World of Warcraft: Current Year
- Thread starter hodj
- Start date
And that's the point I'm making. I'm not saying a set size isn't easier to balance, especially a size that is > the number of classes. And of course they can make the fights very tightly tuned because of this as well.
The problem is that all of a sudden the majority of mythic raiding guilds had to double in size (at least) if they wanted to continue to raid the hardest difficulty. This has caused enormous social upheaval and frustration as guilds either broke up, merged, or slowly died to the constant trickle of members leaving. Couple that with the lack of content in this expansion and you can see why they have lost half their subs in less than a year.
Gorehack
Lord Nagafen Raider
- 1,534
- 40
Think I might go with rogue for legion. I still have hope that DH will be fun and not ultra OP, but some of the things they're saying about meta being a short window dps cooldown makes me skin crawl. I never liked demo warlock, and the mop ret pally "blow your load and then watch everyone else fuck her" play based around opener cooldowns just sucked major cock.
We shall see though. New info and an announced beta date can't come soon enough though.
We shall see though. New info and an announced beta date can't come soon enough though.
Gorehack
Lord Nagafen Raider
- 1,534
- 40
We were a 10 man guild that was forced to go to 20 for mythic as well. We had built up to about 23 people, but now we're running at 18-19 on progression nights and the pool of people to recruit from seems extremely tiny.
Yeah we got up to about 25 for Highmaul, but started losing people as soon as we started doing mythic, and then we've been playing the "hope 20 log in" game ever since. Our pool is extremely limited due to server, other guilds don't want to merge, and others just transfer off entirely.
They need to do another round of mergers, quickly.
Gorehack
Lord Nagafen Raider
- 1,534
- 40
WoW Server Stats - US Realms - WarcraftRealms.com
There are 28 servers under the "1,000" mark. I'm not entirely sure what that means, or if those numbers are even accurate...but god damn.
EDIT: Those numbers have to be off, it has Dalaran as the highest populated server...they have one mythic guild...
Wowprogress numbers seem to be pretty good, in that they try to track the number of characters raiding on each server. Not extremely accurate, but gives a general sense of the population.
Dandai
<WoW Guild Officer>
- 5,908
- 4,483
Or at least the only population that matters when considering a population.
Ukerric
Bearded Ape
- 7,977
- 9,690
Well, well, there seems the number/progression of normal mode raiders was hit a lot more than expected by the summer:Normal mode mechanic nerfs inc!
Gorehack
Lord Nagafen Raider
- 1,534
- 40
Seems fine really, target audience for Normal will appreciate the changes and the world keeps turning. It's probably a fine line between tweaking numbers so that the mechanics don't feel threatening and then wondering "well, if no one cares about them anyway - why have them". Difficult problem.
We certainly haven't consistently been successful in doing this, but as we reflect on how Normal difficulty has turned out, we'd rather remove mechanics from Normal difficulty entirely than leave them in but make them so non-threatening that they can be ignored entirely. The latter approach hurts clarity, because you look at an encounter and see 3 or 4 mechanics, but there may actually only be 1 or 2 that you truly need to worry about.
Removing mechanics from Normal also means that, in effect, going from Normal to Heroic now introduces some additional mechanics, just as going from Heroic to Mythic always has. That adds some additional depth to the experience of learning a boss on a higher difficulty, rather than just having the same encounter with larger numbers.
It might be better if the difficulty and complexity gap between Normal and Heroic were comparable to the gap between Heroic and Mythic, and that hasn't been the case.
Who is the target audience for Normal? I thought it was friends and family groups? Has it now changed to pugs with minimal co ordination and no voice comms?
It's been a while now, but when we first elaborated on the Warlords raiding structure last year, we tried to spell out the target audiences. Raiding Azeroth: Part 2 and the associated blogs go into a ton of depth if you have too much time on your hands and want to read thousands of words rambling about raid design. But the most relevant part was this:
In broad strokes, there are three distinct types of groups that participate in organized raiding:
I'd say that those three categories largely match with Normal, Heroic, and Mythic raiding respectively. In a lot of ways, many pickup groups trend closer to the Heroic sphere of content, simply because they are selective, and generally will not hesitate to replace someone whose throughput is significantly below par or who is screwing up mechanics. A friends-and-family group will generally not kick out their friend or family member because they stand in the fire a lot. That's sort of the point.
We certainly haven't consistently been successful in doing this, but as we reflect on how Normal difficulty has turned out, we'd rather remove mechanics from Normal difficulty entirely than leave them in but make them so non-threatening that they can be ignored entirely. The latter approach hurts clarity, because you look at an encounter and see 3 or 4 mechanics, but there may actually only be 1 or 2 that you truly need to worry about.
