Why can't they do for raids what they've done with 5-mans?
Normal and Heroic with appropriate loot based on the difficulty?
Restrict Epics to heroic-mode everything, and relegate Rares to the rest, with appropriate difficulty for the type of loot. If they made normal-mode more forgiving, people would at least see the content, even if they don't get all the loots. Plus, it'd be some decent practice for the heroic version, as people would at least know the fights, if not the tolerances/specifics, such as added abilities, etc.
I'm happy to know all of Starcraft's original VAs are coming back.
They SPECIFICALLY said (twice in two panels I was at - SC2 gameplay and SC Lore) that this was NOT the case. In fact, the original VA for Zeratul is dead.
I do not want to be too negative, but considering the number of easily reproduceable flaws in current raid content it is safe to say that adding a second setting might be disasterous for everybody.
As far as all of those hero classes go, it looks really cool from a distance but for raid logistics what on earth do we do if the game expands to 15+ classes?
It would be cool if those hero classes were limited to 5 man/pvp. Then BGs/ arena would have an incredible variety, like a game of Dota, but the raiding game would atleast have a chance.
As far as all of those hero classes go, it looks really cool from a distance but for raid logistics what on earth do we do if the game expands to 15+ classes?
Ideally, I think the goal is for 15+ classes to work out like this:
"Okay, it's <instance> night. Who's signed up?"
"Er, a Warrior, two Priests, two Druids, a Rogue, a Death Knight, a <Whatever> and two <Something Elses>."
"Okay, we can do that. Let's go."
That is, the hope is that you could roll with what you have and make it work out. I realize that this is a *nearly* impossible goal - there will almost always be classes/specs that are preferred for certain roles over others. But hopefully, more classes will mean more flexibility in group and raid composition, and more options for how to handle an encounter.
There's the very real possibility, of course, that you'll be asking someone to log off their Hunter and log on their Archdruid (or vice versa), but I hardly think that's a new experience for the more efficiency-minded among us.
Why can't they do for raids what they've done with 5-mans?
Normal and Heroic with appropriate loot based on the difficulty?
Restrict Epics to heroic-mode everything, and relegate Rares to the rest, with appropriate difficulty for the type of loot. If they made normal-mode more forgiving, people would at least see the content, even if they don't get all the loots. Plus, it'd be some decent practice for the heroic version, as people would at least know the fights, if not the tolerances/specifics, such as added abilities, etc.
I stated this about 10 pages back. It would be remarkable easy to do. For instance:
Kara 10 man regular raid. Has regular loot drop no tier sets. It gets peopel up to speed with the Heroic Badges items had they not completed them.
Kara 25 man Heroic raid: Tier 4 drops
SSC 10 man regular raid: Tier 4 drops
SSC 25 man Heroic raid Tier 5 drops
TK 10 man regular raid: Tier 5 drops
TK 25 man Heroic raid: Tier 6 drops
etc.
Keep the 10 mans 1 tier behind the heroic 25 mans. This reduces itemization and makes it possible to let everyone experience all encounters and still have the high end raid guild complete the dungeons for much better rewards.
I would also like to see more Multi winged dungeons like Naxx. It just helps the monotony of running an instance when you can decide that this week we are going to go backwards or just skip this wing altogether because no one wants anything in there.
They kind of used that with the dungeons and heroic dungeons, but not the raids.
The problem with the whole scalable approach is that most bosses just don't. Lurker, Karathress, Al'ar, and Void Reaver just don't really work out with just ten people, let alone Vashj or Kael. Scalability would mean vastly changing the encounters, and less encounter diversity.
Besides, there's the whole lore approach of Kael, his armory, and his advisors getting killed by 10 people. That's not very epic at all.
The problem with the whole scalable approach is that most bosses just don't. Lurker, Karathress, Al'ar, and Void Reaver just don't really work out with just ten people, let alone Vashj or Kael. Scalability would mean vastly changing the encounters, and less encounter diversity.
Besides, there's the whole lore approach of Kael, his armory, and his advisors getting killed by 10 people. That's not very epic at all.
Well thats why the reward from killing them is as epic as the epic fight would be. And they've scaled the 5mans just fine adding in additional elements make the fights harder, whats to stop them from taking elements out of the 25 mans and make them 10 man scale?
