25 person max raid size for expansion

[Sword_of_Doom]

Try - not even close. Try - no good weapons for a lvl 60, except basically unattainable GM weapons. Shall I continue? Besides, what makes you think that raiders deserve items that are so much better than non-raiders? 3/4 of a 40 man raid presses 2 buttons and at best knows how to follow directions and NOTHING ELSE. If you join a guild that has even ZG on farming status (and that's basically all semi-established guilds on semi-established servers), you will get better gear in a week than someone who does not raid and who plays 24/7 for a year.
-A

I am going to attempt to describe to you a fight in Naxxramas, Maexxna, from a Mage and Priest perspective(i have the rare ability to play 2 characters in a Tier 3 zone. Its a long story so i won't get into if you are curious why)

Priest perspective
Maexxna is a large spider at the end of the Spider Wing in Naxxramas. There are multiple things going on in this fight that involve multiple groups. My role as a Priest is wall healing. One of the abilities of Maexxna is to randomly throw 3 people on her spider web (takes up about half the room) at set times. I say random because other than the MT, Maexxna can grab any of the other 39 and throw them on the wall. Now the placement on the wall can be anywhere you see web. Sometimes there are line of sight issues. So i have my game camera pulled as far out as possible to scan the wall. Generally we set it up so we have 4 healers on Wall duty so that there is no gap in coverage. The people on the wall are web wrapped and that web wrap does tick damage until they are dead. Usually you only have a short amount of time to kill the web wrap and get them off the wall. So we usually have Hunters and Warlocks with the healers taking people off the wall (i think the web wrap is about 6k or so of HP). My job is to try to get a PW: S on them as well as renews and Flash heals. If i have to heal 2 people or even 3 people on the wall then decisions have to made. Generally i heal cloth first and then leather, mail and Plate. I also have to move in range of my group because every 45 seconds (i could be wrong on the time) the whole raid gets web wrapped taking 2000 damage each. Its quite important i get a Prayer of Heal off before i go back on wall duty so everyone is healed up. If i miss somebody and they get tossed on the wall they DIE. This is one of the most fun and hectic fight i have experienced in WoW. There are multiple things going on with multiple choices. I am CLEARLY NOT JUST CLICKING TWO BUTTONS and calling it a day. My decisions are important and i take great pride in keeping everyone alive on the Web wall.

Mage Perspective
Being able to play a characters with offensive and defensive abilities has given me somewhat of a unique look at this game. I love playing a Mage on the Maexxna fight just as much as my Priest. Maexxna has many abilities with some described in the Priest summary. But my duty as a Mage is to DPS Maexxna as well as take care of spider adds. At set times from the belly of Maexxna a number of spider adds are dropped onto the raid. You only have about 5 or 6 seconds to kill them because after those 5 or 6 seconds the whole raid is web wrapped for 3 or 4 seconds and takes 2000 damage each. If there is a loose spider add they generally go to the healers and kill them. So generally i have my V button clicked to bring up name plates and i wait until the spider adds are dropped from Maexxna's belly. Once they are dropped i frost nova, Cone of Cold and then Arcane Explosion them. Sometimes i need to move around to catch one that has somehow managed to get outside of the AE. Then i go back to DPS'ing Maexxna. My Mage is definitely not as active as my Priest on this encounter but my job still is important and can be stressful.

Ashock, i don't mean to be mean but you have very little comprehension of what goes on in high level raid encounters. Yes Molten Bore you can auto follow someone and wake up 3 hours later at Ragnaros fire a couple of frost bolts and call it a day. But in AQ40, Twin Emps and beyond, and any encounter in Naxxramas you will kill your entire raid if you are not concentrating and participating.

I will agree with you that if Blizzard designed epic encounters like the Hunter quest or the Priest quest that involve epic items and can be soloed those would be great additions to the game. I am not opposed to casual players getting great gear for effort put in. What i am opposed to is someone who only wants to take 15 minutes to do a quest that involves getting an epic item. Raiding involves massive amounts of time, skill and consumables and should equal a massive reward. Of all the solo and 5 man quests i have done, only the Priest epic quest involved me getting consumables and such to beat it. Every other small group quest i have just had the basics.

