40 men on a raid
by Mike Schramm 
Aug 17th 2007 at 5:00PM
Kavis wonders if he's the only person who wants 40 man raids back. I'm sure he's not the only person, but I'd bet he's in the minority. Forty man raids may sound super fun in theory, but in practice they are pretty miserable-- it's hell to coordinate the schedules of 40 people on a regular basis, and then it's even worse to actually get them to line up on time and do what needs to be done. I don't know if Kavis ever actually ran Molten Core or BWL or Naxx, but while 40 man raids were fun while they lasted, 10 and 25 man raids are much, much easier on raidleaders and guildies alike.As Bornakk says, the devs love 25 man raids too-- since 40 man raids could be carried by about 25 good players anyway, it makes things much easier for everyone, in terms of individual contributions.
Now, if Kavis is asking to return to the 40 man content, I'm completely down with that. BWL, AQ, and Naxx were fun to go through when you had a good group rolling (as rare as that was), and the content there shouldn't be abandoned (Naxx, we already know, is likely being repurposed in WotLK). But as for a return to the days of trying to get 40 people together for five hours on a Sunday evening? No thanks.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Guilds, Blizzard, Instances, Raiding
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Arras Aug 17th 2007 5:13PM
I would much rather have another Karazhan-like instance than a Molten Core any day. It's nice knowing that the other 9 people in a raid are actually doing their jobs and are prepared.
Rather than 20ish people doing what they're supposed to and the rest on auto-follow (and sometimes auto loot :\ )
amasen Aug 17th 2007 5:42PM
I love the picture of the 20man raid boss for this. Ossirian was fun as hell. TORNADO>>> RUNNNNNNN
ericcst Aug 17th 2007 5:52PM
I'm in favor of the bigger raid groups. You can then have more of a buffer of players for when some don't show up. It's more likely that the benchwarmers will get a spot in the raid too. With a 10 man instance, in order to have a safe buffer of players, you need like 20 people. That makes a lot of benchwarmers
Dandy Aug 17th 2007 6:43PM
I think they should consider some 15 and 20 man content. Something ta help with groups growing up to the Gruul/Mag level Ya gotta give people bridges.
Boo Aug 17th 2007 6:55PM
Having done all content currently available I'm finding that 25man raids and tbc instances just doesn't give that epic feeling pre-tbc content did. C'thun imo is still the best encounter ever made and I don't see that encounter being topped by anything a 25man encounter could provide. Then again Sunwell is prolly coming out in a couple of months and hopefully Blizz will have made something that brings back that "epic feeling".
Truth Aug 17th 2007 7:07PM
"...the devs love 25 man raids too-- since 40 man raids could be carried by about 25 good players anyway, it makes things much easier for everyone, in terms of individual contributions."
In other words, we forced off-specs to respec or reroll, 'cause you just got min-maxed out of raiding!
Dave Aug 17th 2007 7:47PM
I thought the old ways were better. I think all the raid instances should be progressive numbers. 5 -> 10 -> 20 -> 40 was good. You had numbers that all added from any stage to combine properly into a non-dramatic number. Going from 5-mans to ZG? No sweat! Two teams of ZG? Lets do MC now!
Now, in Bizzaro Expansion world, you go from 5 -> 10 -> 25? Where do you get the extra 5 people? What have those 5 been doing? If you had 30 for 3 Kara runs, what happens to 5 of your people? Do guilds really have the members to handle this in a non-dramatic fashion? No, most of them don't. At least not on my server. There are 2-3 solid guilds, and the rest are a rotation of member poaching, drama, breakups, regroupings and all sorts of other crap that doesn't need to be in the game, and the precipitating factor... is raid size and composition.
So, I think raid sizes should be further reduced to 20. Guilds were doing okay with the progression from ZG to MC before, and they'd do much better at the transition from Kara to whatever if they didn't have to either trim down or beef up. I'd also like more instances to be 10-man content rather than 20-man content, and have it released more frequently. It's awesome that we've got 4 huge 25-man raids right now... that the majority of the playerbase isn't going to finish. However, most of them probably will be able to clear kara at some point right?
Ideally, I think it would have been great to have all the tier 4/5 be 10-man content, (kara, gruul, mag, tk, ssc), with hyjal and black temple being 20-man raids. The majority of the playerbase still wouldn't make it into the Black Temple and vanquish Illidan, but more would be able to at least feel they were making a solid contribution on a regular basis.