Ideally, I think the goal is for 15+ classes to work out like this:
"Okay, it's <instance> night. Who's signed up?"
"Er, a Warrior, two Priests, two Druids, a Rogue, a Death Knight, a <Whatever> and two <Something Elses>."
"Okay, we can do that. Let's go."
That is, the hope is that you could roll with what you have and make it work out. I realize that this is a *nearly* impossible goal - there will almost always be classes/specs that are preferred for certain roles over others. But hopefully, more classes will mean more flexibility in group and raid composition, and more options for how to handle an encounter.
There's the very real possibility, of course, that you'll be asking someone to log off their Hunter and log on their Archdruid (or vice versa), but I hardly think that's a new experience for the more efficiency-minded among us.
I think synergy actually makes doing that more difficult. For example, a group with a fire mage, destro warlock, shadow priest and elemental shaman will do more dps than any combo of the above. You can easily replace a tank class with another tank class, same with healers and dps but you can't replace the assorted buffs and debuffs that specific class brings. If they add more hero classes, the biggest factor in raid composition will be the amount of buffs and debuffs that everybody can stack.
The problem with the whole scalable approach is that most bosses just don't. Lurker, Karathress, Al'ar, and Void Reaver just don't really work out with just ten people, let alone Vashj or Kael. Scalability would mean vastly changing the encounters, and less encounter diversity.
Besides, there's the whole lore approach of Kael, his armory, and his advisers getting killed by 10 people. That's not very epic at all.
I could say the same thing about Zul'Jin and even Illidan.
The fights can be arranged around 10 people. Just like heroic dungeons they introduce new abilities and have different strats. And who says you have to kill Illidan or Kael? They could have it be lore driven and have the 10 man raid help an NPC who kills Kael and have lesser Loot. Then the 25 man YOU have to kill Kael to get the standard loot.
This is just example. I am not saying go back and change these encounters, for future raids so the majority of players experience the lore driven content.
Well thats why the reward from killing them is as epic as the epic fight would be. And they've scaled the 5mans just fine adding in additional elements make the fights harder, whats to stop them from taking elements out of the 25 mans and make them 10 man scale?
You just can't do it without completely destroying the gimmick of the fight. For example, take the Maulgar encounter which is the first 25-man encounter in TBC. You need a mage tank for the mage, a warlock tank for the warlock, some combo of hunter and/or shammy on the shaman, a tank on the high king and a tank on the priest. That's already 5 people right there. Then you need dps, at least one of which has a fast cd interrupt. That's unless you're tanking the priest with a warrior, then any dps will do. Of course, you need healers as well.
You simply can't scale this fight into a 10-man encounter unless you completely delete 1-2 of the adds altogether. Then, the fight just isn't the same.
You just can't do it without completely destroying the gimmick of the fight. For example, take the Maulgar encounter which is the first 25-man encounter in TBC. You need a mage tank for the mage, a warlock tank for the warlock, some combo of hunter and/or shammy on the shaman, a tank on the high king and a tank on the priest. That's already 5 people right there. Then you need dps, at least one of which has a fast cd interrupt. That's unless you're tanking the priest with a warrior, then any dps will do. Of course, you need healers as well.
You simply can't scale this fight into a 10-man encounter unless you completely delete 1-2 of the adds altogether. Then, the fight just isn't the same.
You're right, it wouldn't be the same, that is the point and the reason for lesser loot. This same thing has been argued already, when they went from 40 to 25 mans and when they implemented heroic dungeons.
People are able to do Moroes pretty easily. Have Maulgar stand there and not attack until the adds are neutralized.
You aren't thinking outside of the box of 25 man raids. We are saying make the encounters different. They have already done this in heroics....
You just can't do it without completely destroying the gimmick of the fight. For example, take the Maulgar encounter which is the first 25-man encounter in TBC. You need a mage tank for the mage, a warlock tank for the warlock, some combo of hunter and/or shammy on the shaman, a tank on the high king and a tank on the priest. That's already 5 people right there. Then you need dps, at least one of which has a fast cd interrupt. That's unless you're tanking the priest with a warrior, then any dps will do. Of course, you need healers as well.
You simply can't scale this fight into a 10-man encounter unless you completely delete 1-2 of the adds altogether. Then, the fight just isn't the same.