Effort/Skill should equal quality reward.
No effort and no skill should equal crappy reward.

If Blizzard could somehow come up with quests that involved 1 person, 5 people, 10 people, 15 people, 25 people or 40 people that used the criteria above i think there would be very little complaining. I am not sure why they have only implemented Hunter and Priest epic quests. Those were fairly hard and involved time, effort, skill and consumables.

[Ashock]

So convenient. You debase everything raiders do, but when faced with a retort in kind it's all one-sided.

I just have one question: why is it that, for raiding, it's always just "two button" "three buttons", or whatever, and "follows directions"? It never matters what you're actually doing, everyone always just says it's "follows directions". Amazing what a catch-all it's been made out to be.

Also? Don't base all raiding on early raiding experiences. What a player does during raiding is a much different beast than it used to be.

I don't understand something. I realized that I am beating a dead horse. I decided to stop beating it. You have a problem with that? Anyway, with the upcoming changes to raiding AND PvP structures, the above arguments are pretty moot. Let's just say this. It will allow raids of a smaller size and that will really show who is pulling their weight and who is just along for the ride. More importantly for me, PvP and PvE will be separated more by skill than by gear. At least that is what is sounds like with the new PvP structure. It sounds like the days of epic'ed out and often clueless players getting into BGs and owning those who are mostly blue are at an end, and frankly that is close to all I care about. If you will keep your itAms outside of BGs, I don't really give a rat's behind, and the info provided (getting points toward new gear and PvP teams) leads me to believe that it will be the case.


-A

[Ashock]

Duplicate

[Quark]

I don't understand something. I realized that I am beating a dead horse. I decided to stop beating it. You have a problem with that?

No, the problem was that you "realized" it as soon as someone turned the tables on you, not a second before.

I've had this argument with other people about completely different subjects. You cannot be negative about something, be called on it, and then instantly say "Okay, I'm done". You're trying to make it look like you're taking the high road for an argument you started.

[Ashock]

I am going to attempt to describe to you a fight in Naxxramas, Maexxna, from a Mage and Priest perspective(i have the rare ability to play 2 characters in a Tier 3 zone. Its a long story so i won't get into if you are curious why)

Ashock, i don't mean to be mean but you have very little comprehension of what goes on in high level raid encounters. Yes Molten Bore you can auto follow someone and wake up 3 hours later at Ragnaros fire a couple of frost bolts and call it a day. But in AQ40, Twin Emps and beyond, and any encounter in Naxxramas you will kill your entire raid if you are not concentrating and participating.

I will agree with you that if Blizzard designed epic encounters like the Hunter quest or the Priest quest that involve epic items and can be soloed those would be great additions to the game. I am not opposed to casual players getting great gear for effort put in. What i am opposed to is someone who only wants to take 15 minutes to do a quest that involves getting an epic item. Raiding involves massive amounts of time, skill and consumables and should equal a massive reward. Of all the solo and 5 man quests i have done, only the Priest epic quest involved me getting consumables and such to beat it. Every other small group quest i have just had the basics.

Effort/Skill should equal quality reward.
No effort and no skill should equal crappy reward.

If Blizzard could somehow come up with quests that involved 1 person, 5 people, 10 people, 15 people, 25 people or 40 people that used the criteria above i think there would be very little complaining. I am not sure why they have only implemented Hunter and Priest epic quests. Those were fairly hard and involved time, effort, skill and consumables.

*Sigh* ok, just to clear this up. I never said that non-raiders should have gear equal to raiders. I did say that even those who raid ZG for a week with an established guild, will have better items than those that do not raid for a year. I never said that non-raiders should have gear equal to the let's say AQ40 + club. However, to not even be on par with ZG? You know that it is the case. Why do you people purposely avoid the point that the gera gap is not just there, but it is of cosmic proportions? I can run URBS for 50 years and I will still have a 41 DPS 1-hander as my top DPS 1-hander and no other DPS items (well almost). I will run ZG for a week and I will auto-upgrade to close to 50 DPS 1-hander and a host of other semi-decent purps. Same thing goes for Exalted in the BGs. Blue 1-handers and 1 TUF which equals the best 2-H ZG sword. One ring. Once we start considering MC, which many ppl do while being half-asleep, the gap suddenly gets huge. See, if you could get MC-type items in 5-10 man's (which require full participation from EVERYONE), I would have no problems. You guys choose to only concentrate on the hardest raids when debating me, because you know that you can offer arguments which I do not even touch upon and you can't offer those to those I am talking about. I never wanted Naxx or AQ40 or even BWL loot. I just want something better than lvl 58-60 blues.


