You bring 40 man raids to SoD = šŸ’€

WoW Classic Season of Discovery
21

Yep.

So what I remember from back when in vanilla was a few key moments. There was the drama with needing 8 tanks for Four Horsemen, there was the sudden change from 40 man to 25 man, there was the issue with Karazhan being a 10 man raid and someone always having to sit out or us not having enough tanks to fill both groups, etcā€¦

Of ALL THE CHANGES, the change in raid size often had the largest impact on the environment I found myself playing in.

While balance was lackluster, I do remember the times in Catacylsm where we were given the option of playing 10man or 25 on the same lockout quite fondly. I strongly suggest you look toward something like this.

Let me be crystal clear. I have no interest at all in doing this 40 man thing. Neither have about 8-9 of the 10-11 people i regularly play with.
The 20 man thing makes me think long and hard, if it is worth even considering, because once you do this, the other thing is going to follow. What you do once, you will do twice, thrice, many times over.

1 Like
22

At this rate of increased damage we can do 40man raids as 20man.

23

You donā€™t need 8 dedicated tanks, any warrior with a shield will suffice.

You signed up for a game based on Classic and have no interest in Classic raiding?

1 Like
24

I meant back in the day. We all know what it did to guilds. I am pointing out the effect it had, not wether or not that seemed at all necessary from todays perspective.

Yes, indeed I signed up for a game based on Classic. Analogous to many modern iterations based on older customs we do away with a lot of historical bagage.

I have interest in classic raiding. The raid size is not foundational to that. Thereā€™s nothing inherent to the number 40. 40 is not better. 40 is not more fun. 40 is not more discovery.
40 is more hassle, more logistics, more class stacking, more split raids, more forced socializing and satisfying the egos of people whos names i care not to remember. What classic raiding does not require is a magical number of 40 to be enticing as evidenced by early content in Blackrock Spire, the later Zul Gurub and Ruins of Ahnā€™Qiraj to name a few examples.

I accept that theres plenty of people who want SoD to just be another itteration of classic with the same returning ā€œsocial experienceā€. Theres many others who in various directions, would like to see some ā€œnormalizationā€. And I am not talking about Raptor Strike.

25

I dont have to be raidlead to tell people what to do and what not to do before and during a fight. Its not hard. Only hard thing about being a raid/glead lead is remembering to spam your recruit macro and setting up a discord

26

They can do it in ā€œheroicā€ form of original 20. You can find your 20 and i am playing with my guild. profit.

27

Raiding with 40 players is a great way to make a game a real ā€œMMORPGā€. You have a lot of players working together and it feels thematic. You will also have fun interactions with you raid grp. Which makes the game feel like a real RPG.

Its something completly different than lobby games which basically exist in the majority of games.

Butā€¦
if the raids become too difficult 40 players raids will fail horribly.
Playing with 40 people is not about the difficulty but rather about the ā€œjourneyā€.
Moving together to the raid. Organizing the groups and buffs and then of course fighting the bosses.

There can be a lot of different ways to make a raid a really fun experience but in retail all Blizz ever did was increase the amount of mechanics of the bosses.

I dont know why Blizz never chose to add fun interactions, puzzles and so on within the raid. Or why they never added crafting and gathering as a core of every raid. ā€œYou enter dangerous teritory to loot and plounder rare materialsā€¦ā€.

1 Like
28

The problem with 40 people isnt getting them to do mechanics. As we have seen repetition and gear solves the ā€˜mechanicsā€™ problem sooner or later, some people just need more repetition (so lets hope they find it somewhere far from me).

The bigger problem is the organization of 40 people through out a game that loses people by the day, and a population that is less and less prone to take part of a team and commit to anything.

When each reset becomes more about salvaging a sinking ship than enjoying the game, or watching less and less competent players coming in repeating misstakes, it takes the joy out for everybody - not just the people ā€œin chargeā€.

From a member point of view, knowing the line between disband and another reset is thinn, it forces the most loyal members to a sort of responsibility that feels more like a weight on their shoulders than a fun community. When the raid is depending on ā€œthe coreā€ , or specific roles, to never ever be able to have a day off for something outside of WoW, the game becomes a choir and quitting is close.

2019 was far from 2005, and 2024 is far from 2019 in this aspect.

Thats why PUGs and GDKPs grew stronger by the month from 2019-2024. From a player perspective they were a low commitment tool that allowed for a egocentric gameplay with no strings attached. Show up when you want, quit when you want, life goes on for everybody. No tearjerking letters of goodbye on the free-to-create forum.

In Classic people knew what was coming (in terms of sizes), yet like always, the drop off between phases was a fact when the nostalgia wore off. Indeed people returned but always in lesser numbers than left and always staying shorter than the previous time. The population profiles of Ironforge.pro will show you this.

