I agree with most of what has been said in this thread about how much time should be allowed between instance tiers, but I'm wondering if the current situation isn't too far off the mark? Yes, top guilds are in the longest drought ever seen, but assuming that content delivery isn't actually planned around the top 1%, is it possible that the Sunwell is released at the most appropriate time with 2.4?

I personally don't feel 2.3 is going to have a long stint on the PTR. Certainly nothing like what 2.2 saw, but even for a raid content patch, I don't think it's going to hang up there for more than 5-6 weeks. I also feel 2.4 is probably entering internal testing, and very shortly after 2.3 is released, it's going up on the PTRs. I think we could be testing the Sunwell late November, and I also think it's going to have a bit of a rushed PTR life. My reasoning for this isn't just wishful thinking.

Two important things have been mentioned a number of times in this thread, a) content used to be released with a few month break between tiers, this would allow the average raiding guild to catch up with the top guilds by the time the next tier is released, and b) this isn't happening anymore, creating a massive gap between average and top tier raiding guilds. All of the things said in this thread about whether they should have spaced out instances and such is good, but what I'm more concerned about is the Sunwell. I think two important statements reveal something that I don't think has been mentioned yet.

Content delivery, as I'm sure we all realize, isn't based on the time it takes the top 1% to beat the previous content. If that were the case, we'd be looking at a new tier every 6-8 weeks, and there would still be guilds that cleared the content in the first 2-3 weeks. Instead, raid content delivery is more than likely planned months in advance, but loosely based around some sort of "average raiding guild." Looking at WoWJutsu, that guild is probably 4/5 SSC, 2/4 TK right now. The Sunwell should hit shortly before that guild is ready to step into it, or 2/6 Hyjal, 3/9 BT.

I don't think Blizz wants most raiders to be killing Illidan before the Sunwell is released. I do think, however, Blizz wants most to be killing Kil'Jaedan before WotLK. They seem to agree with most of the community that Naxx was just not given enough time, which was 6-7 months from it going live to TBC going live. I figure they're going to aim to have the Sunwell sit on live for at least 9 months before Wrath-mania puts a stop to raiding like BC-mania did.

Rampant speculation? Yes. Some intelligent thought behind the speculation? I think so, and given a growing tread of a just a tiny bit more Blizz communication regarding upcoming content than we're used to, maybe we'll find out for sure soon.

Doesn't this more or less come down to the fact that Hyjal/BT--despite being two new raid instances--is really too easy?

It really seems to me that the only reason a large number of guilds haven't killed 6-7 bosses in Hyjal/BT is the fact that Kael is harder than them. One could look at this two ways: either Kael is too hard, or the BT/Hyjal stuff is too easy. Based on the time it has taken for guilds who gain access to the content to clear it, I would be inclined to say that BT/Hyjal, at least to a certain extent, are just too easy.

Regardless of where the problem sits, the progression curve in general seems quite "off". There is not really a smooth linear sense of progress at all. You have hundreds of guilds stuck on Kael and then a sudden leap to having a ton of bosses in the new instances down quite quickly.

Somehow, Blizzard has managed to get in trouble on both ends. On one side, the high-end people are bored and waiting for new content... on the other side, the middle-end are in a situation where they may very well be 3 instances behind the high-end people very shortly. Certainly, this is not an ideal situation in terms to the "feeling" of raid progression/pacing? Isn't this akin to if Naxx had been released and the top 4% of guilds started raiding it while everyone else was in Molten Core? How does that work?

That said, I'm not really sure what they can do to fix it at this point. My guess is that the "easiest" solution is to nerf Kael so that a bunch of people can rush up a bit before or around the point Sunwell launches. Then again, I'm not convinced that is the "best" solution really. (I think Vashj and Kael are good bosses, so trivializing them is really a negative...even if it would solve problems.)

Honestly, though, I find it a bit strange that a guild like ours--which is mostly hardcore players on a more casual 4-day schedule--with SSC cleared and 3/4 TK is more or less in the top 5-6% of EU guilds on WoWJustu, yet are still basically two instances behind the guilds above us. It just feels odd. The pre-TBC raid progression was a lot more fluid in terms of "steps" towards the top, instead of the bizzare progression model we have right now.

Just imagine that Naxx had a attunment that force you to clear AQ (kill Cthun).
Most likely we would have had the same "whine" posts about Cthun too hard and ">600 guilds stuck on Cthun" and saying the first bosses in Naxx are free-loot bosses.

