What would be nice is position markers built into the base UI that can be set and left, basically we use lock portals for marking where to run on shit, and having plantable markers like this would be tits for explaining shit.
What would be nice is position markers built into the base UI that can be set and left, basically we use lock portals for marking where to run on shit, and having plantable markers like this would be tits for explaining shit.
I don't know if I'd say Karazhan is soloable as a tank. On my paladin, I soloed Moroes, Attumen, Opera (Oz), and Malechezzar as protection. For the Curator and Aran, numerous mechanics necessitated a switch to retribution. For Aran, of course, it was the fact that he deals only magical damage anyway along with the frustrating mana-enrage-drinking-thing.
For Curator, I couldn't kill him while enraged before he killed me. So I switched to retribution and blew him down on the first Evocate.
I've soloed Karazhan to the end as a feral druid tank since Naxx, on weeks where I get Oz.
We're continuing to refine the raid progression paths in Cataclysm, and we'd like to share some of those changes with you today. Please enjoy!
The first of the refinements being made is that we're combining all raid sizes and difficulties into a single lockout. Unlike today, 10- and 25-player modes of a single raid will share the same lockout. You can defeat each raid boss once per week per character. In other words, if you wanted to do both a 10- and 25-person raid in a single week, you’d need to do so on two different characters. Normal versus Heroic mode will be chosen on a per-boss basis in Cataclysm raids, the same way it works in Icecrown Citadel. Obviously the raid lockout change doesn't apply in pure Icecrown terms though, as this change goes hand-in-hand with a few other changes to raid progression in Cataclysm.
We're designing and balancing raids so that the difficulty between 10- and 25-player versions of each difficulty will be as close as possible to each other as we can achieve. That closeness in difficulty also means that we'll have bosses dropping the same items in 10- and 25-player raids of each difficulty. They'll have the same name and same stats; they are in fact the exact same items. Choosing Heroic mode will drop a scaled-up version of those items. Our hope is that players will be able to associate bosses with their loot tables and even associate specific artwork with specific item names to a far greater extent than today.
Dungeon Difficulty and Rewards
* 10 and 25-player (Normal difficulty) -- Very similar to one another in difficulty; drop the exact same items as each other.
* 10 and 25-player (Heroic difficulty) -- Very similar to one another in difficulty; drop more powerful versions of the normal-difficulty items.
We of course recognize the logistical realities of organizing larger groups of people, so while the loot quality will not change, 25-player versions will drop a higher quantity of loot per player (items, but also badges, and even gold), making it a more efficient route if you're able to gather the people. The raid designers are designing encounters with these changes in mind, and the class designers are making class changes to help make 10-person groups easier to build. Running 25-player raids will be a bit more lucrative, as should be expected, but if for a week or two you need to do 10s because half the guild is away on vacation, you can do that and not suffer a dramatic loss to your ability to get the items you want.
We recognize that very long raids can be a barrier for some players, but we also want to provide enough encounters for the experience to feel epic. For the first few raid tiers, our plan is to provide multiple smaller raids. Instead of one raid with eleven bosses, you might have a five-boss raid as well as a six-boss raid. All of these bosses would drop the same item level gear, but the dungeons themselves being different environments will provide some variety in location and visual style, as well as separate raid lockouts. Think of how you could raid Serpentshrine Cavern and Tempest Keep separately, but you might still want to hit both every week.
We do like how gating bosses over time allows the community to focus on individual encounters instead of just racing to the end boss, so we’re likely to keep that design moving forward. We don't plan to impose attempt limitations again though, except maybe in cases of rare optional bosses (like Algalon). Heroic mode may not be open from day one, but will become available after defeating normal mode perhaps as little as once or twice.
In terms of tuning, we want groups to be able to jump into the first raids pretty quickly, but we also don’t want them to overshadow the Heroic 5-player dungeons and more powerful quest rewards. We’ll be designing the first few raid zones assuming that players have accumulated some blue gear from dungeons, crafted equipment, or quest rewards. In general, we want you and your guild members to participate in and enjoy the level up experience.