Not to mention that 25 mans can reasonably assume you have at least 1 of every class. 10 mans it's much more difficult an assumption to take, and 5-mans it's impossible. Certain classes are needed for certain fights.
Unless we're talking about dumbing fights down to tank n spank level it just won't work.
Not to mention that 25 mans can reasonably assume you have at least 1 of every class. 10 mans it's much more difficult an assumption to take, and 5-mans it's impossible. Certain classes are needed for certain fights.
Unless we're talking about dumbing fights down to tank n spank level it just won't work.
Kara isn't tank and spank. Zul Aman won't be. You tune it for 10 people.
Anyway, were getting off topic.
So keeping with the "fact" that you cant have all of the classes in a 10 man and thus encounters will be dumbed down, what will become of the 10 man raids if were squeezing yet another class into the fold, the same for 25 mans? And down the line when even more hero classes are introduced?
I know we can't say, and you may ignore and deal with it when it happens, but it something we need to consider.
You simply can't scale this fight into a 10-man encounter unless you completely delete 1-2 of the adds altogether. Then, the fight just isn't the same.
And how, exactly, is this a problem? There are bosses that change quite a bit from normal 5 man to heroic 5 man (Mechanolord probably being the most obvious) and extra bosses in heroic mode is known too (Blood Guard Porus) - having Maulgar with fewer adds on normal if limited to 10 man or having the adds attack two at a time with Maulgar coming in when last two adds are at 25%, for instance, could work out as well, and, as for example Gruul, apart from scaling damage/health down and perhaps increasing the time between growths an obvious choice would to keep "reverberation" heroic only. That said, I think what you are really saying is that it makes for much more balancing work if you scale "normal = 10 man" and "heroic = 25 man" because, as you note, the logistics of the fight changes considerably so you need to perform that sort of deep changes.
It would take considerably less effort to have both normal and heroic raids as 25 man and just let the normal mode be a cakewalk (through nerfing damage, hitpoints, and having less abilities) such that the general outline could be the same. Based on the current model of heroics that is supposed to be good enough for the non-raiders you wouldn't even need something like Dejablue's different tiers of equipment for normal and heroic, you could let most of the loottables on heroic raiding be exactly the same as normal with some badges added allowing you to buy epics better than those dropped in the heroic dungeons and perhaps a guaranteed superior epic or two from the last boss.
It would, of course, mean that you'd eventually have T6 clad raiders doing heroic Gruul or SSC (substitute whatever Northrend raids you like) where the vast amount of loot would be shardable since you outgeared it or already had it from normal mode, and the raiders would be solely concerned with the loot from the last boss and badges acquired along the way, but it seems to work modestly well* for 5 mans, so, really, why shouldn't it work for 25 man raids too?
* Modestely well = "people bitch about it but continue playing them anyhow"
Heroics are already a bit of a joke; damage levels tuned up and, only very occasionally, an ability added to a boss. I'd like to think that 25-man bosses are more sophisticated than what you could accomplish by tuning a couple of values in a database, and they're *severely* limiting themselves if they commit to every 25-man boss having a 10-man counterpart. Moreover, you pretty much trivialize whatever gravity an encounter has when you provide a visually-identical but easily-beatable version of it. Heroic raids are just really not the answer.
People are simply not entitled to see artwork just because they bought the game, even if it based on events they saw in earlier RTS Warcrafts. Certainly not at the toll it would take on the game. Entry-level raiders deserve unique content that is manageable to their guild, and which facilitates future raiding endeavors. Hardcore raiders deserve unique content that meets their guild's ability conquer difficult content. Making these overlap is a very large time investment for the content developers, and really doesn't gain much except letting people say "hey, I beat WoW!!!"
Encounters were changed in Heroics, yes, but not by nearly the same margin. Heroic encounters meant one ability did more damage, or did something slightly different, or some other minor but effective adjustment. The only real completely new addition I can think of is the Thaddius mechanic on that Mechanar boss.
Turning 25-mans into 10-mans, let alone 5-mans isn't just flipping a switch. You would have to completely retune and redesign the bosses and encounters. Not to mention the trash.
I don't see the point of it when zones already exist for the next tier of progression, with unique and exciting mechanics instead of slightly different ones. Imagine if this model was in place and "Heroic TK" was dropping Tier 6 loot. Would anyone give a shit when Blizzard introduced Black Temple?
