MMOs - A Raid Bench.

[The Ancient]

Originally Posted by Horse

The content would NOT necessarily need to be beaten if you bring 40 to an encounter tuned for 25. That's where the previously mentioned dynamics could be introduced or you simply don't win. Anybody could beat the shit with 40 people. But "really beating it" is with 25, and that can easily be established as a normal game mechanic. Like, "OK, FUCK YOU YOUR DUNGEON COOLDOWN IS INCREASED BY THE NUMBER OF PEOPLE IN RAID" etc.

That one is actually pretty good.

[Sanadebe]

Originally Posted by The Ancient

That one is actually pretty good.

So not only do they now bring 15 more people (thereby spreading the loot out even further) they have a longer cd on dungeon instance... meaning they take longer to get the loot.

What would happen? Uber guilds day one bring 40 people, rush through the instance because its retardedly easy with those extra 15, get the world firsts and then just run 25 mans. The lesser guilds, probably fucked over by the fact that in modern raids one persons mistake can easily wipe the raid would suffer more from this change, so taking 40 for them on anything beyond the very first tier of raiding would be the same as commiting suicide. They won't do it. Oh look, suddenly we aren't taking that 40, we're taking the 25 its tuned around because theres less chance someone will fuck up.

Its a retarded idea. If you're too shitty to be in your guilds main squad or your class just isn't needed for that encounter in great numbers, man up, stfu or find another guild.

[The Ancient]

I think you're missing the point. There are some people who just lack the time commitment to learn the encounters in current raid zones. Allowing them to zerg it a bit at a pretty severe penalty would give them a chance to see the content while not really hampering the prestige the people really conqureing the dungeon feel for their work.

[Zehn - Vhex]

Or they could man the fuck up and learn to play.

[FoghornDeadhorn]

How many thousands of guilds have beaten Illidan now? I know you barely cracked the top 600 in the US if you killed Kalecgos last week.

I wonder just what percentage of the population has to be able to raid at a high level before it becomes acceptable that Blizzard has done enough?

[Old Man Potter]

Originally Posted by Zehn - Vhex

Or they could man the fuck up and learn to play.

Why don't you take your own advice and man up and stop polluting threads like this with your inane babbling? You're constant parade of childish one-liners, "Rickshaw this thread!" and "TLDR" sputum rightly belong on the official WoW forums instead of these forums. I seem to recall you've demonstrated that you can behave yourself on the Elitist Jerks forums, so why can't you do the same here?

[Wilfan]

Originally Posted by FoghornDeadhorn

How many thousands of guilds have beaten Illidan now? I know you barely cracked the top 600 in the US if you killed Kalecgos last week.

According to the (probably horribly flawed, but that's all we have) wowjutsu, a bit under 7% of population that tried Karazhan.

Originally Posted by FoghornDeadhorn

I wonder just what percentage of the population has to be able to raid at a high level before it becomes acceptable that Blizzard has done enough?

I don't think there's any consensus among the players, while Blizzard is keeping its targets a secret and only reveals a few bits afterwards (like their disappointment at the number of people who cleared Naxx).

[Zehn - Vhex]

Originally Posted by Old Man Potter

Why don't you take your own advice and man up and stop polluting threads like this with your inane babbling? You're constant parade of childish one-liners, "Rickshaw this thread!" and "TLDR" sputum rightly belong on the official WoW forums instead of these forums. I seem to recall you've demonstrated that you can behave yourself on the Elitist Jerks forums, so why can't you do the same here?

Because most of this is a stupid thread? If a post is worthy of discussion, I'll discuss it. And have done thousands of times.

However, when people post retarded shit that's only worthy of ridicule like allowing people to zerg content because they lack the talent to do it the way God and blizzard intended?

I mean, that'd be like if Blizzard found some magical way to prevent gold selling and you faggots came in here whining about "It's too hard to earn gold for my epic mount now that I can't buy gold from the chinese farmers...waaaaaaaaaaaah."

Blizzard slowly and steadily makes things easier to aquire so the drooling retards can get stuff. They implemented dailies that give you 15 bajillion gold so everyone can get their epic mount. They removed zone restrictions so that the hundreds of guilds that couldn't beat Kael can enjoy the loot pinata that is Naj/Supremus/Akama/Ras/Anetheron/Kaz'rogal. They'll soon be putting S2 arena gear on the honor vendor.

I posted it early in this thread and it's been seconded about a dozen times. The job system is all we need to fix the OP's 'problem.'

Not some convoluted benching/ghosting system. Not allowing people to 40 man bosses that they can't otherwise beat with 25.

The only real counter-argument is that players already gimp encounters. They stack the appropriate classes like hunters on Azgalor instead of rogues or they watch video's to skip the 2 weeks of learning how to beat an encounter or they use mods to help time when encapsulate is about to fuck the raid.

The problem with allowing 40 people in is that there's no good way to make it work. You may say, "Well if you bring in more people just make the encounter harder!" If that's the case, then you're tunning encounters for 40 people and we're back to pre-tbc raid sizes anyways and Blizzard wanted to move away from that.

Some people may say, "fuck it, nobody gives a shit about WoW progression anymore like they did in EQ" and those are the people that make this kinda shit rickshaw worthy.

And then you have people saying, "Well just make it a longer timeout. I mean,this way more people get to see the content!" And to those retards I say, "Get some fucking testicles and learn how to not stand in fires."

