Tuesday, January 4, 2011

10man vs 25man- Debate

There has been a huge debate today on 25man vs 10man. What did Blizzard want us to really do? Does the progression from 10man carry on to a 25man? Does it effect overall Realm Progression?

Several people have posted on the Raiding and Dungeons forum disliking as well as liking the new changes.  So lets go over what Blizzard has done to this Expansion.



  • 25 and 10man now share the same lockout
  • Defending a final zone boss on either 10 or 25 unlocks Heroic Mode no Matter what
  • Gear is the same (25 drops more loot nothing more)
  • Blizzard stated they wished to make 10 and 25man the same difficulty (won't ever happen due to balance issues)
Now, here is my take on this. Blizzard made 10 and 25mans the same. So there is NO LONGER a 10man vs 25man guild. With how Paragon, Ensidia, and other guilds are going about for their world first kills is amazingly simple. They kill stuff on 10man, open up heroics and start there. They are still claiming victory for the kill. No matter if it is in 25man mode or 10man mode. Only difference is the size of the raid.

Is this what Blizzard wanted? Well, making everything shared such as Achievements, loot, lockouts..I would think so. Several others don't think Blizzard wanted it.

Now what brought up this discussion? Well..there is a guild on my server who has an EXTREME hatred for my own. Reason? Dunno. Might be from before I was there, but its a silly thing anyway. Needless to say; we was working on Al'akir. Tank DC'd, never came back. End of the week and the GM wanted to get a progression kill. We were down a few raiders as well due to the holidays so he made the decision to go in to 10man and knock it out.

So we did. I personally posted the boss was down. I made sure WowProgress and GuildOx updated as well. They both show that overall progression, we got credit for the kill. Now, if you click on the side bars where you want to separate 10 from 25 kills..then you can see the different. But overall, it still ranks us with the kill with normal progression. So, even the progression sites merge the 10 and 25man kills together.

Now the discussion going on with the Raiding and Dungeon forum is the same. I will agree with most people who post there. Points have been made on both sides. But I want to quote what one person said that I will continue to preach until Blizzard separates 10 and 25 again.

"The problem you are having and not understanding is simple.  You are stuck in a 10 vs 25 man progression mind set.  Blizzard consolidated 10/25 man achievments.   There is no more 10 vs 25 man progression according to Blizzard.

They have NOT fostered any kind of behavior that they stated they wanted to eliminate.  They have done exactly what they intended.  10/25 man share lockouts now.  They are the same.   It reduce the raid grind.  It extends the life of their content and reduces burtnout.  Switching back and forth from 10 to 25 man is an INTENDED option.  Stuck on boss? Not enough people online?  Switch to 10....etc...

If there are balance issues between the two, they will remedy as they see fit.

TLDR:  No more 10 vs 25 man.  Current system working as intended."-- Vargun 85 Troll Shaman

I agree with his statement here. Several people on stuck in the mindset that its 25 vs 10. Thats not the problem people seem to be having unless they begin to talk about difficulty. And my lord, yes..I know there are several bosses that are AMAZINGLY easier on 10man compared to 25, and vise versa. It will always be different mainly due to the ability of classes you can bring to raid.

This isn't a post in regards to how difficult one encounter is from another, its more on if the kill on 10man should be counted at all. By the standards posted about my guild getting Al'akir on 10 and not 25; any guild raiding as a 10man should not count as a progression guild. It should be its own separate entity. Yet, as stated before. Top guilds in the world are doing the same thing. Sure, some people will post "Just because they do it doesn't mean you should". But its not the point. Its the point that Blizzard put this design in. People are using it. Nothing more, nothing less. So why such hate?

So, I want to hear your opinions on this matter. Are you ok with the current ranking system? Do you feel it should stay the same? Be separated? And dear lord don't talk about difficulty. We all know that will end up.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I actually share the same view as that Troll. I gotta say...heh...Difficulty makes this whole game fun!

Moses said...

I actually like the changes, especially since my guild has made changes to adjust to a 10 man guild after being a 25 man for the last 3 years. Running 25 mans has been nothing but a headache and added so much stress over the years.

I don't want Blizzard to go back to the old style because it would mean my guild would no longer be able to raid and would force a lot of us to join another or quit. It caters to people on servers where populations are low on their faction side or have trouble finding skilled players. It's opened up an opportunity for a portion of their playerbase to have access to and opportunities to experience content that they normally wouldn't be able to.

Both 10 man and 25 man progression should remain consolidated as it is, but I understand why people don't agree with it or are upset about it in it's current state. If both formats are to be considered the same, progression-wise, the difficulty has to match as well. I haven't been able to raid yet but I believe you when you say that 10 mans are significantly easier and I find that upsetting. If I want my guild to progress as a 10 man, I want us honored amongst the 25 mans as well. But if there is a disparity in difficulty between both format, than that needs to be addressed.

