Pacing the Release of Raid Content - Page 4

Kalman · 06/04/07, 7:25 PM

Originally Posted by Praetorian

I think you may be making an error of degree here. Should most serious raiding guilds (i.e, not casual/social guilds, but guilds that recruit and want to progress, even if they don't raid 40 hours a week or don't have a roster of amazing players) make it to the last tier of raiding before the next expansion? Yes.

I think your reaction would be appropriate if it had taken Nihilum 2 months to clear the zones, leaving them with half a year at the very least with nothing to do. But we're not talking about two months here. We're talking about not even two weeks. We're talking about the Illidari Council (untouched on the PTR afaik) dying within 3 hours of Mother Shahraz (to Curse), with presumably some of that time spent on trash clearing. We're talking about guilds with no knowledge whatsoever of what Rage Winterchill does killing him on the first pull ever, with 22 people. Surely you can see a problem there?

By all accounts the tier 6 content is easier in many cases than the nerfed tier 5 content. How does that make any sense?

It doesn't. But I'd still rather see the content go down too easily than not at all. Yeah, if they retune it, bleeding edge guilds will bitch about having to relearn the fights the hard way, but again: who cares? They'll do what they do, and *Blizzard should not be paying attention to how quickly the very best clear their content* if they want to see the average guild clear all the content. Presumably the content will be tuned again, and it will be made somewhat harder. So the top tier got some easy loot in the meantime. Oh well? They deserve some kind of payback for being the beta testers for everyone else.

2 months for Nihilum would leave me with zero confidence that the average guild would be finishing up the content at the right time. Absolutely *zero*. I think players from the "power" servers (Mal'ganis certainly being one of them) tend to vastly overestimate where the average raiding guild is at by this point. It isn't TK.

♦ Praetorian · 06/04/07, 7:31 PM

There are 13 bosses in BT+Hyjal. If each of them took ~2 raid sessions to learn on average, with the last few (Archimonde, Illidan, etc.) being closer to a week, then that'd be around two months, factoring in farming old content. That doesn't strike me as unreasonable. Particularly when you consider that the Nihilums of the world will probably be less well geared when they first hit BT/Hyjal because they didn't spend as long stuck in the prior tier of raid content. A guild that clears SSC and gets to Kael but takes 6 weeks to kill him is going to have a ton of tier 5 loot when they finally get him down, and will thus have an easier time in the tier 6 zones.

The problem is that multiple bosses are being downed in a single night of clearing, by undergeared and undermanned raids. I think it's a fair point to say that if a fight takes Nihilum 2 weeks of dedicated effort to learn, it's probably too hard for almost all non-top-tier guilds to ever do. But at the other end of the spectrum, if a fight takes Nihilum less than 2 hours to learn, it's too easy. They're good, but they're not that good.

A raid zone full of Grobbuluses isn't really in anyone's interests.

Malorum · 06/04/07, 7:35 PM

Well what's the point of raiding these places if there is no challenge to begin with? I think thats the jist of what Gurg is trying to get to. Sure loot is nice and all but most people want it to accomplish it while being challenged at the same time.

Hevanus · 06/04/07, 7:36 PM

Originally Posted by Kalman

I hope they are, to be honest.

Someone asked, earlier, "So what now for Nihilum?"

You know what the answer is? *Who cares*. Those guys know that by throwing themselves at the content the way they have, they're likely to clear everything and have a bit of a wait for the next piece of content.

Meanwhile, the mythical "average raiding guild" can look at that progress and think to themselves "Hell, if they can do it in a day, we can get that down eventually." I *don't* want to see another Naxx: yeah, I killed KT. I saw everything in Naxx, and it really burns me that friends of mine who are perfectly good players, just in less organized/progressed guilds, didn't. And won't. I do think that the average raiding guild should be just about done with all the raid content when the next expansion rolls around, obsoleting it. I don't think that having a zone where only 5% of the raiding population even kills a boss is a good thing for the game.

