Incentivizing 25-Man Raiding
- June 14th, 2011
- Posted in Patch 4.2 . PTR . Raid Leading . Raiding
- By Tomaj
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It’s no secret that I hate 25-man raiding. Actually, “hate” may not be strong enough a word. I absolutely cannot stand 25-man raiding. I loathe it with a passion. For me, from the standpoint of a raid leader, it’s a management headache. From the standpoint of an officer, it’s a nightmare. From the standpoint of a holy priest, it’s quite possibly one of the most boring things I can do. However, Blizzard has determined that in their continual efforts to try to get people to do less popular content, they are doing three things with Patch 4.2. First, they are lowering the cap of Valor Points. Secondly, they are giving fewer Valor Points overall for raid instances, and Tier 11 normal content will only provide Justice Points; hardmodes will still give Valor Points. Lastly, 25-man raiders will see an increased benefit of Valor Points from raids versus 10-man raiders.
While Cynwise’s Battlefield Manual discusses the changes to Conquest Points, it actually brought up a discussion on Twitter regarding the Valor Point cap. There’s a lot to be said regarding all of this, so I’m hoping I might be able to cover all the bases with it. I also hope that I’m not alone on the front of my opinion, but even if I am, then so be it. Still, it bears discussing that the Valor Point caps are extremely awkward when it comes to how Patch 4.2 is lining up in terms of gearing out your character (or alts).
How the Valor Point cap will affect you.
First and foremost, the Valor Point cap is being changed significantly:
- The maximum number of Valor Points which can be earned in a week from any and all applicable dungeons and raids is now 980, down from 1250.
- The maximum number of Valor Points awarded for completing Rise of the Zandalari dungeons remains at 980.
- The maximum number of Valor Points awarded for completing Heroic dungeons remains at 490.
- The number of Valor Points awarded for killing a boss in the Firelands is 70 in 10-player mode, and 90 in 25-player mode.
- The number of Valor Points awarded for killing Occu’thar in Baradin Hold is 35 in 10-player mode, and 45 in 25-player mode.
In essence, this means that, in a 25-man raid (prior to any guild perks), a 25-man raider, clearing all content (Firelands plus Occu’thar) is 675 maximum Valor Points. After guild perk, this is 742 maximum Valor Points. That’s still short of the 980 Valor Point cap, meaning that one would need to run either set of heroics at least two times in the course of that week. Not so bad, really. Contrasted to 10-man raiders, who only get 525 Valor Points without perk, and 577 Valor Points with perk, this means 10-man raiders will have to run either set of heroics at least three times through the week. Still not so bad, but even so, that’s one extra heroic that a 10-man raider needs to spend outside of raids (which can mean anywhere from one hour to four, or even more, depending on queue times and quality of group), in order to get the same Valor Point gear that the 25-man raiders get.
In the end, regardless of the size of your raid, unless you are clearing a significant portion of the content, and also clearing all of the heroic Tier 11 content on a weekly basis, you will need to run heroics in order to be able to obtain your Valor Point gear.
*EDIT* As an aside, should the guild perk “For Great Justice” not apply to Valor Points, this still leaves 10-man raiders at a disadvantage of one extra heroic over 25-man raiders, with the totals going to four and three, respectively.
So? 25-man raiders deserve more!
To me, this is a slap in the face to 10-man raiders. Not only are some encounters much more punishing on smaller groups (read, Nefarian, Ascendant Council, Heroic Halfus, etc.), but the amount of effort put into the raids themselves is really not all that different. One might argue that 25-man raid leaders and officers have to put in a lot more effort than 10-man raid leaders and officers. To a degree, this is true. On the other hand, for the raider that is neither a raid leader nor an officer, there is little to no difference. Moreover, having those extra people in a 25-man raid means there’s more room for error, not to mention having additional tools to be able to save the raid or a tank when in dire straits. Being in a 10-man raid means that there is less room for error (partially due to lacking buffs/debuffs 25-man raiders have), and even one death has a much more profound impact than one death in a 25-man raid. Additionally, it also means that people in a 10-man raid really have to step up to their A game, whereas you can afford to carry someone in a 25-man raid with little to no extra effort.
