This is a summary of many of the topics discussed on these boards. If it is not unique enough to stand on it's own, please feel free to Heap it.
Four months after the release of The Burning Crusade and with the majority of the changes and fixes in the upcoming patch known, it is a good time to examine the changes to World of Warcraft’s raid game introduced with TBC, and evaluate those changes on their merit and impact, good or bad, on the game. What follows is a list of the lessons that should be learned by Blizzard, based off the mistakes that have been made during the transition from 40-man raiding in legacy WoW to 25-man raiding in TBC.
Lesson 1: For raid content to be appealing, it must be accessible.
The Burning Crusade was Blizzard’s first expansion for World of Warcraft, and fundamental changes were made to the raid game. The first change was the shift from 40-man to 25-man maximum raid zones. When this change was announced it was hoped that this would help make raid content accessible to more players, as a major challenge for casual players was gathering, organizing, and coordinating 40 people. This was a noble goal: in WoW the two main ways to progress a max-level character are through PvP and/or raiding. There were two related goals Blizzard tried to achieve with the shift to 25-mans. The first concerned PvP. Significant gear disparities between raiders and non-raiders were causing issues in the PvP game, so Blizzard attempted to solve this problem with a combination of better and more easily attainable gear through PvP, and making raid content (and gear) more accessible. Second, Blizzard simply wanted more players to be able to see and experience the end-game content in the game, which they devote a lot of time and effort to creating, and has an epic look and feel to it while offering excellent rewards. All raiders remember the first time they saw Ragnaros spawn, and remember the sense of awe they felt on seeing someone with Perdition’s Blade or Sulfuras. Those moments are what got many players hooked on the game.
Blizzard failed dismally in this goal. The primary reason for this was the near total lack of 25-man content doable by an average guild (by average we will say a guild that killed Twin Emps and 5 bosses in Naxx). Maulgar was the only fight doable by such a guild before running into the mountains that were pre-nerf Gruul and Magtheridon. This phenomenon has been explored in-depth on many forums and won’t be rehashed, other than to say this was a surprising blunder with 20-20 hindsight. Karazhan was the entry level raid zone, but this proved inadequate and problematic for reasons which will be discussed later on.
Also, it’s worth examining accessibility as it relates to desire and motivation. To walk down a path (or perhaps more appropriately, climb a mountain) there must be a good reason for going to all the trouble. There were no rewards besides progression for its own sake to justify the self-torture that was 25-man raiding at the inception of TBC. Better loot was available through professions, and equivalent gear was more attainable and abundant in Karazhan, since one guild could often field three or more groups. This topic has also been thoroughly discussed.
The double-whammy of lacking the means and/or the desire to do 25-man raids was devastating to the raid game, and we are still feeling its effects.
Lesson 2: If you talk the talk, then walk the walk: Polish
Blizzard often stands on its reputation of quality content with, in their own words, a high degree of “polish”. By almost all accounts, this was not the case with with the TBC raid game.
“Polish” can mean many things, but it’s safe to assume a few:
appropriate difficulty of encounters in relation to their position in the raid game, and the game as a whole
appropriate reward for the difficulty of the content
a lack of bugs that frequently, seriously, and negatively affect the encounter
no glaring oversights regarding the use of certain unintended consumables, class abilities, or creative use of game mechanics in a given encounter
and, above all, fun. F-U-N.
There aren’t many people who could say the raid game that shipped with TBC was even moderately polished, let alone polished to the standard that Blizzard professes and previously achieved in Naxxramas. Many encounters were either far too easy, such as Maiden and Illhoof, or far too hard, such as Gruul, Magtheridon, and Nightbane. While C’Thun/Ouro and Grobbulus existed in legacy WoW, encounters of their kind are popping up with alarming regularity in TBC.
