Pacing the Release of Raid Content - Page 16

Auster · 06/05/07, 7:21 PM

If the BT/Hyjal content is to remain unchanged so that it can be cleared by less hardcore, cutting edge guilds, then that brings up the point of vashj/Kael'thas. Kael in his current form is a really hard fight compared anything else in SSC/TK. It's not the type of fight that any old guild can just walk in and 1 night.

I think that is the greatest problem right now; after killing KT you basically walk into Hyjal and down the first boss, hit up BT and kill 3 more without blinking. The guilds that are less progressive will still not see BT for the longest time though because they have to down Kael who doesn't match up with anything immediately before or after him.

Vontre · 06/05/07, 7:27 PM

I'm convinced that the community misgivings of bosses dropping so fast has nothing to do with mechanics/fun and everything to do with lore. WoW 1.0 was not a game that allowed to kill off major storyline characters as a player. Illidan is a scary, scary man. He's the quintessential badass, and everyone knows it. What really matters is the way in which rumor flows, which is an extremely tricky thing to control. I certainly don't "blame" anyone, least of all blizzard, for the Illidan kill feeling underwhelming. But that does remove the fact that it does.

What people want to hear is the crazy shit that this/that boss guy does and how insane the encounter is. That's what gets people excited. C'Thun shoots chain eyes lasers that can hit for millions (potentially) and spams giant tentactles? Sounds awesome, let's clear this instance. Kael'thas has 5 phases, has 4 adds which drop legendary weapons you use during the fight, turns off gravity and owns people with lightning? Fucking awesome.

The first thing I heard about the Illidan encounter is that he is dead. Not exciting.

My personal reccomendation? It's a tricky situation. After all, it's not the encounter that is to blame, but the way in which the community has relayed the information. The only good idea I have would be for Blizzard to "profile" the boss on their website before the encounter ships. A preview page with some screenshots that said "players will have to face Kael'thas in a zero-gravity environment!", except you know, with more flair and writing technique... would that be such a bad idea? It'd be possible to do it without giving away strategies, I think. Just a preview that says "this is why Illidan is a badass. Because he does [this] and [this] and [this] and you are totally fucked when you get there." Perhaps after that, news of Nihilum's kill would be met more with a "wow Nihilum is badass" type of response, instead of this "wow underwhelming" response we are getting now.

Lodekim · 06/05/07, 7:33 PM

Nezralix, of course they spent time on PTR, but there are a lot of fights that weren't touched on PTR. I'm not surprised to see the first bosses getting plowed through, if Nihilum didn't kill Najentus Supremus and Akama in the first reset I'd be concerned that they were overtuning things based on the gear available on PTR, but I'd never thought they would kill Illidan in less than 2 weeks. Xaviera said it right, it doesn't make any sense that some of the END bosses are literally dying within a few hours of being discovered. I expected Nihilum to clear it fast, as well as the other guilds in there, but there's a difference between fast and 2 weeks. Also, saying you're not supposed to be nostalgic about content from one year ago is really just trying to ignore the point. I wouldn't call it being nostalgic even to say something was my favorite and I'd like to see more encounters that are as fun as it was.

I also agree that Hyjal fucking blows right now. I really just never want to do that place at all with how poorly designed it seems right now.

♦ Praetorian · 06/05/07, 7:43 PM

Here, let me try to boil down the tuning issue.

Let D = the "difficulty" of tier X content if you have tier X-1 gear

Some people think that D should go up from tier to tier, as it did pre-TBC. BWL in t1 was easier than AQ40 in t2 (the later bosses anyway) which was much easier than Naxx in t2/AQ40 gear. The actual complexity and execution requirement of the fights went up as you got higher in tiers. People who believe this want a more "elitist" endgame where many guilds will reach a point where they simply lack the skill to proceed further, gear or not.

Other people think that D should be constant. I.e., that Mag/Gruul with heroic gear should be the same difficulty as SSC/TK with t4 gear which should be the same difficulty as Hyjal/BT with t5 gear. These people think that execution requirements should remain roughly constant, though going up a tier may be harder until your gear catches up. This would allow any guild that can make any progress to eventually reach the end given enough time.

Ok. But is there anyone who can credibly argue that D should decrease? Is that a coherent position? That's the concern some people have, myself included.

It all comes back to the undermanned raids of recent weeks. You can 20-man Supremus. Bosses like Shade of Akama and Teron have died to groups of ~22. Could those same groups 20-man Kael or Vashj, with the exact same gear, and the exact same players? I don't think so, or if they could, it'd require truly flawless execution and lots of practice. I certainly wouldn't relish the prospect of trying to 20-man Vashj right now, much less Kael.

So even if you believe, and I think it's a reasonable position, that t6 content with t5 gear should be just as hard as t5 content with t4 gear, how do you reconcile that with the seeming reality of t6 content with t4 gear being easier than t5 content with t4 gear in some cases?