25-man raiders do deserve more than 10-man raiders just by virtue of having more people. However, I think this should be limited to gear drops and gold. Over the course of a month, this could mean that 10-man raiders are spending as much as 16 hours or more outside of raids in order to be able to obtain the same gear that 25-man raiders can get from just Valor Points. In the course of three months, that can total over 48 hours’, or two full days’, worth of time spent outside of raids in order to be able to obtain that gear. I don’t think this is justified, because I know for fact that officers and raid leaders do not spend that much time outside of raids preparing things for their 25-man raids in the same time frame.
Conclusion.
I prefaced this with stating that I hate 25-man raids, and why. I am of the opinion that 25-man raiders do deserve more gear and more gold for downing bosses in the 25-man area. They do put in a tremendous amount of effort. They do deal with management headaches and loot nightmares and all that. A 25-man raider does have to coordinate with more than nine other people, meaning that the impact can be either minimal, or a raid wipe (not that this isn’t true in 10-man, as well, but “minimal” mistakes happen… minimally). However, the frustrations of being a raid leader or an officer are typically the same, whether you are in a 25-man raid or a 10-man raid. This is speaking from experience here. How often they occur is something else entirely.
What this may end up doing is making people feel forced to go back to 25-man raiding in order to be able to maximize their Valor Points and minimize the time they have to spend in heroics that no one really wants to do. This brings me full circle, in showing that Blizzard is trying to forcibly get people to run content that is either stale (Tier 11), recycled (Zul’Aman), absurd (Zul’Gurub) or faceroll (329 Cata heroics). The most interesting point on this is that, previously, they weren’t too keen on people visiting old content – yet in Wrath we got Onyxia 2.0; we have Nefarian 2.0 and Onyxia 3.0 in Blackwing Descent; ZA, ZG, Deadmines and Shadowfang Keep all got revamped for level 85 heroics; and we’re even seeing Ragnaros 2.0 with Firelands (why, oh why, did they give him legs!?). Granted, I’d pay to see the lower side of Karazhan, but that’s neither here nor there.
I wouldn’t know how to fix this, but in the end, it seems that Blizzard might be trying to cater to too many crowds. I understand wanting to keep both raid sizes viable, and keep them (overall) equal in difficulty while still keeping rewards for 25-man raiders above those of 10-man raiders, but I wonder if this is taking a step in the wrong direction?
Blizzard stated from the beginning of Caraclysm that the logistical challenges of 25 man raiding would be rewarded through more gold/gear/points, though the quality of said gear remains the same. This isn’t any different than it was in January.
If someone would abandon their 10 man raid group because they don’t want to run an extra heroic, they aren’t that committed anyway. Group quality and time spent are subjective
I agree they are catering to too many crowds. I’m a 25 man raider, but if blizzard abandoned that model and said “10 mans only”, I would be ok with that.
I don’t agree that Al’akir is easier on 25 man (heroic, specifically). That fight is immensely easier on 10 man. By orders of magnitude.
Borsk recently posted… For the Winds!
I wasn’t referring to Al’Akir on heroic, but I could definitely see it being easier on heroic in 10-man. As it stands, it’s actually ridiculously annoying on normal just due to lack of buffs/debuffs/ways to clear Acid Rain. I’ve no knowledge of Al’akir on 25-man, but it seems that, overall, it would be easier to tune DPS for Stormlings in phase two on 25-man than it is on 10-man.
As for abandoning 10-man groups, I would agree on that point, but I definitely think that they’re trying to push in too many directions – hence, people may feel forced to go to 25-man raiding when they don’t necessarily want to.
Al’akir is afaik the only fight that is sginificantly easier on 10 man over 25 man however, so it rather proves the opposite point in any case.