What is more concerning is the manner in which even beta-tested encounters were “tuned”. When a Death & Taxes led group of beta testers downed Gruul, Blizzard responded by slapping an additional two million hit points on him, resulting in his grossly overtuned pre-nerf state. This reeked of a hasty and brashly considered adjustment. On its face it almost seemed completely arbitrary. Also of note is the quickly hotfixed change to Limited Invulnerability potions in this encounter. Did experienced designers who are raiders themselves thoroughly test and tune Gruul before TBC was shipped? Each raider can answer that for themselves, keeping in mind that Gruul is a short entry level raid encounter intended to be moderately challenging -- not the last boss of a long raid zone.
Lastly, there is the subject of loot, and how it fits in as a reward in a polished endgame. Again there has been more than enough discussion of such, and it will not be repeated. However, this factor is currently among the largest issues in raiding, and WoW as a whole.
Lesson 3: If you shift your philosophy, be very cautious
This lesson is perhaps the most important. TBC was a shift in the philosophy of raiding in many ways.
The first shift involved how Blizzard introduced their raid content and made it (un)accessible. Whereas in legacy the game shipped with a single lengthy 40-man raid zone and then progressively patched in the rest over a long period of time, TBC will have the majority of its raid content either shipped with the game or introduced in the first content patch, the exception being Zul’Aman. When patch 2.1 is released in the coming weeks, there will be seven raid zones: Karazhan, Gruul’s Lair, Magtheridon’s Lair, Serpentshrine Cavern, The Eye, Mount Hyjal, and the Black Temple. No guild has come close to entering Mount Hyjal, let alone Black Temple, which is assumed (and hoped) to be the Naxxramas of TBC.
This philosophy shift brings changes and questions. The biggest resulting change is attunement to a particular zone. Previously getting into a zone was easy: since the zones were spread out over a period of time a pacing mechanic was unnecessary. Typically one quest doable in a few hours time, at most. Naxxramas provides the best example of Blizzard’s old philosophy: there was one quest to become attuned to Naxx, and the cost of attunement was based on your reputation level with (or, appropriately, past time and effort on behalf of) the Argent Dawn. Getting a full guild attuned, complete with alts, was easy. A dead Nefarian or C’Thun was not required. When we couple this concept of attunement with the excellent difficulty curve of the bosses in Naxx, it was a recipe for success. Casual guilds could 1) enter the zone, and 2) kill something (!) while getting tier three loot, just like the furthest progressed guilds on their server. Now step one is a daunting prospect, and step two is almost impossible, and not worth the effort.
Fast forward eight months to TBC. Blizzard is making April Fool’s jokes about their attunement spreadsheets… that very few people find amusing. Attunement has been quite purposely turned into a time-consuming grind. Blizzard’s focus seems to have shifted away from the bosses and moved toward pacing mechanics, such as attunement and trash. Blizzard needs a way to limit progress, and is likely wary of placing another blatant roadblock obstacle like pre-nerf Rag or C’Thun, and are looking to other mechanics. Vashj, and presumably Kael’Thas each only dropping four Vials of Eternity per kill is a good example of this new philosophy – assuming it takes seven weeks from a guild’s first Vashj kill to their first Kael’Thas kill, it would take at minimum 14 weeks to attune a 25-man raid to Hyjal, over three months. Does Blizzard lack confidence in their ability to make challenging boss encounters that take a lot of time to figure out, such as the Four Horsemen?
TBC also seemed to be a shift in philosophy of where the raid game should be in relation to the game as a whole. Previously, the best gear was available from raiding, with late AQ/ Naxx rewards outstripping Rank 14 PvP loot fairly easily. Craftable loot never even entered into the equation. There was also a prestige factor. Hardcore raiders could boast about they had “beaten” the game as it currently existed (if they cleared the zone quickly enough) while riding around on a special ZG Raptor mount. Now, it will be PvPers riding on the rarest mounts, and the road to the end of Black Temple is long and steep, with the end bosses of Serpentshrine, The Eye, and Hyjal reduced from crowning accomplishments to steps on the road to Illidan. As perspective: clearing Serpentshrine Cavern and killing Lady Vashj does not even give raiders access to a full set of tier gear.
