25 man raids more difficult? false assumption

We have positioned our 25-player content as more difficult and therefore capable of generating better rewards. Managing a group of that size requires a little more effort and we figured if the rewards were the same, we'd steer pretty much everyone towards 10-player raiding. At this point we don't want to do that.

The confusing part is that the 25-player content in Lich King ended up being a little on the easy side compared to the 10-player content. Players viewed the 25s as puggable which then made the 10s seem optional since the rewards weren't as good.

If anything we think the 10 version in Ulduar will end up a little easier and more puggable. We'll probably see 10 and 25 Ulduar pugged eventually, but it might not happen right away.

Let me add that if you just love 10-player raiding and are up to a challenge that we do have 10-player hard modes and the loot available there is superior to 25-player normal.

Q u o t e:
1) Advertise that this is the case. Change the perception so there aren't so many old schoolers out there beating their heads against their screens. The axiom has always been "We CANNOT POSSIBLY handle 25 until we have TEN ON CLEAR!!!" This turning out to be not only false but a waste of time and effort is not fair, fellas. Not to the small guilds.

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question regarding 10 man hard modes, are these balanced around 25 man normal gear like sarth 10 3d was or are they balanced around 10 man normal gear?

We consider 10 and 25 separate progression paths. Here are different ways to raid:

A) Heroic 5 player -> 10 player Naxx -> 10 player Ulduar -> 10 player Ulduar hard
B) Heroic 5 player -> 25 player Naxx -> 25 player Ulduar -> 25 player Ulduar hard
C) Hybrid. You focus on A but sometimes pug B, or focus on B but run A on off nights. The one possible exception could be that if you are just stuck on 25 Ulduar hard, you can get upgrades by running 10 Ulduar hard if you are up to the challenge.

If we made a mistake in LK, it was that path B was too easy. That meant that A felt like a waste to some players because the loot was inferior. We think it will work better in Ulduar.

Q u o t e:
GC said in an earlier post that a lot of players actually enjoy 25-man raids more because they told him so back in the day. I would say that GC was technically...lied to. What they actually enjoy is the exclusiveness of loot 25-man raids afford them. It is another barrier that sets them apart from those who prefer not to go that impersonal.

I understand your point on the 25 loot being of higher item level. However we explored this issue quite a bit and I still believe that some non-trivial number of players just prefer the larger raids. How can that be?

-- They like the epic scale of it requiring an army of players to defeat a boss.
-- They like the power mulitiplier. You generally do more damage and healing in 25 because you have more buffs. This feels cool.
-- They like the encounters designed around larger groups. What I mean is that in a 25-player fight we can do things like just randomly kill players or isolate them in small groups. They like sometimes having to employ 4 tanks at once. It is hard to do these kinds of thing to 10-player fights.
-- Their guilds were formed back in the day of exclusive 40 or 25 raiding, so that is the group of friends they have and how they have built their guild. They just think of the politicial nightmare if they have to split their guild in two.

So for those reasons, and a few others, we think the smartest design is still just to let players decide if they prefer 10 player raiding or 25 player raiding. Some have a small group of friends and want to not have to put up with the weak links or undependables. They like the pressure it puts on every player to perform. Others have large, social guilds and like to assemble 25 players together. They may be more tolerant of being able to bring the 25th player along even if he isn't stellar. They may like all of the reasons I mentioned above. It's just a preference, just like Horde vs. Alliance is a preference.

Q u o t e:
Forget the gear stats, the gear levels, and all that stuff that seems to be discussed here, what I really want to have some light shed on is this: Why do 25 man raiders get access to an epic quest line/activity that creates a legendary weapon, new profession patterns, and gear badges that buy gear that competes or is on the same level as the boss they just killed to get the badge, and 10 man raiders do not?

I could see arguments to have similar versions of all of that content for the 10-player raids. As I said, this is the first time we have really offered a lot of hard modes that actually offer something more than achievement points. We will have to see how it goes.

As an example, it appears that a lot of the groups who did 10-player Sartharion +3 were the same groups who did 25-player Sartharion +3. Now there were a few groups who did the 10-player version and only that version. We need to figure out how many players like that are out there. What I mean is that some players would prefer 7-player versions and others 30-player versions. We aren't trying to (and realistically cannot) give everyone what they want. We just want to provide some options. If it turns out only a handful of players are really interested or capable of the 10-player version, then we might not keep offering them. If it turns out to be a non-trivial number of players, then we might make equivalent legendaries and everything else.

