Read these:
http://www.paragon.fi/news/10-man-vs-25-man-debate
http://www.paragon.fi/articles/10-vs-25-comparison
This discussion will also be heavily moderated to maintain quality. Any trolling and senseless posts will be removed.
Do not post unless you have read the comparison article or if you skip over some of the text.
Sensible debate and discussion only. Read the whole thread as well before posting.
The 10-man vs 25-man debate
Re: The 10-man vs 25-man debate
25 Jul 2011 05:36
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Kruf
- Posts: 473
This discussion is now open, go ahead and post your thoughts on the subject, but remember to stay on topic and keep away from trolling, calling names, etc or I will hit you with TEH BANHAMMER. Thank you.
Re: The 10-man vs 25-man debate
25 Jul 2011 07:23
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Michikawa
- Posts: 1
You wrote an excellent article that gives clear and straight view regarding 10 / 25 differences in my opinion.
I think it is safe to say that if we have two variables, where x is amount of players and y is complexity (which doesn't necessarily mean difficulty, but is easily converted into it), these variables are quite naturally tied to each other.
If the encounter would be possible to complete with only one player, it all comes down to one player practicing and executing the required maneuvers. If two players are required, they have to make sure they execute everything in sync and easily can be seen, that always the extra player adds to the overall complexity of the whole system.
Of course, it comes down on the actual design of the encounter. I didn't raid 40 mans, but I heard and read that most of the encounters in vanilla WoW were designed so, that even when you had 40 players executing the encounter, it sometimes felt that for only 5-10 of those players the actual execution and it's requirements were "tight" and "hard", and for the rest, it didn't really matter that much what they were doing.
So in my analysis the basic idea is that when I mention players and that they are executing something, the encounter is designed in such a way, that none of the players can slack and do whatever they like, but everyone has a major role to play and if you fail, the encounter is a failure.
And from this, it is not too big of a jump to state that inherently 25 man raids are more complex and dynamic than 10 man versions, because of the extra complexity that comes from extra players who all have to have responsibilities and skill to execute the encounter, if they are designed so that every player counts. More moving parts -> more harder to organize and make sure that sudden, suprising things won't make things break.
Of course, the game could be designed in such a way, that the more players, the less responsibility for each, in which case it could be said that the hardest part could be somewhere near 10 players and everyone else is just meaningless extra, but it seems that the current day WoW is not designed in this way.
I think it is safe to say that if we have two variables, where x is amount of players and y is complexity (which doesn't necessarily mean difficulty, but is easily converted into it), these variables are quite naturally tied to each other.
If the encounter would be possible to complete with only one player, it all comes down to one player practicing and executing the required maneuvers. If two players are required, they have to make sure they execute everything in sync and easily can be seen, that always the extra player adds to the overall complexity of the whole system.
Of course, it comes down on the actual design of the encounter. I didn't raid 40 mans, but I heard and read that most of the encounters in vanilla WoW were designed so, that even when you had 40 players executing the encounter, it sometimes felt that for only 5-10 of those players the actual execution and it's requirements were "tight" and "hard", and for the rest, it didn't really matter that much what they were doing.
So in my analysis the basic idea is that when I mention players and that they are executing something, the encounter is designed in such a way, that none of the players can slack and do whatever they like, but everyone has a major role to play and if you fail, the encounter is a failure.
And from this, it is not too big of a jump to state that inherently 25 man raids are more complex and dynamic than 10 man versions, because of the extra complexity that comes from extra players who all have to have responsibilities and skill to execute the encounter, if they are designed so that every player counts. More moving parts -> more harder to organize and make sure that sudden, suprising things won't make things break.
Of course, the game could be designed in such a way, that the more players, the less responsibility for each, in which case it could be said that the hardest part could be somewhere near 10 players and everyone else is just meaningless extra, but it seems that the current day WoW is not designed in this way.
Re: The 10-man vs 25-man debate
25 Jul 2011 11:51
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Sun_Tzu
- Posts: 12
Complexity as a function of players involved and individual tasks is a meaningful explanation of why 25mans can, if well tuned, get screwed over quite easily. People are fallible, and especially before mastering a given encounter, the likelihood of someone failing on any given try is rather high. Essentially, you're almost hoping for everything to go wrong at once, that people would chose the same try to clutter up with their failures, rather than spreading it around and ruining multiple attempts.