Also your example is a bit flawed anyway since Karazhan drops Tier 4 gear, and SSC and TK are the same item level.
People are simply not entitled to see artwork just because they bought the game, even if it based on events they saw in earlier RTS Warcrafts. Certainly not at the toll it would take on the game. Entry-level raiders deserve unique content that is manageable to their guild, and which facilitates future raiding endeavors. Hardcore raiders deserve unique content that meets their guild's ability conquer difficult content. Making these overlap is a very large time investment for the content developers, and really doesn't gain much except letting people say "hey, I beat WoW!!!"
If you think it'll take two much effort to make that overlap, screwing over the hardcore raiders instead of catering to their wishes would seem the obvious choice as WoW has developed.
Hardcore raiders are the minority that invests most time in man-hours AND devours content the fastest in calendar-hours - in a game where people pay on a monthly basis and a lump sum per expansion pack, they are amongst the most expensive players to support. Remind me, again, why exactly they are entitled to the substantial development time needed to develop content that only they and a few non-hardcore raiders (compared to the playing population) will see due to its difficulty level? Remind me why the desire of these hardcore raiders trumps the desire of the entry-level raiders, the not-optimized-raiders, the social-guilds-who'd-like-to-raid, the we-cannot-devote-10%-20%-of-our-life-to-WoW to not get stuck on progression because they are not hardcore raiders and never will be?
Taking TBC as an example, if you spent the time it took to develop Black Temple to develop a truly superior Outlands fishing event with bells and whistles and fun rewards to put the Stranglethorn fishing contest to shame by its magnificence it would be played by many more people and, over time, quite likely have more time invested in it by players than the Black Temple ever will.... And that's said as a person who really, truly, hates fishing in WoW.
If the choice is between having a few saying "hey, I beat WoW!!!" while the many say "realistically, I'll never beat WoW or even the parts you few completed months ago" and having many saying "hey, I beat WoW!!!" while the few say "WoW sucks, it is too easy, raiding should cater to hardcore raiders, I quit for an MMORPG that really understands that raiding is where you EARN stuff, because there's no free lunch, and raids should be HARD, a true test of skill", I'd choose the latter every time. Not because I do not understand the sentiments on those who are good players, play with good players, and have plenty of time, but because, realistically, they are in a minority, and just about all players want to see all (or most) content. Entitlement doesn't come into it - satisfying player wishes does.
This argument of a paying customer's "right" to see all game content has been hashed and rehased countless times in this thread and others to the point of absurdity. I would argue that no, you are not entitled to see Illidan just because you bought The Burning Crusade, and furthermore, the bar should not be lowered on such content to allow everyone to see it.
Do you believe that every child who spends 30 dollars on a pair of baseball cleats is entitled to break Hank Aaron's homerun record? Should everyone be allowed into the World Series on the basis of this monetary committment? Baseball, as well as Blizzard, merely offers the opportunity for every person to experience such a feat, given the individuals will and ability to do so.
Some would argue there should be watered down versions of Illidan and the other tough encounters and again i would say no. Afterall, if you simply want to see Illidan, you can go watch a movie or simply look at the cover of the box. If you want to experience Illidan, on the other hand, would it really be Illidan if he were only half his strength? Going back to the baseball analogy, I can create a baseball field in my backyard and let you hit a ball over the fence 756 times but is that the same? Of course not.
Illidan is more than just entering the room and fighting him, he is a culmination of progressive steps you have made with your character and guild along the way. Experiencing Illidan is really the road to Illidan and culiminates with fighting and beating him at the end. The day you create your character you have the opportunity to experience every single aspect of this game, but if it isn't important enough to you to take those steps, then you will not. It is important to me, and while I have not killed Illidan yet, I have put myself into a position where i can honestly say I think that I will.
I will never break Hank Aaron's record (or Barry Bonds depending on when you read this post,) but baseball is not my hobby nor profession. I'm sure that somewhere there is a forum to voice my grievances over the unfairness of only letting less than 1% of the world's paying baseball playing community experience such a feat, but i haven't looked that hard. In the end, if everyone could break the record, would such a record even exist? Would any of us at all care that it happened or even want to be a part of it? Probably not.