We design our raids to be accessible to a broad spectrum of players, so we want groups to be able to make the decision about whether to attempt the normal or Heroic versions of raids pretty quickly. The goal with all of these changes is to make it as much of a choice or effect of circumstance whether you raid as a group of 10 or as a group of 25 as possible. Whether you're a big guild or a small guild the choice won't be dependent on what items drop, but instead on what you enjoy the most.
We realize that with any changes to progression pathways there are going to be questions. We're eagerly awaiting any that we may have left unanswered. To the comments!
I am extraordinarily pleased by this.
Only problem is who the hell will actually run a 25 man?
Quote from: Nethaera (Source)
We're continuing to refine the raid progression paths in Cataclysm, and we'd like to share some of those changes with you today. Please enjoy!
The first of the refinements being made is that we're combining all raid sizes and difficulties into a single lockout. Unlike today, 10- and 25-player modes of a single raid will share the same lockout. You can defeat each raid boss once per week per character. In other words, if you wanted to do both a 10- and 25-person raid in a single week, you’d need to do so on two different characters. Normal versus Heroic mode will be chosen on a per-boss basis in Cataclysm raids, the same way it works in Icecrown Citadel. Obviously the raid lockout change doesn't apply in pure Icecrown terms though, as this change goes hand-in-hand with a few other changes to raid progression in Cataclysm.
We're designing and balancing raids so that the difficulty between 10- and 25-player versions of each difficulty will be as close as possible to each other as we can achieve. That closeness in difficulty also means that we'll have bosses dropping the same items in 10- and 25-player raids of each difficulty. They'll have the same name and same stats; they are in fact the exact same items. Choosing Heroic mode will drop a scaled-up version of those items. Our hope is that players will be able to associate bosses with their loot tables and even associate specific artwork with specific item names to a far greater extent than today.
Dungeon Difficulty and Rewards
10 and 25-player (Normal difficulty) -- Very similar to one another in difficulty; drop the exact same items as each other.
10 and 25-player (Heroic difficulty) -- Very similar to one another in difficulty; drop more powerful versions of the normal-difficulty items.
We of course recognize the logistical realities of organizing larger groups of people, so while the loot quality will not change, 25-player versions will drop a higher quantity of loot per player (items, but also badges, and even gold), making it a more efficient route if you're able to gather the people. The raid designers are designing encounters with these changes in mind, and the class designers are making class changes to help make 10-person groups easier to build. Running 25-player raids will be a bit more lucrative, as should be expected, but if for a week or two you need to do 10s because half the guild is away on vacation, you can do that and not suffer a dramatic loss to your ability to get the items you want.
We recognize that very long raids can be a barrier for some players, but we also want to provide enough encounters for the experience to feel epic. For the first few raid tiers, our plan is to provide multiple smaller raids. Instead of one raid with eleven bosses, you might have a five-boss raid as well as a six-boss raid. All of these bosses would drop the same item level gear, but the dungeons themselves being different environments will provide some variety in location and visual style, as well as separate raid lockouts. Think of how you could raid Serpentshrine Cavern and Tempest Keep separately, but you might still want to hit both every week.
We do like how gating bosses over time allows the community to focus on individual encounters instead of just racing to the end boss, so we’re likely to keep that design moving forward. We don't plan to impose attempt limitations again though, except maybe in cases of rare optional bosses (like Algalon). Heroic mode may not be open from day one, but will become available after defeating normal mode perhaps as little as once or twice.
In terms of tuning, we want groups to be able to jump into the first raids pretty quickly, but we also don’t want them to overshadow the Heroic 5-player dungeons and more powerful quest rewards. We’ll be designing the first few raid zones assuming that players have accumulated some blue gear from dungeons, crafted equipment, or quest rewards. In general, we want you and your guild members to participate in and enjoy the level up experience.
We design our raids to be accessible to a broad spectrum of players, so we want groups to be able to make the decision about whether to attempt the normal or Heroic versions of raids pretty quickly. The goal with all of these changes is to make it as much of a choice or effect of circumstance whether you raid as a group of 10 or as a group of 25 as possible. Whether you're a big guild or a small guild the choice won't be dependent on what items drop, but instead on what you enjoy the most.
We realize that with any changes to progression pathways there are going to be questions. We're eagerly awaiting any that we may have left unanswered. To the comments!