Shadout · 06/05/07, 7:54 PM

Maybe its all fake! ^^
Sargaras was letting himself be killed by Medivhs mother. My new conspiracy theory is, Illidan will be back, he just faked it. It must be true!
Maybe his soul consumed Maeivs body, Illidan in a female NE body, it cant go wrong (in a teleporting, seriously pissed female NE body actually).
Is this considered spam?

To Praets post. It should probably be both content getting harder and harder (when factoring in the gear), so people can learn how to raid so to speak, with the first instances (think MC, or early Kara). and then at some point the reasonable limit for raising the executional/skill requirments stop (or you get bosses tahts jsut too difficult for most of us),
At that point D should be constant, but the difficulty shuld still rise, just not more than the gear progress. Currently it looks like gear progress raise faster and isnt even needed, because you outgear the content long before you reach it. Dont know if anyone can argue that deacreasing D is fine, I cant at least

Pixels4hire · 06/05/07, 8:09 PM

Originally Posted by Bibdy

So the question that's been burning in my mind since this topic has been brought up is what do you guys think? What do you say to the prospect of farming the same content until the next expansion (or major content patch) is released? If you don't feel like the last 1.5 weeks of work has been a complete waste of time and what you've achieved was more out of dedication and hard work than laziness and ease, then I don't think anyone has the right to complain.

Waste of time? Isn't all entertainment a "waste of time"

Well, as soon as we get the encounters down, we usually ace them the first time afterwards and clear everything in 2 evenings of raiding. We've pretty much given up Karazhan, there's hardly even 1 raid doing it, which consist of casuals (former members or friends of the guild, who don't play that much anymore) or simply alts. We might still do Gruul, since it takes like 15 minutes to clear, and we've only had 1 shield drop ever since we killed him, our tanks still run around with Karazhan shield (Did anyone say balanced loot drops!?) - Else, we're pretty much skipping tier 4 content, with the exception of Magtheridon when we need to attune new people (Plus quest ring is good for some).

We need to take down Archimonde before we enter slack mode, but as soon as we kill him at some point, we'll have every instance on farm mode, it takes us 1 evening to clear SSC + TK, and then we'd clear Black Temple + Hyjal the evening after, leaving 5 days left to do whatever people want. At least, thats how we've done it pre-TBC, so I don't anticipate it to be any different now, at some point when people are geared enough up for the next expansion, I expect we will give up raiding all together and totally put the guild on ice, as we did after clearing Naxxramas.

Ishmaael · 06/05/07, 8:10 PM

Originally Posted by Tigole

It should be epic to kill a boss like Illidan or Kael. But it shouldn't be epic because no one is doing it because they are overtuned or bugged out.

personally i think that this is counter to your aims, in that in my mind, Outlands is dominated by 3 main figures. Illiden, vashj and kaelthas (his lieutenants). Also archimonde i guess, as he is also a main figure in the lore. I dont believe the current raid pathing reflects this.

Why does the final boss in a zone have to be "less" than the zones coming after? Why not make the key's not involve vashj / kaelthas, and have them as bosses that are in fact, too hard for the rest of the outlands? why not move into the eye and start clearing there, then when your even higher geared / prepared come back and finish off vashj, who is tuned to be one of the 4 toughest bosses in the zone (and also drop the 4th best loot). This way the lore of vashj being the leader of the naga and also a lieutenant of the outlands, is reflected in the kill order, toughness and drops. Why should bosses that are sitting around illiden drop upgrades from vashj?

in the Current set-up, you look at vashj as compeltely optional (a la ouru?) and kaelthas as something you do just to attune ppl to the higher instances, not as a valid gear progressive fight which marks your progress against the legions of evil

Kalman · 06/05/07, 8:13 PM

Originally Posted by Praetorian

Ok. But is there anyone who can credibly argue that D should decrease? Is that a coherent position? That's the concern some people have, myself included.

Let me argue for D decreasing, even if I generally think it should be pretty constant after an initial ramp-up. (I.E. I am playing devil's advocate here.)

There is absolutely no reason every instance has to be harder and harder. None. If we'd gone from Naxx to the next instance, and it had been even more precise, even more demanding, most people would be frustrated. If it had been just as intensive as Naxx, less people would be frustrated, since a number of people felt that was a good difficulty to reach, but if it had been available immediately after you killed KT, I can only imagine that maintaining that pace for instance after instance indefinitely would have lead to burnout.

Instead, you have a hard instance followed by a *relatively* easy instance, one which may well receive further tuning. Compare that to the progression of bosses within any given instance - was it necessarily easiest->easier->easy->medium->hard->harder->hardest?

Grobbulus (and Ebonroc and Flamegor and hell, Chess) say no. Sometimes the pace can be slackened for a bit without it necessarily being a bad thing.

Cromfel · 06/05/07, 8:17 PM

Originally Posted by Praetorian

Here, let me try to boil down the tuning issue.

