Reducing the raid size would devastate guilds that have been designed at keeping a raid force for the current raid size. Forcing guilds to either split raid or have large numbers of players sit isn't good for the game at this stage.
Well for raids designed for 18 that can run 24 people should not be an issue. A guild could split or just run 2 raids and adjust players between the 2 so that both teams can win. Or they can just get rid of the worst half of people. If you did the scaling side of it you could have a 12 man, 18 man, and 24 man team so the best people do it with 12 and the worst teir of people do it with 24. Then depending on player performance you can move them up to the harder or easier teams.
Smaller raid sizes were already tried in Seeds of Destruction (15 years ago). It doesn't work. It puts too many people on the bench, and frustrates people that set aside a dedicated week night every week to raid. Splitting raids, also requires more people willing to take on leadership roles during raids. It's all around a bad idea.
1 worldbeater event per expansion that can only be beaten by the most organized and geared guild. All other events should be beatable by 54 random people with no event knowledge and very average gear.
Not all guilds want to do split raiding, just because a guild has the numbers to split raid doesn't mean that they want to or have the correct makeup to do that.
We already only get 9 raids per expansion, why limit the amount of content that people can do even further? It would be different if we still got 20-30 raids per expansion like we used to.
What you suggested would mean that there would be one fewer raid for everyone to complete. As they are only creating 9 raids each expansion with your idea they would create 8 raids for everyone and 1 world beater raid for the top few guilds. With the limited content we get there is no reason to think that something like this would give us a 10th raid instead of replacing one of the existing 9 raids.
It is a bit elitist. Some players have to show they are top dog Übermenschen. Raids should tune more difficult as they proceed, but how much more is a question. In my opinion, the hardest raid should be almost impossible for characters that have not all geared up from all of the previous raids in the expac, should have specific limited prestigious loot, and should have lock out times in weeks rather than 4.5 days. Some guilds would even have to come back and do these raid after the next expac is released. I agree for all but the last best raid.
No one is sidelined if you can split raid teams into two raids. How is allowing more leadership roles to be filled a bad idea? Is your guild a dictatorship?
What I suggested was for the MAJORITY of raids to be made MORE accessible, and leave 1 worldbeater raid that will only be beaten by the best. Overall, less limiting than it is currently.
The majority of raids are already more accessible than they used to be and people are complaining that they are too easy. Either way when you have a total of 9 raids none of them should be developed with the idea that only a handful of guilds will ever be able to beat them. I don't want to hear the suggestion that guilds can just go back and beat it later when that won't happen because the rewards for doing it are no longer useful.
The complainers that you mention, are really complaining because EVERYTHING is currently too easy. Thats why you need 1 worldbeater raid to challenge them, and 8 wifebeater raids for the average hungover hillbilly methhead to get their kicks too.
One difficult/ultimate raid every 2 years would be good. And to keep them worthwhile you make the reward based on completing achievements. I wouldn't even make them drop normal raid gear. The point is to be a challenge. Then for the achievements you give people something that's always useful. Unique ornaments, title, maybe a type 5 aug with crazy stats, etc.
Which would be removing content from all but a handful of guilds which I am saying is a bad thing. We have only been getting 9 raids per expansion when we used to get closer to 30 raids in an expansion. Taking one of those raids away from most raiders isn't a good thing.
What usually happens is that you have an A-Team and a Scrub Team. The A-Team always wins and the scrub team sometimes fails or struggles to keep up. Nobody wants to be on the scrub team so people get buthurt when they're put there. The alternative is to try to closely balance each raid, but they you run the risk of both raids failing/struggling. You also run into the situation where you might only have enough players of some key class, like clerics, to adequately support 1 team. What would likely happen in the long term is that guilds scale down their rosters to just run 1 good group through content. Personally, the thing I like about EQ is the large scale raids. I preferred the days of 72+. 54 feels small to me, but w/e, it is what it is. If I wanted 18-24 player raids, I'd not be playing EQ. It's not about keeping people down. It's more about a lack of people willing to step up, put their time and effort into filling those roles. Most people want to just login 5 minutes before raid, hit the loot pinata and log out. Many guilds struggle to come up with even just a single competent raid leader and with split raiding, they'd need to have 2 every night.
Are raids on the easy side? Yeah, but on the other hand, do we want content that only few guilds can do ... I admit, it would be great to have some challenging content also, but at this point, with resources Daybreak has and is willing to put in the game, I don't think it will happen. This looks good on paper. In reality, what happens is a raid force gets split in A-team and B-team. Like the other poster described, one team gets everything done fast and clean, the other team struggles, there are fails, things take longer, people get upset.
Just because the less organized guilds might not beat a raid, doesnt mean you have "taken it away". The content is still there for everyone, can be attempted by lesser guilds, and will provide an opportunity for them to sharpen their skills and possibly break out of the lower tier if they want to put in the work. Its all a balancing act. You need that one very challenging raid to keep the top raiders subscribed. And you need the easy raids to keep the rest of the field progressing.