However, as I see it, there is a more important question. When scaled down, especially a complex encounter may force greater complexity on individual players in 10mans. This hinges on the tuning being tight, and is purely a theoretical problem at this time, but something which has to be considered if 10mans are ever to be made really hard. A proper raid comp can ease this to some extent, but if say Aly 10man HC had been tuned properly, you'd of needed nearly every dps to be a reliable interrupter, meaning mage/hunter/warlock/spriest/boomkin would have been rather implausible to bring for the fight. This state would either be or not be acceptable, depending on what the aim of 10man HC would be. As it is, I hear it rather doesn't matter if you interrupt things half the time.
The final question, and which has been touched upon slightly, is scaling of various player abilities between the different raid sizes. During t11, the main issue was healer mana, which could near enough be trivialized on 25man, but which was a constant concern and forced higher prio on gearing healers in 10man. Also an important point was how badly abilities such as Healing Rain scale in a movement intensive or spread out 10man environment. In 25man, you can usually find a melee cluster to drop it on. In 10man, not so much. Another pet-peeve of mine was Chain Heal, which frankly felt redundant through-out t11 10mans, for as long as I competed in that bracket. On the other end, Paladins, Priests and currently Resto Druids and their Tranquility have scaled too well. Certain utility specs are also more viable in 10man, where as there's no reason ever to bring them for 25man. And finally, certain abilities such as interrupts, stuns, knockbacks and other various things can, on occasion, scale in importance far more so than in 25man.
All in all, it's not completely in your head if you sometimes feel hard pressed on 10mans. But if the numbers are off as much as they are currently, the end result clearly is a harder 25man environment, even before we consider the environment itself, i.e. spacial requirements.
However, as I see it, there is a more important question. When scaled down, especially a complex encounter may force greater complexity on individual players in 10mans. This hinges on the tuning being tight, and is purely a theoretical problem at this time, but something which has to be considered if 10mans are ever to be made really hard. A proper raid comp can ease this to some extent, but if say Aly 10man HC had been tuned properly, you'd of needed nearly every dps to be a reliable interrupter, meaning mage/hunter/warlock/spriest/boomkin would have been rather implausible to bring for the fight. This state would either be or not be acceptable, depending on what the aim of 10man HC would be. As it is, I hear it rather doesn't matter if you interrupt things half the time.
The final question, and which has been touched upon slightly, is scaling of various player abilities between the different raid sizes. During t11, the main issue was healer mana, which could near enough be trivialized on 25man, but which was a constant concern and forced higher prio on gearing healers in 10man. Also an important point was how badly abilities such as Healing Rain scale in a movement intensive or spread out 10man environment. In 25man, you can usually find a melee cluster to drop it on. In 10man, not so much. Another pet-peeve of mine was Chain Heal, which frankly felt redundant through-out t11 10mans, for as long as I competed in that bracket. On the other end, Paladins, Priests and currently Resto Druids and their Tranquility have scaled too well. Certain utility specs are also more viable in 10man, where as there's no reason ever to bring them for 25man. And finally, certain abilities such as interrupts, stuns, knockbacks and other various things can, on occasion, scale in importance far more so than in 25man.
All in all, it's not completely in your head if you sometimes feel hard pressed on 10mans. But if the numbers are off as much as they are currently, the end result clearly is a harder 25man environment, even before we consider the environment itself, i.e. spacial requirements.
Re: The 10-man vs 25-man debate
25 Jul 2011 12:17
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Carlaena
- Posts: 1
Kruf wrote:This discussion is now open, go ahead and post your thoughts on the subject, but remember to stay on topic and keep away from trolling, calling names, etc or I will hit you with TEH BANHAMMER. Thank you.
Is it any surprise that you found enrage timers so easy on 10m, when you all have ilvl 380+?
Because of loot distrubution, even the best 10m players are currently sitting around i374/i376
If you took 10 players with i374 in, it would be interesting to see whether you found those enrages quite so forgiving.
Nice article though, and interesting to read your thoughts.
Re: The 10-man vs 25-man debate
25 Jul 2011 12:34
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Kruf
- Posts: 473
Carlaena wrote:Is it any surprise that you found enrage timers so easy on 10m, when you all have ilvl 380+?
Because of loot distrubution, even the best 10m players are currently sitting around i374/i376
This post wants to have a word with your claim:
The paragons 10 players have a total combined item level of 3781, leading them to have an average of 378.1 per player.
PARAGON - 378.1 per player.