Further perspective: if guilds had known at the time of their first Ragnaros kill that the “goal” of legacy WoW was to kill Kel’Thuzad, would it have had the same sense of accomplishment? I don’t think so.
Overall, these shifts in philosophy have diminished and hurt the raid game. It is now much more work (“work” is used in place of “effort” quite purposely) for much less reward, not just in gear, but prestige and sense of accomplishment.
Why these lessons are important:
Although Blizzard will not confirm as much, subscription for World of Warcraft is almost certainly declining for the first time since the game’s release. Few in a raiding guild would be surprised to learn this is the case. The problems discussed above have certainly contributed. It is almost as if the rest of TBC was ready to go, but the raid game had to be rushed in without the time to polish it, and more importantly, to define its place in the game as a whole – it’s very unlikely that those who designed the tailoring sets ever communicated with those who designed the raid sets. The unfortunate result of such oversights is that for caster classes tier 4 sets were obsolete at the outset of TBC, and still will be even with the coming buffs.
Finally, the most important consequence of having to learn these lessons in a trial by fire is this: friends are leaving the game, and they are what make the game worthwhile. The raid game that people loved changed so drastically and negatively that it caused a backlash. Raiding guilds and the players in them have suffered a staggering “one-two” punch: poor raid content with a simultaneous forced changed to raid size wrought havoc on raiding guilds. In reality, the shift in raid size was 40-man, to 10-man, to 25-man, as there was no accessible 25-man zone at TBC release. Karazhan, while an excellent standalone zone, fit poorly with raiding guilds, and in a raid game where 25-man raids would become the norm. The choice to use Karazhan as the forced entry point into larger raiding was unwise, especially coming from 40-man content.
Blizzard's choices regarding the raid game have had profound consequences on the game and those who play it. These lessons need to be learned now, and learned well so they are not repeated.
The coming patch will help resolve many of the issues brought up here, but the overall lessons are more important that the individual adjustments. Finally Blizzard seems to have heard and understood, but the size of the upcoming patch will attest to the magnitude of their folly with the shipped version of TBC.
Nice summary, though I'm not sure it's original enough not to be heaped. Just one thing that's glaringly wrong:
Originally Posted by Lorrin
The primary reason for this was the near total lack of 25-man content doable by an average guild (by average we will say a guild that killed Twin Emps and 5 bosses in Naxx).
As also discussed and proved ad nauseam in other threads, the average raid group was in late BWL or early AQ40. For EJ board members to not know this is excusable: for Blizzard to not know it is incompetence of the highest order. And if they did know that late BWL / early AQ40 was the average progression, all their decisions become that bit more incomprehensible, and your "near total" becomes simply "total".
In fact, you can add to it the fact that the end bosses in KZ are inaccessible to the average guild until the upcoming itemisation changes. Look at any server, and the number of guilds that have downed Prince/Nightbane kills will be lower than the number of Nefarian kills, despite the fourfold difference in raid size, and the emergence of a number of smaller groups since TBC arrived.
The average raid group doesn't even have Karazhan. Really. Honestly.
This has already been discussed in the other thread, that said attunements arent a big part of the problem from what I have seen. It seems like 25 man raids really became a full time job. I as a MT felt the pressure to log on every day because I knew if I didnt my guild would even raid. In 40 mans we had 6-7 warriors on the roster you could replace people. I didnt feel like I had to log every single night. Thats a reason why I quit raiding all together.
The raiding game isnt accessible because it soo damn unforgiving and the item you get dont even make it easier the next time you are about to kill the same boss. It requires a total commitment and in the end it wasnt worth it.
They are fixing most of the issues with 2.1, still I prefered 40 mans and the current 25 man raids arent worth the effort anymore for me.
Last point, the raiding part of the game is in decline, but the overall population is growing. Just look at Amazon best sellers list, TBC is no 1 and WOW is no 4. WOW remains hugely popular, the raiding game is not.
