot is to fall into the stereotypical trap, as Dave Sirlin does, of assuming all high-end raiders (or an overwhelming majority) hate the game and raiding and are there only for loot. Nothing could be further from the truth, but non high-end raiders take it as such gospel that they merely assert it and do not offer arguments in its support, as Sirlin does in his article. Don't believe it.

I understand your point perfectly, Skan, and, like GG, I have no problem with a tier higher loot for 25-mans vs 10-mans. However, there's a lot of high-end raiders who whined horribly on EJ about 10-mans even getting to see the same content, and get even 1 tier lower loot than them, the 'elite' raiders. It's those people who make the rest of you look bad, really. Sure, Skan, I know who you are, and more or less what you're about. I at least have a passing acquaintance with some of your guild members, so I know they're not all assholes. Just Gort, if he's still there. :P (Hi, Gort! I was just kidding!). Anyway, the proposed system as it is makes good sense to me. And, I'll admit that with the 25-man raids getting a tier better loot, those loot-whores I mentioned won't be in my 10-man raids. I'll be happy to take a little less to keep them out of my hair.

[Skandranon]

I understand your point perfectly, Skan, and, like GG, I have no problem with a tier higher loot for 25-mans vs 10-mans. However, there's a lot of high-end raiders who whined horribly on EJ about 10-mans even getting to see the same content, and get even 1 tier lower loot than them, the 'elite' raiders. It's those people who make the rest of you look bad, really. Sure, Skan, I know who you are, and more or less what you're about. I at least have a passing acquaintance with some of your guild members, so I know they're not all assholes. Just Gort, if he's still there. :P (Hi, Gort! I was just kidding!). Anyway, the proposed system as it is makes good sense to me. And, I'll admit that with the 25-man raids getting a tier better loot, those loot-whores I mentioned won't be in my 10-man raids. I'll be happy to take a little less to keep them out of my hair.

Frankly, I'm not even convinced that a tier better loot is necessarily the best solution, but I think it's a discussion worth having. It's Dave Sirlin I'm really irritated at. He's a respected game designer, and a pretty good one, but if you look at what he's done and shipped, it's clear that none of it actually qualifies him to comment on MMOs. It doesn't stop him from trying to push his irrelevant Street Fighter metaphors where they have no business being. His first article on what WoW teaches was ridiculous nonsense, and he's clearly come no further since then. His argument is full of holes and contradictions, and as usual he displays absolutely no understanding of the constraints that apply to a live development team that needs to push content out regularly. His recipe is endgame for all sizes up to 10 and elimination of 25-man raids, which displays a clear ignorance of the purpose of maximum-limit raiding within a fantasy MMO.

[Chesspiece_face]

.
That's a perfectly valid point of view to take. On the other hand, note that once you're making this argument, you're into a different kind of discussion altogether. You're no longer discussing whether it is right or not to give 25-mans more (which Sirlin is; he claims that giving 25-mans more implicitly implies inferiority, just as giving 10 mans more than solo content presumably does), but only arguing about the mechanics of how Blizzard is giving 25-mans more. That's a major difference; you've gone from principle to practice. Blizzard has a certain idea of how much is proportional, and yours disagrees, but again, this is quite different from Sirlin's post which is not a proportionality discussion.

Actually that is exactly what his argument is:

Sirlin Says:

May 15th, 2008 at 5:52 am
What I’m saying is no more or less content. As a 25-man raid participant, we’d expect you to spend X hours to get Y sword. In a 10-man raid, I’d also expect you to spend X hours to get Y sword. This is not less content, that has nothing to do with anything. You might also say “but it’s hard to balance those two things to be equal.” Yeah it is. But I suggest trying, rather than committing to a 1 tier difference automatically, before you’re even out of the gate.

I think you also misread what Sirlin meant as "more".

Edit: As far as i can tell Sirlin's argument is the same as mine. If blizzard truly believes in an inclusive design than there is no reason to differentiate loot quality between group size. Obviously the amount of loot you get from a certain size group should scale, but there is no reason that the Tier in quality should have to grow with the size of your group.

[Taelas]

There's a different aspect to the difficulty in a 25-man as compared to a 10-man than the organizing.

The more players you have, the more difficult coordination within an encounter becomes. If the encounter's difficulty relies on that coordination, it cannot be directly translated to a lesser-sized group. The encounter has to be significantly revised.

Assuming that Blizzard can successfully revise every encounter to keep the same difficulty in a 25-man as in a 10-man is a stretch, frankly.

That, combined with the problems involved in organizing 25 people compared to 10, more than justifies the "roughly one tier" of quality the 25-man raids will have over the 10-mans, at least in my eyes.

[Monkey]

There's a different aspect to the difficulty in a 25-man as compared to a 10-man than the organizing.

The more players you have, the more difficult coordination within an encounter becomes. If the encounter's difficulty relies on that coordination, it cannot be directly translated to a lesser-sized group. The encounter has to be significantly revised.

Assuming that Blizzard can successfully revise every encounter to keep the same difficulty in a 25-man as in a 10-man is a stretch, frankly.