Because that's all TBC is really. If you can learn to not stand in fire, you can beat half the encounters already!

[The Ancient]

Originally Posted by Zehn - Vhex

And then you have people saying, "Well just make it a longer timeout. I mean,this way more people get to see the content!" And to those retards I say, "Get some fucking testicles and learn how to not stand in fires."

L2Click corpses.

I mean it's not a big deal to improve the game for people if it's not benefitting you, right? Honestly it would benefit even current raiders since they'd have to re-evaluate the lockout mechanic which has basically been retarded ever since they switched it to reset on X day of the week.

Here's another though, what if the lockout was fully dynamic? As in the encounter is tuned for 25, but if you bring 20 you get a shorter lockout. How sweet would that be? I dunno, I'm getting a little out there, but if your only contribution to the discussion is "Learn 2 Raid Noobs" you are being a fuckwit.

[Xequecal]

To be perfectly honest, isn't it just a BIT retarded that Kael is harder than almost every boss that comes after him? Since RoS P2 and P3 are mostly a gear check anyway and the BT badge vendor now exists, I'd say Kael is harder than every pre-Sunwell boss except Illidari Council. He's probably harder than Illidan himself.

And that's the nerfed version, Kael 1.0 with the 100,000 HP shield and advisors with 25% more HP was definitely the hardest boss in the game at the time, harder than everything in BT even. Especially when you consider the maximum possible gear you could have when facing him (badge vendors didn't exist yet.)

[Zehn - Vhex]

Originally Posted by The Ancient

L2Click corpses.

Why don't we just implement cheat codes then? Honestly. Why even beat around the bush with futzing with lockout timers an adding a mass-fail switch to encounters. Let's just make it so that you can type in "/nofallingdamage" on Archimonde but when you do that, he only drops 2 pieces of loot instead of 4!

Why stop at 40 people? If you beat an encounter with 120 people you get a 1 month lockout. Hey you'll get all the world firsts but who cares about those right? It's not like competitive guilds have taken off work or called in sick to try to get an edge on everybody else.

It's a stupid idea with far better alternatives.

[The Ancient]

Originally Posted by Zehn - Vhex

It's a stupid idea with far better alternatives.

What's your suggestion then to get more people into raiding?

[Sunder]

Originally Posted by The Ancient

What's your suggestion then to get more people into raiding?

Develop a 10-man raid progression that stays one tier behind the 25-man progression. These encounters would be easier, the organization required would be less, and the loot would be "almost as good" as the top level 25-man stuff. Just the kind of thing Blizzard would be all over.

[Zehn - Vhex]

Originally Posted by Sunder

Develop a 10-man raid progression that stays one tier behind the 25-man progression. These encounters would be easier, the organization required would be less, and the loot would be "almost as good" as the top level 25-man stuff. Just the kind of thing Blizzard would be all over.

This. I would also implement, as has been stated multiple times, the job system. For many casual guilds they just don't have the right people. If their tank doesn't log on, they don't raid, period. A friend of mine's guild was having a lot of trouble in Karazhan until I suggested "Try bringing a shadow priest instead of a retadin using a 60 dps weapon."

We'd still be stuck on Brutallis if people in our guild hadn't stepped up and boxed some of our semi-retired geared shaman.

They revamped the badge system so the 10-man raiding guilds could keep pace somewhat, presumably because it's easier then whipping up another 10 man dungeon. Hopefully things will be better planned in wotlk.

Ultimately you could make the argment "How is implementing 10 and 25 man versions of each dungeon different then 25 and 40 mans?" And you'd be right, except that 40-man guilds are not casual friendly by any means.

Anyways...

Trust me, I know where you're coming from. I used to lead open raids on planar gods in EQ. I'd get so many thank yous from people who otherwise never would have gotten to see Mithaniel Marr or Bertox, etc...a lot of our wins came because we took 150 people to do 50 man content.

I'm all for making encounters eventually easier and more accessible. One thing I'd be open to discussing is the idea of normal and heroic modes for the 25 man dungeons. At first only heroic mode (restricted to 25 people) is open. Then after say, 4 months, non-heroic opens up and you can 40 man it for the shittily-itemized badge rewards. This would make the zones not so much casual friendly as they would be pug friendly though.

Though ultimately if you're really concerned about experiencing the content, I hear you can 10 man Nefarion.

[Sunder]

Originally Posted by Zehn - Vhex

This. I would also implement, as has been stated multiple times, the job system. For many casual guilds they just don't have the right people. If their tank doesn't log on, they don't raid, period. A friend of mine's guild was having a lot of trouble in Karazhan until I suggested "Try bringing a shadow priest instead of a retadin using a 60 dps weapon."

Well obviously actual 10-man progression zones + job system would be the ideal setup. But I don't see Blizzard ever implementing the job system. The closest we'll ever get is free/cheap respecs. That being said, just having a 10-man progression system would solve quite a few of the problems with 25-man raids. It creates a few others, but even 25-man raids get called (or targets get changed) on occasion because of attendance.

Implementing a zerg version of 25-man content would just be idiotic, as Zehn has said and creates far more problems than it solves. If a guild can't handle raiding in a 25-man environment, how in the world will they handle nearly twice that many people?

The answer is to go smaller, not get bigger. The answer is never to create loot pinatas, but to create easier content that rewards appropriate gear. The answer is to never trivialize (even though Blizzard does this constantly), but to simply offer another path of advancement.