In SoD, a version that was launched as something fun and with less commitment for the average players (in terms of a very accessable gameplay, more mapped out grinds, changes to counter them and low thresholds all over) I feel that the population wont accept and stay for resets on end with dying communities and struggles to form groups.
It will die and it will die fast.

1 Like
29

Agree, Iā€™m sure we will still see 40 plus raids however, unless you are a ā€œmain character ego stroke try hardā€ I doubt most people are going to do 40 raids every reset, splitting that into gear youā€™d never get drops (as it was in classic too) and eventually you just burn out doing a 3 hour raid for nothing.

31

Your retail mentality is whats gonna kill SOD. You dont speak for anyone but yourself this is an MMO. 40 Man is an amazing experience.

2 Likes
32

I actually played the original, so no, my ā€œretailā€ experience isnā€™t going to kill the game - Iā€™ve played both classic (the recent one) and retail and honestly Iā€™m not trying to knock your feelings on 40 man raids, look, Iā€™ve done them, a lot of people have done them.

The thing that I donā€™t think a lot of you guys are understanding or not thinking about, the 40 man experience is nice for about a split second (your thinking of pure nostalgic) then you hop into discord after a 9 hour plus shift at work (even if you do raids on the weekend) and you realize you legit have to actually try this with 40 - freaking - people. Yes SOD is tuned up so the raid itself may not be as long, but we simply donā€™t know. It could be a 3 hour raid.

You want to try that with 40 people and split loot? Good luck seeing loot unless youā€™re in a guild and even then, you have to ALL get geared up. That will take dozens of resets maybe more. That sounds like a full time job to me man.

Look no one here is asking for hand outs but the actual player base wants to be able to log in, find a group (know mechanics) and perhaps get rewards here and there. 40 manā€™s arenā€™t it. (They will still come out)

You wanna farm 3 hour raids with 40 people and not see loot in a month? Go for it. Enjoy the stress. :joy:

33

SoD has very little to do with vanilla at this point so who cares?
I personally hope they go 25man for end game raids.

1 Like
34

Waaah I only play this game for loot edited by moderatorother ppl just let me solo 1man raids

35

I would settle for 20 man Heroic versions with better gear for the people who want the challenge.

36

Iā€™ve played since the beta 2004. 40 man then was something else, communities coming together in all different shapes and forms and progressing in their own tempo, with their own rules, while the raids were just a extent of that social platform which guilds were. That was then, and the approach to the game and content was something we already seen isnt a part of Classic, Era or even SoD.

40-man raids now is a anonymous 20 min event once every week where people outgear, ā€œout-rosterā€ and outbuff anything that would cause even the slightest challenge to be able to tank and spank their way through a series of bosses while staring blindly at the damage meter and hoping the right shiney will drop.
If that is a amazing experience for you, then you must have LOVED the Ashenvale event - right?

I agree that a higher number of players in a raid feels more epic, but like mentioned, if itā€™s going to be another snoozefest with high investment, treshold and low rewards, it wont be sustainable and people will drop of rather than come together.
That same experience can be offered in a much more manageable format, like 20 man raids.

Judging by the many smaller communities that have started under SoD, the complaints about 10 man Gnomeregan being to hard, and the removal of GDKP, I find it highly unlike that the population will rejoice when ā€œforcedā€ (which will be the case if it offers better rewards) into 40 man organizations while running the same raids they have been doing for 20 years now.

If thats what people wanted, and feel runes are bad and PvP is unbalanced, then Classic Era is >>> That way. Go have your ā€œepic 40 manā€ experience there if its all about being able to hide amongst 39 others, rather than more personal responsibilities in smaller formats.

On this I would much more agree.

37

Apart from still having the same content, the same consumables, the same base mechanics, you mean?

And who cares? A lot of us. 10 man is boring, itā€™s good for puggers only and the core part of a game should never be catered to pugs.

Preferable to 10man sure.

38

Why 25? Always been such an awkward number.
Iā€™d take 20 over that.

Other than that, Iā€™m looking forward to 40 man, even though weā€™ve already agreed in my guild we arenā€™t going to do the management needed to run a 40m raid (again).

Itā€™s just the coolest experience to be doing big badass bosses with 39 other people.

Iā€™m all for adding ridiculously hard content (Preferably mechanically but also organisational), but definitely not harder versions of the same raids.

I donā€™t think everyone should be able to clear all content, I donā€™t mind progressing and being hardstuck on the same mid-raid boss for weeks.
And if there are bosses my guild simply cannot kill i will be drooling whenever I see anyone wearing items from that boss.

2 Likes
39

40 man raiding so lovely the amount of gdkp money u make on that uuuuuuuu sweat alabama

40

i think it could be fun with 40 players

41

I think they should make 100man raids and remove all the mechanics so we can go in like monkeys and auto attack the boss for 10min. And even then we will ask people to show their logs or we wont invite them! S tier gameplay
Also forgot to mention 1 item should drop per 3boss kills that way only 3 items will drop total for 100 people and the leader can take them all!