TLDR; 20-man raiding in SoD might be a sweet spot (under current circumstances) going forward. If increased, there’s a risk of an even fast decline in activity, population and communities. More players doesn’t equal epic content. More players does not equal harder content. More players doesn’t equal a sense of community and participation. With the baseline population of SoD (now at a all time low), the Cata release and summer ahead, 40-man raiding will kill this game before summer ends.
I’d like to try to make a constructive thread about my thoughts on raid size going forward in Season of Discovery and why I think 20-man raiding might be the sweet spot. If you don’t like reading or if you prefer short easy answers/solutions, this might not be the thread for you.
I’ll make an attempt to hit the issue from different angles, both from a community, game, group and individual perspective.
I’ll try to raise issues with the most common cases against smaller raids/for larger raids:
- Difficulty
- Epic feeling
- Organization, longevity, sense of community and accessibility from both a Guild and PUG perspective
- Optimizing raids (Game-play perspective)
- Minor Point: PvP scene
I apologize in advance for some of them floating into each other, it’s hard to describe some factors in isolation.
Raid size and difficulty (Size =//= Difficulty)
To cut to the chase, raid size is not directly related to raid difficulty. More players in a raid doesn’t per default make the raid itself hader by any means.
I’ve seen a lot of feedback from players claiming that the previous 10 man content was “too easy”, claiming it was the fact that it was “only 10-man” that made it so.
I agree that BFD and Gnomeregan (and post nerf Sunken as well) are easy, but as we saw during early Sunken (or early attempts on Kelris and Thermaplugg), it has everything to do with tuning, tactics and mechanics (and later on gear) and not with the raid size itself.
Difficulty has nothing to do with the size, as we have seen both 5-man and 10-man content (in other installments of WoW) that is far harder than whatever current SoD has to offer. In contrast the previous Classic raids, at least MC, BWL and AQ, were really easy despite being 40 man.
Raid difficulty isn’t about smashing together 100 players in a random context and having them tanking and spanking “Target Dummy”-type Bosses with little to no mechanics and claiming it’s hard. So why use this as an argument against 20-man content (or smaller for that matter)?
I much rather do content where raids groups both need to be coordinated from a group wide perspective (move away from X, stack up on Y, target Z first) with individual responsibility (“Move out/Go to”, “Don’t blow up the raid”, “Press the right thing at the right time”) integrated into that, than whatever “The Classic” raids ever offered in the past.
Feeling that every player in the raid carries a responsibility adds to the participation and also adds to the social/community part of WoW. It also makes every individual feel valuable to the raid compared to being an anonymous name/class. Not being able to hide behind the massive group adds to difficulty and it eliminates the “free ride passengers” that might as well have played LFR.
Raid size and “Epic feeling”
The topic of what makes a raid feel “epic” is a harder one. Something feeling epic is very subjective, so what’s it about? Huge bosses? Difficult bosses? Long pre-quests? Connections to lore? Long RP dialog? The raid environment? The number of people standing next to you?
One of the arguments against smaller raids (BFD/Gnomeregan) has been that it simply doesn’t feel epic and that they feel like dungeons. With this argument every anonymous Ashenvale event should feel epic, right? Rushing to bunkers in Alterac Valley felt epic?
Perhaps the reason the previous raid content in SoD felt like a dungeon is because >>> they actually WHERE 5-man Dungeons remade to Raids <<< ?
From TBC and forward, the raid sizes were 25-man, 5 more people than current content P3. Did anybody ever say they weren’t epic?
I’m confident in the fact that even if the raid size stops at 20-man, there will be other factors going forward contributing to that “epic feeling” (bosses, environment etc), much more so than the number of names in our raid frames.
Organization, longevity, affinity (sense of community) and accessibility
The raid size strongly influences a lot of important factors outside the raid itself. When complaints arise about how “accessible” (I’ll use this word to describe how many players want to, attempt and actually clear raids on a regular basis) a raid is, people often jump to the conclusion that it’s all about the difficulty of the raid itself. This isn’t completely true. Before a group of players even step foot in a raid, there are several steps that affect them.