We're continuing to refine the raid progression paths in Cataclysm, and we'd like to share some of those changes with you today. Please enjoy!
The first of the refinements being made is that we're combining all raid sizes and difficulties into a single lockout. Unlike today, 10- and 25-player modes of a single raid will share the same lockout. You can defeat each raid boss once per week per character. In other words, if you wanted to do both a 10- and 25-person raid in a single week, you’d need to do so on two different characters. Normal versus Heroic mode will be chosen on a per-boss basis in Cataclysm raids, the same way it works in Icecrown Citadel. Obviously the raid lockout change doesn't apply in pure Icecrown terms though, as this change goes hand-in-hand with a few other changes to raid progression in Cataclysm.
We're designing and balancing raids so that the difficulty between 10- and 25-player versions of each difficulty will be as close as possible to each other as we can achieve. That closeness in difficulty also means that we'll have bosses dropping the same items in 10- and 25-player raids of each difficulty. They'll have the same name and same stats; they are in fact the exact same items. Choosing Heroic mode will drop a scaled-up version of those items. Our hope is that players will be able to associate bosses with their loot tables and even associate specific artwork with specific item names to a far greater extent than today.
Dungeon Difficulty and Rewards
* 10 and 25-player (Normal difficulty) -- Very similar to one another in difficulty; drop the exact same items as each other.
* 10 and 25-player (Heroic difficulty) -- Very similar to one another in difficulty; drop more powerful versions of the normal-difficulty items.
We of course recognize the logistical realities of organizing larger groups of people, so while the loot quality will not change, 25-player versions will drop a higher quantity of loot per player (items, but also badges, and even gold), making it a more efficient route if you're able to gather the people. The raid designers are designing encounters with these changes in mind, and the class designers are making class changes to help make 10-person groups easier to build. Running 25-player raids will be a bit more lucrative, as should be expected, but if for a week or two you need to do 10s because half the guild is away on vacation, you can do that and not suffer a dramatic loss to your ability to get the items you want.
We recognize that very long raids can be a barrier for some players, but we also want to provide enough encounters for the experience to feel epic. For the first few raid tiers, our plan is to provide multiple smaller raids. Instead of one raid with eleven bosses, you might have a five-boss raid as well as a six-boss raid. All of these bosses would drop the same item level gear, but the dungeons themselves being different environments will provide some variety in location and visual style, as well as separate raid lockouts. Think of how you could raid Serpentshrine Cavern and Tempest Keep separately, but you might still want to hit both every week.
We do like how gating bosses over time allows the community to focus on individual encounters instead of just racing to the end boss, so we’re likely to keep that design moving forward. We don't plan to impose attempt limitations again though, except maybe in cases of rare optional bosses (like Algalon). Heroic mode may not be open from day one, but will become available after defeating normal mode perhaps as little as once or twice.
In terms of tuning, we want groups to be able to jump into the first raids pretty quickly, but we also don’t want them to overshadow the Heroic 5-player dungeons and more powerful quest rewards. We’ll be designing the first few raid zones assuming that players have accumulated some blue gear from dungeons, crafted equipment, or quest rewards. In general, we want you and your guild members to participate in and enjoy the level up experience.
We design our raids to be accessible to a broad spectrum of players, so we want groups to be able to make the decision about whether to attempt the normal or Heroic versions of raids pretty quickly. The goal with all of these changes is to make it as much of a choice or effect of circumstance whether you raid as a group of 10 or as a group of 25 as possible. Whether you're a big guild or a small guild the choice won't be dependent on what items drop, but instead on what you enjoy the most.
We realize that with any changes to progression pathways there are going to be questions. We're eagerly awaiting any that we may have left unanswered. To the comments!
I am extraordinarily pleased by this.
Only problem is who the hell will actually run a 25 man?
25 man will still drop more gold/badges/loot than 10 man.
10 Man 25 man
20 gold each 40 gold each
2 Badges 3 badges
2 pieces of loot 3 pieces of loot
1 tier piece 2 tier pieces
with that i think people would still do 25.. especially guilds that have 25 people on a reg basis, but just incase, they can always drop down to 10. And honestly the biggest change for this that i love is the fact that i wont burn out on all my toons doing icc10/25. I only have 3 capable of doing em, and it gets tiring to do it. This way, ill have half the time in 1 instance but the same time in 2 different ones which i think is a lot better.