Zinn recently posted… 10 vs 25 man raiding in Cataclysm
Yar, going to edit this later. But even so, how many other encounters are significantly easier in current content in 10 than 25? Chimaeron, arguably, but only on normal. Atramedes, maybe, but I might say that’s a bit of a stretch, too.
Blizzard are basically “cheesing” their way out of a problem yet again. Just as with the dungeon satchels, instead of figuring WHY so few tanks join dungeons or so few people play tanks, if that’s the case, they just “solve” the problem by making it more rewarding to play tank and sometimes healer. And just by giving them shiny things. Now they’re doing it with raids. They see the dwindling 25 man raid numbers, they go “oh, something is wrong, let’s fix!”. But instead of figuring why people go from one to the other and try to fix the cause of the issue, they just hand whoever sticks with the minority option more shinies.
I realize that trying to get to the root of the problem requires a lot of work and might not even be completely solvable. But sometimes I wonder if Blizzard have stopped trying all together and just throw shinies at any issue.
Zinn recently posted… 10 vs 25 man raiding in Cataclysm
I tend to agree. I don’t think the Call to Arms function of the dungeon finder was the right way to go, but whatever. As I said, 25-man raids do deserve more loot, but I disagree on the Valor Points just because of the sheer amount of time extra a 10-man raider would have to spend.
I haven’t heard anything about a guild perk for valor points – is this coming in 4.2?
Hm, I could’ve sworn “For Great Justice” applied to Valor Points as well. I could be wrong, and if so, I’ll edit the post.
Now, let me put the idea forth to try and think about this, in a way and ideal that will allow us to see more.
Because Cynwise’s post wasn’t just about the Conquest point changes, it mentioned and spoke at length about some of the challenges that Rated Battlegrounds have faced… it was about incentivizing players to see CONTENT.
you cannot cap on raiding alone, this is intended – and the intention, is actually fairly clever, despite our opinions on the matter: To keep top end, well geared players, in heroic dungeons.
I still run into players who are freshly heroic ready 85s – and when I play my freshly heroic ready 85, I see raid geared players. If I could cap VP solely through raiding, I would have no incentive to do heroics once we got enough bosses down in raiding, because I could count on getting all the VP I wanted from raiding alone.
It isn’t a slap to the face, no; but it is a way to “incentivize” players back into LFD, whether alone or in guild groups.
I mentioned Cynwise’s post purely because it sparked this discussion, and because that post is worth reading in regards to Conquest capping. It’s a parallel to 10-man vs. 25-man raiding in that regard; a person not interested in RBGs still will have to do RBGs in order to cap their Conquest Points, which is not necessarily a desirable or feasible option. On this end, both 10- and 25-man raiders will have to do heroics to cap out Valor Points, which is fine – the problem is that 10-man raiders have to do more of them in order to get the same number of Valor Points, and thereby spend more time than a 25-man raider does outside of raids. That’s what I consider the slap in the face. I honestly think that perhaps that point was either lost, or I didn’t clarify it enough to start, because it doesn’t feel like (from your comment) that the entire post got read.
I, for one, don’t care about having to run the heroics – I never made my opinion on that fact in this post, actually. I am just highly annoyed at having to do more of them as a 10-man raider than I would otherwise have to as a 25-man raider. If they wanted to incentivize the heroics that much, then the Valor Point gain from both raid sizes would remain equal, to ensure that people of both raid sizes run heroics equally.
Part of the issue is what they have done with the points in general. Originally, the points system wasn’t for raiders at all, it was a way for people who hadn’t been raiding to catch up on gear so that they could start raiding the current content. I personally think the big failure is making tier gear and some key slots (relics) only available from points which forces raiders to run heroics so that they can progress in raids. They moved to 10-man having the same drops as 25 and same lockouts to make 10-man only guilds more viable as well as to keep 25-man raiders from feeling that they HAD to run the same content on 10 and 25 every week just to be competitive (leading to faster burnout). I don’t think they have gotten the balance of drops versus point gear down yet.
And for the record, weekly badge runs of Kara on my main were fun. Blizz has yet to make anything similar since.