The average raid group doesn't even have Karazhan. Really. Honestly.
I remember someone did a breakdown of several realm progression threads and figured out that the 'average' raid guild was somewhere between Moroes and Curator, with many stuck on Shade. With the upcoming changes in 2.1, we will probably see many more people in the 10 and 25 man raid content.
Originally Posted by Lorrin
Although Blizzard will not confirm as much, subscription for World of Warcraft is almost certainly declining for the first time since the game’s release. Few in a raiding guild would be surprised to learn this is the case. The problems discussed above have certainly contributed.
Honestly, that is just speculation. I would agree that a few raiding guilds have seen lower attendance and high attrition, but I don't think there is a mass exodus of any sort going on. Subscriptions are still going strong. Lets not forget that a lot of revenue was gained simply from selling the expansion, let alone the monthly fees following it.
I remember someone did a breakdown of several realm progression threads and figured out that the 'average' raid guild was somewhere between Moroes and Curator, with many stuck on Shade. With the upcoming changes in 2.1, we will probably see many more people in the 10 and 25 man raid content.
To be clear, I don't think the average is between Moroes and Curator, even with the admittedly large data sample. Reason: The progression threads are by and large self-reporting, and only report successes. There are a vast number of <aspiring> raid guilds that are having trouble getting their feet off the ground. So their highest boss killed is...none. So they aren't being included in the sample.
Honestly, that is just speculation. I would agree that a few raiding guilds have seen lower attendance and high attrition, but I don't think there is a mass exodus of any sort going on. Subscriptions are still going strong. Lets not forget that a lot of revenue was gained simply from selling the expansion, let alone the monthly fees following it.
Not neccessarily. Whenever they hit a new subscriber milestone they put out a press release. The 8.5 million press release was a long time ago. Had they been growing at any kind of decent rate they would have hit the 10 million mark by now and you know they would have made that milestone public. So we can deduce that WoW is either stagnating or declining. I never actually looked into it but there is a good chance you could nail down the subscriber rate from the quarterly reports.
Of course this does absolutely nothing to WoWs supremacy in the market. There needs to be something massively better (not just incremental improvements) to really hurt this game.
Not neccessarily. Whenever they hit a new subscriber milestone they put out a press release. The 8.5 million press release was a long time ago. Had they been growing at any kind of decent rate they would have hit the 10 million mark by now and you know they would have made that milestone public. So we can deduce that WoW is either stagnating or declining. I never actually looked into it but there is a good chance you could nail down the subscriber rate from the quarterly reports.
Of course this does absolutely nothing to WoWs supremacy in the market. There needs to be something massively better (not just incremental improvements) to really hurt this game.
By the fact that they haven't released numbers you cannot deduce that it's 'either stagnating or declining'. You can deduce that they haven't released numbers recently from this information, that is all.
Admittedly, I live in a small town, but every store in town is still stocking copies of WoW and TBC. As someone stated it's on the Amazon.com bestsellers at the top. There's ample evidence that it's still selling. Just because people are leaving doesn't mean that there is a net loss.
My prior guild had nights of chain wiping to that encounter after we'd gotten Prince down several times. Current guild still will occasionally have trouble with him. The amount of trash leading up to arguably the hardest required boss in the instance hurts a lot as well. Karazahn was WAY too hard for the marginal level of loot it provided.
The other thing to consider is just how much of a feedback loop raiding can become. Throw in aggressive min/maxing, lower latency connections, remove "that guy", etc. and stuff that looks hard becomes much easier. Things like forcing PvE specs wasn't expected so early on in the raid game.
I don't really understand the complaints about attunements. Other than the Vial's which is pretty much irrelevant since no one can even kill said bosses who drop vials (and which are being changed to quest items in the patch), the attunements are all something that should be completed as a part of normal character progression. If you can't complete the attunement for said raid zone, you don't belong there. And attunements are not some massive time sink, if you've done all your quests up to level 70, I bet it would be possible to attune someone to everything in the game inside of a week after hitting 70.