More of the same gear and more gold running a 25 man. But with having to deal with more people (my 10 man has one moron, my 25 has four) who cause wipes, most of the extra cash will go towards repairs anyway. So basically more drops of the same gear. Frankly it won't be worth the effort. If I can get the same stuff doing 10s, why would I ever deal with a 25?
It's sad, I'll miss the feeling of having 23 people hiding behind me, instead of just 8. But I won't miss those extra morons.
Decomposey on
Before following any advice, opinions, or thoughts I may have expressed in the above post, be warned: I found Keven Costners "Waterworld" to be a very entertaining film.
So you guys that have been soloing Kara, do you think it's possible to do with a Hunter given current gear levels?
If you're BM, maybe. I can stealth past all the trash and clear it in about an hour. The bosses still hit decently hired and some of the mechanics are still unavoidable even with level/gear. Garrote still ticks for a lot, Maiden's fire stuff still hurts, Curators arcane orbs still hurt, etc.
10- and 25-player (normal difficulty) -- Very similar to one another in difficulty; drop the exact same items as each other.
Fuck yes!
Now hopefully the first two raids won't be too easy. Maybe you can do them in blues gearwise but please no ToCs. That place is so damn boring, easy and has boring mechanics. I can't get my guild in TotGC10 due to how damn boring it is.
I do wonder if we'll get 10 man legendary quests assuming they go for 2 legendary per expansion. That'd be neat.
This will also greatly limit gear inflation, since you'll only have two tiers of gear per raid tier, instead of three or four. Meaning, your gear will last a lot longer. I like this, too.
I certainly won't miss getting inferior gear for doing the same content.
I won't miss herding 10 idiots around or relying on 15 or so people to log in on time to get started. Our 10 man is the best on the server and I look forward to one or two nights of raiding a week for the entire expansion. I don't know how they plan to make 10 man as difficult as 25 man, but I know they won't be equal in difficulty especially as you began to outgear the raid.
It will be interesting to see how this changes guild dynamics too. Don't we already see tons of PUG's for 10 man content? Is raiding going to become just another instance? I would not be surprised to see them add raids to the LFD tool.
It will be interesting to see how this changes guild dynamics too. Don't we already see tons of PUG's for 10 man content? Is raiding going to become just another instance? I would not be surprised to see them add raids to the LFD tool.
It's not already in there, right?
No but the only reason they haven't is they need to figure out how to handle lockouts and the like cross server.
Definitely seems in line with their stated goal of limiting how much distance the hardcore raiders can gain. Right now its kind of absurd how much farther ahead a hardcore raiding guild can get in just a couple weeks.
25m, 25mH, 10m, 10mH
Compared to a lot of guilds who can't even beat 10m week-to-week.
Hmm, I love my guild, but we have several people who tunnel vision, have poor reaction times, etc, so we generally don't go for 25 man achievements until we outgear them (see also, our plans to handle Uld 25 hardmodes while working on LK). The desire many of us have for going for the hardmodes was resolved by going in 10 man groups (we have our rusteds, and are working on our 10 man frostwyrms).
Just kidding. I like this, though my guild's going to flip its collective shit.
Yeah, I expect a lot will. I think they miss the general implication that the difficulty will be nearly similar. Right now, 10m are a joke compared to 25s, and the fact that a group can do 25m of a raid for a couple weeks then just blitz through 10m is retarded.
Huzzah! Victory for 10 man guilds! No more missing out on the neato cool stuff at the end of endgame like swank legendaries and sweet mounts and shit I guess?
Victory!
edit: The MMO champ comment crying is HI-FUCKING-LARIOUS!
-SPI- on
0
Options
L Ron HowardThe duckMinnesotaRegistered Userregular
We're continuing to refine the raid progression paths in Cataclysm, and we'd like to share some of those changes with you today. Please enjoy!