Hordlinges 9 players have a total combined item level of 3407, leading them to have an average of 378.6 ( Rounded up from 378.5555555555 ) per player.
Hordlinge - 378.6 per player.
Re: The 10-man vs 25-man debate
25 Jul 2011 13:41
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arx
- Posts: 273
We didn't do T11 in 10-man, so we can't comment on it. We did T12, so we are commenting on that only.
What we've said quite clearly is, that with proper setups, the last three 10-man encounters fall short of their 25-man versions, and that this is relevant for us, as in our mind top guilds should have proper setups.
Not with a word have we ever touched any 10-man players or guilds. I don't know why they haven't killed Ragnaros yet, and I don't claim to know. Perhaps they haven't found a working tactic, are raiding less, or haven't spent as many hours preparing their setup to net a kill yet.
We're not implying anything either; the guilds and players are not our concern, the encounters are.
If you find it offending to read an opinion about the encounters themselves, it might be time to take a deep breath.
(I'm deleting the previous post because it's pretty unreadable, this should answer the questions in it anyway on its own)
What we've said quite clearly is, that with proper setups, the last three 10-man encounters fall short of their 25-man versions, and that this is relevant for us, as in our mind top guilds should have proper setups.
Not with a word have we ever touched any 10-man players or guilds. I don't know why they haven't killed Ragnaros yet, and I don't claim to know. Perhaps they haven't found a working tactic, are raiding less, or haven't spent as many hours preparing their setup to net a kill yet.
We're not implying anything either; the guilds and players are not our concern, the encounters are.
If you find it offending to read an opinion about the encounters themselves, it might be time to take a deep breath.
(I'm deleting the previous post because it's pretty unreadable, this should answer the questions in it anyway on its own)
arx / xaar
Re: The 10-man vs 25-man debate
25 Jul 2011 13:49
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Hermanni
- Posts: 341
Luml wrote:This might be totally wrong but shouldn't you guys try to provide because of your sponsors and fans a more positive image of you self this might be only me that's read alot of ppl out there getting offended by this statements.
I don't understand what offensive there is about trying to shed some light onto a debate that has been going on for almost 6 months and has in most venues sunk into pointless flamewars with comments like "X is harder in every aspect and you're retarded for claiming otherwise" flying back and forth. Almost nobody bothers to make logical, respectful arguments and even when someone does the response is something similar to the previous quote, and most arguments being made seem to be random extracts from old favorites like "if 1 guy dies in 10M it's a wipe", "you can't have a good setup in 10M", "25M is more loot" or "Maloriak prefix IMPOSSIBLE ASF;,a,a.;;"
If you're getting offended because you feel like we're offending you on purpose or not acting respectfully, please try to point out what exactly makes you feel like that. If you're getting offended because we're trying to put some sense into a popular debate and you're not liking how it's turning out, or because nobody has made convincing counter-arguments - I'm sorry, but we can't help you with that.
Re: The 10-man vs 25-man debate
25 Jul 2011 14:11
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Wince
- Posts: 3
I applaud someone has finally decided to tackle this issue. I mean someone who actually can make an educated comparison rather than a bunch of random people who have not seen fights in either 10 or 25 or most likely both. I hope some more of the top guilds` members join in on the debate and maybe Blizzard actually pays attention so improvements can be made in the future (even though i think it`s too late to change anything in this expansion).
First of all i think it has to be pointed out that you guys did the fights just 1 reset apart. That means fights were done with pretty much the same gear (0-2 pieces per person really don`t change much) and more importantly without any hotfixes inbetween. This gives you a unique position to actually be able to objectively compare the two lets call them brackets. T11 on the contrary for example took several weeks to clear, most of the fights were changed several times during progress so it was impossible to do any comparison based just on experience. On top of that 10 man in T11 wasn`t really thought of carefully before release. I know T11 situation doesn`t really mean anything for current tier, but a lot of people arguing the issue in favor of 10 mans are basing their opinions merely on how it was back then.