On topic:

I definately think a more sedated release schedule would have been a better idea. Think back to when Black Temple was released, I believe Kael wasn't even killed till that week (or the week before possibly) by Nihilium. There was a perfect opportunity to have a 6-8 week lack of content, which gives the cutting edge guilds a bit of a break and some farm/gearing time in TK and lets the few hundred guilds just behind them catch up a little. It also makes it seem less intimidating.

Honestly as a guild setting foot into SSC it must be scary to think you've got 4 whole instances ahead of you, as well as a 5th coming in the next few months. We're working on Vashj as it is and I'm questioning myself whether I can keep up this level of attendance for what seems like its going to have to be 6 months straight to even down Illidan nevermind the sunwell.

I wonder what people would have thought about releasing Hyjal before BT (I know Hyjal was in the game from start but unsure as to what state it was in pre-BT patch as Kael wasn't downed.

AQ40 generally received a bad reception, in part due to the terrible opening quest and in part due to the massive sidegrades in there. Had Blizzard had Hyjal as the only content for a few months before releasing Black Temple would this have gone down in much the same fashion? People annoyed that they'd beat Archimonde and farmed him for a month or so and the new dungeon was dropping similar level gear? I still think this might have been the way to go.



Slightly offtopic:
I fully agree with this.

From a five man instance side of things, imagine if Blizzard had held back one of their finished instances at release. Lets say Steamvaults. They could have added this in the first content patch and people would have been happy at the increase in 5 man content.

Also I like your model with the idea of pairing 5 mans, 10 mans and 25 mans. I've been campaiging for this since the AQ launch but an accompanying 5 man and possibly a 10 man to a raid dungeon works great to give non-raid players a sense that they are participating in new content. It seems they may have adopted this idea with the sunwell coming out with another 5 man instance.

I'm not a fan of the winged 5 man instances though to be honest. The end result is we have 3 cenarion instances, 4 auchindon ones, 3 hellfire ones and 3 tempest keep ones that all look almost identical to their wings. Whilst I realise this is the idea it just leads to a very boring and stagnant end game, especially in heroics. Had they removed two Auchindon ones, a hellfire one and a tempest keep one and put those 4 instances: 2 in shadowmoon, 1 in nagrand, 1 in BEM you get a much better spread and more interesting instances. I suppose its design work though, if you design the textures for "Auchindon Hallway 01" you can just paste it across 4 instances and save a lot of production time.

I don't think it would have been possible for them to hold back much of the 5-man content. That content was necessary to gear up for Karazhan. Less content would mean major itemisation holes. We complain a lot about itemisation holes in raiding, but they (of course) exist lower down too. And the fact that the 5 to 10 man game is what the majority of players will see is what makes it even more imperative to have that filled out and ready at release.

This question is really only one that concerns the bleeding edge and the almost-bleeding-edge. For a group like mine, currently 5/6 SSC and 1/4 TK, it's irrelevant. We don't get the "farm breaks" when we catch up to the frontline, and there's always new content ahead. And we're well above average!

One thing that surely can't help is that the differential between the best-of-the-best and the run-of-the-mill is now wider than it ever has been, in simple skill and organisational terms. Paid server transfer has concentrated talent, and the smaller raid sizes have let the top groups focus on an elite core of near 100% attendance. Nihilum are no longer 2-3 times better than us at learning new content, they're 10 times better. (Numbers illustrative rather than quantitative!)

Would staggering content release have helped matters? Well, that's pretty much unanswerable. As per the famous "semi-hardcore" comment, some people want to rush through content in one charge and then sit back for a long rest. Some would prefer shorter bursts and a more even pace.

What does seem clear to me is that coordinating raid tier releases with Arena seasons would have made more sense. So T4 gear and season 1 go live, then T5/S2 come out at the same time, and T6/S3 at the same time. With points resetting between seasons so people don't buy this season's gear with last season's points.

However, the actual release timing may well have been affected by other considerations. Take the sound system change, for example. Blizzard has to have known long in advance that this large technical change was coming, and that it would be very likely to require extensive testing, clogging up the PTR. As such, they would presumably plan not to include any of the raid tiers in that patch. That means either frontloading it ahead of the technical changes, or delaying it till afterwards. Taking the first option means that the bleeding edge gets a long hiatus. Taking the second means everyone gets a long break.

It's also partly an artefact of the poor tuning of the initial raid game. Some people beat it anyway, but the vast majority simply ignored it till it was ready. So what we see now is the difference between people who entered BT a week or two after 2.1, and the mere mortals who started on Gruul a week or two after 2.1 hit. For most raiders, SSC and TK were effectively introduced with 2.1, and the fact that BT hit at the same time is irrelevant. They could have delayed it to 2.2, and just billed 2.1 as a "rebalancing and outdoor content" patch. But that would have meant tying BT to the unknown quantity that was the sound system change - so you can see why they chose not to.