The first of the refinements being made is that we're combining all raid sizes and difficulties into a single lockout. Unlike today, 10- and 25-player modes of a single raid will share the same lockout. You can defeat each raid boss once per week per character. In other words, if you wanted to do both a 10- and 25-person raid in a single week, you’d need to do so on two different characters. Normal versus Heroic mode will be chosen on a per-boss basis in Cataclysm raids, the same way it works in Icecrown Citadel. Obviously the raid lockout change doesn't apply in pure Icecrown terms though, as this change goes hand-in-hand with a few other changes to raid progression in Cataclysm.
We're designing and balancing raids so that the difficulty between 10- and 25-player versions of each difficulty will be as close as possible to each other as we can achieve. That closeness in difficulty also means that we'll have bosses dropping the same items in 10- and 25-player raids of each difficulty. They'll have the same name and same stats; they are in fact the exact same items. Choosing Heroic mode will drop a scaled-up version of those items. Our hope is that players will be able to associate bosses with their loot tables and even associate specific artwork with specific item names to a far greater extent than today.
Dungeon Difficulty and Rewards
* 10 and 25-player (Normal difficulty) -- Very similar to one another in difficulty; drop the exact same items as each other.
* 10 and 25-player (Heroic difficulty) -- Very similar to one another in difficulty; drop more powerful versions of the normal-difficulty items.
We of course recognize the logistical realities of organizing larger groups of people, so while the loot quality will not change, 25-player versions will drop a higher quantity of loot per player (items, but also badges, and even gold), making it a more efficient route if you're able to gather the people. The raid designers are designing encounters with these changes in mind, and the class designers are making class changes to help make 10-person groups easier to build. Running 25-player raids will be a bit more lucrative, as should be expected, but if for a week or two you need to do 10s because half the guild is away on vacation, you can do that and not suffer a dramatic loss to your ability to get the items you want.
We recognize that very long raids can be a barrier for some players, but we also want to provide enough encounters for the experience to feel epic. For the first few raid tiers, our plan is to provide multiple smaller raids. Instead of one raid with eleven bosses, you might have a five-boss raid as well as a six-boss raid. All of these bosses would drop the same item level gear, but the dungeons themselves being different environments will provide some variety in location and visual style, as well as separate raid lockouts. Think of how you could raid Serpentshrine Cavern and Tempest Keep separately, but you might still want to hit both every week.
We do like how gating bosses over time allows the community to focus on individual encounters instead of just racing to the end boss, so we’re likely to keep that design moving forward. We don't plan to impose attempt limitations again though, except maybe in cases of rare optional bosses (like Algalon). Heroic mode may not be open from day one, but will become available after defeating normal mode perhaps as little as once or twice.
In terms of tuning, we want groups to be able to jump into the first raids pretty quickly, but we also don’t want them to overshadow the Heroic 5-player dungeons and more powerful quest rewards. We’ll be designing the first few raid zones assuming that players have accumulated some blue gear from dungeons, crafted equipment, or quest rewards. In general, we want you and your guild members to participate in and enjoy the level up experience.
We design our raids to be accessible to a broad spectrum of players, so we want groups to be able to make the decision about whether to attempt the normal or Heroic versions of raids pretty quickly. The goal with all of these changes is to make it as much of a choice or effect of circumstance whether you raid as a group of 10 or as a group of 25 as possible. Whether you're a big guild or a small guild the choice won't be dependent on what items drop, but instead on what you enjoy the most.
We realize that with any changes to progression pathways there are going to be questions. We're eagerly awaiting any that we may have left unanswered. To the comments!
I am extraordinarily pleased by this.
Only problem is who the hell will actually run a 25 man?
25 man will still drop more gold/badges/loot than 10 man.
10 Man 25 man
20 gold each 40 gold each
2 Badges 3 badges
2 pieces of loot 3 pieces of loot
1 tier piece 2 tier pieces
with that i think people would still do 25.. especially guilds that have 25 people on a reg basis, but just incase, they can always drop down to 10. And honestly the biggest change for this that i love is the fact that i wont burn out on all my toons doing icc10/25. I only have 3 capable of doing em, and it gets tiring to do it. This way, ill have half the time in 1 instance but the same time in 2 different ones which i think is a lot better.
That's awfully weak.
I'm also surprised that no one is really crying about the death of 25 mans here.
Most of the people I know that are in 10-man only raiding guilds aren't extremely gear hungry, so based on this one anecdote, I don't really think that most guilds that are 10-man only are all that concerned about the gear in the first place.
