The weekly raid calendar.
With Forever launching November 4 and its first raids opening December 9, Blizzard's decision to introduce three different raid sizes is beginning to worry the people responsible for organizing them. Barrow Deeps requires 10 players, Hyjal Summit needs 20, and Onyxia's Lair remains a full 40-player encounter. It sounds like a wonderful celebration of Warcraft's raiding history, combining smaller adventures with the enormous battles that defined the original game.
But for guild leaders, the arithmetic is becoming rather uncomfortable.
In a growing discussion on Blizzard's official forums, veteran guild leader Tiberius argues that the system could create an exhausting cycle of organizing, splitting and rebuilding raid groups. The concern is not whether players can defeat the bosses. It is whether the people responsible for assembling those players will still enjoy World of Warcraft by the time everyone reaches the entrance.
Three Raid Sizes Could Mean Seven Groups for One Guild
Blizzard confirmed the opening raid lineup on October 20. As we explained in our breakdown of Forever's first three raids, Barrow Deeps will offer eight bosses for 10 players, Hyjal Summit features 13 bosses for groups of 20, and Onyxia returns as a traditional 40-player encounter.
These are three different raids, not three sizes of the same encounter. A guild cannot simply choose to tackle Hyjal Summit with ten players or bring forty adventurers into Barrow Deeps.
That distinction is central to the controversy.
In his October 26 forum post, Tiberius presents an example involving a guild with forty regular raiders. To provide everyone with a chance to complete all three raids, the guild could organize one 40-player group, two 20-player groups and four 10-player groups.
Seven raid groups across the weekly reset.
Blizzard has not said that guilds must follow this schedule, and nobody is required to complete every available raid. Nevertheless, players interested in maximizing their weekly progression may feel pressure to organize multiple groups, particularly if rewards from older content remain useful.
As Tiberius explains, the real difficulty begins when more raid tiers arrive. If the guild is already coordinating several groups every week, adding new encounters could make that schedule increasingly difficult to maintain.
And experienced guild leaders know that organizing forty people involves considerably more than dividing forty by ten.
Every smaller group needs suitable tanks, healers and damage dealers. Different players have different work schedules. Some want to progress quickly, others prefer a relaxed evening, and somebody will inevitably announce five minutes before the raid that they have forgotten an important quest.
That last problem is particularly relevant to Onyxia, because Blizzard has confirmed that her traditional Drakefire Amulet attunement remains necessary. Unlike the two new opening raids, Onyxia still requires players to complete a lengthy preparation questline before entering her lair.
Forty players, forty amulets, and at least one person who is absolutely certain they completed the quest last Tuesday.
Some traditions never die.
Blizzard Wants Classic Raiding Back – But Which Parts?
The disagreement exposes an old tension at the heart of World of Warcraft.
Original Vanilla raids became legendary partly because gathering forty players was an achievement in itself. Guilds were communities built around cooperation, patience and the peculiar experience of waiting outside Molten Core while somebody traveled across two continents to repair their armor.
But those enormous groups also created significant logistical problems. The Burning Crusade moved toward 25-player raids, Wrath of the Lich King expanded the use of 10- and 25-player versions, and modern WoW eventually introduced flexible raid sizes for several difficulties.
Forever is deliberately taking a different path.
Blizzard has confirmed that every planned raid tier will include both 10-player and 20-player content, while 40-player encounters will appear less frequently. The game will launch with fixed group sizes and a single raid difficulty rather than Retail's flexible approach.
The intention is understandable. A raid designed specifically for ten players can emphasize individual responsibility, while twenty-player content allows for more elaborate coordination. Forty-player encounters can remain spectacular communal events without defining every step of endgame progression.
Several players in the forum discussion support that philosophy. They argue that encounters designed for a particular group size can have a stronger identity than content constantly adjusted to accommodate different numbers of players.
Others believe the absence of flexibility places an unnecessary burden on guild officers. Lucîna, another participant in the debate, reports that her guild leader is already considering skipping certain raids to avoid exhaustion.
That does not mean every guild shares the concern. The debate contains genuine disagreement, with some players welcoming the return of fixed raid sizes and others arguing that smaller groups should have access to more of the same content.
There is also uncertainty about how much long-term pressure the gearing system will create. We previously covered datamined crafted tier sets connected to Forever's raid progression, including indications that materials from older encounters might remain useful.
Those details are based on beta discoveries and may change before launch. Still, they illustrate why some guild leaders are already asking whether the weekly schedule could grow rather than shrink as Forever develops.
After all, a raid that remains rewarding also remains tempting. And nothing creates a busier calendar quite like an entire guild discovering that there is still useful equipment to collect.
Some Guilds Are Already Finding a Different Way Forward
Fortunately, not every guild intends to maintain forty permanent raiders and divide them into smaller groups several times a week.
Disciples of Norgannon, an Alliance guild recruiting for Forever, has outlined a more modest arrangement. Its plan involves two 10-player teams that combine for 20-player content. When a 40-player raid becomes available, the guild intends to recruit additional participants rather than maintain an enormous permanent roster.
Another guild, Past Our Prime, is preparing up to four smaller raid teams while aiming to limit organized raiding to two or three nights per week. Its leadership is deliberately avoiding a schedule that would make Warcraft feel like another full-time job.
These approaches suggest that Forever's unusual structure can work without requiring every guild to organize seven separate raids every week.
Blizzard's new infrastructure may help. As we discussed in our explanation of Forever's realmless server system, players within compatible ruleset communities will be able to group across a much larger shared population than on isolated traditional realms.
That should make finding additional raiders easier, although it will not magically produce experienced tanks or guarantee that forty people are available on the same evening.
There is also an argument that a little uncertainty is exactly what Forever needs.
Blizzard is trying to recreate some of the excitement of original Warcraft without simply reproducing every outdated restriction. It has already taken steps to prevent raids from being completely solved before launch, including concealing raid loot statistics and limiting advance encounter information.
Guilds will therefore have more to discover together, from unfamiliar bosses to unexpected equipment rewards. That could make the first weeks genuinely exciting, especially for players who miss the days when an entire raid did not arrive with a completed strategy guide.
But discovery and administration are different things.
Learning how to defeat a new boss can be entertaining. Spending three evenings trying to find a replacement healer is considerably less so.
Forever launches November 4, giving players five weeks before the first raids open on December 9. That should provide time for guilds to establish their rosters and decide how ambitious their schedules should become.
Whether Blizzard has found the right balance will only become clear once those groups begin tackling the content. Smaller raids may allow more players to participate, while occasional 40-player encounters could restore some of the spectacle that made Vanilla Warcraft memorable.
Or the combination could create exactly the logistical headaches experienced guild leaders are warning about.
There is an important difference between preserving the social character of old World of Warcraft and preserving every inconvenience that came with it.
For now, guild leaders are preparing to discover which side of that distinction Forever belongs on.
And somewhere, inevitably, somebody is already building a spreadsheet.
Sources: Blizzard's official Forever raid overview, Forever Raid Sizes Are a Disaster forum discussion, Disciples of Norgannon recruitment and Past Our Prime recruitment.
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