Instead of doing fix T5/introduce T6 patch -> Sound patch -> nothing, they could've done fix T5 patch -> introduce T6 patch -> sound patch with a couple of months in between.

Staggering the release of 5 man instances would have just meant the instances would be mostly obsolete when they are finally released.

Imagine Steamvaults being released 2-3 months after TBC release. It could not have been involved in any of the attunements. Unless they deliberately left item holes in the other instances the loot inside would just be a variant of some other 5 man's loot most of which would be superseded because people had already been farming kara.

Having all the 5 mans and their zones done at the start meant they naturally fitted into the scheme of things and people went through most of the 70 ones for attunements. These days 5 mans are a joke. When we do 5 mans which is irregularly, we just zerg them. Doing them with leveling gear was far more exciting and challenging.

This isn't just about raiders. Anyone who has a 70 by now will have farmed the 5 mans to death already.

Well i'm fairly lucky in a way that i raid in a guild that is now on Azgalor, with BT down up to and including Teron.

From the TBC release we made the choice of having a 'casual pace', we only raid 4 nights per week and 4 hours per night.

We never stressed or rushed content and progressed steadily since release although at our own pace.

So for us there is no real problem, since we'll most probably be on time to kill Illidan a few weeks before release of the Sunwell, which will give us enough time to farm the most needed items without getting burnt out by it.

I think the question is wider that it seems, i have been a lot 'hardcorer' in the past, especially in everquest, but honestly i enjoy myself a lot more right now at my casual pace.

I don't want to start a hardcore vs casual debate once again, but is rushing through content that important? How many people just burn out because raiding and wiping for hours every night gathering consumables during the days etc, just to reach said boss a few weeks before or after ?

I used to think otherwise, but right now i see little point in being the first to do anything even on a server scale. Wow is an instanced game unlike eq, so i guess i went into an instance type of mood myself. I am just enjoying playing my instanced wow world in which our guild is alone and fighting and defeating mobs at our pace without the slightest care of what's going on elsewhere.


Should pacing be revisited, and with which guild as referential? That's a tricky question. You posted that you enjoyed a lot better vanilla release dungeon release, but i know a very thin part of the gamebase even the so called 'hardcore' have killed Kel'Thuzad.

Our server kinda suck progressionwise, and we had no guild who killed Kel'Thuzad at all, the most advanced guild stopped after Sapphiron.
Is it logical that blizzard designs pace release to satisfy a minority? The result is that the less hardcore feel frustrated. I know i feel like i missed something by not killing KT, and i'd have loved to have experienced that fight.

So what speed would you use as referential? You could be real hardcore and set up Nihilum progress as standard, releasing a new instance say 1 month after they killed illidan, how would you feel without having killed Illidan, or only once before the new dungeon (i'm not sure on the date of your kills i'm just throwing dates.). Would you use a certain % of guilds? Someone says jutsu says 4% of guilds are in MH, that means even less killed Illidan shouldn't that be relevant?

But now i understand your frustration, everyone want a calendar tailormade to their own needs, and farming weekly the same stuff with no upcoming challenge must be boring. I know i got some friends in this situation who actually play their old characters with us at times to distract themselves, but you just can't satisfy everyone, i think their average route is a decent enough pace even if it sucks a bit for the most hardcore and the most casual, it should please the majority.

But this isn't really a relevant example. The only reason more people didn't experience Naxx is because they released the expansion, not because of how pre-TBC WoW was paced in general. Obviously Blizzard shouldn't push back an expansion release date solely to cater to specific players who want to finish all their old raid content first. The question is more that if we assume that we have a certain timeline until the next expansion, how should the raid content be parceled out within that timeline?

At least based on my server the very healthy flora of low to mid tier raiders practically died with the release of TBC. I know the reason for this is not find in one design parameter but I think the lack of staggering the content is one of those reasons. Staggering creates (partly an illusion) a picture that you are not that far behind which certainly helps in motivation. At the same time it helps the more serious raiders to get breathers and content spread out over time.

I cannot honestly see a strong argument for not staggering the release of raid tiers.

Honestly if we have the new arena season and new arena items and 10 man instance out now it would be fine and give everyone who has beaten current content time to farm honor and get the new items they want and just kick back.

Right now most people just farm gold or pvp here and there but it will be quite a bit for new content and most stuff will be rotting easy by the time that sunwell comes. I mean hell stuff was rotting like crazy in naxx and that was with a full 40 raid at the end.


2.3 just needs to come out sooner and it will be cool , At least everyone would have something to keep interest levels high in the game.