That, combined with the problems involved in organizing 25 people compared to 10, more than justifies the "roughly one tier" of quality the 25-man raids will have over the 10-mans, at least in my eyes.

The lionshare of that increase in difficulty is on frequently on the raid and guild leaders. What about people who are there to (as an example) to do their DPS, get their DKP (or loot) and go home? External forces being equal (i.e., time, consumables) do the "grunts" deserve an extra tier for getting into right raid guild? Do they deserve an extra tier for being on a farm run with the right raid guild 3 months after that boss was first killed?

There should be extra rewards for being at the edge of content--The first raid (or 3 or some other limit) that clears a raid instance should get shiny things and titles and their choice of unique items. Perhaps there could be more bear-mount type challenges. And maybe Raid Leaders or Guild Leaders could be compensated in some impressive but non-character-power way by Blizzard.

But it needs to have a limit or specific targeting. The problem with giving all 25-man raids a higher tier of gear than 10-man raids is that the effective difference-in-difficulty isn't uniform across all raiders (or as time passes), but the rewards remain uniformly better.

[Taelas]

The lionshare of that increase in difficulty is on frequently on the raid and guild leaders.

What gives you that idea?

Let's say five people have different tasks. They each have a 99% chance of completing their own. The chance for overall success is .99^5 ~ .9510, or 95.10%.

25 people increase this to .99^25 ~ .7778, or 77.78%.

Make those tasks complex, and the chance of success drops like a rock for all involved.

Would Blizzard make an encounter where 25 people have to complete complex tasks? Probably not. But then, they wouldn't make 10-man encounters where 10 people have to complete complex tasks, either.

[--Pete]

Hi,

Frankly, I have no stake in this discussion, being a complete newbie in WoW. However, when I see an example of mathematics being tortured, I must speak out. Lets start with:

Make those tasks complex, and the chance of success drops like a rock for all involved.

Would Blizzard make an encounter where 25 people have to complete complex tasks? Probably not. But then, they wouldn't make 10-man encounters where 10 people have to complete complex tasks, either.

If complex tasks are not an issue, then why bring up complex tasks at all? Did you just happen to have an extra red herring around? But to go one step further, the complexity of a task is only slightly related to the probability of success. Simple example; dancing a waltz is more complicated than walking a tightrope, yet the probability of failure in the population at large and with equal amounts of instruction is very likely greater for the tightrope.

Let's say five people have different tasks. They each have a 99% chance of completing their own. The chance for overall success is .99^5 ~ .9510, or 95.10%.

25 people increase this to .99^25 ~ .7778, or 77.78%.

Let's say five people have the same task. They each have a 20% chance of completing it. The chance for overall success (i.e., the task getting completed at least once) is 1-(1-.2)^5 ~ 67.23%.

25 people increase this to 1-(1-.2)^25 ~ 99.62%.

OK, these results are just as meaningless as yours. Together they represent some kind of boundaries between the cases of everyone having the same task and each person having a different task. Just where raids fall on that continuum is not clear to me, and probably wouldn't be if I'd done four raids a day since beta. And of course, the numbers for probability of success have been plucked out of thin air (not my first thought, but I'm trying to be nice).

Final point and summary: this really isn't a question of mathematics. Pick your conclusion, generate your premises and it is all meaningless. Aside from that, the overall discussion is very interesting.

--Pete

[Taelas]

Hi,

Frankly, I have no stake in this discussion, being a complete newbie in WoW. However, when I see an example of mathematics being tortured, I must speak out. Lets start with:

<_<Tortured?

If complex tasks are not an issue, then why bring up complex tasks at all?

I didn't say it wasn't an issue. I said it wouldn't be done for 25 people at once.

But to go one step further, the complexity of a task is only slightly related to the probability of success. Simple example; dancing a waltz is more complicated than walking a tightrope, yet the probability of failure in the population at large and with equal amounts of instruction is very likely greater for the tightrope.

It is still related.

And I wouldn't immediately agree that the chance of success is greater with the waltz than the tightrope with equal amounts of instruction.

Let's say five people have the same task. They each have a 20% chance of completing it. The chance for overall success (i.e., the task getting completed at least once) is 1-(1-.2)^5 ~ 67.23%.

25 people increase this to 1-(1-.2)^25 ~ 99.62%.

OK, these results are just as meaningless as yours.

:huh:

This has literally nothing to do with what I was talking about. I specifically said they had different tasks. Obviously it will not apply when they have the same task... though I have never heard about any encounter where different raid members are working to achieve a goal and only one has to succeed -- except for healing and to a lesser extent, dealing damage. This is not a problem when considering the shift between 10 and 25-man raids, as it's solved simply by scaling down the healing and damage required.

Together they represent some kind of boundaries between the cases of everyone having the same task and each person having a different task. Just where raids fall on that continuum is not clear to me, and probably wouldn't be if I'd done four raids a day since beta. And of course, the numbers for probability of success have been plucked out of thin air (not my first thought, but I'm trying to be nice).

The situations I am talking about exists. The situations you are talking about do not. Magtheridon comes to mind, as do the Four Horsemen. The only way to reduce the complexity of these fights is to change the encounter.