Right now, we have a number of people in the guild who run in a 25-man raid with an allied guild, but who run in 10-mans with us. Come Cataclysm, they will have to choose one or the other, and I'm not sure that we'll keep all of them.
I do like the idea that the difficulty is equal and that the gear is normalized, I guess that might make people more willing to stick with us in 10-man raids rather than go with the 25-man group they have been raiding with.
martini on
I raised the wall. And I will be the one to knock it down.
Just kidding. I like this, though my guild's going to flip its collective shit.
Yeah, I expect a lot will. I think they miss the general implication that the difficulty will be nearly similar. Right now, 10m are a joke compared to 25s, and the fact that a group can do 25m of a raid for a couple weeks then just blitz through 10m is retarded.
If they truly intend to stick to "bring the player not the class" then it will never be truly as difficult as 25 man, because you won't have all the buffs and you won't have multiple people doing extra damage to <20% targets, etc.
Bikkstah on
0
Options
L Ron HowardThe duckMinnesotaRegistered Userregular
Just kidding. I like this, though my guild's going to flip its collective shit.
Yeah, I expect a lot will. I think they miss the general implication that the difficulty will be nearly similar. Right now, 10m are a joke compared to 25s, and the fact that a group can do 25m of a raid for a couple weeks then just blitz through 10m is retarded.
If they truly intend to stick to "bring the player not the class" then it will never be truly as difficult as 25 man, because you won't have all the buffs and you won't have multiple people doing extra damage to <20% targets, etc.
MotW = Kings
Wisdom = Might = Shaman totems
etc.
Really, since there's always going to be a paladin in the raid, you're covered there. You have DKs to cover melee haste. I mean, you can't have a raid without at least one of those, in my experience, so you're pretty much covered in that way.
Seriously though, I imagine 10-man will be detuned a bit from the 25-man version for the same reason. I also get this impression that they're going to be nerfing 25-man non-heroic modes to help compensate. It's just a niggling feeling I have. My Spidey-sense, if you will.
L Ron Howard on
0
Options
reVerseAttack and Dethrone GodRegistered Userregular
I've always said 10 and 25 mans should be on the same lockout, because it would allow 10 man hard modes to award legendaries and stuff and 25 man guilds wouldn't be able to run 10 man teams just for the sake of progressing faster. When I still played I knew people who did 10 mans and 25 mans of every raid every week. That's just not good for anybody's health. =P
Just kidding. I like this, though my guild's going to flip its collective shit.
Yeah, I expect a lot will. I think they miss the general implication that the difficulty will be nearly similar. Right now, 10m are a joke compared to 25s, and the fact that a group can do 25m of a raid for a couple weeks then just blitz through 10m is retarded.
If they truly intend to stick to "bring the player not the class" then it will never be truly as difficult as 25 man, because you won't have all the buffs and you won't have multiple people doing extra damage to <20% targets, etc.
MotW = Kings
Wisdom = Might = Shaman totems
etc.
Really, since there's always going to be a paladin in the raid, you're covered there. You have DKs to cover melee haste. I mean, you can't have a raid without at least one of those, in my experience, so you're pretty much covered in that way.
Seriously though, I imagine 10-man will be detuned a bit from the 25-man version for the same reason. I also get this impression that they're going to be nerfing 25-man non-heroic modes to help compensate. It's just a niggling feeling I have. My Spidey-sense, if you will.
We haven't ever had a paladin in our 10 man since WOTLK began. We don't have a DK either. Our comp right now is 3 feral druids, 1 balance druid, 1 resto shaman, 1 warlock, 1 disc priest, 1 holy priest, 1 shadow priest, and usually a floater.
edit: 10s and 25s sharing a lockout is officially the worst thing ever. Our guild runs several 10 mans and one 25 a week. For one thing, it lessens the amount of raiding you can do, for someone who only likes to raid. Secondly, it forces guilds to choose, which is pretty stupid. We have a set "A team" 10 man raid group and several other 10 man groups, who all come together to raid 25 man content. Why would you take away people's ability to raid different modes?
Langly on
0
Options
L Ron HowardThe duckMinnesotaRegistered Userregular
edited April 2010
They're changing it so that MotW will be Kings in Cata.