You could swap that example with C'Thun if you like.

But i see your point, like other posters said they could have just split the content to arficially create some expectations. But imo that would still be artificial.

In fact what we blame blizzard here is mostly to have given too much too early. Say if the tier6 content hadn't been released so soon, like 2 months after Kael died would it have been better?

I think so personally, people would have farmed more kael before BT and we would have gained 2 months, but i think it's weird to blame blizzard for too much content released too early, that's what i meant by my post, in my opinion, it's your pace that is too fast.

How did you guys experience the changeover from T5 to T6 content? On my server, there is only 1 guild doing MH/BT right now, and only since a month or so. I have the feeling T5 is something nobody has ever farmed, let alone completed the set, because once you're attuned to MH you stop doing the instance instantly.

In classic WoW, the Tier sets were really something to show off around the AH to show how progressed your guild is. Nowadays, a lot of people with T5 (especially casters) don't get a seconds worth look, because T5 is more like the ZG setpieces.

My guild is doing SSC/TK 3/1 right now, and I think most of us only see it as an obstacle to the 'real' raid-instances. Like a clock ticking to get our game together fast, to count as the cool raiders on the server like we were when we showed off our T2. Even then, other guilds only doing MC were still something to look up at ('he killed Ragnaros!'). T5 feels more like a temporary slot-filler gearwise and doing SSC/TK feels more like an attunement progress than an accomplishment from my point of view as a casual raider.

edit: put some MC examples in.

I think the trend in this thread is pretty clear- for many of the top end guilds with things on farm, people are bored. For the vast majority of the playerbase, still working their way through SSC/TK with lots of content still left to explore, people seem pretty content. Pre-TBC, I was in a diferent guild that was wiping on Nef when the GM weapon changes were made and killed raiding for us and I still have never seen Naxx other than popping in after getting attuned. I don't have similar concerns about Hyjal or BT- I will see them.

I have no idea how Blizzard can realistically be expected to balance the content release for both groups of people (the vast majority of the playerbase and the elite guilds). I doubt there is, in fact, a way to do that. If you all are killing entire wings of Naxx while it is on the PTR, there simply isn't a way they can release content fast enough to keep you all 'progressing.'

Similarly, a push to try to keep providing content for you all will do exactly what you all don't want- create boring, trivial, gearcheck, or random bugged encounters with subpar loot (loot inflation always being a concern), disjointed lore, and seemingly no point to the raid encounter. In short, you are victims of your own success. You beat the game before there is any realistic chance that more meaningful encounters can be put in, and at the same tie, Blizzard can't introduce more content without completely discouraging the vast majority of the playerbase.

This is frustrating. I guess I need to rewrite the title and my entire first post.

Why do people keep posting like anyone is suggesting that Sunwell or more high-end content should be released faster? Is that what anyone actually thinks I'm proposing?

I do not get your point actually. You have a customer base that is paying to play the game. You have people who raid less but like to feel that they are not miles behind the most advanced players. And you have competetive players who will sacrifice their RLs to be at the top.

Now - given this starting point, if you get more satisfied players by staggering the release why not just do that? Your point is that there is something wrong with the player base/ customers rather than with the product. Very few companies survive with that mind-set.

The question I have is, why do Kael/Vashj have to be the huge cock-blocks? I see many many servers with guilds stuck in the T5 -> T6 transition. Many people have said that Kael, especially, is one of the toughest fights in the game. Why put this mountain that early in the progression path?

The other issue I see, and its really not a Blizzard issue per se, is that attrition really impacts guilds with regards to these more complex fights. Many servers are seeing "talent" xfer off to other more active servers and the net result is you have many servers languishing in SSC/TK, stuck in the recruit/gear/educate cycle. Watching the progression threads of various servers for a while now, it's a really common trend.
I'm not saying that SSC and TK need to be nerfed into the ground. I think a few fights, especially in SSC, could stand to be tuned a bit (Morogrim for example with his habit of splattering warrior tanks).

To be honest, I would even use as strong of a word as blame. The raiding community seemed split on the TBC solution to pacing when it was first proposed and without attempting it at least once there was no real way to judge public opinion. I don't think it was as successful as it could have been, but WoW really is creating it's own market at this point and it's probably hard to judge n things like this that could be really good in practice, or could be generally bad. At least now most folks have seen both solutions and can make an informed judgment.

