Katria

You know, I really think having 5 man instances that cater to specific skills would be cool. And I think it's the best way to increase the difficulty of 5 man content, even though you'd miss out on some instances...as a priest or pally, you should have your own 5 man content that caters to your skills more than other classes (driuds being a bad counter-example since they can do everything heal/dps/stealth/tank).

If you make 5 man content to be as hard as possible for a 5 man mix of the available classes, you end up punishing specs and classes that aren't optimal. With raids, you have enough slots that you can include most any spec. In a 5 man, this isn't really true if you are going to make really hard content. However, if you accept that and instead tune instances to a specific subset of classes, then you can make really hard 5 man content for all classes, though some classes and specs will find certain instances extremely hard or even impossible.

I love the idea of a stealth instance, catering to rogues and druids. Let them use stealth for something other than a cheap opener on a boss, make it part of the dungeon design that the party will all have stealth. Or an instance focused on healing, maybe centered around aiding NPCs assault a fortress...you have to heal like mad to keep them up, and otherwise buff them and debuff the enemy to succeed. Going this route opens up all kinds of new types of encounters, something really different from any of the encounters we have seen, even in raids. It would be silly for a dungeon to require 10 or 25 of only 1-3 classes, but it could work in a 5-man.

I think it's a great idea...sure you miss out on some of the content since some of the instances aren't intended for your class, but there's incentive to level up that alt. The gains in new dungeon designs and the ability to design really challenging 5 man content outweigh that IMHO.

 

Rudi-CO

Honestly I cannot think of why Blizz cannot have highly involved and difficult 5-man content with appropriate awards. I mean, even having a massive 5-man instance on a 3-day reset (7-day reset?) could make sense if you have encounters that are involved enough. I mean, stealth fights, fights with 4 tanks, fights with all-AoE, it's all possible. If anything you can have more bizarre and interesting fights in 5-man content since you can require specific group compositions if they wish to fight a certain boss (LF1M: Need Retadin...?!?...) that you can't with 10- or 25- man raids (or, well, shouldn't; I can't imagine filling an all-stealthing 10- or 25-man raid).

I mean, would folks rather have the Heroic system and badges for epics or long-reset 5-man instances that are very specifically challenging and have epic-level rewards?

 

Alhena

This is actually a cool idea. If they tailor these 5-mans for specific types of classes, you could even cut down on the problem of loot tables in 5-mans being what they are. This one instance requires a retadin? Oddly enough that's also where a really amazingly itemized ret paladin two-hander drops. Need a boomkin for this other instance? There's some kickass caster leather drops there.

I think the reason they haven't done it is that it doesn't fit what they want for 5-mans. In theory, 5-mans are meant to be something that any group containing a tank, one or two healers, and two or three capable dps classes are able to finish, regardless of the specific classes involved. CC helps, but Blizz has been very reluctant to design normal 5-mans, or even heroic 5-mans, where you must have a specific class to succeed. I can think of examples of instances where certain encounters become significantly easier with a particular class (First boss of Heroic SV is considerably easier with a warlock than without), but killing her without one is doable. I can't think of any 5-man encounter, actually, where victory is nigh-impossible without a specific class. Generally the only encounters with a "No class X? You fail." element are in 25-man raids, where the presence of all classes in one spec or another is a fair assumption.

To make 5-mans like this you'd also need to be very specific. Like, imagine a fight tailored around the presence of a 2.3 fury warrior, who has access to two-weapon WWs and sweeping strikes. Imagine a fight like the ZF stairs. Except to really make this a fight where a fury warrior is the preferred choice, you'd need to make him the only choice. The waves of enemies would need to either be immune to, or highly resistant to, magic, or the encounter would have to be long enough that an AoEing mage or seed spamming warlock would have mana problems before it was close to over. (except that a good affliction warlock really never has mana problems in my experience). Because if a fury warrior can AoE these guys down, a mage or warlock will destroy them even more easily.

It's also something that would be highly problematic for small or casual guilds. Thinking of my (in some ways stunningly casual) guild as an example, there are certain classes we don't have many of, and certain talent specs that people just don't play. I can count the number of resto druids I've met post-TBC on the fingers of one hand, for example. Resto shamans are also a rare breed around these parts. I'm our guild's only serious dps warrior, all of our ret paladins are casual to the point where content as challenging as what you're describing would probably be more than they can really handle, etc. Most of the people I regularly heroic with have taught me some inventive ways to get around a general lack of conventional crowd control.

