shanara99 said:
18 people is, indeed, to small, for a raid, making you use a core group for raiding... With soft cap in 2/hard cap in 3, you'd have what? a guild having to recruit people as reserves? Who'd like being a reserve cleric, for example? The 18 man rule reinforces this. Most classes wouldn't even do it into raid.
IDEALLY, with 15 classes, and a softcap of 2 per class, you'd need at least 22 to get all classes in raid game... that is, then 15 classes, 3 extra healers, 1 extra tank, 1 extra DPS, and 2 extra slots, to fill with what you feel comfortable with.
I have to completely disagree regarding the move from 18-22. Group balance is currently nearing perfection with 18 people, creating extremely intimate encounters that require every player to be on the ball 100% of the time. We've been re-learning Mani's for the past few days and I have to admit that finally getting them down was the most rewarding experience I've had on SoD thus far. With 22 people, you can easily fill a 'proper' or 'ideal' raid out, padding your errors by adding an extra healer or extra tank here or there. In an 18-man raid, you have to make choices depending on the encounter. Sometimes you'll need an extra chanter, sometimes an extra tank, etc. The raids take skill.
If we push the cap up to 21-22, not only will we have to deal with a partial group, which is annoying in itself, but you really give people an unnecessary crutch. The beauty of the current setup is that every player's skill matters. There is now strategy involved in picking the proper raid setup based on mob. You don't have a cookie cutter 6 cleric 6 wizard 3 tank setup, and there are possibilities for a paladin as an offtank, a necro being selected for DPS, etc. Increasing the cap will only cause guilds to fill the spots with more of the same old boring classes we saw flood raids previously. We've been experimenting with raid sizes and ended up with 5 healers: 2 clerics, 2 druids, 1 shaman. If the raid size were increased, you'd see an extra shaman, a few paladins, and maybe even necros brought in to help out with the healing. Similarly, guilds will just stack DPS like Wizzies, etc. There is already a greater feeling of accomplishment knowing that everything went right, why diminish that by adding in a few extra people? My manis example, which I mentioned earlier, shines through perfectly here. Our first few fights, we had issues with our strat due to the new changes, but we finally got it down. Unlike before, where the perfect strat alllowed us to kill Mani's on our first attempt, despite numerous slipiups, we got our asses handed to us when we slacked on heals, didn't get rid of a dot on some of our dps, or had a horrible rogue (cough) pull agro. These are examples of mistakes that should make or break raid encounters and the more people that are added to raids, the more room for error exists.
I think that the current shift in guilds that took place with Phoenix Rising and Defiance is a great example of why 18-man raids work perfectly. I don't want to get into the details of the Phoenix Rising/Exodus split, but from what I was told it was not on 100% nice terms. In the past, or even witha 22-man raid model, a great guild would have broken down and formed one quality guild with the best 22 people, leaving the rest to exp all day, sit in limbo in hopes of joining one of the other top guilds, or quit. Obviously the new guild was able to put together a solid raid on NDHK, but the PR guys bounced back and took down PoTorment, just one day after the split! Similarly, Defiance had a few inactive players and some of us moved to a new guild. Rather than letting the rest fall to the wayside, Tapein and Balthor have done a great job of revitalizing interest and Defiance already put together strong numbers tonight.
I can toss up a few of the raids we've been putting together so far, but I don't think that making exceptions for the few people who have been excluded is the solution to what
A FEW see as a problem. It's much easier for a guild like Chaotic Winds to put together a raid force, as well as the new up-and-coming 50's who plan to raid when they hit 65. Moving the raid number to 22 only hurts those who initially were supposed to be helped.
Encounters are now more difficult, fun, exciting, with a higher learning curve, and it needs to stay that way. All I can ask is that we give 18-man raids a chance. I know that some people are upset that they have been left out, but notice that there are now 6 high-end raiding guilds as Prison level or higher, as opposed to the 4 previous. I have to admit, and I hate to do so as it comes off as entirely arrogant, that if the cap was implemented at 22, you would still only see four guilds, with the remainder of their 36-man rosters put on the bench indefinitely. Hell, our paladin actually gets loots now!