That being said i absolutely belive you when you say 10 man felt considerably easier in this particular tier of raiding. Whether that is right or wrong would acutally be irrelevant except that currently both raid sizes are considered equal in difficulty - at least formally by Blizzard (achievements) but also from quite a good part of community. As long as wowprogress is showing 10 and 25 man guilds equally that won`t change. Yes there are separate 10 and 25 man pages, but rare people bother to go that far. Front page just shows all guilds together. They do what they can given that it`s fairly hard to differentiate since achievement is the same, however i still think the tables should be completely separate. That would help avoid lots of forum wars and also reward top guilds in both brackets. In the current system who is to stop some of the top 25 man guilds for taking the (what is now known) easy way out and just kill Rag in 10 man. In a month or two noone will remember the kill was done in that way, but they will still stay in top 5 or 10 in the world. I`m quite sure some guilds will take that route. There are very few guilds that can`t afford to do that - of the top of my head only Method, perhaps Ensidia and maybe 1 or 2 US guilds (vodka, Premo?). I`m sure given the information we have now thanks to Paragon, if others knew about such a difference in difficulty quite a few more would gamble and go for WF kill in 10 man. Some already did and i`m happy they didn`t succeed, otherwise this debate wouldn`t be possible. It would really suck to lose a world 1st in such a way. Sure the community would consider it "only" 10 man, but it still takes a lot of publicity for a feat that was easier to accomplish and in this aspect i understand why Paragon brought this up.
A lot of arguments in favor of 10 mans say that you have to consider the logistic possibilities of 10 man guilds. That is absulutely wrong way of looking at things. The only way to compare encounters is if you take equally geared groups with any setup you wish and then see what is harder to execute. If you want to compete for world 1st you absolutely have to be flexible enought to bring the best possible setup to an encounter. By best i mean for the particular encounter, if that means 10 retri palas so be it. It is a mistake on designers` part if some "ridiculous" setups are favorable.
There is one thing everyone has to be careful for in this debate. That is you simply can˙t extrapolate from current tier or even encounter to any other. DREAM Paragon understands this very well and all their statements go in this direction as well.
In the end in my opinion it`s up to Blizzard to decide what they want to do with 10 mans. Balance them around a "typical" 10 man guild which can`t (or won`t) afford to change setups, specs, have all buffs and debuffs etc. or balance them for competitive raiding - making it very very difficult for any guild not willing to go to absolute limits which in a way defeats the purpose of making it a more casual friendly bracket. Either way there will always be differences between 10 and 25 man encounters and it would be best to just give them separate achievements and to treat them the same way.
First of all i think it has to be pointed out that you guys did the fights just 1 reset apart. That means fights were done with pretty much the same gear (0-2 pieces per person really don`t change much) and more importantly without any hotfixes inbetween. This gives you a unique position to actually be able to objectively compare the two lets call them brackets. T11 on the contrary for example took several weeks to clear, most of the fights were changed several times during progress so it was impossible to do any comparison based just on experience. On top of that 10 man in T11 wasn`t really thought of carefully before release. I know T11 situation doesn`t really mean anything for current tier, but a lot of people arguing the issue in favor of 10 mans are basing their opinions merely on how it was back then.
That being said i absolutely belive you when you say 10 man felt considerably easier in this particular tier of raiding. Whether that is right or wrong would acutally be irrelevant except that currently both raid sizes are considered equal in difficulty - at least formally by Blizzard (achievements) but also from quite a good part of community. As long as wowprogress is showing 10 and 25 man guilds equally that won`t change. Yes there are separate 10 and 25 man pages, but rare people bother to go that far. Front page just shows all guilds together. They do what they can given that it`s fairly hard to differentiate since achievement is the same, however i still think the tables should be completely separate. That would help avoid lots of forum wars and also reward top guilds in both brackets. In the current system who is to stop some of the top 25 man guilds for taking the (what is now known) easy way out and just kill Rag in 10 man. In a month or two noone will remember the kill was done in that way, but they will still stay in top 5 or 10 in the world. I`m quite sure some guilds will take that route. There are very few guilds that can`t afford to do that - of the top of my head only Method, perhaps Ensidia and maybe 1 or 2 US guilds (vodka, Premo?). I`m sure given the information we have now thanks to Paragon, if others knew about such a difference in difficulty quite a few more would gamble and go for WF kill in 10 man. Some already did and i`m happy they didn`t succeed, otherwise this debate wouldn`t be possible. It would really suck to lose a world 1st in such a way. Sure the community would consider it "only" 10 man, but it still takes a lot of publicity for a feat that was easier to accomplish and in this aspect i understand why Paragon brought this up.
