I'm not a game developer, but I assume smaller raids would also be easier to manage for developers. I mean, the initial suggestion of EQ's development team years ago, to downsize raid size, was partly due to a desire to simplify game design for developers.
WoW did this like 2 years into the games life, it also has acceptable class balance, and attracts new players WoW also didn't do this to make raids easier, they did it to make raids harder as there are less people now that can fail before you wipe, and the average person has to be stronger in order to succeed
Raiders choose which guild they join. A simple solution to this hypothetical would be to join a raid guild that doesn't use a DKP system. A solution to the verbal abuse is don't stay in a guild that tolerates that sort of behaviour. It's worked out fine for me for the last 17 years.
You must not live in the USA. All of it works in capitalism. And 100% it's allowed in the world day in and day out - hence why unions have shrunk so much. I have no issue with it, can't tell if this post is a parody, but if not it's pretty funny all the same.
I must be reading this wrong, 1) mandatory overtime is absolutely a thing in the real world in certain professions, its just not common. 2) Companies are not required to pay overtime for employees who aren't working if non exempt. That's the entire point of hourly wages, you get paid for the time you work. As far as DKP, every DKP guild I've been in, DKP is awarded based on attendance, as long as I show up and participate to at least the minimum I got DKP. I didn't get DKP if I wasn't on. EQ isn't work, but also if someone expects to be rewarded for not logging in, that is a completely separate reality check.
As an active longterm raid leader and guild leader, I fundamentally oppose a reduction in raid size. Most raiding guilds craft and tend their roster very delicately to ensure attendance without an abundance of overflow. Most of my raiders are daily raiders. The majority of my guild raiding roster maintains better then 85% raid attendance (with a sizable core at 100%!), even in the heart of summer slump. Most of my raiders are also folks that have been with me for several years. Very few of them *want* to sit on a regular basis because if they wanted to do that, they'd just not log in, in the first place - they'd go watch a movie, go outside (the horror ) or do other things in their life. Raiding, for many in our crew, is a social activity, not just a game. This is one reason we also fill in during the "off season" with other activities like old achieves, whatever to help fill in with some extra things to keep us busy.
I feel like some people are sleeping on the play from the bench strats. In most guilds you can still go in on loot and you're logged in for attendance. It's the most efficient way to play! Plus you'll get longer life out of your mouse and have less chance of a repetitive stress injury. You can play more forum quest or take online courses to better yourself at the same time. It's really the best way to go.
New Perk - RaidMercs (tm) cleric, bard, shaman, rogue, WizKiz, tank get 27 peeps, pop 27 mercs , go ham
In a practical sense, the only way they'd ever reduce raid sizes would be to make a big announcement one year, and then reduce the size by one group each following year until it got to 36. In the current sense... every event in NoS can be done with three proper groups of quality raiders. They've already made raids scaled down as is, there's no mechanics that require even 30+ people. As such, I am totally ambivalent to raid max size changes. The only benefit I see is the ability to finally get rid of the last melee groups.
I don't think they'd actually reduce raid sizes at this point, but if they did they'd probably just cut new raids down to 24-30 players with the release of a new expansion under the assumption that guilds would just form 2 raid teams, not realizing how much drama creating an A team and a B team would cause.
Small raids would be so ridiculously easy and mechanically boring (more so than now) due to limitations in dps output, number of adds, abilities that do things like mez and charm, and healing. No thank you.