So I look at this tuning and say "Oh well. I'll keep playing at my own pace." Nihilum can clear it all tonight, and it won't change the way I play one bit. Blizzard seems to have tuned for the second and third tiers of guilds, not for the bleeding edge players, and that's honestly a good thing.

Thanks Kalman, you took the words right out of my mouth.

I'm one of those who never got to see most of Naxx, and whenever I hear people reminisce about it I feel a twinge of resentment towards Blizzard for not giving my old guild time to complete it. I hope I won't suffer the same fate in TBC.

• zeidrich · 06/04/07, 7:37 PM

Query: If you can clear to Illidan in tier 4 gear, what the hell is the purpose of tier 6 gear? Faster farming clears?

The purpose of the tier 6 gear is for those who can't clear to Illidan in tier 4 gear.

Fellwraith · 06/04/07, 7:42 PM

Originally Posted by Praetorian

By all accounts the tier 6 content is easier in many cases than the nerfed tier 5 content. How does that make any sense?

If this is true, it would call into question some of the accomplishments that are being made today. Not only would the first-kill guilds have a serious leg up in terms of gear when the presumably re-tuned versions of the instance came out, but they'd never really have to experience the "harder" version of the fight (unless they're going to shift to the lower tier of gear just to say they did it. I don't think anyone is that much of an idiot). We're only looking at 1-2 weeks of gearing up in the zones so far, but that's still a fair amount of loot.

Obviously they never would have been in a position to do this if they hadn't beaten the seriously difficult v2.0 encounters, but what does that do to the morale of a guild like that? Presumably competition and respect are what drive them to do what they do. "We're the best". "We beat it first". If you beat the easymode version of a fight and the next guy beats the harder version later, which of you can claim to be the better player? Does it matter? If they put in hotfixes now, does that really help much?

I think the lesson here is that one instance at a time is a good approach for Blizzard. It gives the QA team time to test things and prevents problems like this from coming up. Rather than blowing through 2 instances at the launch of v2.1 they would have only been able to blow through one.

mek · 06/04/07, 7:44 PM

Originally Posted by Praetorian

I think I was pretty clear. I'm saying that the fights were tuned such that they were quite killable (and in many cases easily so -- basically every serious guild that spent some time in BT on the PTR killed bosses like Supremus), and then they buffed the gear without retuning them, leaving them in many cases trivial.

It's definitely a tuning problem. Blowing through BT as fast as Nihilum did simply shouldn't be possible... there's no internal progression like there was in Naxx, where you had to gear up within the instance. If you can clear to Illidan (and possibly kill him even) with virtually no T6 gear, the dungeon is too easy. There are plenty of bosses in BT/Hyjal to create an internal progression, the tuning just went wrong somewhere.

The mass-release of raid content combined with an arduous keying process combines to move raiding away from skill and back towards time investment. The time-management challenge of Naxxramas, where you had to clear 4 wings to get attempts in on the last two bosses, returns with a vengeance. The more casual your guild is, the harder it is to key your guild, as the more people you have to key. A guild of 25 players playing 8hrs/day are naturally going to progress exponentially faster than a guild of 50 players playing 4hrs/day. We just never saw these extremes as the perfect storm was never created.

Ultimately though, this isn't a major concern, as average guilds will probably get to BT/Hyjal and complete most of it anyway; again, it appears the major challenge to raiding is again time management. The days where a guild of "talented casuals" (EJ included) could compete with full-bore raiders are gone. BT and Hyjal fights aren't harder, in fact judging by how long Nihilum takes on boss X, they're significantly easier than SSC/TK 1.0. They just take longer to clear to.

Our real concern should be, is Blizzard substituting gear/skill checks for key checks, instead of having them work in tandem? How many guilds currently in SSC/TK are capable of clearing BT, but just lacking the keys for it? Could we kill Supremus and Rage Winterchill in tier 4 epics?

Disquette · 06/04/07, 7:44 PM

Originally Posted by Praetorian

What I'm seeing, from an outsider's perspective, is fights that have some creative mechanics, but too much margin for error based on the numbers involved.

