Tabula Raider: Should the learning curve reset?

javelin · 02/07/08, 10:34 AM

This train of thought came from a few posts in the WoTLK post, as well as some older discussions on this board about new player progression through endgame without the benefit of the initial 'learning' instances most of us oldtimers went through.

With the prospect of a new expansion coming out in the near future, I've been sort of wondering about the progression of difficulty and coordination required in these new, as-yet-unseen raids. While I'm certainly not about to speculate on specifics for any, I'm going to take a stab and say that, like encounters in TBC, they will exhibit a higher degree of complexity and sophistication than the instances and encounters of the preceding expansion or core game (with, in my personal opinion, the exception of 4 Horsemen, but I simply say that because I have not done the Kael encounter or any of BT, so there might be something better in there). What I'm wondering is if that will end up hurting the guilds and, ultimately, the franchise, if they continue a development of the curve in the fashion they have without offering something like a 'soft reset' of the curve for new players.

It's safe to say that most everyone here, previous to TBC coming out, had experienced the gamut of end-game instances from MC to at least near the end of AQ40, (more likely at a minimum Patchwerk), and so have honed a set of skills learned specifically from each instance and it's encounters: MC taught tanks how to tank and what to really expect and how to prepare for resistance fights, BWL taught basic situational awareness and taught healers how to heal, AQ40 taught DPS classes how to DPS, threat sensitivity, and expanded upon our understanding of location and situational awareness; and finally Naxxramas really and truly showed raids how to work as a cohesive unit and to utilize unconventional methods for victory, by forcing us to utilize our abilities for maximum effect.

There's really none of that easing in, in TBC. Kara felt, to me, like a jumbling of the concepts from BWL and AQ40, with a MUCH broader range of error and forgiveness. The encounters, however, seemed to anticipate a certain level of competence in all parties present basing on the assumption that you had learned the lessons of at least MC and BWL previously. For a lot of new people who had bought the game only after TBC came out, that simply wasn't the case, and it showed in their ability in the encounters there. Karazhan is EASY. It really is, outside of one or two extremely special cases. However, having gone into the place with groups where this is their first instance with more than 5 people, I watched any number of them screw up doing things that should have become reflex waaaaay back in the Core, and it frustrates them. It's still doable, but it seems to come at a significantly higher price for them, since they have to piece together the fundamental concepts of tanking, healing, and DPSing as well as multi-target fights on their own, without the benefit of individual encounters specifically designed to teach each one of those concepts individually, and then building on them. Personally, I think it's that, more than anything, that is the main cause of the dramatic increase in PvP; personal opinion, but it seems to me that people simply want something where it doesn't matter if you're necessarily bad at your class or not, because odds are you'll be going against people just as bad as you, so it's a more even playing field, and somewhat more forgivable.

What I wonder is, maybe it might be in Blizzard's, and raider's, best interests if that same sort of learning curve is re-introduced, bu at an accelerated pace in WoTLK. Instead of forging huge 25-man instances (or even 10-mans) that gradually introduce these fundamental concepts (you can't tank with a 2-hander, watch your damn aggro, healing is a marathon not a race) in 5-mans specifically designed to tackle these concepts in a narrow, intensified manner might result in a new generation of players that are at least more prepared for the kinds of situations we'd expect to see in end-game encounters, allowing a larger cross-section of players to experience what really are very well-done and highly entertaining encounters, as well as soften attrition curves for the established guilds.

The flipside is this: will experienced guilds get bored with going through the curve again? After all, we've already learned through trial by fire. Rehashing the same stuff we learned for new people might feel like a downgrade in entertainment, right? That's why I think that, say, the first 10-man (probably that Utegard place) might need to be somewhere along the same complexity as Kara/Gruul's, since by this point, the newer players will have had time to absorb these fundamental concepts and allow for victories to come easier than they were for utterly new players in TBC, giving them a taste of raiding, and allowing the victories to fuel further pushing, creating more sophisticated raiders over time, while not dumbing it down very much for experienced veterans that might still be growing into 10 levels (and a new class's) worth of abilities and talents.

What are your guys' thoughts on all this, if any?

mek · 02/07/08, 10:46 AM

The learning curve in TBC (2.0.1) was an example of continuing to raise difficulty from raid dungeons immediately preceding it, and was generally considered an unmitigated disaster. Gruul, Magtheridon, Nightbane, Aran and Prince were big brick walls for many guilds. After several patches of Kara nerfs that instance reached an appropriate level of difficulty, and I'm sure Blizzard now recognizes their mistakes. The 25-man entry for WotLK is already confirmed as "Naxx-lite", but is ALSO confirmed as an "unnecessary" raid, ie. it will have t6/t7-ish gear and cutting-edge guilds can coast through it fast or virtually ignore it. Ideally, keying will be less important and gearchecks at the door will return.

Nerfed Kara and Gruul (ignoring the Maulgar pull) are pretty mindless and forgiving now, nothing like their 2.0.1 selves. I think the existing curve is just fine, and it should be maintained (entry-level raids should always be puggable). The masses deserve their trade channel Naxx pugs.

• Falk · 02/07/08, 10:53 AM

The only thing I can think of which will (hopefully) not be re-hashed a million times in a million similar opinions is that they could tune, lootwise, the first tier of each expansion to match the top-of-the-line epics from the previous expansion, (Example, Naxxramas 2.0 dropping ~lv155 loot) letting people who have raiding experience completely skip the introductary/learning tier of raiding.

That seems highly unlikely, though... for more than just a few reasons.

