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Elsia · 05/06/07, 3:59 AM

Size matters, but size doesn't dictate difficulty.

See they could have made encounters at the level of MC for 25 man, there is nothing in the number that dictates that a tank-and-spank fight with some decursing (at size appropriate rates) is any more difficult for 25 than for 40.

Well except of course some size mattering aspects:

*) 1 death or DC s 1/25th of the raid rather than 1/40th. The chance of it hitting a key role-player (tank) is almost doubled. But 1/25 isn't a huge chance and for a lot of us (I'd guess) random DCs are a rarity. So basically this means just a tad more crisp execution needed during learning. No biggie.

*) Group composition. It's harder to stack groups to function with fewer of each around. I found sorting raids oddly more challanging than for 40 mans, but in part there certainly was less synergy around pre-TBC which adds to this.

Stuff where one might think that size matters:

*) There is only almost half the number of people to execute a certain function. Meaning attention to a certain function is theoretically doubled. But realistically, in some encounters all cleansers needed to be on it even with 40 and the scale of number of people to be cleansed doubled with the number of cleansers, so it's kind of a wash.

More than anything difficulty is a choice. Did anyone notice that all content starting with 5-mans at 70 are tuned more difficult or lets say more technical than the old 5-mans in vanilla. You see many raid-like elements already popping up in Shettek Halls and Shadow Labs (sorry, just to tease Gurk), with add spawn waves, LoS trickery, kiting/positioning, uncontrolable aggro.

When I saw the 5-mans it was clear that Blizz wanted to step up the overall difficulty of group content. I think for most 5-man normals and heroics that works well.

The number thing actually matters much more in Karazhan. There variation in raid composition, gear and individual performance are really felt, because of often for specific things there are maybe 1-2 people in the raid who can do anything about certain things at all . There is no redundancy or fallback. Any DC will hurt during a boss fight. Composition has to be tight and stacking helps. Paradoxically this is entry level raiding and it really looks like that by putting a 10-man first Blizz meant it to be a sliding entry for new raiders.

But it certainly would have been possible to design Karazhan encounters to be less composition sensitive by requiring less specific abilities to be present in raid.

I think what happened is simply that the two goals: Stepping up difficulty, and making raiding more accessible through size (10 is very accessible) were too contradictory and difficulty won. That was additionally confounded by tuning. It seems like testing got to somewhere early in Karazhan. Most of these encounters were sensibly tuned (given the setup sensitivity starting already at Moroes, but that's encounter design). Aran already needed tweaks etc. But even R&J and Maiden saw changes after launch.

In some sense it feels like Blizz encounter designers and test raiders designed stuff that would be fun and challenging for them (i.e. people who have designed and played everything through Naxx and know the premise of the encounter they play, hence having extra head-start on the learning curve, sometimes even a lasting advantage because some mechanisms may never become fully apparent). Unfortunately that leads to encounters that are certainly not accessible to a lot of folks, even those with extensive experience.

The reason why I think that's probably not so far off is something that Kaplan wrote when the first complaints about various aspects of the TBC raiding game came in. It wasn't his response to the lack of backflagging or the pot situation. It was the response to encounter tuning. The casual raid leader asked why R&J was so hard (early he'd have the real potential to burst shot tanks). The response was that he "felt that Karazhan wasn't overly difficult". From an experienced raider perspective this may be true. From a casual perspective it wasn't. Since R&J got retuned maybe because Blizz too sees subscriptions canceled now with people giving specific reasons why - like encounters that are just too frustrating to win the challenge/frustration/reward triangle even if internal perception was that it wasn't too difficult from the designer perspective.

Unfortunately encounter design difficulty is just one thing that's hurting casuals (and some more progressed), attunement is the other, but that's the not topic here (and I've ranted about that ad nauseum elsewhere already). But it's also on the point of accessibility, which is the main trouble with raiding right now. It's paradoxical because WoWs entry game wins because it understands the accessibility point so well.

I do think Blizz either needs to find a sustainable solution to 1 and 5-man endgame that keeps people interested or make raiding accessible again. Otherwise I can't see how they can keep people interested if there is nothing to do and succeed with.