Query: If you can clear to Illidan in tier 4 gear, what the hell is the purpose of tier 6 gear? Faster farming clears?

Note that I am biased, being a casual "passenger", just like my girlfriend is (though we were both hardcore before, her playing our best geared tank for our first 4H kill, for example).

So now that I'm in casual land, and having experienced being told "You can't come with us to Mag and Gruul because your gear isn't good enough", I personally would like it if some bosses had more passenger space.

Now, I think they should have probably put passenger-friendly bosses in the SSC and the Keep as opposed to Hyjal/BT. Keeping the early raid game accessible is a great thing for general-populace morale, imo. When one of the horde guilds on our server would lead Naxx PUGs (literally) with a few of their alts, killing Razuvious, Anubrekhan, and Noth, I think everyone benefitted. There's no way they would, or could, have killed Thaddius with that group, but people on the horde side loved it.

I think a large part of the genius of Naxx was the fact that passengers could visit, but only the hard core could complete it.

songster · 06/04/07, 7:53 PM

Originally Posted by Praetorian

The problem is that multiple bosses are being downed in a single night of clearing, by undergeared and undermanned raids. I think it's a fair point to say that if a fight takes Nihilum 2 weeks of dedicated effort to learn, it's probably too hard for almost all non-top-tier guilds to ever do. But at the other end of the spectrum, if a fight takes Nihilum less than 2 hours to learn, it's too easy. They're good, but they're not that good.

Aye, it sounds like either something's gone wrong with the tuning, or we're missing something.

Hypothesis: Heroic modes for raid instances?

Even if it is a simple tuning screwup, implementing a heroic mode might be a better response PR-wise and guild happiness-wise than tuning it all back up again.

• zeidrich · 06/04/07, 7:53 PM

Originally Posted by Michad

Well what's the point of raiding these places if there is no challenge to begin with? I think thats the jist of what Gurg is trying to get to. Sure loot is nice and all but most people want it to accomplish it while being challenged at the same time.

3/20 25-man raiding guilds (definition of a raiding guild is a guild who has killed at least maulgar and posted a thread about it on our guild progression forums) have killed any boss in SSC as of yet.

Obviously 17 guilds are being challenged by SSC level content and at least 3 are being challenged by TK level content.

These posts make it sound like everyone's gearing up in Karazhan and just casually popping in and downing Vashj and Kael'thas, heading over and taking out rage winterchill and the popping into BT.

If there's such a lack of challenge, why are we still not though SSC? Why is only 1 guild on our server past Vashj? Is it because we all really really suck?

I don't think so, it's just that some people are really really good.

The fact that a guild like nihilum is downing these things in record time is heartening. It means that we might see the end before the next expansion comes out. We didn't get that with Naxxramas.

It's nice to know that if we can't do it with t4 we can get t5 and get through it based on stronger gear. It's nice to know that if we can't fully do BT with t5 we can do it with some t6.

Amera · 06/04/07, 8:02 PM

Obviously 17 guilds are being challenged by SSC level content and at least 3 are being challenged by TK level content.

These posts make it sound like everyone's gearing up in Karazhan and just casually popping in and downing Vashj and Kael'thas, heading over and taking out rage winterchill and the popping into BT.

If there's such a lack of challenge, why are we still not though SSC? Why is only 1 guild on our server past Vashj? Is it because we all really really suck?

I don't think so, it's just that some people are really really good.

The fact that a guild like nihilum is downing these things in record time is heartening. It means that we might see the end before the next expansion comes out. We didn't get that with Naxxramas.

It's nice to know that if we can't do it with t4 we can get t5 and get through it based on stronger gear. It's nice to know that if we can't fully do BT with t5 we can do it with some t6.

The point was that the Tier6 zones were too easy, not the Tier 5 ones. Actually getting attuned to T6 seems like a bigger hurdle than the bosses. Like for example, the first guild on a server to get attuned is likely to leap a dozen bosses ahead of everyone else just by getting that attunement key

Malorum · 06/04/07, 8:03 PM

My point relates more to BT and Hyjal, not TK or SSC because both are what would be considered properly tuned for the current levels of gear that are expected to be in there. I dont think we will see the next expansion pack till next summer at the very least and this gives guilds a year+ to conquer the current content. That is more than enough time to do all of the content given that BT and Hyjal are retuned with the new epics in mind.