I’ll try to describe it from 3 main perspectives. A “traditional” Guild perspective, a modern “PUG”-type guild perspective and a Pick Up Group perspective. I’ll elaborate on each type as I write about it.
Traditional Guilds
So what do I mean with a “traditional guild”? I mean a type of close community guild with emphasis on community, social interaction, a “tight” core and gameplay not only limited to raiding with each other once a week. The number of Members are somewhat more than/around the amount needed for raids, but never so many that it becomes anonymous. Raiding often revolved around 1-2 resets, splits and/or Alts.
Call me old fashioned, but In my opinion Guilds like these are the “heart” of World of Warcraft, and they come in all types of shapes and forms.
My personal feeling is that we had much more of these types of guilds early on in SoD, as many groups of friends and previous gaming acquaintances both had the numbers for 10-man Raids, and felt that it was a manageable number. Even for people with no previous connection at all, it was a size small enough to “start from 0” and try to create their own thing.
These players embarked the SoD adventure with the conditions at the time, while Blizzard was fence riding raid sizes with vague decisions.
Organization
I can only talk from my own experience, both as a figure who has been leading guilds but also from a member perspective. As the roster increases, the more time is spent dealing with pretty much everything else than playing. Rosters, sign-ups, recruitments, replacements, loot, DMs, tactics … You name it. It’s not for everybody, even though some people (many times just to help out) are “forced” into it and burn out.
The baseline is easy, no matter what approach or structure one is trying to uphold; The more people that are involved, the bigger the task gets and the more time it takes. After years of 40-man organization 25-man felt like a breeze (not to mention 10-man that were running themselves with the correct people). Not to say that it’s a walk in the park, but the difference is significant.
If we want different types of guilds and communities to be created and upheld, it needs to be manageable for the people involved and for whatever target audience one had in mind.
This should have a positive effect on the population as more players can find the “right type” of context to play in, but not at the expense of people quitting and guilds collapsing due to a huge investment for a very little reward.
Many started SoD and acclimatized to what was offered at the time, the 10-man raids. It’s not as easy as just flipping the switch for a lot of groups, guilds and communities to switch over to 20-man raids. We have already seen what it did to the population, and that was 10 (!) additional players.
I’m afraid that if this happens again, this time to 20 additional players, a lot of people putting in effort to make it work now will be put in a position where they no longer will be able to.
Recruitment problems
As the raiding size increased to 20-man before Phase 3, several problems emerged for many guilds and groups. A Lot of the smaller tight communities suddenly had to DOUBLE their roster over a week, which ment either recruiting like crazy or trying to find a new home (or a home at all) for anything between 6 - 14 people.
It’s easier said than done, because not only do you need raw numbers, you need the correct roles (DPS/Tank/Healer) in addition to actual “good fits” in terms of community, performance and goals.
Don’t assume exactly 20/40 players will cut it either. In order for the Guild to prevail from reset to reset, one has to over-recruit to compensate for people not showing up or quitting. This also means benching people (which is sensitive in its nature, especially in tight groups).
While additional resets (Benched/Alt Raids) during a week, in order to offer everybody clears, were easier to achieve with 10-man (not only due to size, but also less leveling to get there) getting them in 20-man was yet again a big project, forcing players to either find their own solution or skipping a reset outside of “main raid”. If we move on to 40-man, this will be an even bigger project.
In addition, a certain part of the player base has unfortunately been spoiled by the early 10-man accessibility and difficulty, which we can blame Blizzard for.
Everything could be cleared by anyone so smaller groups of friends and individuals could get resets with little to no requirements or demands on them.
When the very same players were forced into bigger communities/guilds for regular clears, the attitude from a large part of them was “my way or the highway”, making demands like 19 people needed their help and not the other way around.
Creating and catering solo heroes and mindsets like these also makes it harder for guilds to recruit dependable players. They seek a no commitment context where it’s all about how much they can get. If recruiting was a hassle for 20-man, wait until it’s time for these players to try 40-man (that is if they are even around at that point).
