The Raid Observer: Week 2, The 6/8 Pile Up

Good morning, fine people! Here's the Raid Observer back with a brief update for you to start us off for the weekend. I've got a general race update and some observations on a few recent things... read on!

 

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The 6/8 Pile Up and a General Update

So... looks like we're starting to queue up at 6/8 heroic modes, not necessarily something that's a big surprise to the various members of top guilds that I've spoken with. The content is designed to scale up in difficulty--and we ought to hope for that if we want a marathon of a progression race as opposed to a sprint--and there are points where guilds either need a reset to gain more gear or just more time to test various strategies or tactics. They all love that challenge, so I'm not particularly concerned about how the guys at the top are feeling. I'd think that it's possible everyone is secretly (or subconsciously at least) hoping for things to wait until the bans are lifted so that any world first can be viewed as being more fairly and justifiably won. Granted, Blood Legion and vodka, the only two 25-man raiding guilds that have cleared the Warmaster in that mode, have had a lot more time to bash their heads against Spine on 25-man, thus giving them a decided advantage over the guilds that are currently at 6/8 in 10-man mode, but theoretically if we remain at 6/8 until the reset, then that should give everyone (granted the guilds that have part or most of their roster banned can catch up) an equal footing on Madness. Which could, hopefully, result in a better race at the end. Lots of hope, theory, and presuming on my part there, but it's still anyone's guess and anyone's race. It's always been a bit of a weird thing to know that guilds are busy doing *something* in the race, but until they magically appear across the finish line, we actually have no idea what's really going on.

 

Some general interesting data so far on the race in general, however! I can confess here that I've had the help of a very capable maths person and he's been producing some amazing graphs based around the race data. Thank you, Mr. Super Capable Maths Person. :) xox He actually did an interesting comparison of 10-mans to 25-man kills. We've got two graphs because something interesting is happening with Yor'sahj on heroic 10-man that I'll deconstruct a bit below. Behold the sexy graphs:

 

 

This graph reflects all of the 10-man kills up through heroic Warmaster as compared to 25-man kills, showing that for every kill of a boss on 25-man mode, it has been killed approximately two to eight times more on 10-man. For example, if we look at the heroic Zon'ozz kills, he's been downed 2.11 times more on 10-man than in 25-man modes, while the Madness (normal) has been killed 5 times more on 10-man mode versus 25-man. This all makes sense considering how many more 10-man raiding guilds we have out there (and I think the first couple bosses best reflect that with their 2x more kills to date) and the fact that the more casual guilds with a relaxed progression outlook are probably not quite ready to tackle heroic modes, if at all. But keep in mind that these data about the later bosses are probably slightly skewed by the recent LFR exploit bans (though I imagine that's negligible overall and only noticeable at the top rankings). But the case of Yorsahj (see above) deviates even if you factor in the LFR ban. Yor'sahj has been killed 26.5 times *more* on 10-man heroic mode than on 25-man mode. This would suggest a significant variation in success at killing this particular boss on 10-man versus 25-man. Does that mean he's easier on 10-man?

The following graph shows you the 10/25 number of kills comparison without Yor'sahj so you can see a bit more detail. :)

 

 

 

More Confusion Over Cheating

So, while the big forums appear to have mostly quieted down their rabid and impassioned discussion (coupled with the requisite trolling) over the LFR ban, it's still moving around the community. I listened to a podcast yesterday (a very popular one) where the commentators discussed the "cheating" (thus giving it a particular slant to begin with) situation. While they gave some excellent advice to listeners (don't even think about trying to take loot twice), they also seemed to make a few inaccurate observations about what's going on. That seemed to be driven by a perception of top tier raiding guilds always looking to find ways to cheat around the system (that's the only logical way they could ever kill bosses so quickly, after all, right). They also seemed quite content to target their discussion around only one top guild "cheating", thus fueling antagonism even more, I think. But maybe they were just projecting what most people seem to believe about what's happened and why it happened. And I've found with people that once we set our minds on something, it's hard to see things another way. What is it, haters gonna hate, cheaters gonna cheat?

Cheating is an interesting concept and I've not really found, at least in my own work with raiders at all levels, that there is a strong desire to find ways to cheat in any part of this game when it comes to raiding; but it's become part of the gaming experience, no matter what we might try to do to avoid it or deride it. There's always a desire to find ways to improve efficiency, and some players might even accept having to do certain (acceptable) workarounds to get around a problem, but cheating is not something I've seen anyone--at least openly--admit to wanting to do. I will say that perhaps some group's desire to compete might allow them to accept the grey areas of "jumping on the bandwagon" of exploiting in order to keep up in a race, but I don't think they're happy doing it. They might be resolved or resigned to the necessity, but I have yet to run into any glee over the activity itself. If anything, they often get angry about it, mostly because they feel (whether right or wrong) that they have to do it to keep up. I know we could engage in a very robust debate about these grey areas but I doubt we'd ever come to a universal conclusion, however, about its merits or pitfalls. Cheating is, by its nature, something we're uncomfortable with yet surrounded by everywhere in life. I can only hope that with this strict reaction to the recent exploit situation that we can start to put behind us this ethical question of feeling compelled to join in on the cheating just to remain competitive. At least we may have a precedence to point to that will deter any future "feeling" that we are forced to swim deeply in those dark grey waters, if only to get to the other side of the river first.