The release of Naxx was unfortunately at a terrible time with the expansion so close to release. Blizzard never took into consideration how long it would take average guilds to clear it because pushing TBC back for that wasn't seen as viable given the amount of money it would bring in.

Raid instances are tiered for a reason and if content isn't tuned properly with this in mind then the entire Tiered system is moot.

Amera · 06/04/07, 8:07 PM

My point relates more to BT and Hyjal, not TK or SSC because both are what would be considered properly tuned for the current levels of gear that are expected to be in there. I dont think we will see the next expansion pack till next summer at the very least and this gives guilds a year+ to conquer the current content. That is more than enough time to do all of the content given that BT and Hyjal are retuned with the new epics in mind.

If that really is true, I couldn't imagine any bleeding edge guilds still playing this game by then.

songster · 06/04/07, 8:10 PM

Originally Posted by zeidrich

3/20 25-man raiding guilds (definition of a raiding guild is a guild who has killed at least maulgar and posted a thread about it on our guild progression forums) have killed any boss in SSC as of yet.

Obviously 17 guilds are being challenged by SSC level content and at least 3 are being challenged by TK level content.

Not so. Those 17 aren't having trouble getting through SSC content - as you say, they haven't killed a single boss there. They're having trouble getting into SSC at all. I suspect that this will prove to be a general phenomenon. At this point (post 2.1), the challenge lies more in getting *into* SSC than in getting through it.

A hardcore guild needs to get ~30 people keyed to have a 25-man raid most nights in SSC. A less hardcore guild, with lower attendance, will need to key 50-100 people just to have a chance of having a well-balanced raid-full of people all online at once. The logistics of pulling that many people through Karazhan and Heroics are incomprehensible to anyone that's not out there trying to do it. In the face of that, many of the less hardcore players that once were raiders have simply turned completely off the raid game. I'm considering throwing in the towel for my own group at the moment after we just couldn't get enough people to go and take a look at Maulgar - too many of our past raiders have just given up the game in toto. 2.1 came too late, and didn't touch the logistics problems.

Note that the logistics problems apply even before you consider the passenger/ability issue. Those 75 people with ~40% attendance may be just as technically good as the ~95% attendance people in the hardcore guilds. In practice they're probably not, so you have that much more of a problem maintaining group cohesion, morale, etc.

Once you do have enough people attuned to SSC and able to form the nucleus of a happily raiding group, it looks as though progression has now been carefully set up through SSC and TK, and is weirdly tuned thereafter. But I don't know how many more groups are going to be crossing that initial hump any time soon.

Xei · 06/04/07, 8:12 PM

The way vanilla content was organised is a similar way to how BC should have.

You couldn't realistically get through more then 1-2 bosses of a new raid instance without a decent amount of gear from the previous one. Razor could be killed without farming Rag but Vael probably not, Skeram could be killed without farming Nef, Raz/Anub etc. You should not be able to destroy T6 content in T4.5.

The leading guilds through old content used consumables/world buffs et al to make up for the lack of gear to complete content first, and once they reached the required gear level didn't have to bother anymore.

Something is wrong if guilds are ploughing through BT/Hyjal when they are CLEARLY undergeared for the zone - being soo early. They cannot make up for the gear with consumables/world buffs anymore.

What is the fix? I don't think they can now - its too late now.

On the subject of raid pacing, I prefered the tiered release approach. As a not-so-hardcore raider it is daunting and slightly depressing that some guilds are near clearing T6 content when many are still working on T4 content, but that is just my preference, not what is best for the game or the rest of its subscriber base.

The tiered approached allowed many guilds to start the next raid instance on par with the top guilds and gain some sense of pride knowing, once they beat the current content, they had "beaten the game" at this point in time. This also allowed for the farming content period to unwind and relax and wait for the next zone.