A lot of arguments in favor of 10 mans say that you have to consider the logistic possibilities of 10 man guilds. That is absulutely wrong way of looking at things. The only way to compare encounters is if you take equally geared groups with any setup you wish and then see what is harder to execute. If you want to compete for world 1st you absolutely have to be flexible enought to bring the best possible setup to an encounter. By best i mean for the particular encounter, if that means 10 retri palas so be it. It is a mistake on designers` part if some "ridiculous" setups are favorable.
There is one thing everyone has to be careful for in this debate. That is you simply can˙t extrapolate from current tier or even encounter to any other. DREAM Paragon understands this very well and all their statements go in this direction as well.
In the end in my opinion it`s up to Blizzard to decide what they want to do with 10 mans. Balance them around a "typical" 10 man guild which can`t (or won`t) afford to change setups, specs, have all buffs and debuffs etc. or balance them for competitive raiding - making it very very difficult for any guild not willing to go to absolute limits which in a way defeats the purpose of making it a more casual friendly bracket. Either way there will always be differences between 10 and 25 man encounters and it would be best to just give them separate achievements and to treat them the same way.
Re: The 10-man vs 25-man debate
25 Jul 2011 15:37
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mohawkgrenade101
- Posts: 1
I very much enjoyed the articles on the subject of what is harder and which is harder.
There is a strong difference and though I cannot word this as correctly as I said it yesterday, I will try my best.
First off is the subject of which looks harder and which feels harder (10 and 25M Heroic). From a POV of not doing the fights, it is quite simple to say that 25M looks harder, but impossible to tell whether it is harder. To do both you need to take in many different statistics and reasoning's, but what I found simple is to take into account only a few things and then base it off of that.
It all starts on "view and opinion". With opinions, there is bias; But with view, there is none. You always have people shooting off their opinion, but never their view of the subject of difficulty. Of course you need an opinion to be a factor in any subject and that is all well and good. The only question is which is more important? Ironic that I am stating an opinion to give an answer, but I believe that your view is more important on the matter. At least with view you cannot have an immediate answer and as such that is a good thing. Then again views are very opinionated so it is very hard to make an inference. That is why there is the second statistic: Gear vs Skill.
These two touchy aspects have caused a lot of riot over difficulty. You will have the $$$hat who will always say that gear is always more important, because even if you have terrible skill; gear will always get you out of the way. This however has been disproved by none other than you (Paragon)! You went into 25M Heroic Ragnaros (along with the other six bosses) and defeated him with nothing more than Heroic T11 gear. You went in with "below par" gear, but because you had the skill, you overcame this boss. Rather than state (in an opinion) which is better, it is much more interesting to see what other people "view" the better option and side.
To view something as too hard or even unbeatable, is not even possible. To reason with skill and gear is a never ending battle...
I applaud the feats that you have accomplished along with the feat you have recently achieved that even started this subject. I tried my best to clearly give my thoughts on the subject in the written form.
Happy Hunting:D
There is a strong difference and though I cannot word this as correctly as I said it yesterday, I will try my best.
First off is the subject of which looks harder and which feels harder (10 and 25M Heroic). From a POV of not doing the fights, it is quite simple to say that 25M looks harder, but impossible to tell whether it is harder. To do both you need to take in many different statistics and reasoning's, but what I found simple is to take into account only a few things and then base it off of that.
It all starts on "view and opinion". With opinions, there is bias; But with view, there is none. You always have people shooting off their opinion, but never their view of the subject of difficulty. Of course you need an opinion to be a factor in any subject and that is all well and good. The only question is which is more important? Ironic that I am stating an opinion to give an answer, but I believe that your view is more important on the matter. At least with view you cannot have an immediate answer and as such that is a good thing. Then again views are very opinionated so it is very hard to make an inference. That is why there is the second statistic: Gear vs Skill.
These two touchy aspects have caused a lot of riot over difficulty. You will have the $$$hat who will always say that gear is always more important, because even if you have terrible skill; gear will always get you out of the way. This however has been disproved by none other than you (Paragon)! You went into 25M Heroic Ragnaros (along with the other six bosses) and defeated him with nothing more than Heroic T11 gear. You went in with "below par" gear, but because you had the skill, you overcame this boss. Rather than state (in an opinion) which is better, it is much more interesting to see what other people "view" the better option and side.
To view something as too hard or even unbeatable, is not even possible. To reason with skill and gear is a never ending battle...
I applaud the feats that you have accomplished along with the feat you have recently achieved that even started this subject. I tried my best to clearly give my thoughts on the subject in the written form.
Happy Hunting:D