I can even see the argument that 10 and 25 need to offer the same item level of gear. As I said, we haven't figured out a way to do it that won't kill 25-player guilds. Someone brought up the example of how 5-player or even solo versions that offered the same gear would trump everything else, and I think that logic is sensible. While the larger groups might be a preference, we think we still need some incentive to manage those larger groups or they will die -- not because players don't like them, but because efficiency is very important in games like this and efficiency can even trump fun. In this case we don't want it to.

Bottom line is we have already tried several different designs for our end-game raiding model and I'm almost certain this one is not the last. We'll see how Ulduar goes and update our model from there if we feel it's necessary.

Q u o t e:
Now the part I would like clarification on is what ilvl the gear for 10 man hard modes will be. Everything I've seen so far is like this
Ulduar 10 - 219
Ulduar 10 H - 226
Ulduar 25 - 226 (weapons 232)
Ulduar 25 H - 239

Fia, the difference is that ilevel is not everything. The Ulduar 10 hard gear is more optimized. It has more generous splits, better stats and better sockets. Most players would consider those pieces to be an upgrade to the 226 stuff they have on now, but it is going to depend a lot on your individual gear and what stats you need or value. If you want to be confusing, you could call it ilevel 226.5 I guess. In general, there are pieces with very high ilevels that are not upgrades to pieces with lower ilevel. We still want gear to be a choice, and not a situation where ilevel is the only thing you need to factor in. This is actually one of the reasons we are blurring ilevel a little bit and creating items that aren't always a 13 point traditional tier apart.

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As an example, it appears that a lot of the groups who did 10-player Sartharion +3 were the same groups who did 25-player Sartharion +3. Now there were a few groups who did the 10-player version and only that version. We need to figure out how many players like that are out there.
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I think you have confused cause and effect. Why is it that the people doing Sarth+3 10 man the same people doing Sarth +3 25 man? It's because it's the hardest encounter in the game. It requires 25 man gear to accomplish; so it's really part of 25 man progression.
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This is a really good point, and I had taken it as an assumption, until I saw this, that they knew that the majority of people doing Sarth+3 on 10 were doing it with gear from 25's (not required, btw, but close to it). If that hadn't clicked for them, I think the above is a really important post to notice. I still think they probably knew that already, and that GC's example was just a slip-up, but it's good to draw attention to potential misreading of trends like that.

It is a valid point. However, our contention is that there are a lot more hardcore 25-player guilds than hardcore 10-player guilds so that more players interested in the 10-player version of Sarth +3 were in the former not the latter (even accounting for the size difference). In Ulduar, we are hoping to get better data about whether it’s the gear or the player interest that allows the 25-player guilds to do the 10-player hard modes.

Q u o t e:
- First off, your comments about perhaps ceasing to offer 10-man versions if only a "handful" of players are interested or capable. Sounds like you're priming the playerbase for an announcement that you're no longer going to be doing them.

Nope. We just want to make sure we are offering content players are really going to use in a way we expect them to use it. (And by “players" I mean more than a handful.) As I mentioned just above, we need to determine if there is really a sizeable audience for 10-player hard modes.

Q u o t e:
All 10 man content will be made easier by players in 25 man gear. Making things ment to be a challenge look easy.

But there isn’t much motivation for them to do that unless they just want achievement points or something. It’s a bit of a chicken and egg question. Did players not do 10-player Sarth because it was too hard or because it wasn’t rewarding enough? And if it was more rewarding, would 10-player guilds do it more, or would 25-player guilds just strip off some people in order to do it?

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the root of this problem is blizzard tuned all current encounters with exception of sarth 3d 10 to be far to easy, and ignored the feedback on that from beta.

We didn’t ignore it. It was easy by design. The one exception is probably Sarth 25 +3, which was too easy, and none of the 10 content should have been much more difficult than the 25. We don’t think that is the case in Ulduar, so let’s meet back here in a few months and discuss.

Q u o t e:
On my server, those simply do not exist. Guilds do 25 man raids, and within those guilds, groups can do 10 mans. I literally do not know anyone who is in a guild serious about doing 10 man raids.

There are groups of players who just prefer to run smaller raids. I don't know off the top of my head how many, if any, exist on your server. They do exist. You can't always assume they are small guilds. Sometimes they are large guilds of more casual players with only a few raiders. It varies. What happened in LK is a lot of these players (who remember prefered to do 10-player content) just gave up and joined 25-player pugs because those were easier and provided better loot. For Ulduar, we predict they will have more motivation to do the 10-player version because the 25-player version is going to be more challenging. They might join a pug, wipe a lot, and remember why they prefer to run smaller raids with friends.