Fun as it is to play in a guild, I prefer my raiders to be members and committed. A guild for me - and a lot of other people - isn’t a structure that should depend on finding “PUGs”/randoms to fill up the roster from reset to reset, which goes against the idea of having a home that doesn’t depend on looking for solutions on the go.
If I was ever in a situation where this was the go to approach, I’d rather not play. Unfortunately I think that if we do see an increased raid size (to 40) this will be - as it was during Phase 2 TBC - the reality from reset to reset, which will make a lot of players quit.
Lost sense of community
Another problem that emerged in Phase 3 with people recruiting, merging, joining other groups/guilds is what happened with the sense of community - which for many is the primary factor that keeps them playing and logging in.
With every new player addition the group dynamic changes (which affects both the established group and the new player/s). Finding a good fit can be hard as it’s not easy joining already established cultures and relationships. It also expands what was once familiar to something unknown and new for the established community, where some people quit to “it just not feeling like before anymore”.
Everybody wants to play with their friends (making sure they do so going forward), but incorporating groups and matching the needs of an established guild/group in terms of mindset, culture, classes and roles is very difficult and rarely works out. And the sad fact is that the later one figures this out, the more alternatives have been burned and the less is the chances of finding good fits.
This was a dealbreaker for a lot of individuals and groups which quit around the launch of Phase 3. Some people gave up immediately, others joined bigger guilds/groups only to find themselves surrounded by unknown players, new cultures and losing motivation. For many, it simply just isn’t the same to play with known names with familiar banter, goals and systems as it is to just “get a clear” with randoms.
As a player told me when I talked about his group (who wanted to join our guild); “We perhaps sometimes fail and play like crap, but at least we do it with friends”.
Out of all points in this text, this is the most important one. The inability to hit certain personal and group wide goals that at first glance seem to be “the most important” to players as e.g gear, performance, clears and similar can often be tolerated if done with people you are friends with and have a relationship to. Don’t underestimate this factor and its relevance to population numbers!
PUG-type guilds
So what do I mean with a “PUG”-type Guild? This is the modern, and perhaps these days more common, type of Guild which is basically a glorified PUG. Often consisting of the same players, with the big difference that neither the Guild nor Member really have any commitment to each other. Join the raid when and if you want, be replaced when you’re not needed anymore or when your class/spec isn’t desired/meta. Activities and interaction between Members outside of raid often revolves around common benefits.
These Guilds tend to run a large amount of resets per week, where often one or two groups are focused on in terms of performance, and the remaining Members are anonymous canon fodder to keep the machinery going (and are fine with it).
The reason I highlight the difference between the different types of guilds is because I didn’t want people to confuse them when argumenting for such things as “sense of community” which is far less important in these types of guilds compared to the other kind, understandably. Both types of guilds can share a lot of things like goals, approaches and similar, but I feel one of them is created more out of the individual need being the driving force than the other (even if obviously both are, in a way).
Some of the PUG-type guilds might have troubles with increased raid sizes, but it all depends on their current overall roster. Most of them I think won’t be as affected, but it will instead get consequences like less amount of resets/week and perhaps a lower bottom performance. The strength with large numbers and little commitment is that it really doesn’t matter who you play with, as long as you get to play. From an organizational point of view however, these types of guilds are somewhat vulnerable to other WoW releases, content drought, other big game releases and so forth.
Pick Up Groups
With Pick Up Groups I mean exactly that, groups that form in General/Trade chat, where the participants rarely are the same from reset to reset. A good fit for whoever likes to be able to pop in every once in a while and test their luck with loot or simply experience the new PvE content.
Organization
It’s no surprise this group is the biggest "losers’’ as the raid sizes grow. The most desired (and often the most important) rolls along with the most optimized classes are soaked up by guilds which leave few alternatives when it’s time to form a raid - and now suddenly the demand is doubled both ways! Not only are more of these roles/classes soaked up by guilds, one needs more of them to form a Pick Up Group.
Instead Pick Up Groups are filled with the most unwanted classes in extent, creating fierce competition for items and making class specific bosses/mechanics harder, making these types of groups even more unattractive. A vicious negative spiral!