That said, saying that the boards are out of touch and it's simply wonderful for the mid and low tier of guilds is just as bad as assuming that everyone holds the exact same opinion about this on the forums. Some guilds don't care. Some guilds care a lot. I think the most distinct opinions are the opinions of folks who actually tried staggered instances AS staggered rather than as a continuous flow of new instances always just ahead of you. That's not much different than what we have here in terms of prospective- always playing catchup. (although the matter of degree is there) The intention with staggered instances is to give everyone a chance to finish- think of it from that theoretical perspective rather than from the memory of playing catchup.

If every guild spent exactly 6 months learning encounters in 3 tiers of instances, and those instances had to last for one year of replayability- would it be better to give them all 6 months of content upfront and have them spend 6 months at the end with no new content... or would it be better to stagger releases so that you learn for 2 months and farm for 2 months with a new carrot at the end of the stick after every rest break?

Now apply that to a more realistic scenario. You have 3 guilds and 3 instances and the same 12 months. On guild learns all 3 instances in 3 months, the second guild learns them in 6 months, and the third guild takes 9 months.

With an early release system, your fastest raiders are twiddling their thumbs for the majority of the year and the average ones are bored for half a year. New cries for new content appear, players are bored- except in that third guild which is merrily plodding it's way along towards the end.

With a staggered release system every 4 months a new instance would come out. The fast guild would have 3 months of farming it, the medium guild would have 2, and the slow guild would have a new one month break between each- allowing them to share the excitement about future content that they get to dive into immediately. You keep all three tiers of raiders interested with new stuff to do for the *entire* year rather than just half the year or a quarter of the year.

Basically. I guess my thesis is simply that t5 content was short-changed by having t6 follow so closely on its heels. Blizzard shortened the lifespan of their own content by doing this. It created too much of a gap between the "top" guilds and the average guilds in the early days, and now it leaves too much time between new content for those same top guilds. I think most of us would've been fine just farming Vashj and Kael for another couple of months if we'd known that BT and Hyjal were coming out soon.

Also, spacing out raid content seems like it fits much better with the PvP model they're going for. The problem is that with PvP, they need to base the rewards roughly on the top tier of raid progression otherwise those few players, no matter how rare, who are ahead of the raid curve, will have a huge advantage. That's why you have S2 gear that is basically "tier 5.5" in terms of its ilvl and first became available at a time when the average guild hadn't killed much more than Gruul. If you make the next tier available too early, then some people will start getting that gear. And then you need to take that gear into account for PvP.

If BT/Hyjal were closed until August, then the best PvE gear in the game would've been t5 stuff, with most good raiders using ilvl 128 PvE epics, and a tiny bit of 138 Kael/Vashj stuff. That's much easier to balance around than a situation where on June 15th your average raiding dagger rogue uses a Malchazeen but a Nihilum rogue is sporting a Shard of Azzinoth.

I don't think there's any question that Blizzard badly stuffed up the timing. It alienated both ends of the spectrum. First it alienated the slow end of the spectrum by seemingly catering to the bleeding edge - i.e. releasing BT when hardly a handful of people had killed Gruul. Now comes the other end of the pendulum swing, alienating the bleeding edge who have run out of content and have nothing on the horizon.

I don't however think that this was wholly intentional on Blizzard's part. I think they intended more people to be ready for BT when it came out, and I don't think they intended the front-runners to zoom through BT as fast as they have done. This isn't as simple as saying "BT is undertuned" though. I suspect it's nigh on perfectly tuned for most raiders - i.e the bulk that are only now beginning to set foot in there. Similarly, I think the T5 zones are now pretty well tuned for their place in progression, with the possible exception of Kael'thas and Vashj (I have no direct experience of those, so I can't comment).

What this actually says is that the gulf between the "most hardcore" and "average" raiders is far wider than anticipated. Now, it's possible that it always was, and that a staggered release simply covered over the cracks. But I suspect it's equally likely that the monumental upheavals post-TBC really have stratified the raiding game much more than Blizzard could have predicted.

Well no, Magtheridon - while being pretty hard in his pre-nerfed state - was not the show-stopper for TK. That was the whole heroic quest thing. Also Gruul was not the brake for SSC, clearing Karazhan and killing Nightbane enough to attune 30-40 people of balanced classes was. While Gruul was certainly impressive with his 8k+ shatters and massive DPS requirements, I can't remember having spent more time on him than on the whole Karazhan clearing plus heroic quest for Nightbane's Urn, plus making sure that 30-40 people had their Blazing Signet, which took quite long, considering only a limited amount of urns existed.

Personally, I feel Kael is tuned perfectly for where he is. It's a challenging and rewarding encounter that finishes off Tier 5 content. The problem is that the content immediately following him is simply too easy and it's not uncommon for a guild to kill Naj'entus, Supremus, Shade of Akama, Rage Winterchill and Anetheron in the next reset.