However, as I've said.... The BC should fix at least some of these issues, so it's a moot point. You guys will have to adjust to the way things are going to be soon enough.


-A

[Delc]

See, if you could get MC-type items in 5-10 man's (which require full participation from EVERYONE), I would have no problems.

The tier .5 stuff is as good or better than many items from MC.

[Ashock]

No, the problem was that you "realized" it as soon as someone turned the tables on you, not a second before.

I've had this argument with other people about completely different subjects. You cannot be negative about something, be called on it, and then instantly say "Okay, I'm done". You're trying to make it look like you're taking the high road for an argument you started.

No one turned the tables on me. They simply did not address my points and tried to go around them. See below (Edit: above). That made me realize that I've seen too many of these arguments in the past and have no desire for another one. Since you people decided to NOT let it go, I posted additional replies.

Oh and btw, I as you put it started the "argument" by inserting the word "CRAPPY" to casual epics. That is all. You want to argue that they are not crappy?

-A

[Ashock]

The tier .5 stuff is as good or better than many items from MC.

Some is. Boots and Plate are not bad and that is all. Rings/Ammys are not even in it. Neither are weapons. Next.


-A

[Tuftears]

Just a quick comment.. The Darkmoon Faire necklace with +10 str, +19 agility, and +10 sta is uber for druids. For a warrior, it's like +20 AP, +1% crit. For a rogue, it's +29 AP, +1% crit. For a hunter, it's +38 RAP, +0.4% crit. All a matter of perspective.

For the 25-max-raid-size, I think it will be an interesting challenge to figure out. I do think we in the Avarice Alliance will have to pursue several raidlocks, and likely they will be Pacific/Eastern divided.

[Ashock]

Just a quick comment.. The Darkmoon Faire necklace with +10 str, +19 agility, and +10 sta is uber for druids. For a warrior, it's like +20 AP, +1% crit. For a rogue, it's +29 AP, +1% crit. For a hunter, it's +38 RAP, +0.4% crit. All a matter of perspective.

For the 25-max-raid-size, I think it will be an interesting challenge to figure out. I do think we in the Avarice Alliance will have to pursue several raidlocks, and likely they will be Pacific/Eastern divided.

How long would it take to mindlessly farm for the items for the neck? How long would it take to raid for something at least as good or better, without going past MC? In any case, the day when I start farming for the Darkmoon neck, is the day that I ask my wife to shoot me.

And yes, many guilds will break up over this when BC comes out. Should be interesting.


-A

[vor_lord]

How long would it take to mindlessly farm for the items for the neck? How long would it take to raid for something at least as good or better, without going past MC?

I believe it's comparable time-wise. I've been running ZG since Feb. and some AQ20, as well as MC for 3 months. I still do not have an epic necklace for my class as good as the DMF necklace. I'm still wearing blues there.

[Sword_of_Doom]

How long would it take to mindlessly farm for the items for the neck? How long would it take to raid for something at least as good or better, without going past MC? In any case, the day when I start farming for the Darkmoon neck, is the day that I ask my wife to shoot me.

