25 Person Raids Inc.
The hot topic around the interweb about the future of World of Warcraft is most certainly Blizzard's decision to lower the raiding cap for upcoming content. This combined with the inclusion of the previously restricted faction classes will make for some interesting decisions facing raid guild leaders in The Burning Crusade (TBC).
GSH, the author of Blessing of Kings lays out four likely possibilities in the article linked by the title. The most interesting to me (making the assumption the majority of a guild's playerbase will stay when TBC is released or enough players will return to cover the loses) is,
I realize this would not be an option for the people in the particularly hardcore guilds focused almost completely on progression which, to me, seem more likely to cut people (option 2 in GSH's article). However, I feel a rotation may well provide the most amicable option until newer guilds shake themselves out. I can't fool myself into believing a major guild restructuring will not occur on most servers, but I do believe a rotation is a quite amicable option for guilds prior to the inevitable fallout.
Another interesting option from GSH was the suggestion of a guild sponsored Arena team..
The appeal I see to this is there are a number of people for whom raiding is not the most interesting part of the game. However, I don't see the Arena team as a rotating group as GSH suggests, but rather a consistent guild sponsored group. To me this will also promote interaction between the rest of the server community and the large raiding guilds. It may even turn out factions split over favorite teams, I can envision the Arena teams becoming quite the hot topic of inter and intrafaction discussion and rivalry and to be quite honest I'm really looking forward to it.
Anyway, back to the 25 person limit. Another suggestion was..
The largest problem I see with this is the potential for drama. Inevitably one group will be considered the good group or the 'A-Team' while the other group will be labeled 'JV Squad'. Its unfortunate, but I think its part of the mob mentality combined with Grass is Always Greener syndrome. Hell its even possible both groups would see the other as the 'A-Team', imagine that! The fractured mentality of the guild would likely eventually lead to simply a fractured guild which would, in most cases, be a real shame.
The other possibility (as pointed out by someone in a topic on the EJ forums) is one raid group 'locking out' a large number of people in such a way that there would not be enough of a balanced group in order to create an effective second raid at all. A guild which wanted to run two raid groups would I think have to have an incredibly bloated roster in order to allow for substitutions. For example, assume a core raid force of 36 (four of each class for simplicity), 25 of these are the regular raiders, with the other 11 rotating in as needed (either because people left early or real life [RL] came up). In order to ensure always being able to field a raid, judging from personal experience, a guild would need at the very least 1 person for each of the substitutes. So each raid, in my estimation, would require a force of 47 people in order to consistently maintain, where 11 or so of those people can be more casual and possibly cross over between the raids, though that would re-introduce the problem we're trying to get around so lets ignore it. Therefore in order to maintain two raids consistently a guild is going to need, judging from my biased experiences, between 80 and 95 raiders. Again looking at my current guild, this means keeping track of the same number of people as we do now, but it places the additional requirement of tracking another raid group. I can see the stress coming out the raid leaders collective ears already.
GSH, the author of Blessing of Kings lays out four likely possibilities in the article linked by the title. The most interesting to me (making the assumption the majority of a guild's playerbase will stay when TBC is released or enough players will return to cover the loses) is,
Instead of each person raiding 5 nights a week, each person raids 4 nights, allowing everyone to raid, though at a lesser rate than previous. The advantage is that everyone remains together. Some people may dislike sitting out, though. Progression will also be much slower, as it will take longer to gear everyone up and for everyone to learn the encounters.
I realize this would not be an option for the people in the particularly hardcore guilds focused almost completely on progression which, to me, seem more likely to cut people (option 2 in GSH's article). However, I feel a rotation may well provide the most amicable option until newer guilds shake themselves out. I can't fool myself into believing a major guild restructuring will not occur on most servers, but I do believe a rotation is a quite amicable option for guilds prior to the inevitable fallout.
Another interesting option from GSH was the suggestion of a guild sponsored Arena team..
Take 4-10 people who like PvP and set them up as an Arena team. While the rest of the guild raids, the Arena team goes out and PvPs. Then when a PvP season ends, the Arena team takes their new toys and is folded back into the raiding team, and a new PvP team is set up.
The appeal I see to this is there are a number of people for whom raiding is not the most interesting part of the game. However, I don't see the Arena team as a rotating group as GSH suggests, but rather a consistent guild sponsored group. To me this will also promote interaction between the rest of the server community and the large raiding guilds. It may even turn out factions split over favorite teams, I can envision the Arena teams becoming quite the hot topic of inter and intrafaction discussion and rivalry and to be quite honest I'm really looking forward to it.
Anyway, back to the 25 person limit. Another suggestion was..
3. Recruit more and run two raids.
If you recruit a few more people, you will have enough to run two raids.
The largest problem I see with this is the potential for drama. Inevitably one group will be considered the good group or the 'A-Team' while the other group will be labeled 'JV Squad'. Its unfortunate, but I think its part of the mob mentality combined with Grass is Always Greener syndrome. Hell its even possible both groups would see the other as the 'A-Team', imagine that! The fractured mentality of the guild would likely eventually lead to simply a fractured guild which would, in most cases, be a real shame.
The other possibility (as pointed out by someone in a topic on the EJ forums) is one raid group 'locking out' a large number of people in such a way that there would not be enough of a balanced group in order to create an effective second raid at all. A guild which wanted to run two raid groups would I think have to have an incredibly bloated roster in order to allow for substitutions. For example, assume a core raid force of 36 (four of each class for simplicity), 25 of these are the regular raiders, with the other 11 rotating in as needed (either because people left early or real life [RL] came up). In order to ensure always being able to field a raid, judging from personal experience, a guild would need at the very least 1 person for each of the substitutes. So each raid, in my estimation, would require a force of 47 people in order to consistently maintain, where 11 or so of those people can be more casual and possibly cross over between the raids, though that would re-introduce the problem we're trying to get around so lets ignore it. Therefore in order to maintain two raids consistently a guild is going to need, judging from my biased experiences, between 80 and 95 raiders. Again looking at my current guild, this means keeping track of the same number of people as we do now, but it places the additional requirement of tracking another raid group. I can see the stress coming out the raid leaders collective ears already.
posted by E at
9:51 PM
2 Comments:
It's possible that some people may just do the PvP, but that just strikes me as terribly boring. There are a great many Grand Marshals who got burned out by the grind.
I've always thought that people like doing new things, which is why I suggested folding the PvP team back into the raiding squad.
(Also, your layout is broken in IE 6. The side bar is appearing below the main section. Still on the side, but in the cell one over, and one down. Hope that makes sense.)
By
Rohan, at August 26, 2006 12:46 AM
I also know a good many Grand Marshals (or in my case High Warlords) who got completely burnt out on PvP. However, I think this came more from an attitude of 'I won the game, now what?' than anything else.
After all, the PvP grind currently is essentially a case of win as many games as possible in as short an amount of time as possible. With the expansion this looks to be changing (with the ladder system) to win the big games. I am assuming people will no longer have to PvP all day every day in order to progress in the ladder system, unlike in the current system (unless you're lucky enough to have your faction on your server set up a 'system').
The PvP arenas sound to me like an actual end game pvp system, which does not currently exist in the game.
I just checked my layout in IE6 and it looks ok. I don't know when you looked at my layout but its possible it was during the time I was altering it heavily, during which time it was frequently broken.
By
E, at August 31, 2006 10:24 AM
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