On the topic of the thread, I felt that some instances had gate-keeper fights that didn't really fit any of the listed points yet. They were gatekeepers by adding a little in terms of what the group had to handle beyond what has been seen before and were slightly more difficult than stuff that came after.

Examples are Skeram who in my book certainly beats Sartura and 3 Bugs and Fankriss in difficulty, but isn't really a gear or specialized skill check.

Also Razorgore had some of this flavor. Vael was a mix, first boss to really required chained tank aggro management, but gear did help.

says the warlock

At the current state of the game it is most certainly the first position.

Getting keyed for kara requires you to be level 70 and do a couple of instance runs.
If you get the original quest at 68 (they need to signpost this) then chances are you only need to do a few instance runs. The only one of these that cannot be done by any random group of people and is a little tricky in Black Morass.

Then you have your Kara key.

You can do all Kara in instance blues (unless perhaps you're MTing). Kara is still being run. Kara has top level gear.

Gruul and Mag have no requirements.

ONE guild in the world has killed a TK boss. We shall assume TK attunement is not an issue currently.

SSC requires a qest from Slave Pens heroic, one of the easier heroic keys to get, and one of the easiest Heroic instance to run. And it's only halfway into the run. And you can just get access to a cleared heroic and get in easy if needed.

We had a warlock hit 70 a day or two ago. They are able to run Kara. They were in on our Mag attempt last night. They were in on our Maulgar kill. They have greens and blues. (They were #5 on DPS in Maulgar).

Gruul and Mag are attunement checks for a reason; you need gear from Kara, Gruul and Mag to help pull your weight in SSC and TK.

I'm going to estimate a character who hit level 70 who needs to catch up to the rest of the guild will take this amount of time to do so (I am erring on the side of incompetent):

Kara chain to first key part: 2 hours.
SV, SL, TK runs, to key part only: 4-5 hours.
BM: 3 hours.
SP Heroic: 2 hours.

So, 12 hours of play, at the worst, to catch up to the position of the more hardcore guilds currently. This is in no way a huge effort. In reality it should be shorter, though once you count in wasted time perhaps the same.

I tell you, it was MUCH harder trying to get these things done when you were one of the few people on the server trying to do them, guildless, than it is now, being a member of a guild that wants to you have them. But I managed even then!

The non-linear approach to raiding is also quite enjoyable imo;
Naxx, you had to do everything BUT you could do different parts depending on your class setup for example. You also had the option that, once you hit one 'cockblock' you could move on and progress on a different area rather than being completly stuck.

Imagen how it would of been if the first boss that you were forced to face was Patchwerk, it was enjoyable to be able to progress in many smaller ways towards the end goal, rather than going a->b->c->d->end if you were unable to get past b.

ZG too was quite good in this respect and would of been alot better (imo) if the Aspects of Hakkar we're not so unyeilding, providing the raid the ability to remove the most hindering abilities he posses that their setup is unable to handle for a quicker and more rewarding kill, however you could spend the time to completely weaken him for a more sure kill. Additional loot for perhaps the extended difficulty would of also been nice if they wished it to be so significant.

Optional bosses, challenging yet not required, they offer another type of progression that is also quite satisfying, killing Ouro was left untill after C'Thun for us, however it was still a great feeling when he was down.


And regarding attunements, they themselves are fine in concept, Nightbane is now acceptably designed for his purpose, once Gruul gets tuned down he will be also, and then SSL attunement is not really much of an issue for anyone - it'll take what, 3hours to attune someone?

TK25 is great too, at first I thought it was awsome to have something stopping the leechers being able to get into raids easily, however due to the design of Heroics you tend to need to have a core of 3-4 people who then let someone leech the attunement off them. This seemingly good idea resulted in a poorly implemented way, I did not want to have to respec to a tank and abuse the willingness of other people to get my attunement done, nor do I want to be so completly anal retentive about my group setup to stay in my own spec.
A reasonable group setup should be able to complete these things and get 3-4 people attuned, not a stacked one being able to attune 1 person each time.

Fair enough. I actually agree that for me personally, getting my attunements sorted was no big deal speaking of Kara and SSC prequest.

But as you rightly say your guilds want people attuned so it's easier. Unfortunately I'm the one helping. So rather than spending 12 hours once... I have spend that time a factor per people helped (sometimes efficiently in groups where 3 needed a step, sometimes just for one).

But alas that is in a sense really my problem or a problem in the way we are organised and try to get folks attuned. So I'll leave it there.

@Playered: Yeah I agree that I thought the choice design in Naxx was neat, can try this and that wing. In fact the pre-T3 quest required you to take a peak at every wing early. Which was a neat way of saying: Look around what we have, now pick what you seriously want to try first.

I agree with most of you when you say getting keyed isn't really that big a deal.

The question I pose is to those speaking of "You had to do that stuff anyway".

Well if that's true why do I need to key up? Does it hurt the game if I go into SSC before I'm revered with coilfang?

I hate keys, they are a stupid timesink that accomplishes nothing that encounter design cannot. If MMO companies insist on keeping keys part of their content make them account wide. Don't make me repeat boring quests for every single one of my characters, once I finish it on one character every single character on my account should be flagged.

For those of you lucky enough to not have to deal with the drama keys can cause trust me when I say it can be completely demoralizing. Many, Many people out there refuse to pug for anything because they have their nose stuck so high in the air they don't realize they and their guild aren't the greatest players on earth and there are plenty of even non-guilded people out there.