You can't compare real world scenarios that depend on luck, biology, training, and people's entire career that keeps them paid to a leisure time entertainment world where the developers literally have godlike control and can decide on a whim to make something happen or not. The equivocation is absurd.
Human beings can argue the merits of ethics with regard to human decisions. Arguing physical law or amino acid sequences in utero is still mostly futile.
Why not? I can make real world arguments because the one thing that is the same both in this game and in the real world is humanity. We are all human beings with the same drives, wants, needs and desires and the desirability of such a task as slaying illidan by a gamer is not much different than that of a gymnast who wants to someday win a gold medal in her sport.
Yes, the gamemasters are essentially gods in our little world, but they are working with the same human elements that David Stern is when it comes to Baseball. Killing Illidan is a desireable task because of its exclusivity and killing hogger is not. The very remedy of allowing everyone to accomplish such a task is essentially the remedy for destroying the will to do so.
What if they did make it so that 50 percent of all raiders could and would kill Illidan before expansion. Would that truly solve anything? Wouldn't the remaining 50% then want it further reduced to their standard? Why not 75 or 100pct? Why shouldn't the guy who plays 1 hr a day, has never joined a guild, has no clue who Illidan even is have the right to experience killing Illidan before the next expansion comes out?
Here and in the real world, lines are drawn and the only thing that seperates you from the guy that crossed the line is your will to do so. If you believe differently within the game, ok, but if you believe differently in the real world, I would have to think thats its very sad how you have limited the expectations of yourself.
Do you believe that every child who spends 30 dollars on a pair of baseball cleats is entitled to break Hank Aaron's homerun record? Should everyone be allowed into the World Series on the basis of this monetary committment? Baseball, as well as Blizzard, merely offers the opportunity for every person to experience such a feat, given the individuals will and ability to do so.
No, but I expect every child who spends X dollars on a baseball computer game to have a near certainty of winning it even if he's poor at playing in general, has a bad reaction speed, doesn't have friends that are strong players to help him if it is a co-op game, is a slow learner, or only has time to play it for a few hours a week. He may have to choose the EASY difficulty setting that doesn't unlock the golden sign stating "You are truly great and scored double points for doing it on the hard difficult level" at the end of the game, but I certainly expect him to eventually win.
Going by your Illidan analogy the child choosing to play on EASY difficulty level and winning the baseball game is wasting his time. After all, he could watch a movie or look at the baseball game box which has a picture of the winning screen, since winning a watered down version of the game just isn't the same as winning it the way it was meant to be played since it is the road that is imporant.
And yet, in practice, with real people - we see players playing games on the easy difficulty level and having fun with it. Having fun with walking the easy road through content growing virtually ever stronger until they reach the end and "win the game". Strangely enough, knowing that there is a difficulty level where it would be even harder or "more epic" for them to win does not diminish their enjoyment of success on the lower difficulty level - though it may spur them on to try again, this time on the harder setting.
...Which is why selection of difficulty level is central to most computer games.
----
Shaker, you are right. I'm afraid that strongly suggests that we've just about reached the limit of what we can sensible guess at based on the available information. We've had the Death Knight, Hypothetical Inscriptions, Future Heroclasses, Raid Size, Raid Composition, Raid Difficulty, Naxxramas Reincarnated, Noninstanced Overland PvP Objectives, and much, much, more.
The only real completely new addition I can think of is the Thaddius mechanic on that Mechanar boss.
The heroic versions of Murmur, Chrono Lord Deja, and Keli'dan the breaker do the Aran-esque "Get over here!" tractor beam ability. In addition, heroic Murmur has the Thundering Storm ability. I'm pretty sure that's the first "minimum range AE" you see in 5 mans.
No, but I expect every child who spends X dollars on a baseball computer game to have a near certainty of winning it even if he's poor at playing in general, has a bad reaction speed, doesn't have friends that are strong players to help him if it is a co-op game, is a slow learner, or only has time to play it for a few hours a week. He may have to choose the EASY difficulty setting that doesn't unlock the golden sign stating "You are truly great and scored double points for doing it on the hard difficult level" at the end of the game, but I certainly expect him to eventually win.
Going by your Illidan analogy the child choosing to play on EASY difficulty level and winning the baseball game is wasting his time. After all, he could watch a movie or look at the baseball game box which has a picture of the winning screen, since winning a watered down version of the game just isn't the same as winning it the way it was meant to be played since it is the road that is imporant.