Posts
Steam
Only the strong can help the weak.
Don't forget this little gem. One of the best trinkets at that level in the game.
I've soloed Karazhan to the end as a feral druid tank since Naxx, on weeks where I get Oz.
The first of the refinements being made is that we're combining all raid sizes and difficulties into a single lockout. Unlike today, 10- and 25-player modes of a single raid will share the same lockout. You can defeat each raid boss once per week per character. In other words, if you wanted to do both a 10- and 25-person raid in a single week, you’d need to do so on two different characters. Normal versus Heroic mode will be chosen on a per-boss basis in Cataclysm raids, the same way it works in Icecrown Citadel. Obviously the raid lockout change doesn't apply in pure Icecrown terms though, as this change goes hand-in-hand with a few other changes to raid progression in Cataclysm.
We're designing and balancing raids so that the difficulty between 10- and 25-player versions of each difficulty will be as close as possible to each other as we can achieve. That closeness in difficulty also means that we'll have bosses dropping the same items in 10- and 25-player raids of each difficulty. They'll have the same name and same stats; they are in fact the exact same items. Choosing Heroic mode will drop a scaled-up version of those items. Our hope is that players will be able to associate bosses with their loot tables and even associate specific artwork with specific item names to a far greater extent than today.
Dungeon Difficulty and Rewards
* 10 and 25-player (Normal difficulty) -- Very similar to one another in difficulty; drop the exact same items as each other.
* 10 and 25-player (Heroic difficulty) -- Very similar to one another in difficulty; drop more powerful versions of the normal-difficulty items.
We of course recognize the logistical realities of organizing larger groups of people, so while the loot quality will not change, 25-player versions will drop a higher quantity of loot per player (items, but also badges, and even gold), making it a more efficient route if you're able to gather the people. The raid designers are designing encounters with these changes in mind, and the class designers are making class changes to help make 10-person groups easier to build. Running 25-player raids will be a bit more lucrative, as should be expected, but if for a week or two you need to do 10s because half the guild is away on vacation, you can do that and not suffer a dramatic loss to your ability to get the items you want.
We recognize that very long raids can be a barrier for some players, but we also want to provide enough encounters for the experience to feel epic. For the first few raid tiers, our plan is to provide multiple smaller raids. Instead of one raid with eleven bosses, you might have a five-boss raid as well as a six-boss raid. All of these bosses would drop the same item level gear, but the dungeons themselves being different environments will provide some variety in location and visual style, as well as separate raid lockouts. Think of how you could raid Serpentshrine Cavern and Tempest Keep separately, but you might still want to hit both every week.
We do like how gating bosses over time allows the community to focus on individual encounters instead of just racing to the end boss, so we’re likely to keep that design moving forward. We don't plan to impose attempt limitations again though, except maybe in cases of rare optional bosses (like Algalon). Heroic mode may not be open from day one, but will become available after defeating normal mode perhaps as little as once or twice.
In terms of tuning, we want groups to be able to jump into the first raids pretty quickly, but we also don’t want them to overshadow the Heroic 5-player dungeons and more powerful quest rewards. We’ll be designing the first few raid zones assuming that players have accumulated some blue gear from dungeons, crafted equipment, or quest rewards. In general, we want you and your guild members to participate in and enjoy the level up experience.
We design our raids to be accessible to a broad spectrum of players, so we want groups to be able to make the decision about whether to attempt the normal or Heroic versions of raids pretty quickly. The goal with all of these changes is to make it as much of a choice or effect of circumstance whether you raid as a group of 10 or as a group of 25 as possible. Whether you're a big guild or a small guild the choice won't be dependent on what items drop, but instead on what you enjoy the most.
We realize that with any changes to progression pathways there are going to be questions. We're eagerly awaiting any that we may have left unanswered. To the comments!
I am extraordinarily pleased by this.
Only problem is who the hell will actually run a 25 man?
EDIT:
hahahah first page of comments on the mmo-champ forums
I want to know more PA people on Twitter.
25 man will still drop more gold/badges/loot than 10 man.
