10 vs 25 Cataclysm

[zYN]

I'm sure I totally said twice not to come back at me with current 10s stats, since they are a different beast. I know 10s atm are easy, they are supposed to be. The difficulty of the encounters in cata should be roughly the same in both, so it is your choice which one you go for. If they are not the same then Bliz have majorly messed up.

Didn't really need to come at me all guns blazing, I was simply stating my point, not attacking your integrity as a guild. You will do what you always do best, nothing Bliz does is going to change that, but it makes a HUGE difference to the guilds that are not at your level.

You talked about the new raids sounding like you had some solid experience in them. This led me to jump to the conclusion that you were bashing the earlier 10-mans.

The point still stands though - all of that will apply to the 10-man instances in Cataclysm as well. It's significantly easier to play perfectly in a 10-man raid and it's significantly easier to "stack the raid" with a class that's perfect in a particular encounter. It doesn't take much resources. The difference is absolutely huge between non-optimal and optimal - good example of this is a disc priest on LK Heroic. On other encounters the difference isn't quite as huge, but it's there.

How do you figure the 10-mans will ever get quite as 'tuned' if you can't assume the raid has the absolute optimal composition and buffs to kill it? Unless some major homogenization happens with every class, it just never will be quite as tight.

If the tuning actually will require you to stack the raid hardcore even in 10-mans, how do you think the community will react to it? Are they going to be happy to gear 5 different characters just to be able to run the current or next instance, because their usual group didn't have a priest that was required in the encounter? My guess is no.

I'm also gonna put my money on "not going to happen."


I usually give Blizzard a lot of credit with what they're trying to accomplish. I don't shoot ideas or concepts down lightly at all. I just have an incredibly hard time seeing how they could possibly scale the encounters to be anywhere close to just as hard on 10-man and 25-man, assuming that the fights aren't as gimpy as in Molten Core.

If the dev team gets even close, I'll applaud them - it will have taken massive amounts of effort. I'm sure the 10-mans will be harder than what they are now and probably will offer some real challenge. I'm also just as sure that overall they will not be as hard.

[Dooby]

I thought the idea was that Bliz were moving well well away from buffs for this next expansion. I'm on the beta atm, and all the buffs seem to be very toned down and very homogenized, chances are in a 10man you will have all the same buffs you have in a 25man or at least very near. I think there are only something like 15 buff types now and 10 debuff types. Admittedly I haven't been in any 10s on the beta because they are not open yet, but then neither has anyone so this is all conjecture :P

I agree with you, getting both to the same balance will be very difficult, but without any testing that was the basis on which I was responding.

However I am sorry for derailing this thread, I just thought it was a very interesting and enjoyable discussion :)

[Kruf]

Matter of fact is, even if the buffs and rdps/rhps/whatever requirements were tuned to match the same difficulty exactly, 10man would still be easier. Read the points Hermanni made earlier about mechanics that require spreading out and the probability of one personal mistake happening. Also note that buffs aren't the only reason for class stacking - classes still have large differences in aoe/cleave and escape abilities.

[zYN]

Don't be sorry, it's an interesting topic even if it's slightly derailed. Some of the best memories I have about raiding has been from 10-mans.

I'm of course hoping that they manage to make heroic 10-man raids as hard as possible. Having some challenge in the raids plays a big part for keeping me motivated and interested in the game. Optimizing really small things in an encounter until I get to play it "perfect," at least once.

[Dooby]

10man Sarth3d was harder than 25man :)

[zYN]

I heard the hype for it too. Went in and it just fell over without any hassle. I think it was the third kill or so, went in on wednesday as soon as the instance reset. I felt the 25-man one was harder (but this might be because the average skill level there was significantly lower).

[Dooby]

Goddam it stop being so PRO! :P

[leonking]

10man is no way compared to 25man in the current design philosophy (both have the same mechanisms).

I am expecting they introduce some additional mechanisms to 10man, e.g., heavy CC requirements like in Vanilla and early TBC dungeons.

We will see.

[Kanlo]

I just hate that idea.
This game is about working hard and making a nice 25 man is hard work and hard work = better stuff.
This is why We or I play this game.
If this 10 and 25 man dropping the same loot , everyone will be the same gear lvl and the game will be very easy and there will be nothing that everyone wants to fight for and then the game is pointless then people start quitting.
I think If we all QQ to blizz about this. they will not make it happen.
To me 25 people working as a team and working hard and accomplishing something is seems it takes so much more skill and it is much enjoy able.
and for those who dont have guilds to do 25 man. they should just join one or make there own guild.

[xenophics]

everyone will be the same gear lvl and the game will be very easy

We don't know how it will be yet. In my eyes 25-mans are harder because they need more (stuff that has already been discussed here). I believe Blizzard can make 10-mans _hard_ as well, balancing the encounters out will be the problem in my eyes. I doubt the the game will become any easier than it is now.