Mythic Raiding is currently built around a firm 20-person raid size, with the goal of making it easier to balance raid fights. This works from a purely technical perspective, but is actively harmful in terms of impact on people and communities. I’m not against the size requirement for a period of time, as it does benefit things such as the Race for World First, which I believe is actively good for the game, but there is a time at which I believe the trade off is no longer worth it. I believe it would be much better for the raiding community if at some point (perhaps when the hall of fame is filled) that these size requirements were relaxed.
Raid teams and guilds are communities full of people, that have friendships, lives, and dreams. Guilds and raid teams consist of people who want to play together, and these groups come in various sizes. Currently, unless your group of people that plays together has at least 20 people, you are unable to continue progressing after a certain point. There is a point for many guilds at which they have heroic on farm and they start to blow through it. Without being able to go into mythic, they hit a wall and are left without anything to work towards together. Relaxing mythic raid size requirements would allow many more people to experience these fights, and provide a way for them to continue to play together.
On the flip side of things, sometimes you have groups that consist of more than 20 people. If this is the case, if you want to continue to progress, to continue to play, you have to tell people that they cannot play with you. Over the years, I’ve tried different ways to rotate people and keep them feeling involved, but none of them work for long. People feel excluded, people feel like they are missing out, people are made to feel like they are not good enough. Furthermore, if someone wants to come back and play with their friends, or you make a new friend, if you want to invite them to your raid group, they are replacing someone else. This is terrible when it comes to building a sense of community.
There are so many community and leadership related issues with having a 20 person requirement, and I don’t see a single positive when it comes to people or quality of life. Whenever I make a post on raid size, I hear people worry about people aiming for specific sizes for specific fights in order to make it easier, but this really doesn’t happen in heroic outside of maybe certain pugs. Even heroic pugs generally have a size that is “easiest” and just run that for the entire night. Most guilds, most communities, will not adjust their raid sizes and leave people out if mythic is allowed to flex- especially after the point in time at which the hall of fame is filled. Instead, guilds will have the flexibility to play with the people they want to play with.
This also allows groups to continue to raid if people are sick, or go on vacation, or have to take a night off for business. It would mean that you don’t waste an entire night of 18 people’s time, because someone’s kid got sick. It allows you to promise a person that they are still welcome back after they take a mental health break, because there are no “slots” to worry about. It would allow people to invite their friends to play with you without worrying about someone being replaced. It would allow guilds to continue to play if people want to take a break, rather than everyone having to stop.
From a community perspective, from a fun perspective, there is no benefit to a 20-person requirement for Mythic. Please Blizzard, I’m begging you, consider the impacts on your players and their communities and allow Mythic to flex after the hall of fame is full.