05/06/07, 3:59 AM	#12 (permalink)
Elsia Banned Elsia Night Elf Hunter <Republic of Azeroth> Earthen Ring (EU)	Size matters, but size doesn't dictate difficulty. See they could have made encounters at the level of MC for 25 man, there is nothing in the number that dictates that a tank-and-spank fight with some decursing (at size appropriate rates) is any more difficult for 25 than for 40. Well except of course some size mattering aspects: ) 1 death or DC s 1/25th of the raid rather than 1/40th. The chance of it hitting a key role-player (tank) is almost doubled. But 1/25 isn't a huge chance and for a lot of us (I'd guess) random DCs are a rarity. So basically this means just a tad more crisp execution needed during learning. No biggie. ) Group composition. It's harder to stack groups to function with fewer of each around. I found sorting raids oddly more challanging than for 40 mans, but in part there certainly was less synergy around pre-TBC which adds to this. Stuff where one might think that size matters: *) There is only almost half the number of people to execute a certain function. Meaning attention to a certain function is theoretically doubled. But realistically, in some encounters all cleansers needed to be on it even with 40 and the scale of number of people to be cleansed doubled with the number of cleansers, so it's kind of a wash. More than anything difficulty is a choice. Did anyone notice that all content starting with 5-mans at 70 are tuned more difficult or lets say more technical than the old 5-mans in vanilla. You see many raid-like elements already popping up in Shettek Halls and Shadow Labs (sorry, just to tease Gurk), with add spawn waves, LoS trickery, kiting/positioning, uncontrolable aggro. When I saw the 5-mans it was clear that Blizz wanted to step up the overall difficulty of group content. I think for most 5-man normals and heroics that works well. The number thing actually matters much more in Karazhan. There variation in raid composition, gear and individual performance are really felt, because of often for specific things there are maybe 1-2 people in the raid who can do anything about certain things at all . There is no redundancy or fallback. Any DC will hurt during a boss fight. Composition has to be tight and stacking helps. Paradoxically this is entry level raiding and it really looks like that by putting a 10-man first Blizz meant it to be a sliding entry for new raiders. But it certainly would have been possible to design Karazhan encounters to be less composition sensitive by requiring less specific abilities to be present in raid. I think what happened is simply that the two goals: Stepping up difficulty, and making raiding more accessible through size (10 is very accessible) were too contradictory and difficulty won. That was additionally confounded by tuning. It seems like testing got to somewhere early in Karazhan. Most of these encounters were sensibly tuned (given the setup sensitivity starting already at Moroes, but that's encounter design). Aran already needed tweaks etc. But even R&J and Maiden saw changes after launch. In some sense it feels like Blizz encounter designers and test raiders designed stuff that would be fun and challenging for them (i.e. people who have designed and played everything through Naxx and know the premise of the encounter they play, hence having extra head-start on the learning curve, sometimes even a lasting advantage because some mechanisms may never become fully apparent). Unfortunately that leads to encounters that are certainly not accessible to a lot of folks, even those with extensive experience. The reason why I think that's probably not so far off is something that Kaplan wrote when the first complaints about various aspects of the TBC raiding game came in. It wasn't his response to the lack of backflagging or the pot situation. It was the response to encounter tuning. The casual raid leader asked why R&J was so hard (early he'd have the real potential to burst shot tanks). The response was that he "felt that Karazhan wasn't overly difficult". From an experienced raider perspective this may be true. From a casual perspective it wasn't. Since R&J got retuned maybe because Blizz too sees subscriptions canceled now with people giving specific reasons why - like encounters that are just too frustrating to win the challenge/frustration/reward triangle even if internal perception was that it wasn't too difficult from the designer perspective. Unfortunately encounter design difficulty is just one thing that's hurting casuals (and some more progressed), attunement is the other, but that's the not topic here (and I've ranted about that ad nauseum elsewhere already). But it's also on the point of accessibility, which is the main trouble with raiding right now. It's paradoxical because WoWs entry game wins because it understands the accessibility point so well. I do think Blizz either needs to find a sustainable solution to 1 and 5-man endgame that keeps people interested or make raiding accessible again. Otherwise I can't see how they can keep people interested if there is nothing to do and succeed with.