Everyone loves Karazhan. It's pug'able, the loot isn't bad and the encounters are fun. You don't have to have a huge guild and recruit and poach and trim and otherwise "maintain" a guild if you can just get 12-15 people who want to win the content. It's been for the most part the ideal raid instance, and the standard I think the game should use when designing new stuff.
But, previous comments by the raid team seems to indicate that they'd still like to be in the everquest raids of old, rather than the stuff that the majority of players like. Blizzard will keep making content for the smallest subset of hardcore raiders rather than run the risk of pissing them off and sending them to another game. Blah.
CrpyTech Aug 17th 2007 10:33PM
I have been in 7 guilds in the last 3 months. They have all self-destructed due to poor management. So no fracking way to more 40 man raids. It's hard to find a working guild for the current content, and if you do then you're already not in the current cycle of members running that content.
Scimitar Aug 17th 2007 11:52PM
I for one WANT 40 MAN RAIDS BACK! Not only did Blizzard destroy guilds, they also made it a pain in the ass to get raids going on for a lot of guilds because they don't have the desired group make ups on. So Kara half the time has to wait because a tank is not on or a healer, or dps. Expecially when guilds shorten their guild members down to fulfill a 25 man raid guild.
They hurt the game, not helped it by implementing 25 mans, and anyone who does not see that is blind as a bat.
CVJ Aug 18th 2007 12:59AM
@9 When 40 mans stopped the reason some of the biggest raiding guilds broke up on my server was because people mainly hung around with many people they could not stand but stuck it out because you needed them to fill a 40 man raid.
With the expansion smaller more reliable and more friendly guilds developed.
bill gates Aug 18th 2007 3:46AM
I think that if you can take down the lich king in the expansion they should make it epic, like 50 or 100 people. Not many are going to do it anyway so why not make it special. And I think having a horde and alliance guild do it together would be cool as well
Coherent Aug 18th 2007 4:33AM
I HATED the 40 man raids. It really really really sucked. I think they should restructure the old endgame content for 25-man runs.
Theserene Aug 18th 2007 6:48AM
Would be fun if we could see how few people are needed to take down C'thun these days :)
Tridus Aug 18th 2007 8:53AM
There's nothing "epic" about being a nameless cog in a 40 person raid. Thats why your typical 40 man was 10 great players, 15 good players, and 15 players you'd never take on a 5 man because they're too incompetitant to take when individual contributions actually matter.
The only people 40 person raids worked for were the top tier guilds, who could recruit from everybody else. For lower tier guilds, actually keeping 40 people togethre was a logistics nightmare. Keeping 40 GOOD players together in a more casual guild was next to impossible, becuase uber raid guild X always needed someone and would give them free epix.
Shrinking raid sizes is the best thing Blizzard ever did for PvE.
fbp Aug 18th 2007 4:06PM
I would love to see a 40-man raid myself, but if they want to implement it. It should be cross-server. Think of a PREMADE (so that means you join as a raid group), Alterac Valley against NPCs with bosses, trash, and content. Also it would be great to be able to pick the OTHER group you are making the battle against.
Heck you could expand it, and make it Alamo style/defend the castle style. Have it be a battle! Think of ZF's temple fight but as a 40 man in a large city like Stormwind with Scourge climbing over the walls or something.
Frank Adamczyk Aug 19th 2007 3:01AM
#15 terrible idea.
Juliah Aug 20th 2007 4:21PM
I love the small 5-man instances. You get a solid team of consistent players going and you stay tightly focused. I don't want to see 40-person raids.
Thorhax Aug 21st 2007 1:26PM
5-10-25 ??? extra 5, yeah somethings missing and on a
small server it's really been hurting my guildto find an extra 5 that're reliable and geared. now 5 -15-20-40 made much more sense, like the guy above said recruit until you have enough for 2xzg's oh wait lets go to MC-Bwl-Aq40-Naxx, nice n easy to manage, I have absolutely no clue why and it boggles my mind to this day but gathering up 40 and raiding was easier to find/manage than it is trying to find a good 25
to raid the so called "new and improved raiding"...I miss Naxx, I want my 40mans back!
Shippy Aug 22nd 2007 10:44AM
Never set foot in MC, Naxx, AQ 40, Ony, et al
Cleared Kara and Gruul, working on Mags..
Please please please keep it 25 or lower.
Blizz FTW!