I'm not saying I don't like the idea. The idea of an instance designed around an entire party of stealth classes, or a place meant to be tackled by 5 people wearing platemail, or a fight where a Soul Link warlock "tanks" everything and the casters he's with do all the damage, is definitely cool. Just impractical.

 

Ninjerk

I love totem farms so much I think a 5-man shaman instance would be a blast.

 

Cromfel

I just had this boss kill tracking on my mind and made little picture of it. This has most likely been suggested before, but why cant we simply get badges for killing bosses like Ragnaros or Nefarian? What about C'thun? Im sure agency like Explorers league would be more than happy to reward people with tokens as little honorary memory for such a wonderful adventurers who take their time to kill these foes. I dont think this would be such big deal to implement, and surely would give you some feeling of being important part of WoW and how this world evolves.

Here is example how it could work:
http://cromfel.battlefield.fi/wow/tokenboard.jpg

These badges would be equiped in new tab at your char screen, like soldiers wear their badges from battlefield. Horde could have its own version of Explorers' League, just to get the RP flowing nicely. It would be new tab what would show medallion for each endboss you have slain. All major instance endbosses could have quest items given to all players, what they could return to explorers league. (Not heroic, only raid endbosses). You see scarab in the board also, that could be given for slaying C'thun. Same for Onyxia and Nefarian also not to mention someone like Illidan.

.:. Retribution Paladin Hideout .:. http://cromfel.battlefield.fi/

 

Enova

Hehe, it would be nice, but anyone with a few level 70 friends could simply steamroller through Molten Core and get one of the old ones. For higher level 60 raids, they just need more friends... This would have been awesome a while back, though...

Guilty as charged ^

 

Mirajj

Then just add a datestamp to the medal/token.

~Not all who wander are lost~

 

Senex

The closest thing we have to "entire party gains stealth" encounter is the Frogger game in Naxxramas.

 

Nhala

I'm not sure if this was brought up, but there is a mechanic very similar to Cromfel's idea in City of Heroes. Completing certain task forces, killing enough of one type of enemy, etc, etc., rewarded you with a badge that was visible from the pane that popped up when you looked at someone's bio. There are literally hundreds of badges--some obtainable only during the holiday events. Others required you to defeat Lord Recluse (as a hero) or Statesman (as a villain). Everyone KNEW who Recluse and Statesman were; beating them and getting your badge spoke a great deal about your dedication to the game. You could also pick your own set of titles, but that was something else altogether. =P People were totally obsessed with collecting badges; it was a fun hobby and really made you participate in the game, despite not being as polished as WoW.

I really believe that a badge mechanic, like Cromfel's suggestion, would make a lot of people happy. There've been lots of silly but fun suggestions for titles on the WoW forums--like "[Your name] Was Prepared" or "Slayer of the Betrayer" for killing Illidan. Stuff like that really does put heart into the game and gives players something to be proud of. I immensely dislike that the average arena player looks like your T6 player. It really cheapens people's achievements. Yes, it's a game, but a lot of us have dedicated the time and effort required to get to the end-game, and it's nice to be recognized. You KNOW (well, for the most part =P) that a Gladiator is very skilled at PvP. In a lot of cases the palette swap is not prominent enough. You can easily tell the difference between myself (in T5 chest/shoulders) and a priest in S2 chest/shoulders because of the radically different color scheme. However, with a hunter, for example, I couldn't tell the difference between T4 and S1 for the life of me.

It really brings to mind how different things were pre-BC. I didn't get far at all, but seeing rogues in full Bloodfang with a Maladath or a Dragonfang made me WANT to go farther. I was in awe of the graphics of items from AQ and Naxx; they were stunning and absolutely kickass. I'd really like to see some new, creative items that reflected the instance they came from. ZA is a great step in that vein, even though not everyone likes the look.

I just think that there are a lot of little "fluff" things that could be done to cheer up the PvE'rs. :/

 

KasumiRevy

I'm going to be forward, and explain a concept that some people may not have heard. Freud in his later years talked about an inborn trait of man to be destructive (evil or make war, depending on perspective). I also felt he was right on the money with this theory.

Why do I play? Well, I enjoy killing people. This is a socially acceptable way (with no consequences), of killing someone de-facto.