Let D = the "difficulty" of tier X content if you have tier X-1 gear

Some people think that D should go up from tier to tier, as it did pre-TBC. BWL in t1 was easier than AQ40 in t2 (the later bosses anyway) which was much easier than Naxx in t2/AQ40 gear. The actual complexity and execution requirement of the fights went up as you got higher in tiers. People who believe this want a more "elitist" endgame where many guilds will reach a point where they simply lack the skill to proceed further, gear or not.

Other people think that D should be constant. I.e., that Mag/Gruul with heroic gear should be the same difficulty as SSC/TK with t4 gear which should be the same difficulty as Hyjal/BT with t5 gear. These people think that execution requirements should remain roughly constant, though going up a tier may be harder until your gear catches up. This would allow any guild that can make any progress to eventually reach the end given enough time.

Ok. But is there anyone who can credibly argue that D should decrease? Is that a coherent position? That's the concern some people have, myself included.

It all comes back to the undermanned raids of recent weeks. You can 20-man Supremus. Bosses like Shade of Akama and Teron have died to groups of ~22. Could those same groups 20-man Kael or Vashj, with the exact same gear, and the exact same players? I don't think so, or if they could, it'd require truly flawless execution and lots of practice. I certainly wouldn't relish the prospect of trying to 20-man Vashj right now, much less Kael.

So even if you believe, and I think it's a reasonable position, that t6 content with t5 gear should be just as hard as t5 content with t4 gear, how do you reconcile that with the seeming reality of t6 content with t4 gear being easier than t5 content with t4 gear in some cases?

I think its safe to say that the increasing challenge is the driving force what makes people look forward to new content, combined with new gear ofcourse as personal reward for the work done. The satisfaction of completing encounters, harder they are better you feel (Where we define hard as being possible but extremely challenging). There are always situations where this kind of thinking can go too far, but I see absolutely no reason for new tier instance to be relatively easier in comparison to previous tiers. They should be atleast equally challenging, and if possible just a bit more complicated (Or with additional twist).

I really liked how you brought this up to be exact.

♦ Praetorian · 06/05/07, 8:19 PM

What about risk/reward then? (Or well, more accurately, difficulty/reward, since there's no "risk"...)

It'd be one thing is BT were billed as a sidestep from the content before it, kind of like how Blizzard came out and said, "Yeah, the first half of AQ40 is supposed to be easier than BWL and is an alternative to it -- have fun." Skeram dropped lower ilvl loot than Vaelastrasz and Broodlord, even though AQ40 was a "later" instance in progression terms. But Supremus drops higher ilvl loot than Al'ar, Hydross, and even Vashj/Kael.

And I don't think anyone objects to easy bosses as standalone entities. I saw Grobbulus as a counterbalance for the fact that Patchwerk was clearly harder than the other 3 first-tier Naxx bosses. Chess is a reward for reaching the top of the tower. And so forth. If BT had a fun mini-event/boss partway through (say, Shade of Akama), that's mainly there for flavor and isn't meant to be a huge obstacle, cool, no problem. But if it takes the same players less time to learn tier 6 content than it took them to learn tier 5 content across the board, that's more worrisome. But now I'm just beating the same dead horse.

Dawme · 06/05/07, 8:22 PM

Well I don't know, maybe it's just me but we are working on kael'thas since a few days, things go well and all, it's a very enjoyable AND challenging encounter. We'll probably kill him soon and the idea that we'll basically get 3 or 4 free boss kills after him seems weird to me. Off course, we don't want only very complex boss fights like Kt which requires days of training but there's a big difference between down in 8-10 hours and down the second pull ever with 21 ppl in raid, isn't it ?

Bibdy · 06/05/07, 8:55 PM

Was Skeram harder than Nefarian? Was Sartura? Fankriss? The harder bosses have always been at the end of the instance and there has always been a good deal of overlap.

♦ Praetorian · 06/05/07, 8:59 PM

Originally Posted by Bibdy

Was Skeram harder than Nefarian? Was Sartura? Fankriss? The harder bosses have always been at the end of the instance and there has always been a good deal of overlap.

Umm, read my post two above yours.

Felippe · 06/05/07, 9:17 PM

How many of you actually think decreased difficulty is a bad thing? Well clearly Gurgthock does, and probably a lot of other people here, on the other hand, I see it more as an opportunity for more people who can't play as much to finally be able to see content that they should be able to experience. I mean how wasteful is it to design instances that only a minute percentage of the playerbase is going to see?

Aphyrax · 06/05/07, 9:25 PM

Originally Posted by jakez0r

How many of you actually think decreased difficulty is a bad thing? Well clearly Gurgthock does, and probably a lot of other people here, on the other hand, I see it more as an opportunity for more people who can't play as much to finally be able to see content that they should be able to experience. I mean how wasteful is it to design instances that only a minute percentage of the playerbase is going to see?

I think it is a bad thing. If BT is properly tuned (and is indeed easier than The Eye - I haven't been there) then Eye/SSC should be nerfed further to be at or below BT difficulty. Remember, difficulty progression has absolutely nothing to do with actual difficulty.