What scares me is that Blizzard has stated in the past that they naturally take the easier route when making changes, and in this case, separating the raiding formats might be easier than retuning all the raid encounters. It would create a lot of distress for some players, including myself, if they went that route.

Oricc said...

I have a serious problem with the consolidation of 10 and 25 man. I have been raiding, and I can tell you that while there are some fights harder on 10-man (Magmaw to name one) most fights are absolutely more difficult on 25 man. This is not as a result of Blizzards balancing issues, or even the nature of the fight mechanics, it is because of 2 simple unavoidable factors, organization and space. It is simply harder to organize 25 good players than it is to organize 10 good players, by virtue of the numbers. As for space, 10 people have more room to spread out than 25 people, which means all movement is simplified.

Because of this, 10 and 25 man raiding should certainly be separated, at least as far as progression goes. I like what Blizzard has done by dropping more gear per person in 25 man than 10 man, so technically you are at a slight advantage over 10 man guilds by raiding 25 man, but with Realm First achievements and titles being shared between 10 and 25 man, it is pretty unfair for everyone who wants to commit the time to 25 man raiding.

My guild just recently got Nefarian 25 man Down, which I can assure you in no easy feat, however a Horde guild had already killed him on 10-man, which, while impressive, is simply not as difficult as the 25 man version. Now they have the same title as we do and sit above us on wowprogress, which, in my opinion, is rather unfair.

I also am not a fan of the argument that this allows 10 man guilds to see all the content. In wrath 10 man guild were able to see all the content, and still were kept separate from 25 man guilds on rankings.

To sum up, I have no problem with what blizzard has done as far as loot, difficulty balance or raid design, however I do believe that as far as achievements, title and world rankings go, 25 man should be acknowledged over 10 man as a more difficult and invested way to play.

The Renaissance Man said...

Oricc, the format which is more difficult varies from fight to fight, but right now, the majority of the fights in the tier are more forgiving for 25 man raids once you hit heroic modes. Halfus, ODS, Magmaw, Cho'gall, Maloriak, Chimeron, the double dragons, and the conclave are all significantly more difficult in ten man than in 25 man, due to the constraints of raid comp combined with the equalizing of damage totals. Twilight Meteors in the double dragon fight actually do the same amount of damage in 10s as they do in 25s, despite having more than twice as many people to spilt the damage amongst. Nezir's Sleet Storm hits for the same in 10 as it does in 25, despite only having 7 people to soak it while 25 splits the damage amongst as many as 22 people. Halfus on heroic requires a ten man group to drop 20% of their DPS to bring in a tank, while a 25 man gets away with only losing 13% of their DPS bringing in a 5th tank. ODS, likewise, requires a 4th healer in a ten man group, while in 25s, it's healable by 8. These and other mechanics are making 10 man raids much harder than their 25 man counterparts. Think OS103D vs OS253D before the zerg strats became prevalent.

The acendant council and Al'Akir are far harder on 25 man, due to geometry issues, and Nefarian and Atramedes are pretty well balanced between the two.

right now, blizzard has overtuned 10 man heroics in an attempt to legitimize them as a respectable progression objective. Ensidia originally attempted to run 10 mans as a shortcut to improve their rankings, but couldn't get more than three bosses down, so they switched to 25 man format, and promptly became 8/12H.

Melfina said...

As someone who mostly does 10 mans, I think they should both count. I'm tired of 10s being the red-headed stepchild of raiding. Yes, 25s are harder to organize, but 10s tend to be a bit more unforgiving because you have less room for error. In a 10 man, you lose a healer or dps and you feel it. In a 25, not so much.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that Blizz continues on this consolidated path.

Unknown said...

Well, well, well, look who got a mention on WoW insider. :O

I have to say that my guild as well did normal mode progression primarily through 10-man raids, and garnered the same kind of hate from a certain guild on our server as you seem to have been experiencing on Stag. I tend to agree with you that guilds who care about their ranking and choose this method of progression are not at fault, as it is entirely within Blizzard's design intent for them to do so.

As for whether or not I like this change... the first two weeks of Cata, during which we completed all of our normal mode progression, were one of the most stressful periods I've ever experienced in WoW. It's just natural that when your 25-man guild's ~30-35 player raid core suddenly find themselves competing for ten slots... things can get a bit dicey on the management end. I'm happy that heroic modes have thus far proven easier in 25 mans, as I tend to lose less sleep that way.

In any case, I agree that the excessive hate towards guilds choosing to do progression kills on 10-man is unwarranted. I can say that it's not the "easy way out" that its detractors like to make it out to be : to post any meaningful progression rankings, those ten or fifteen people would have had to have worked very, very hard and desire their kill just as much as anyone in a 25-man run.

~Shina

PS. RESTOFOOFY !? What about Foof ?

PPS. Hop on Stormreaver sometime and holler. XD