To be clear, I don't think the average is between Moroes and Curator, even with the admittedly large data sample. Reason: The progression threads are by and large self-reporting, and only report successes. There are a vast number of <aspiring> raid guilds that are having trouble getting their feet off the ground. So their highest boss killed is...none. So they aren't being included in the sample.
I would agree with this assessment. I would hazard to say that the "average" guild either can't get a raid going into Karazhan or gets there and is just overwhelmed at Moroes. The guild I am in is somewhere in between. We do not quite have the consistent numbers to be hitting Gruul all the time, but we can work Karazhan.
Quite a few guilds on the horde side of my server were formed under the impression that Karazhan would be entry level content for them, similar to Zul Gurub was in vanilla WoW and have found out how mistaken, for a number of reasons already laid out on these forums in ad nasuem, that train of thought is.
Additionally, I would also hazard the guess that the "average" guild also does not peruse these forums. A lot of the opinions here are from players who are in guilds who can consistently perform in raids, at any level. I feel that these kinds of guilds are the minority in the game at the moment.
At any rate, I am very interested to see how the developers respond to these kinds of questions at Blizzcon this year. I will be there and in line, ready to ask.
I don't really understand the complaints about attunements. Other than the Vial's which is pretty much irrelevant since no one can even kill said bosses who drop vials (and which are being changed to quest items in the patch), the attunements are all something that should be completed as a part of normal character progression. If you can't complete the attunement for said raid zone, you don't belong there. And attunements are not some massive time sink, if you've done all your quests up to level 70, I bet it would be possible to attune someone to everything in the game inside of a week after hitting 70.
Should be, but...
As I just posted in another thread, while part of me agrees that people who can't manage a Mercy or Tenacity run have only themselves to blame, the reality is that it's definitely a much higher barrier to entry than one might expect for the early raid game.
Getting keyed for BWL required a trivial UBRS clear. Anyone could walk into AQ40.
Going to TK requires a 5-man clear that is simply going to be beyond the abilities of a lot of players. That's a somewhat surprising design choice, really.
Fast forward eight months to TBC. Blizzard is making April Fool’s jokes about their attunement spreadsheets… that very few people find amusing
I liked it. I think most people did. Lighten up
Originally Posted by Lorrin
Although Blizzard will not confirm as much, subscription for World of Warcraft is almost certainly declining for the first time since the game’s release
Stupid, WoW general forum-quality assertion. I wouldn't be hugely surprised if this was the case, but I don't think it is.
The average raid group doesn't even have Karazhan. Really. Honestly.
I'm really not sure if I buy that one, honestly. My guild in Wow more or less fits your definition of "Average Raid Guild", having had BWL on farm, mostly there for the first 3 AQ bosses, and a handful of horrid wipes on Razuvious before we decided we lacked the overall skill and desire (guild as a whole, not the half of the guild that was angered by the decision, and lack of effort from the other half) by the to be there.
I will grant you that the guilds makeup is a bit... odd though. The core group is made from our EQ guild (gamewide firsts on several occasions, 5 years of server firsts until burnout more or less made everyone retire, and in Wow, you can easily tell who the EQ base is), but the other 70-75% are Family and friends, and new people added during WoW's beta and release who while wanting to raid, are in no way serious about it.
My group is pretty much all old EQ'ers, and friends of ours from other games throughout the years, who carry the "I want to raid 3, maybe 4 days a week for 3-4 hours a night, but if we're raiding, we arent halgfassing it" mentality, so I'm willing to give you the "not all 'average' guilds are fully comprised of average players" bit.