And yes, many guilds will break up over this when BC comes out. Should be interesting.
-A

I raid 20 hours a week. So far i have been in Naxx 2 months and have received 1 item. So i have put in approximately 160 hours. Naxx bosses drop 1 set piece and i misc. piece. The 4 end wing bosses drop 2 set pieces and 1 misc. piece. We have 7 bosses on farm and get 8 set pieces and 7 misc. pieces a week. Thats 15 pieces divided up among 40+raiders. At best i will get something once per month for about 80 hours of raiding. All the while it probably costs me 60 gold a week in repair costs and another 60 gold in consumables. I easily spend 100 gold a week on raiding and probably more. So for 80 hours of time and 400 gold i get 1 Tier 3 piece a month. Are casuals willing to do solo quests that involve that time, effort, skill and dedication. Raiding is not out of whack to the reward you get for the time effort skill and dedication. I raid because i like the people and i love the challenge of the encounters. I am likely not to get my full Tier 3 set before the expansion. My guess is i will be 4/9.

The big mistake Blizzard has made is there is no other way of advancing your character apart from rep grinds or gear grinds. The gap between casuals and raiders is not merely time, its the willingness to spend the gold and endure endless wipes to get the reward. I have been on countless PuG's that have quit either at Rend or before Drakkisath becuase we wiped. I have seen Baron runs fall apart because of a wipe. Unfortunately MMO's are not entirely devoted to casuals even though WoW is by far and away the most casual MMO in history. Everquest was a hardcore wet dream but a casual nightmare. At least WoW has gameplay elements that all can enjoy.

I don't think it will ever be solved, its impossible. Casuals have the desire to get something that will never involve time and i don't think any MMO maker wants to cater to much to that because that means creating endless content. MMO's are based on timesinks, its the only way for repetitive play. WoW is casual friendly.

[Lissa]

No one turned the tables on me. They simply did not address my points and tried to go around them. See below (Edit: above). That made me realize that I've seen too many of these arguments in the past and have no desire for another one. Since you people decided to NOT let it go, I posted additional replies.

Oh and btw, I as you put it started the "argument" by inserting the word "CRAPPY" to casual epics. That is all. You want to argue that they are not crappy?

-A

They most certainly did. You made the claim about pushing a couple buttons and then someone said that there was far more to the encounters than pushing a couple buttons. As soon as they proved you wrong, you basically said screw it, it's not worth arguing. The fact is, you made the comparison and you got called on it.

[Warlock]

Some of the later raid fights are very hard indeed. Some raid fights are very easy. Even the easy ones give better loot than the hardest 5-man content - no matter how skilled or dedicated a small group player is, they're never going to get anything even equal to tier 1 (by ilvl; some raid epics have poor enough stat distribution that lower lever items as as good). I have no objection to hard content giving better rewards than easy content; I object to easy content of one playstyle giving better rewards than hard content of another and to the lack of new content for other playstyles. (And no, buying icecream for an orphan isn't going to hold my attention for long. That it gets included as a entry in a list of the new non-raid content we've had since release shows how bad things have been.)

Hopefully, that will change with the expansion. If not, there are games coming that won't force raiding. It's inclusion in the game for those people that enjoy it is a good thing but those that don't shouldn't have to do it in order to be competitive in other parts of the game.

[Kjartan]

Some of the later raid fights are very hard indeed. Some raid fights are very easy. Even the easy ones give better loot than the hardest 5-man content - no matter how skilled or dedicated a small group player is, they're never going to get anything even equal to tier 1 (by ilvl; some raid epics have poor enough stat distribution that lower lever items as as good). I have no objection to hard content giving better rewards than easy content; I object to easy content of one playstyle giving better rewards than hard content of another and to the lack of new content for other playstyles. (And no, buying icecream for an orphan isn't going to hold my attention for long. That it gets included as a entry in a list of the new non-raid content we've had since release shows how bad things have been.)

Even the most hardcore of hardcores and casual of casuals in my guild agree that the gear and progression gap between those who raid and those who don't is a problem that exists. The problem though isn't that raiders get better rewards, but that the non-raiders haven't gotten significant amounts of progession content. If they had just tossed in a 5man or 10man sometime during the last year the whole divide would probably be less and more managable.

From the sounds of it the expansion will be different with each play style having its own form up progression. For those who PvP there will be rewards based on how often you play, not based on playing the most. Sure those who can play all day long will still have the edge, but they won't perpetually getting further and further ahead as everyone else taking part will upgrade.

