It’s easier to tune extremely difficult boss encounters with a fixed raid size.
I don’t want to incentivize people getting dropped for the first kill because it will take projected X less pulls.
I completely agree with you. But my point is that under a fixed 20 person mythic, we are still forced to drop players for the 20 person fixed size, people are still missing out on the first kill. So some flex would give raid leaders the flexibility to keep everyone in if they want. I think most guilds would not arbitrarily drop people just to hit a specific target, and players would be free to move to guilds that matched their values.
However, people seem to disagree on what guild leaders would do, so my example was attempting to illustrate that even in the worse case scenario, even an “optimal” guild would still keep people in for much longer than people seem to assume.
Like, the fixed 20 system depends on a bench, so people are dropped by design. A flex system doesn’t depend on a bench, so people are only dropped by choice. And guilds can commit not to make that choice.
Being there for prog is different from being sat at the very start.
I was an officer in a guild for 10 years, and some of that was a time when raids required 25 and we handled rotations to keep people happy. Everyone understood what was going on and it worked well for years.
In the scenarios you designed yourself, sure. Now let’s talk about a boss where there is a mechanical breakpoint at 17 players. If you bring an 18th, there is an extra mechanic to deal with. People will bring 17 and prog it the easy way because it’s an absolute waste of time to make it harder.
That is an understood and accepted part of the bargain going in. Now imagine that people have to sit to get to 17.
The people who want to challenge themselves on the highest difficulty. But don’t count yourself as one of those people if you’re looking to change the requirements to suit your convenience.
Look, I’m not some ivory tower elitist who is gazing down at the peons trying to preserve my pinnacle position. I haven’t had a CE since Emerald Nightmare, and that doesn’t even really count. I have been hampered by attendance, rollover, drama, etc… All the same stuff you’re talking about. But it’s designed around 20 and trying to flex just leaves too many loopholes to exploit and it’s no longer the same challenge. There are hundreds of guilds that find a way to put 20 people on the bosses week after week. It’s clearly doable.
And why did you stop? I’m not saying these are not things that people can’t put up with, or get past because they enjoy this game or the people they play with. But they are inherently exhausting systems that burn people out.
Given that I’m proposing a flex from 17 to 23, it would be very incompetent for Blizzard to design a hard mechanical breakpoint at 17. (Heck I would even accept 18 to 22, it changes everything. You recruit up to 22, can have up to 4 people out on any given night and still play. Removes soooo much stress and drama.) But you really think they can’t balance that? Like, all you have to do is avoid hard mechanical breakpoints, and that is trivial to do for a restricted fluctuation like that. There should not even be that extreme a breakpoint. Most mythic mechanics are calculated based on pretty much everyone in the raid handling mechanics anyways. Most mechanics will not be such a drastic breakpoint that no one would be willing to bench an otherwise good player. Basically the only mechanics that are much worse with more players are spread circles in tight spaces, or each player drops bad. And unless you were really tight on space, you wouldn’t drop people, those are still manageable. Otherwise things generally either don’t care, or prefer more people, not less.
So I really don’t understand why people think Blizzard is so incompetent at designing fights that we would even end up with such a massive advantage at 17 that every guild would be forced to bench people. Like, having as many players as possible have experience on the fight is better, and then if you are right at the lower limit, you will be screwed if people don’t show up again. Like, it really isn’t a smart long term play. This fear seems unfounded.
So why are we forcing this bargain on people? It is a bad bargain. We can do better.
You realize no one is asking for easier gameplay right? You think complaining about poorly designed systems means that I don’t want to challenge myself at the highest difficulty? We did Vexie with 19 last night for our first kill. I’m fine with a challenge.
But why are you so attached to some system when it is evident it is not working for you either? Like, a restricted flex would not be that hard to balance. It would still be challenging, it just would remove so much of those additional issues. There are less and less guilds every year. It is doable, but it could be so much better.
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It’s the assumption that seems to be made again and again and again and again.
But even suggesting that people be allowed to join in prog fights on Mythic and not be saved automatically is met with hostile resistance and illogical foaming at the mouth.
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heroic normal and LFR are all flex.
ONE difficulty for those who like to play as a team is not too much.
Too casual for Hall of Fame, too hardcore to stop at Heroic Gallywix. Dying to roster boss every tier, I hate it here.
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Please elaborate on your belief that people who do normal and heroic raids don’t like to play as a team. I will wait and hold my laughter.
strawman. stop being selfish.