What I'm not convinced of, is that the majority, or even a large minority of "average" guilds arent composed of the same types of mentalities (those who have the skill but not the desire to play as often anymore, those with less skill and less desire, those who just want to kill some stuff when they log on), and dont have 10-13 people that can devote a few hours a night a couple times a week to do these fights (we do 3 hours a night 2 days a week, or 3 days if we're trying to get new people learning the fights, or that one week every 5 where our tuesday raid ends after 2 hours due to work schedules. We did use weekday for the bottom floor and all of saturday for curator -> prince while learning the encounters though).
I guess I really dont see how "average" from these standpoint guilds cant make at least 1 group to clear Kara, though I'm probably on the extreme side of average (and I guess if you take 10 people fromt he low side of average, you probably couldnt).
I don't really understand the complaints about attunements. Other than the Vial's which is pretty much irrelevant since no one can even kill said bosses who drop vials (and which are being changed to quest items in the patch), the attunements are all something that should be completed as a part of normal character progression. If you can't complete the attunement for said raid zone, you don't belong there. And attunements are not some massive time sink, if you've done all your quests up to level 70, I bet it would be possible to attune someone to everything in the game inside of a week after hitting 70.
You might think so. You're not average. I did all my quests up to 70, and I still haven't gotten enough rep to even get into SH Heroic, let alone complete it on a timed run. Admittedly I've slacked off because I just don't want any part of the current clusterfuck, but the point is... I'm not alone in that. I'd bet my left nut that there's more like me than there are like you.
Trial of the Naaru: Mercy is just not achievable by the average group, period.
Now fair enough, it's a symptom of the general overtuning. From the casual perspective, the attunements are impossible and the raid zones are impossible. Your argument basically says that because they're equally impossible, the attunement requirements aren't too onerous. That's kinda whacked thinking.
Originally Posted by Barraind
I'm really not sure if I buy that one, honestly.
I expected to have to defend it. Try it. Go to your server's progress pages, count the number of Prince/Nightbane kills and compare it to the number of Nefarian kills. On some servers it's a bit higher, on some it's a bit lower. On mine, we have about 3 times as many reported Nef kills as Prince kills, but we've already established that we suck.
If you look at a bunch of different servers, that should amply demonstrate the point that the number of groups that have cleared Karazhan is broadly similar to the number that killed Nefarian. So, since we can take Nefarian as a benchmark for "average" pre-TBC raiding (see plenty of other threads for evidence on this), does this mean the "average" TBC raid group has cleared Karazhan? Well, yes and no. Firstly, on most servers I've checked, the number of Prince/Nightbane-killing groups is flat out less than the number of Nefarian-killing guilds. Secondly, while Nefarian was a 40-man raid, Karazhan is 10-man. Even if you assume that most groups are running two Karazhan groups (which I'd guess is an overestimate), that's half the number of people raiding per week. To even bring it up to the same ballpark in terms of number of raiders, you have to assume that every Karazhan-clearing guild is running 4 KZ groups per week.
Originally Posted by Barraind
Still though, its a bold claim!
It is, but I stick by it. If you count up the number of people potentially clearing Karazhan each week and the number that were clearing BWL each week, the former is something like half the latter. The average TBC raider doesn't even have Karazhan. Either because their guild can't clear it, or because the "better half" *can* clear it, and the other half the group is sitting on their thumbs doing more or less sod all.
A slightly more precise formulation might be: The average raid group has just about cleared Karazhan but doesn't have a chance on 25-man content. The average raider doesn't even have Karazhan, because Karazhan is tiny and doesn't let everyone get in each week.
Last edited by songster : 05/09/07 at 5:24 PM.
Reason: Edited a couple of times for grammar infelicities
Well, the attunements are mostly an issue for recruits or rerolls at this point but they are still something of a barrier. There is simply only so much time to get things done and when you have a ton of content sitting there waiting, it's harder to squeeze time out for running person X through heroics Y and Z. I really don't think it is too bad myself but I do know some of our more time-constrained late joining members are still missing some flags and feel frustrated that they need to essentially waste the time of four other people just to collect a digital checkmark. It's not that it's a ton of time or anything, just that scheduling them is a bit annoying.