Those people don't even try to get groups to get themselves keyed. They whine for help from people who've already ran those instances a hundred times and are A) Getting sick of them. B) Trying to get their heroic gear. C) Trying to farm gold or mats for potions so they can be a better asset to raid groups.

There are a ton of people so selfish they don't even realize that when they bitch at ME for being selfish because I am not helping them 100% of the way that they are actually far more selfish than I ever will be. But they expect and demand help and all that crap creates drama and keying exacerbates that 10 fold in I'd venture to say MOST guilds. If you don't have to deal with this you're lucky.

Please, if any designers are reading this. Stop making keyed instances and encounters.

Oh I agree - lots of people suck at organizing their own groups. That's always been a big problem with wow - grouping is a pita to get organized. Mostly because of how the LFG systems have (or not) existed to date.

The current LFM interface would be acceptable - if it prompted you on login so the avg player knew it was there. The biggest problem with it is that it doesn't get used.
If it prompted on login - "Feel like doing a dungeon? If so, which and what role?" in a obtrusive the first time and non-obtrusive thereafter way, it'd be much much better.

(There's other issues, but the number one problem is exposure)

That means that lots of guilds form around "group makers" people who are able and willing to do the /w <Role> thing to get a functional 5 man together. Then we get to these "group effort" things where you really can't just go out and auto-shot while watching tv (yay for hunter leveling, which I'm currently doing) and have to interact socially with strangers -- scary stuff. So of course people are asking the people they know if they want to do blah.

Something that helped us dramaticly - starting up a thread on the forums with "These people still need this instance rep" to let people have a list of folks they should be asking first. That's great because it means the avg group is suddenly full of 3-4 people who need rep, and it's usually much easier to find a random tank/dps/healer for the last slot when you have the rest ready to go.

It's not really riffraff sorting out so much as "people who I will have to hand hold" sorting out, and it's incredibly valuable in preventing officer burn out.

There's a lot of very nice people in wow who can't figure out what they need to do on their own, or even try.

There's also a lot of very nice people in wow who will figure it out, get it done, and never bother you with it.

As an officer - sign me up for more of the second. The first are a drain on my limitted play time, the second aren't.

Note that both are very nice people I might want to spend time with - but there's a nearly limitless supply of people in the world, certainly far more than I could ever meet, so being more selective than "very nice" is helpful.

It's a gigantic plus to your application post tbc if you have as much of the attunement stuff done as possible - and while yes, it's work to get it done, it's just as much work as leveling tailoring or w/e would be.

FFXI had a very pleasent system for that. You're character would change class (each class staying at the level you left them). Could only change class in a city. That way they could and did put a LOT of quests requirement and keying to progress through the end game (perhaps too much but..) The point is, once you keyed your character using your whatever class, going back to a place locked like that with another class was possible.

Apart from the fact that, except for CE, this is impossible unless you are human, it's also a false assumption.

Fact is, you do need to do about 6-7 instance runs. Either you run them, then quest, and hit revered on your first 70 run, or you don't do them, quest, and hit revered after 6-7 70 instance runs.

The only difference is when you do the instance runs. Early or late. That's your choice. And, for latecomers & rerolls, running early instances multiple times will be more difficult, because there will be less people in-guild willing to run those lower instances, so you'll have to find PuGs.

CE is the only exception: you can shovel unidentified plant parts to the reroll until he hits honored, then he quests. No instance runs needed.


But the idea that people don't need to run instances for their revered reputation is false. No matter what you do, the total of quest rep + instance rep needs to raise to 21000 total. The only difference is where the instance rep comes from: early or late.

Immersion aside, there's one "overall" effect on fun.

People have placed progression controls in good/bad categories... but, oddly, you will find disagreement on which is good and which is bad.

I would submit a meta-rule to this "control":

1) Multiple progression paths: Good
2) Single linear progression path: Bad

That's it. You don't really need to figure out beforehand what is good, and what is bad, because, in most cases, different people will have different ideas on the question. If you provide a single, linear, progression path that everyone has to go thru, it doesn't matter if it's a questline, a boss cockblock, a faction grind or a gear check: Some people will hate it.

If, on the other hand, you provide two or three different progression paths, then people will do the one they prefer. You do have a slightly harder time balancing the difficulty/effort, because, if one of the axis is ridiculously easier and faster than another, everybody will be doing the former, and no one the latter. But, if all axes have different emphasis, then it's good.

Example: I want a 110 dps weapon.

Bad design:
- Go to raid dungeon X and kill bosses A B or C.

Good design:
1) Raid dungeon X and hope for a drop
2) Perform well in PvP and buy item
3) Specialise in weaponcrafting, farm the materials in 5-man and craft your own



Different appeals, different paths. You need to be careful about the amount of pvp or farming to be done, but you end up with different ways of getting there.

Of course, you can also choose

Horrible Design:
- Go to raid dungeon X to get a drop
- then farm reputation Z, preferably totally unlinked to X above, to exalted for access to a quest
- then buy 2000gold of materials in the AH to craft the final weapon

Don't forget spellhit gear for the priests Mind Controlling on Razuvious and Faerlina. Compared to resistance gear it's both easier to gear up on (drops from many instances, or easy to have the guild bank buy materials for and craft), not as annoying to carry around (only a few pieces) and actually useful outside that specialized fight (could be part of a dps gearset).

As for gear fights I'm still hoping for a boss encounter where your gear gets taken away temporarily and replaced with the greys a level 1 character gets .