Q u o t e:
I have a tangential question for you, GC: what should be expected to succeed at hard modes? We've recently seen speed kills of Sarth 3D that used ridiculously stacked groups to brute force the encounter. Is that expected and/or encouraged, or is it reasonable to assume that a balanced raid of skilled players will be able to beat a hard mode with the gear they get in that same tier of content?

Those speed kills are normally the kind of thing we would fix in some way or another because those cross the line in our opinion. It's a subjective line though, and we don't always want to stomp on every creative solution that players come up with. In this case, so many groups already had Sarth on farm and the solution would have involved hitting group dps pretty severely that a quick fix didn't feel warranted. If say that was the solution that players came up with to deal with Algalon within the time-frame where only a guild or so per server had beaten him, then we'd probably have been more reactive.

Q u o t e:
Is this true for both 10s and 25s? Should a skilled and balanced raid wearing gear from that tier of content expect to be able to do 10-man Sarth 3d? Is it overtuned right now, or is the 25-man simply undertuned? If it's overtuned, why haven't you fixed it?

Ideally, you could beat the 10-player version of Sarth +3 with gear from 10-player Naxx, Malygos and Sarth normal. The 25-player version is probably undertuned in this case. It is definitely just easier IMO than the 10-player version even if you discount the gear motivation for doing the 25. We feel better about the balance of Ulduar. We did a lot of testing on the first tier of raid content, but obviously we just have orders of magnitude more data now about what players can really accomplish, and we've fixed many exploits or bugs.

Q u o t e:
I've always assumed that hard modes were intended to be more about maximizing individual performance than raid stacking - just want to make sure i'm on the same page as Blizzard here.

Totally. Raid stacking is not a strategy at all we want to prop up. However it's tricky. At some point if you take steps to prohibit raid stacking, then what you are really doing is saying: you will be punished for taking more than 1 of each spec or whatever, and at that point you are limiting flexibility just as much as if you were encouraging raid stacking. We want you to be able to take your friends (or at least the people you want to raid with even if you're uber hardcore and don't care if they're your friends or not). We don't want you to have to kick loyal and skilled players just because Jimmy the idiot shaman / paladin / DK / whatever brings better buffs or utility for that fight.

Now some groups will swap out players for each boss. That's just what they do. The same guilds might respec or regem for every boss, and there are even cases of groups that picked up Leatherworking for drums with the frequency most sane people would change specs. I'm not exaggerating. Again, we aren't going to come down hard on groups that do this. We just don't want it to be the only way you feel you can experience the hard mode content.

I may regret saying this, but it is hard. If Sarth +3 was too much for you, then you probably want to steer clear of the hard modes and Mr. Algalon. The achievement is called "He feeds on your tears" for a reason.

Q u o t e:
GC, I'm a huge supporter of 25-mans offering greater awards (which you may have seen by my posts earlier in this thread). However, I don't think it would be unreasonable for 10-man hard modes to offer slightly better loot than 25-man easy modes.

That may be a model we use. However, I do want to point out that most of the definitions of “25-man easy modes” are using Naxx 25 as a frame of reference. Ulduar is harder. I would be surprised to see Ulduar 25 pugs that get very far for several months. I would not at all be surprised to see groups than can do 10 Ulduar normal but not 25 Ulduar normal. Some of you are imagining the guilds that are really focused on 10 player content but end up abandoning that and doing 25s. I don’t think that will happen again, at least not to the same extent.

--Many 25-focused guilds are not going to be able to do the 25 hard modes.
--Many 10-focused guilds are not going to be able to do the 10 hard modes.
--The 25-focused guilds likely won’t do the 10 content because the items aren’t an upgrade. (Thought they might on off nights for kicks or with their alts.)
--There is a risk that the 10-focused guilds end up begrudgingly doing the 25 content. This is the main “risk area” we’re talking about. I don’t think they’re going to be able to pug it though. They may get Flame Leviathan, then wipe a few times and remember why they prefer the smaller group sizes. Ulduar 25 normal is not welfare epics. The other risk is that the guild just reorganizes itself as a 25-focused guild, even though it really doesn’t want to. That is the most legit risk in the model that I can see.

Also remember, Ulduar 10 does have upgrades for everyone. Nobody is in all item level 226 loot right now.

Q u o t e:
But It would be truly absurd if Algalon10 was easier than zero tower Flame Leviathan25.

