In lack of similar posts, I’d thought I’d highlight what atleast I, my friends and my guild feel has been good with SoD in hope for the future content patches in terms of raiding.
I’d like to give a big up to the 10-man experience with the 3 day reset, along with the difficulty of BFD (and presence of World Buffs).
First and foremost the 10-man size has really been enjoyable. It has been easy to gather close friends and familars to create a “intimate” (in lack of better words) experience where every person feel like they are important and acually have to carry their weight. With this approach every player matters, and need to “perform” somewhat synced and decent for the raid to be succesful. From a organizational point if view, its much more enjoyable to both lead guilds, raids and PUGs when the focus can be playing the game instead of handeling structures necessary to succesfully organize big groups, both before, during and after raids.
This in contrast to the anonymity of 40 man, along with the organization of it all, which atleast a few people have expressed their concerns with in returning to SoD.
Also, the raids feel rewarding in terms of loot, where 10 people share the spoils of the boss and one knows “my turn is coming sooner or later”, compared to 40 people constantly frustrated by the lack of rewards to due lack of items, and high amount of players sharing them (which I think unfortunatly only works against concepts like guilds and for concepts like GDKP)
The lenght and difficulty of BFD have, together with the “short” 3 day resets, been really enjoyable. It feels like there’s a balance between mobs and bosses, and the variation makes the raid as whole seem less boring than spending a long time clearing only mobs (Hello Mt Hyjal). The newer concept of “a few harder but more rewarding bosses at the end” also creates a carrot and lowers the treshold even for the most casual of PUGs.
It also feels nice to know that the complete raid, done in a normal tempo with e.g Alts, doesnt take the whole evening - but still offers the possibility to speedrun for the people who like that.
Furthermore, the fact that there’s only 3 days until " the next raid" along with the presence of World Buffs (with DMF even more often) and Chronoboon, compensate for what otherwise could feel like a “too” short or boring raid.
The raid runs feel short and manageable for people who want to play it without all available World Buffs or for less geared players/Alts.
Meanwhile the “proper speedruns” (can only be a proper one with DMF, right ^^) are exciting and happen more often! Long gone are the tedious “DMF-week so this raid is the only one that matters” or the feeling of slow motion/low motivation modes that happen when a attempt fails early on (knowing next attempt is atleast 7 days away, or 1 month for DMF).
I know not everybody agrees with this approach, but I thougth atleast I’d let you know that some people do, and wouldnt mind future content patches to be similar. I personally would dislike to take a working core of 13-14 people and force it into a anonymous 40 man machine that raidlog 6 out of 7 days.
Cheers