Conclusion
The larger the group, the harder it is to fill it with people sharing the same expectations and goals, whether it be speed, efficiency, different views of fun, cost effectiveness etc. “Clears” is a bad metric and lacks nuans, hence the millions of unsuccessful so called “semi hardcore guilds”. The reason these guilds often fail, reform, can’t keep members and disband is because of a lack of agreement to what actually makes them “semi hardcore” apart from a decent - but never really great - clear time.
The less spots one needs to fill with like minded people, the higher are the chances of success, enjoyment and longevity.
With increasing raid size on a ever decaying population, the smaller is the chance that one can find others that both have the capacity and want to clear content the same way as oneself.
It’s also easier to find a common determinator with smaller than bigger groups, which makes it easier to be more flexible with one’s own approach and goals.
In addition, from an organizational point of view, the bigger groups are forced to become, the less manageable it is and requires more time, planning and overview. As this task grows the individuals interested in upholding them need to invest more, making them less attractive. Not many want to spend more time dealing with everything around a raid instead of actually playing, which also leads to less meaningful contexts for the average player to take part in.
If SoD was launched as 40-man, “forcing” people into this type of commitment from the start, I believe we would have seen a completely different population from start. Even though the raid sizes weren’t set in stone, had they said “40 man will be a thing at 60, 7 months from now” (instead of fence riding), it still would have been a challenge to keep a 40-man guild busy throughout 10-man and 20-man content. The approach we got was a very strange one from all perspectives.
I also want to point out that going the “other way” would have been and always has been easier. For obvious reasons, once a 40-man baseline has been established (as with Classic) the smaller raids (ZG, AQ etc) are much more manageable than the other way around.
Optimizing raids (Game-play perspective)
The larger the raid size is, the bigger the difference in performance between optimized min/max rosters and individual player performance becomes.
How to make enjoyable and accessible content (across the board) when on one side 40 optimized classes, with BiS gear and perfect rotations are clearing them, and on the other side 40 random mixed classes, with perhaps less good players in all different types of gear need to clear the same content?
This was a problem before and will become even a bigger problem later on if raid sizes are increased. It won’t be fun at all on the wrong side of the stick (depending on where Blizzard puts it’s focus/level) no matter where on the scale your guild or group is.
PvP scene
I write all of this with PvE in mind, not mentioning the other and important part of WoW; PvP. However I’ll write a few words about how bigger raids might affect the PvP part of the game.
Obviously, as has been since forever, a lot of good PvP BiS gear is locked behind raiding. If it should be so or not is a different discussion, but there’s no denying the fact. This means that PvP players either have to be part of a guild/community in order to get the gear, where they most of the time are prioritized as it better suits others or simply non-PvP specs. For the PvP players looking for PUGs it’s even harder, as many of their classes aren’t invited in excess, even less so to these kinds of groups.
The accessibility, with previously mentioned reasons, is important here as well. The bigger groups that are required, the more requirement asked for (in terms of PvE events, farms and similar), the less chance there’s for a PvP player to not only get in to a raiding environment, but also to actually get whatever items they need in there (competing in worse case with 39 other players).
For a PvP player, or a group of PvP players, having the chance to get this gear without too much involvement and investment in PvE (as 40-man will become) could perhaps engage them more in these activities while at the same time allow them to do what they love the most: PvP.
Indirectly, as population sinks due to a bad approach to PvE, the less people will be around to PvP, run around in the open world as world activity drops, and the less probability it is that a bunch of PvP players will take initiative to create their own guilds, raids and PUGs in terms of PvE.
End of wall of text
That’s it. The TLDR is up there at the start. I just felt I needed to say something about the very counterintuitive approach of increasing raid sizes as population is sinking, especially as I know the day to day activity is more based around the "casuals’ ’ and smaller communities everyday playing rather than the hardcore and “mega groups” raid logging. As much as I have enjoyed 40 man previously, I hate logging in to see low world activity, empty cities and two different mega guilds … in addition to 20 more heads to care about!
Cheers!