This begs the question... Why does Algalon10 reward worse loot than zero tower Flame Leviathan25?

Efficient loot and Algalon do not belong in the same thought process. Killing Algalon is about prestige, not loot. Why? Because it is very difficult. Many of you won’t be able to beat him. If you are just looking to get the best rewards possible, I’d focus on the legendary or something.

We let you see almost all of the bosses in Ulduar if you’re a reasonably competent guild. Algalon is something you have to earn in 10 or 25. This is not a fair fight. This is a “Blizzard are you out of your mind?” fight. He feeds on your tears.

Q u o t e:

U10 < U10H =< U25 < U25H

Mostly, people are just wanting U10H gear to be appreciably better than U25 non-H gear, unlike how it is now. Kinda ridiculous for 10-man, hard-mode gear to be worse or even equal to 25-man non-hard-mode gear; since it simply kills all motivation to do 10-man hard-modes when you could just do 25-man easy-modes and get equal or better gear.

I think that sums it up pretty well. However, if the 10 hard gear was superior to 25 normal, then the 25 progression path involves hitting the same content 3 times. We want players to choose whether they prefer 10 or 25, not feel like they have to jump between them. The 10 hard content is not for people who want the best gear in the game (because that comes out of 25 hard). It’s for players who like 10 player content and want a challenge. Even if the 10 hard was superior to 25 normal, then the 10-focused players are still going to have to contend with there being better loot out there in the 25 hard version.

Q u o t e:
So basically running regular pug 25 Ulduar would gear you up better than 10 man hard mode. Seems easier just to skip 10 man hard mode altogether.

The 10-player and 25-player content are not on the same progression path. You should choose which style of play you prefer. If you only care about having the best items possible in the game, then you should shoot for 25-player hard content because that’s where it is. However, to be brutally honest, many of you won’t be able to manage it. It’s optional content and it’s hard.

Q u o t e:
Would you care to explain the apparent disconnect? I believed you earlier, and many in this thread did as well, and I attempted to look at the loot through that prism. Your most recent statement seems to be a contradiction of the earlier statement.

I don't think it's a disconnect. Players will argue that one item of the same item level isn't as good as another item of the same item level. In fact they frequently argue that an item of a lower item level is better than an item of a higher item level. I think we might be having the same conversation if the 10 hard stuff was 6 item levels higher than the 25 normal.

I'm just telling you the design (10H slightly better than 25 normal). If you think the loot isn't itemized well, that's a slightly different discussion (and one players are having all over these forums).

Q u o t e:
What's wrong with people from a 25-man guild wanting to raid when most of their members are offline? (And get some pieces of gear from hardmode so they don't feel it was a waste of time)

Nothing. We don’t want them to decide their 10-player runs are a waste of their time because the 25 is so much more efficient. The loot may be better, but it shouldn’t be so efficient. And in Ulduar, it won’t be. Maybe you’ll get that item when you join a pug. Maybe you’ll wipe all night.

Q u o t e:
People aren't getting it through their head that Blizzard sees Heroic Ulduar as hard enough that people won't be pugging it for quite a long time. GC has eluded to this several times, and people seem to miss it. If what he says is true, then the point of pugging Heroic Ulduar for loot to help with 10-man Hard Mode Ulduar progression is completely moot. Yes, if you consider it helpful towards your 10-man Hard Mode progress by going in with a pug and wiping on 25-man Flame Leviathan hours on end or perhaps one or two bosses after that, then by all means; But don't assume just because the option is there -you COULD do it (read: try)- means it's a good idea.

Yep. I understand why players feel this way though. They look at Naxx. Ulduar is harder though. Not soul-crushing, though if that’s your thing, we got you covered there too. :)

Q u o t e:
Why not adopt a strategy of equivalent difficulty (and equivalent loot) between 10 & 25 mans, but with slightly higher "efficiency" for 25 mans?

We considered that. However, to make it work we would also share the lockout between the two. In other words, you would have to commit to one or the other. If the lockouts weren't shared, then players would feel like they HAD to run both a 10 and 25 every week, which is not the design. (If that's fun for you, cool, but we don't want everyone to feel like they have to do it). At the same time, sharing a lockout then just cuts out the potential that you could run both versions if you were up for it. It seemed punitive compared to what we were buying.

This discussion is talking a lot about philosophies and reward structures, but at the end of the day, the overall vision isn't that complicated:

If you like 25-player raids, run those.
If you like 10-player raids, run those.
If you like to run a little of both, run a little of both.
If you only care about the best possible loot in the game, run 25 hard.