Between raiding, pvp, farming mats and dota, a lot of people are hitting their personal time-caps much more easily in TBC.
To be clear, I don't think the average is between Moroes and Curator, even with the admittedly large data sample. Reason: The progression threads are by and large self-reporting, and only report successes. There are a vast number of <aspiring> raid guilds that are having trouble getting their feet off the ground. So their highest boss killed is...none. So they aren't being included in the sample.
Eh, I don't think that's really true. No one fails to kill Attumen. Some need multiple trash repop cycles to do so, but I think every 'aspiring raid guild' gets Attumen pretty much as soon as they start raiding. PUGs can do him pretty handily too. And I think (although this is a less solid assertion) the majority who do so post on their progression thread.
I think that the average guild doesn't have Karazhan yet and this is why. Because a lot of the guilds with raiding experience from WoW 1.0 have splintered or fractured in TBC, and the experienced raiders didn't all end up in the same place they were before it started.
We had twin emps on farm, and the first two bosses in Naxx also. But come TBC, there was a split. Even though a lot of people stayed, losing some of the top dps made it suddenly very hard to progress in TBC style raids. Then having to recruit, and competing with both the 'top' raid guild on the server and the new 'dynamic' guilds for the same group of people, and trying to integrate people who'd never raided before with jaded raiders who'd been dozing through AQ40 ... it affects progression.
I hate having to go back to content that I thought I'd set aside just to get people attuned to the raid instance we're currently doing. Period.
I haven't run Karazhan in any seriousness in weeks, but I found myself pushing people to go kill Nightbane so we could attune a few new 70s/recruits to SSC...
One of the issues with the Heroic quests for attunement, including but not limited to Trial of Mercy, is that it force limits the availability of alts to fill raid roles.
Building on Gurg's AQ example, in my previous guild we would occasionally draw on alt warriors or warlocks if needed. With the neccessity of heroics and time trials for attunements, it restricts raiding to just mains. Granted, one could eventually attune alts, but if you're raiding 4-6 days a week, that cuts out a lot of alt time.
This isn't really the end of the world, but it does limit options, especially early on. Though, perhaps it was implemented to prevent raid stacking?
For casual guilds raiding is not really an option at the moment. Even Maulgar requires flasks, leaves few space for passengers etc. And it just doesn't have the feel like Molten Core oder Blackwing Lair.
Moroes in Karazhan ist doable, but seriously, this is a very, very good designed encounter, it just comes to early. It's a bit to complex for the second encounter. Putting Moroes in the space of the chess event would be far more reasonable.
One fact about casual guilds is:
We now know this forum. We know World of Raid and MMO Champion. We never a see new content in the game. We see Tier Sets before they are implented and we see Illidan die before Black Temple is in the game.
There is no surprise left. You can look up anything and anyone who doesn't has a serious disadvantage. While raiders have at least the beta to see new stuff, we see the World of Warcraft trough Screenshots and Video Streams.
Anyways Karazhan 2.1 will be a major step for casuals. And Karazhan just is very epic from the feeling. Malchezaar, Netherspite and Nightbane are definetly enemies that can compete with Garr, Geddon, Onyxia and Ragnaros. For Magtheridon, The Lurker and Al'Ar I have the same hope.
Hildegard Sprigglespruxx - Wissenschaftlerin am Institut für Pfuschkunde
For me, I think the new arena system did heavy damage to raiding. For many people, PvP is more fun than PvE, and so that siphoned off a bunch of players, and even if people didn't quit your guild, a lot of them lost the will to raid. Furthermore, what's the point of busting your balls raiding when you can get arena gear much easier, in much less time? Why am I plowing through 2 hours of SSC trash a night, when you could play 10 games a week, lose them all, and still walk away with nice gear?
I'm not bagging on the arena, I love the arena. In fact, I'm one of those who feels like their will to raid has been sapped since I'd prefer to have arena gear anyways.