I would love to see a titles added by how many people you've killed. While 20,000 is not an amazing death total, I have noticed that the more wow goes on, the less people I see with kill numbers over 10,000. I think high numbers of honor kills should be a merit and status symbol.

 

semi

Didn't they sort of do this in a way? A lot of heroics felt like they were STRONGLY encouraging certain things, like Shattered Halls without a prot pally tank felt significantly harder, as did doing the last boss without someone capable of multi-target healing.

Maybe its just because I ran it when people were undergeared and way before the nerfs, but theres just a lot of times when things like that are noticably easier with one role filler than another.

I guess the big problem is theres so much overlap that its hard to say what is "needed" vs just an advantage. Prot pally vs swiping druid tank? chain heal vs lifeblooms on all targets vs prayer of healing/renews (admittedly pallys are noticably weaker in this comparison)? seduce/fear vs poly vs sap?

Theres only so many roles in this game and though obviously some are filled better than others, I can't think of many cases where one specific spec+class is absolutely vital vs some alternative. Stealths really the only one, and even then you still have invising mages.

The only way you could really force a spec in is by arbitrarily limitting things. You could force a boomkin into the instance by making mobs immune to everything but nature, and..some gimmick to make ele shammys not work, but I don't think you'd be doing the druids any favors. They want to feel useful because they're doing something nobody else can, not because blizzard molded a keyhole narrowly around them.

Or to not put words into another classes mouth, I wouldn't want to be vital to an instance due to bosses needing an enslaved add to kill it. Yeah I'd run it, but I'd feel guilted into doing it for others who couldn't do it without me, and not like I'm stepping up to a role so much as being trapped in one.

 

semi

I'd say instead of that, just slightly rework tabards as has been suggested elsewhere. Give everyone a free "tabard rack" maybe connected to your bank, maybe somewhere seperate (much hinted at "guild housing"? random place in a city?). This place should just let you store unlimitted tabards like the keyrings.

Now, start handing these out as rewards for killing final bosses in raids, achieving pvp goals (arena rating at end of season gets you a "i had a 2000 rating in season 2 and all i got was this lousy tabard! tabard", N thousand kill reward, whatever else). Continue with having factions give them.

Add a timestamp to each tabard to prevent retro-gearing them. Maybe hard cutoff limits before you can only get a "torn up" or "dusty worn down" version of the tabard.

Maybe introduce a easily reusable "world-event" quest type that can only be completed at one time period but multiple people can turn it in within a brief amount of time and each get credit, like the AQ mount. Use this to give special "realm first" versions of tabards. Kill the boss within the first week or two of the first guild on your realm killing it (allowing more of your guild to get this even if they had to sit on the first attempt)? Get the "shiny gold plated illidanslayer tabard". >2weeks but < 8 months? normal tabard. Anything later gets the depleted tabard I mentioned earlier.

You should also be able to display the tabard rack on armory page, allowing you to e-peen flex cross server.

I think that overall this would be a nice reward that would not change the game much, but give people what they want: Displayable status symbol that is achievable but not overly rare(AQ mount?), nor depleting (arguably the netherdrakes, some other peoples ideas.)




Sorry for back to back posting with long rants, Cant sleep.

 

Cromfel

Now that we got our status symbols in form of achievements everyone is happy?

I can see this removing the total lack of things to do while waiting for raids. It has been huge problem for many as there just havent been anything "worth doing" while raids arent scheduled. And personally for me that has been one of the major dislikes of WoW after playing Anarchy Online what had retty solid system and reasoning for soloing and spending time ingame, hanging around doing something.

They should keep the same idology for PvP titles, as long it isnt another grindspree.

.:. Retribution Paladin Hideout .:. http://cromfel.battlefield.fi/

 

• tonic316

Would be nice if the achievements were retro active. Who is going to go back and kill kj or illidan or kalethas etc etc at 80. To me old content is old.

 

Tojara

The same people who go back and run level 60 instances now. Remember that some of this content won't actually be 'old' to a majority of the player base.

Whether you complete the expansion or not (and the vast majority will not) people will still run these old instances from time to time for whatever reason..

-Nostalgia (we will see if this holds true for this expansion)
-Never experienced
-Iron Manning (see how few people you can run the instance with)
-Loot (some people will run it for a cool item, whether these be weapons or armor)
-Boredom

Different people just enjoy different things.