“balance” is relative. Especially in PvE content. I mean the raid most people end up clearing isn’t even on the same caliber as what others had to clear. So what is “balance?”.
What’s the difference if 10man is (fake numbers for the sake of debate) 20% easier than 20man
OR
The raid being nerfed to be 20% easier than the original content.
At the end of the day, either way you still have a group of players that cleared the content 20% easier than others had to. PvE balance is all relative.
Most people are not killing the same balanced bosses so this divide already exists in the game.
I’d argue that while 20 man made it easier for Blizzard to create and balance their hardest content, it was the slow death knell to raiding in general.
One of the biggest issues I’ve been over the last 2 expansions was how the mythic raid scene is just getting smaller and smaller, while Blizzard continues to make it harder and harder. This could have been mitigated if the logistics of raiding was smaller. But they are not, all for in an effort to continue the epic feeling of what raiding used to be like.
So they succeeded in making 20 man mythic raids give that epic feeling, but thanks to logistics it’s apparently just getting smaller and smaller over time.
It just depends on what you mean by balance. I don’t know if I would consider a raid balanced if it has to be nerfed 15 times from day 1 of raid to end of raid especially with players getting stronger (lvl) and better at mechanics throughout the season. This means that even with player power and skill rising the content is still way outta league.
But yes, the logistics of 20man is DOAing many guilds that try to enter the scene. The amount of recruitment boss disbands are insane.
I think appealing to wow player perception is one of the big misteps in the game. WoW player perception especially in the modern era where toxicity has compounded is way out of touch with reality.
A comparison is league of legends (another toxic game) and flex queue. Flex queue is a ranked mode where you can queue with 5 raids or you can play solo/duo queue. Many people make fun of the 5 man rank and say it’s not real but the devs realize the amount of players that enjoy this content is worth more than some salty bad actors calling it illegitimate and it continues to see a large playerbase.
Edit: what’s worth more? Having 20% more players engaging with a
Couldn’t we make the same perception argument then??? This isn’t ilegitmate because its a pity prize?
Should have been a tad more specific. Relatively balanced. Prior to I think the Jailer, I don’t recall seeing as much as a vocal outcry about how untenable mythic raiding has become. Since then however, it’s been loud and consistent, or at a minimum more noticeable.
But yes to my point the real killer was the logistics of it all. And it may have been a slow march to get here, but we were always going to get here.
That’s just literally not true. AOTCs are in Feats of Strength > Raid if you need help. Idk where the mythic ones are stored. Your right about CE though, the one guild I was in that didnt die to recruitment boss I had to leave at diurna for exams xD. But yes, i raid heroic and mythic.
Also an appeal by authority fallacy even if I didnt.
Allowing people fulfilling content that is easily customizable to provide sweet spots of difficulty and smooth progression and which carries use cases for players’ entire kits despite not needing hours of play available at a time nor guilds, 9+ friends active at a time or long grouping times… has finally killed WoW (and you just don’t know it yet)!
That’s one of the reasons. There are likely many reasons why the mythic raiding scene is shrinking.
My point however, was the logistics nightmare of large scale raiding was always going to bite it in the butt eventually. Whether we all saw the writing on the wall years ago or not.