For the instances I hope they put the difficulty level to good use to make it so even PuGs can experience all the content, but not get quite the rewards the more organized guilds can obtain. I am kind of hoping eachraid zone has an Epic set for the Hard setting, and a semi Rare/Epic set for (Tier 0.5 like) Easy setting, with a corresponding 5man with green/blue and all blue sets. Sure everyone will still want the full epic set, but at least everyone has an option to progress based on their time and skill and won't have a large part of the population stuck in ilvl 55-60 blues with a smaller part in ilvl 80-90 epics.

Overall I think the expansion will give the majority a way to progress regardless of their prefered playstyle. Some people will still be unhappy, but with so many million customers there is no way to please them all.

The change to 25 man from 40 man raids will still be trying on many guilds, but in the long run will probably just be a bump in the road for most of the guilds that survive, or just see a surge in new guilds being created from the remains of failed guilds or players who choose to move on from their current guilds.

[Kevin]

I raid 20 hours a week. So far i have been in Naxx 2 months and have received 1 item. So i have put in approximately 160 hours. Naxx bosses drop 1 set piece and i misc. piece. The 4 end wing bosses drop 2 set pieces and 1 misc. piece. We have 7 bosses on farm and get 8 set pieces and 7 misc. pieces a week. Thats 15 pieces divided up among 40+raiders. At best i will get something once per month for about 80 hours of raiding. All the while it probably costs me 60 gold a week in repair costs and another 60 gold in consumables. I easily spend 100 gold a week on raiding and probably more. So for 80 hours of time and 400 gold i get 1 Tier 3 piece a month. Are casuals willing to do solo quests that involve that time, effort, skill and dedication. Raiding is not out of whack to the reward you get for the time effort skill and dedication. I raid because i like the people and i love the challenge of the encounters. I am likely not to get my full Tier 3 set before the expansion. My guess is i will be 4/9.

The big mistake Blizzard has made is there is no other way of advancing your character apart from rep grinds or gear grinds. The gap between casuals and raiders is not merely time, its the willingness to spend the gold and endure endless wipes to get the reward. I have been on countless PuG's that have quit either at Rend or before Drakkisath becuase we wiped. I have seen Baron runs fall apart because of a wipe. Unfortunately MMO's are not entirely devoted to casuals even though WoW is by far and away the most casual MMO in history. Everquest was a hardcore wet dream but a casual nightmare. At least WoW has gameplay elements that all can enjoy.

I don't think it will ever be solved, its impossible. Casuals have the desire to get something that will never involve time and i don't think any MMO maker wants to cater to much to that because that means creating endless content. MMO's are based on timesinks, its the only way for repetitive play. WoW is casual friendly.

I have to agree with pretty much all of this. The big mistake especially.

I have had more fun with the Dungeon 2 upgrade line than most other things in the game. The big problem though is that it came out after my druid had all of T1, my warrior had 5/8 T1 and 3/8 T2. My paladin was in 4/8 T1 and within about a month of those quests being an option was in 7/8 T1 making pretty much all those items more or less worthless to them, the only reason to do the quests would be to do them. I also had easy access to on farm ZG, AQ20, MC, and BWL. Time to reward for the Dungeon 2 stuff was very low.

The one good thing for me was my hunter was actually wearing a mix of Dungeon 1 and the DM "set". We had just started to get into ZG and AQ20. MC was not on the radar. Much of ZG was still in a learning state. So that was the toon that I did the upgrades on and it was great. The gear level made some of it challenging, it gave direction to our smaller guild, it gave a lot of fun, it gave good rewards. Figuring out the 45 minute baron run was a blast. We got our first guild member up to needing Lord Valthalak recently (I've done my first 'random' summons and need to do the 2nd before getting the bracers). We tried him pretty late last night (11pm to 1 am across the 3 time zones we had players from) with a group mix that I don't think was very good for the encounter. Most of us had no clue at all to the encounter because we didn't want to know. Two people in the 10 man raid had looked at what was on WoWwiki. It was great, I look forward to more of it. I had more fun on that than I did learning MC. Mainly because I prefer the smaller groups. Of course for me personally since we are in MC now and working on Rags and I've got 5/8 of my T1 and since we are killing Ony now as well the Dungeon 2 set isn't helpful. That is not the case for all classes though. Our shaman are a great example where the Dungeon 2 set is going to be better for them for a lot of what they do (we still do a lot of 5 mans and the shaman aren't always healers even in ZG and MC) than T1.