Removing mechanics from Normal also means that, in effect, going from Normal to Heroic now introduces some additional mechanics, just as going from Heroic to Mythic always has. That adds some additional depth to the experience of learning a boss on a higher difficulty, rather than just having the same encounter with larger numbers.
It might be better if the difficulty and complexity gap between Normal and Heroic were comparable to the gap between Heroic and Mythic, and that hasn't been the case.
Who is the target audience for Normal? I thought it was friends and family groups? Has it now changed to pugs with minimal co ordination and no voice comms?
It's been a while now, but when we first elaborated on the Warlords raiding structure last year, we tried to spell out the target audiences. Raiding Azeroth: Part 2 and the associated blogs go into a ton of depth if you have too much time on your hands and want to read thousands of words rambling about raid design. But the most relevant part was this:
In broad strokes, there are three distinct types of groups that participate in organized raiding:
- Friends and Family groups: These are social groups that exist for reasons besides raiding, but whose players would like to venture into raid content together. This type of group is inherently inclusive, and will not organize its roster according to specific class needs, nor is the group likely to criticize or remove players based on performance. Members of this type of group prioritize playing together.
- Raiding guilds: These are groups that have formed for the purpose of raiding. These are the majority of guilds that you?ll see recruiting in Trade chat or on realm forums. These groups will generally look for specific classes based on roster needs, and will expect a certain level of attendance or performance. Members of this type of group prioritize experiencing and learning the content.
- Hardcore raiding guilds: An extreme subset of the previous category, these are the guilds of players whose ethos drives them to be the best at games they play, and who are willing to dedicate time and energy to maximize their results. Guilds of this type will recruit and maintain a roster based primarily on performance, and will expect raiders to optimize their characters. Members of this type of group prioritize competition and success.
I'd say that those three categories largely match with Normal, Heroic, and Mythic raiding respectively. In a lot of ways, many pickup groups trend closer to the Heroic sphere of content, simply because they are selective, and generally will not hesitate to replace someone whose throughput is significantly below par or who is screwing up mechanics. A friends-and-family group will generally not kick out their friend or family member because they stand in the fire a lot. That's sort of the point.
Gorehack
Lord Nagafen Raider
- 1,534
- 40
Could only do mannoroth and archimonde heroic last night. We are either gonna have to recruit a couple people or start our Legio break early.
I feel like if we quit now though we're leaving some shit on the table, and that just doesn't sit right with me. On the other hand, I am tired.
I feel like if we quit now though we're leaving some shit on the table, and that just doesn't sit right with me. On the other hand, I am tired.
Foggy
Ahn'Qiraj Raider
- 6,245
- 4,815
Mythic isn't a problem. The problem is reality is not meeting player expectations. Players are use to doing the hardest setting. In WoD there is a new hardest setting that is only meant for a very small percentage of players. Despite this, players still expect to do the hardest setting because they did in the past. Heroic still exists and it is still very challenging. Only 10% of guilds have managed to kill heroic archimonde. That is actually very similar to the end boss of heroic settings in several of the past tiers pre-mythic. Players just need to accept mythic may not be for them and that is okay. If you cannot put together 20 competent people, mythic isn't for you. Players need to evaluate and reset their expectations in the mythic raid world.
Raiding is actually really amazing right now. On normal and heroic I can bring any random assortment of classes and any random number of players between 10 and 30 without having anybody sit out. That is amazing.
Raiding is actually really amazing right now. On normal and heroic I can bring any random assortment of classes and any random number of players between 10 and 30 without having anybody sit out. That is amazing.
No, the problem was that Normal was too big a step up from LFR andhopefullythe changes today means Blizzard has figured that out.
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Foggy
Ahn'Qiraj Raider
- 6,245
- 4,815
They removed or took the nerfbat to a lot of fight mechanics in normal and lfr.
Actually the number is 15%. Not remotely comparable to end boss percentages from pre-mythic tiers less than 4 months out.
Dandai
<WoW Guild Officer>
- 5,908
- 4,483
I'd say they made the conscious decision to make the pre-mythic tier quite a bit harder when they split normal and heroic though. Normal is like WotLK 10m normal, Heroic is like WotLK 25m normal, Mythic is like WotLK 25m heroic. How do those numbers compare?
cabbitcabbit
NeoGaf Donator
- 2,626
- 7,926
Looks like they're going to just kill LFR off next expansion (or just combine it with normal) and they're testing it out.