10 Man 25 man
20 gold each 40 gold each
2 Badges 3 badges
2 pieces of loot 3 pieces of loot
1 tier piece 2 tier pieces
with that i think people would still do 25.. especially guilds that have 25 people on a reg basis, but just incase, they can always drop down to 10. And honestly the biggest change for this that i love is the fact that i wont burn out on all my toons doing icc10/25. I only have 3 capable of doing em, and it gets tiring to do it. This way, ill have half the time in 1 instance but the same time in 2 different ones which i think is a lot better.
Goodbye 25 man raiding.
It's sad, I'll miss the feeling of having 23 people hiding behind me, instead of just 8. But I won't miss those extra morons.
If you're BM, maybe. I can stealth past all the trash and clear it in about an hour. The bosses still hit decently hired and some of the mechanics are still unavoidable even with level/gear. Garrote still ticks for a lot, Maiden's fire stuff still hurts, Curators arcane orbs still hurt, etc.
Fuck yes!
Now hopefully the first two raids won't be too easy. Maybe you can do them in blues gearwise but please no ToCs. That place is so damn boring, easy and has boring mechanics. I can't get my guild in TotGC10 due to how damn boring it is.
I do wonder if we'll get 10 man legendary quests assuming they go for 2 legendary per expansion. That'd be neat.
I won't miss herding 10 idiots around or relying on 15 or so people to log in on time to get started. Our 10 man is the best on the server and I look forward to one or two nights of raiding a week for the entire expansion. I don't know how they plan to make 10 man as difficult as 25 man, but I know they won't be equal in difficulty especially as you began to outgear the raid.
It will be nice to get the same gear for doing easier content over less time :^:
Plus my ocd gaming competitiveness will not force me into a bigger time sink
I want to know more PA people on Twitter.
10mans, here I come!
No but the only reason they haven't is they need to figure out how to handle lockouts and the like cross server.
25m, 25mH, 10m, 10mH
Compared to a lot of guilds who can't even beat 10m week-to-week.
This makes choices a bit more difficult for Cata.
To.
THE.
FAAAAAAACE.
Just kidding. I like this, though my guild's going to flip its collective shit.
- The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (2017, colorized)
Yeah, I expect a lot will. I think they miss the general implication that the difficulty will be nearly similar. Right now, 10m are a joke compared to 25s, and the fact that a group can do 25m of a raid for a couple weeks then just blitz through 10m is retarded.
Victory!
edit: The MMO champ comment crying is HI-FUCKING-LARIOUS!
That's awfully weak.
I'm also surprised that no one is really crying about the death of 25 mans here.
Most of the people I know that are in 10-man only raiding guilds aren't extremely gear hungry, so based on this one anecdote, I don't really think that most guilds that are 10-man only are all that concerned about the gear in the first place.
I do like the idea that the difficulty is equal and that the gear is normalized, I guess that might make people more willing to stick with us in 10-man raids rather than go with the 25-man group they have been raiding with.
If they truly intend to stick to "bring the player not the class" then it will never be truly as difficult as 25 man, because you won't have all the buffs and you won't have multiple people doing extra damage to <20% targets, etc.
MotW = Kings
Wisdom = Might = Shaman totems
etc.
Really, since there's always going to be a paladin in the raid, you're covered there. You have DKs to cover melee haste. I mean, you can't have a raid without at least one of those, in my experience, so you're pretty much covered in that way.
Seriously though, I imagine 10-man will be detuned a bit from the 25-man version for the same reason. I also get this impression that they're going to be nerfing 25-man non-heroic modes to help compensate. It's just a niggling feeling I have. My Spidey-sense, if you will.
We haven't ever had a paladin in our 10 man since WOTLK began. We don't have a DK either. Our comp right now is 3 feral druids, 1 balance druid, 1 resto shaman, 1 warlock, 1 disc priest, 1 holy priest, 1 shadow priest, and usually a floater.
Also what does MOTW = Kings mean?
edit: 10s and 25s sharing a lockout is officially the worst thing ever. Our guild runs several 10 mans and one 25 a week. For one thing, it lessens the amount of raiding you can do, for someone who only likes to raid. Secondly, it forces guilds to choose, which is pretty stupid. We have a set "A team" 10 man raid group and several other 10 man groups, who all come together to raid 25 man content. Why would you take away people's ability to raid different modes?