So even though some of the issue was addressed, the fact that if you can get the organization in place for 40 people, you rapidly make the value of what has been added diminish. Heck for some classes the ZG and AQ20 stuff is better than MC, even for the primary roles. This I think is good and Blizzard needs to do more of it. Those 2 dungeons really are an alternative to MC for smaller groups. And it was great getting to learn them. It was just as much fun to go in and learn how to defeat Arlokk with a group in Dungeon 1 Set / Dire Maul blues as it was to learn MC that way. It really pretty much felt the same. That group got big enough to go hit MC now, and we progressed very fast in MC in part because we were learning MC in essentially MC gear, and in part because of the experience from learning ZG and AQ20, and finally in part because we did use outside resources.

This of course means that the effort to reward ratio for the people that don't get to play as much or simply weren't at 60 yet when all this started isn't the same as for those who did the learning. I've seen a warrior from one of our allied guilds who can't tank go from blue/green to mostly epic in just a few weeks by being there for our farming stuff. This is the problem that Ashock is getting at. This player wasn't actually skilled enough in my mind to be able to even get the Dungeon 2 set, because a warrior not pulling his weight in a 5 man where you don't have anyone with any epics other than maybe a darkmoon item or the other Dungeon 2 set items isn't going to help you get through it in time. And of course you and Skan correctly argue that these people will complain and want something for nothing. I agree with both sides. I don't like the fact tha it is easy for someone to leech from other and sleepwalk into their epics. Once you figure out MC, it's very simple to just take 20-30 people that know what they are doing, add in 10-20 others that can be pretty much completely clueless and suddenly you have uber geared completely unskilled toons out there. The 20-30 will put up with the 10-20 because they contribute enough that it makes the whole thing easier for them.

This then destroys the PvP world where the best skilled player in the best gear that you can get without setting foot in to ZG/AQ20 or any 40 man, can pretty much get owned by some noob hunter in T1 with a Striker's Mark or Blastershot (I figure this noob couldn't get the quests done to get Rhok). Even if you get the blue PvP stuff for many classes it just isn't as good. And as mentioned the weapons, the equipment that makes the biggest difference, are just not there at all for even dedicated PvP'ers.

So yeah for my part, I really hope they do have epic difficulty 5 mans. AQ40 with the Twin Emps finally showed my a 40 man where, if you consider appropriate gearing, you needed the whole party to be on their toes as much as a 5 man (again consider appropriate gearing). This is a good thing. But honestly I'd rather have the epic stuff in 5 or 10 man sizes (I think 10 mans are my ideal size). I really hope TBC delivers on this. I hope that if you spend 4 months learning and dealing with a 5 man that you can get as much reward as the 4 months learning and dealing with the 25 man that is the same difficulty.

[Thecla]

I know this isn't really your point, but there's few people that have an issue with 25 as being too small. It's that it came too late, because everyone built themselves around 40.

Well, I can indeed understand that people who have devoted so much time to WoW may have an issue with that; and as I said it's really not my place to comment, since I was frankly relieved to quit the game. But, for myself anyway, any game that requires building yourself around 40 (or 25) other players in order to play it is not the kind of game I want to play. (Again, no knock on any of the 6 million people for whom it apparently is.;))

It's a shame, though, because if Bliz would have been willing to be more creative, I don't think the WoW endgame had to devolve into what I see as an unrewarding, time-consuming, and elitist treadmill.

[Raelynn]

Well, I can indeed understand that people who have devoted so much time to WoW may have an issue with that; and as I said it's really not my place to comment, since I was frankly relieved to quit the game. But, for myself anyway, any game that requires building yourself around 40 (or 25) other players in order to play it is not the kind of game I want to play. (Again, no knock on any of the 6 million people for whom it apparently is.;))

It's a shame, though, because if Bliz would have been willing to be more creative, I don't think the WoW endgame had to devolve into what I see as an unrewarding, time-consuming, and elitist treadmill.