On the whole of it, it's a really positive thing that Blizzard did in creating a PvP game that has inticing rewards. But at this point in time, I feel that it's not balanced. PvP is far more inticing in terms of fun and rewards than PvE.
I cannot cannot CANNOT express loudly enough that the average guid wasn't on Twin Emps or in Naxx. The average guild didn't have BWL on farm. Even if you just consider average "raiding" guilds that's more than they did.
According to Blizzard's own figures once upon a time only 15% (I think, maybe 20%) had ever seen Ragnaros. If you set foot into BWL for even a second it meant that you put more effort into the game than anyone who was "average". If you think that hanging out in the back end of AQ40 was the mark of an average guy you live on the moon.
I'm not meaning to be a dick there but I'm going to bet dollars to donuts that it's precisely this wildly innacurate view of what the average guild does that's led us to precisely the spot we're all bitching about.
Mages have a set time that they want you to ask for food, and that time is pull #4 of the night. You may notice them putting a little snack table down before the raid, that's them cooking the food for you to demand on pull 4. --Nork
Only the MT needs a Flask + Armor pots until he's decked out in T4 (if he's a Warrior, a Bear might be able to skip the flask first kill.) Maulgar is one of the best balanced encounters in the game for where he's at. An interesting encounter where people have to do their jobs that's reasonable to repeat every week and doesn't put much stress on anyone but the MT's gear.
I don't really understand the complaints about attunements. Other than the Vial's which is pretty much irrelevant since no one can even kill said bosses who drop vials (and which are being changed to quest items in the patch), the attunements are all something that should be completed as a part of normal character progression. If you can't complete the attunement for said raid zone, you don't belong there. And attunements are not some massive time sink, if you've done all your quests up to level 70, I bet it would be possible to attune someone to everything in the game inside of a week after hitting 70.
Going at near full-bore with Virakar's former branch leader it's taking ~3 weeks to key him for all the Heroics and do the Trials (after hitting 70 that is.) I still don't think that is bad at all -- most of the complaints come from the silly mountain-climbing psychology induced by Heel's chart.
'War' is too small a word for what I'm fighting. Like a candle in front of the whole burning Sun. Now, I am not going to die today. I have other projects, and other options.
For me, I think the new arena system did heavy damage to raiding. For many people, PvP is more fun than PvE, and so that siphoned off a bunch of players, and even if people didn't quit your guild, a lot of them lost the will to raid. Furthermore, what's the point of busting your balls raiding when you can get arena gear much easier, in much less time? Why am I plowing through 2 hours of SSC trash a night, when you could play 10 games a week, lose them all, and still walk away with nice gear?
Hah, those people would be in 2/5 Gladiator's gear and have no means to upgrade anything except their 5 piece set and weapons. Not a wise choice.
Most of the OP's complaints are attributable to the fact that TBC's raid game, on release, was highly unfinished. Kara really should've been like UBRS and Eye/SSC like ZG/AQ20 and Hyjal/BT available to challenge the really hardcore guilds, but... instead, only Kara was really ready at the time of release. The Tier 5 instances didn't recieve any beta testing, I believe, simply because they weren't ready. This meant that all the early raid instances would have to be overtuned to keep guilds from plowing through them, which became an increasingly bad choice as more guilds became frustrated with Aran/Gruul/Hydross/whatever. The 25-man raid cap has no real bearing on these issues.
The only real mistake Blizzard made, I think, is not making the endgame loot more desirable. They could've lowered the number of drops and added better gear to Heroics and it would've been fine, but instead the Tier 4 and even much of the Tier 5 loot was simply terrible. I don't fault Blizzard so much for releasing an unfinished product, because this is simply how MMOs are... they didn't want to miss the January release date just so they could work on content for a small minority. But adding a PTR with SSC and TK attunements available on release really should've been done to assure that the instances were at least functional when people hit them on live realms.
05/09/07, 4:31 PM