And yet, in practice, with real people - we see players playing games on the easy difficulty level and having fun with it. Having fun with walking the easy road through content growing virtually ever stronger until they reach the end and "win the game". Strangely enough, knowing that there is a difficulty level where it would be even harder or "more epic" for them to win does not diminish their enjoyment of success on the lower difficulty level - though it may spur them on to try again, this time on the harder setting.
...Which is why selection of difficulty level is central to most computer games.
----
Shaker, you are right. I'm afraid that strongly suggests that we've just about reached the limit of what we can sensible guess at based on the available information. We've had the Death Knight, Hypothetical Inscriptions, Future Heroclasses, Raid Size, Raid Composition, Raid Difficulty, Naxxramas Reincarnated, Noninstanced Overland PvP Objectives, and much, much, more.
The only thing I would add to this is that it is about 10 man raids. NOT 5 mans. NOT solo dungeons. But reasonable 10 man versions of raids in the future. I am working on my guild again after a hiatus and coming from a large raiding guild. I simply enjoy 10 mans and smaller guilds more. It is about the road, I understand that, but I am talking about doing it with 10 people instead of 25. I would even argue that 10 mans could in fact be MORE difficult than a 25 man raid due to the need for specific classes, fewer healers, less tanks, less DPS.
Heroic Arcatraz is a great example of challenging content that can be created with small groups, albeit we aren't talking 5 mans. It works both ways too.
Think about Zul Aman getting ready to come out. It would be a lot easier to just have your regular 25 man raid go do it than get together 2 10 mans and leave people out and then keep the team A versus team B competition from creating animosity within the guild. With this implementation 25 man raids don't ever have to do 10 mans again and with better loot for the 25 mans, they have a greater reason to go than, spellbook x or enchantment y drops in there.
A staggered tier system could work well. Get 2 pieces of tier 4 drop in SSC 10 man. The rest drops in TK, BT/Hyjal drops tier 5 in 10 mans. It could be very obvious that 25 mans drop better gear.
And there is a difference between wow generals "casual vs hardcore" QQing and having mature, reasonable, detailed discussions about 10 man versus 25 man due to the ramifications of having a new class next expansion. This is going to come up in many forms.
We can even start talking about one now. What about 25 man versus 30 man. Should we go there with new classes being introduced? They already said they were happy with the 25 mans, but should we have serious discussions about 25 man versus 30 man?
I do think there is a point of diminishing returns. We all saw how 40 mans became a tagalong /follow fest and 10 mans can go that way too, only being too difficult, and perhaps too difficult to balance, even tho Heroics have been successful. This effects 10 mans as well, as stated some encounters need specific classes, how will having more classes effect that?
Show me the baseball video game that guarrantees in writing that you will be able to win a game? We could argue whether or not "winning the game" truly means killing Illidan if you want, but that really only supports my claim. Even the most casual of all casual players, having reached 70, and having a basic understanding of the game can now beat MC. Is timing so important on Illidan kills that we must not only guarrantee such a feat by everyone, but such a feat right now by everyone?
Your analogy, though intended to discredit my opinion, really isn't that far off from what I have been saying. A child who buys a video game is expected to learn how to play it before he can jump to the point of beating it. The child who is too impatient to figure out how to hit the ball the first time he goes to bat, will never beat the computer much less any of his friends who give a damn enough to learn. We can slow the ball down for him, or just have the computer hit the ball for him and let him run around the bases, but has that made him better at playing the game? No, it just created a new game where he can now shine and if he is having fun, great, but he's not having fun playing the very game we were talking about in the first place. The T-ball champion does not = the baseball champion.
As for difficulty settings. Unlike single player games, multiplayer games must be alot of different things for alot of diffferent people. Difficulty is measured across the board in all tasks and not specifically in each task. The difficulty of obtaining a cross faction mount is balanced by the ease of obtaining one's own faction mount. Difficult 25 man raids are balanced by the ease of a 10 man raid, and all the raids that came before it.
Fun is in the eye of the beholder, I get that, and I won't argue that. But the very notion of a "game," insinuates competition of some sort. Otherwise, it is simply unscripted drama, like Second Life. For every winner, there is a loser, and often more than just 1.
08/06/07, 5:58 PM
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