Time isn't the issue here.

I agree with Quark in that from a game perspective this is a good change. However, from a guild leadership position it's a nightmare. The guilds built themselves around 40 men. When the change comes, the time you put into getting 40 people and using them isn't the issue. The issue is the people themselves. You basically have 3 choices: drop 15 people, let 15 people sit aside, or grab 10 and raid 2 groups.

For the first two suggestions, you have people getting angry. The people in the guild are friends generally. No one wants to be left out and if the GM is good, he doesn't want to leave anyone behind.

For the last suggestion, you're getting into more complicated grounds. In a pure gameplay perspective, you risk hugely different progressions, if you do a static split that never changes, or slower progression, if you constantly change the raid groups. Additionally, due to the lockouts, you lose the flexibility of the extra people, as people from one raid can't join the other if there's a bad class balance night.

Going even further, you risk alienating people by basically telling them which of their friends they get to raid with. In my guild, my girlfriend is the second tank, and it very good friends with the main tank. If we do 2 raid groups, they'd be forced into separate groups regardless of their wishes, which would likely make the game less enjoyable to both.

All in all, it's the people that matter. Guilds have invested 2 years in 40 people, not 40 people investing 2 year.

[fractaled]

You basically have 3 choices: drop 15 people, let 15 people sit aside, or grab 10 and raid 2 groups.

Or you could have 40 people, 10 with a level 70 alt, and raid on two different days/times. The blues you get while leveling should put you on equal footing with your mains, since they'll all be at tier 70+0.

[kershner]

I'm shocked... I'm shocked that everyone's arguments appear to have missed the big picture view of what Blizzard has done. The 40 -> 25 change needs to be taken in context with other changes. I'll be brief:

First, 40 -> 25:

40 -> 25 does not inherently alter the difficulty of potential fights. Virtually all end game fights can be scaled down to 25 man. 3/8ths less HP, a little less than 3/8ths less damage, one less add, etc. Doing so will not affect the difficulty of the fight.

The introduction of a difficulty slider for instances resolves most of the remaining issues. A pug should be able to run a lvl70 x 25man raid on easy mode and succeed. Whereas a hardcore raiding guild should be able to get significant challenge while running that same instance on Elite difficulty. The rewards will be comparitively better for the latter.

Blues have already established that a lvl60 instance on Elite difficulty should pose a reasonable challenge (and reward) for lvl70s geared out. As such the lvl70 instances should be nearly impossible at that difficulty.

What this change does is to make more content accessible to more people without reducing difficulty nor the reward differential between casual and hardcore.

An additional component of the 40 -> 25 is that a guild of 60-70 which needs to restructure down to 40 will encounter in-game mechanisms to aid in that endeavor. They are threefold:

1. Not all players will purchase the expansion immediately. All may want to, but barriers of money and parents (especially for the large pre-college population) will be a short term impediment.

2. Characters still need to level up to 70. It has been established that the time to get from 60 -> 70 will be comparable to the time taken to get from 1 -> 60 (as it should be). Players who raid have taken anywhere from 2 weeks to 2 years to get from 1 -> 60, the jump to 70 will be divided similarly. Those that don't level quickly will be left behind.

3. Most raid encounters will be designed to benefit from a Horde Paladin or an Alliance Shaman. Those characters do not already exist at level 60. As such a guild will need to power-level / wait for a character to 'catch up'.

All of these factors will affect the existing 60-70 members at different rates. As such the 'first' 40 of the correct class makeup to pass these barriers will become the new guild. Guilds will break apart because of the grind to 70 and not because of the new raid size. The smaller raid size will actually be beneficial because it means that the entire raid need not wait for the few slower players to begin raiding again.

The effect of the grind to 70 (from 60 or 1 in the case of new classes) will recreate the process by which guilds formed for end-game content at 60. The need for a guild to 'boot' half their members will be replaced by a first-come first-served mechanism.

Thoughts as always are welcome and desired.

-Kershner

Dehmien | 60 UD Priest | Stonemaul