Emily · 02/07/08, 11:06 AM

Originally Posted by falkon2

The only thing I can think of which will (hopefully) not be re-hashed a million times in a million similar opinions is that they could tune, lootwise, the first tier of each expansion to match the top-of-the-line epics from the previous expansion, (Example, Naxxramas 2.0 dropping ~lv155 loot) letting people who have raiding experience completely skip the introductary/learning tier of raiding.

That seems highly unlikely, though... for more than just a few reasons.

See also:

Originally Posted by mek

The 25-man entry for WotLK is already confirmed as "Naxx-lite", but is ALSO confirmed as an "unnecessary" raid, ie. it will have t6/t7-ish gear and cutting-edge guilds can coast through it fast or virtually ignore it.

• Sirloin · 02/07/08, 11:07 AM

I think the difficulty can continue to increase, because I believe new raiders can get "up to speed" so much faster now than if we compare to the MC days.

1. Information about the core mechanics. Granted these are extremely lacking from within the actual game, but there is a wealth of information on this site, wowwiki, even in wowhead comments. When the game was released, plenty of people had absolutely no idea about any of these concepts and learning about them was very difficult. I remember running ZF while leveling my first character shortly after release and telling my friend who was tanking "Hey, I was reading somewhere that Sunder Armor works really well for keeping mobs on you".

2. Useful addons and mods. Think back to MC. Damage-meters didn't exist. No one really knew how much DPS they were doing. Big numbers over mobs head? Good job! Threat-meters didn't exist. It took a lot more "experience" to know how hard you could push without pulling aggro. Now you just tell someone, this measures your threat; don't pass the tank. Think of all the changes to the base UI: Raid Markings, Target-of-target, Enemy Castbars. There is so much more information available now than what was previously "hidden".

3. Videos and Boss Strategies. They are everywhere. Other than simply teaching you how to beat a boss, reading boss strategies is an excellent way to learn basic raid strategy "by example" to understand the importance of positioning, offtanking, focus fire, and others. I remember the first time I read an account of Onyxia Phase 1 atempts and strategy (before anyone had successfully killed Onyxia) and was literally fascinated by the "strategy" in what we would now consider a pretty simple tank-n-spank phase. The CQ guide to Molten Core was huge. I really wonder what portion of "first-mmo" WoW players (non EQ vets) that eventually killed MC bosses relied on the CQ guide. I would guess its enormous.

4. Better 5-man training grounds. There were a number of unique encounters in the original 5-mans, but tons and tons of bosses had abilities that could simply be ignored and zerged, even for poor players. The expansion 5-mans do a much, much better job of encouraging players to pay attention to boss abilities and counter them. Simply ignoring boss abilities in expansion 5-mans will often result in a wipe.

5. Existence of Veterans. Every guild now has got to have some guy that did MC or BWL, or knows about EJ or Bosskillers or wowhead or something, and can point smart people in the right direction.

Smart people can become good raiders pretty quickly with available information and a desire to learn. This is a far cry from the release of the game. Raid content can continue to scale up in complexity.

SeanDamnit · 02/07/08, 11:09 AM

I just wanted to jump in and say that I did have this game Pre-BC, but did not raid at any appreciable level. When I got to 70, I started a real life friend's guild and we started raiding casually - and we conqured Kara pretty easily. I found that 5 man dungeons were really all that was needed to prepare us for the coordination and skill needed for unexperianced raiders to take on Kara. That and the wealth of information out there that gives you step by step instructions on how to do the fight.

Don't know if we were just the exception, but even with no pre-tbc raiding experiance, Kara was pretty easy.

drowsy · 02/07/08, 11:11 AM

It seemed like they tried to fit the pre-TBC learning curve into TBC's 5 man dungeons, as many of the encounters in them are very similar to old raid bosses. Things like Murmur and Harbinger Skyriss clearly are there to teach the newer player skills and mechanics from fights they missed pre-TBC as well as hints at future encounters (Black Stalker). Unfortunately, they can be geared through without proper execution, and I think that can cause players to miss out on building these skills sometimes.

Ailetha · 02/07/08, 11:28 AM

While I'm certainly not about to speculate on specifics for any, I'm going to take a stab and say that, like encounters in TBC, they will exhibit a higher degree of complexity and sophistication than the instances and encounters of the preceding expansion or core game (with, in my personal opinion, the exception of 4 Horsemen, but I simply say that because I have not done the Kael encounter or any of BT, so there might be something better in there). What I'm wondering is if that will end up hurting the guilds and, ultimately, the franchise, if they continue a development of the curve in the fashion they have without offering something like a 'soft reset' of the curve for new players.

I agree with this. However, I don't spend my time wondering; since TBC didn't kill WoW. And everyone back then was asking the same thing you're asking now. Not an original question whatsoever. Everyone thought 25-man raiding was going to kill wow, their guild, their moms and dads, their kids, their job, etc etc.

There's really none of that easing in, in TBC. Kara felt, to me, like a jumbling of the concepts from BWL and AQ40, with a MUCH broader range of error and forgiveness. The encounters, however, seemed to anticipate a certain level of competence in all parties present basing on the assumption that you had learned the lessons of at least MC and BWL previously. For a lot of new people who had bought the game only after TBC came out, that simply wasn't the case, and it showed in their ability in the encounters there. Karazhan is EASY. It really is, outside of one or two extremely special cases. However, having gone into the place with groups where this is their first instance with more than 5 people, I watched any number of them screw up doing things that should have become reflex waaaaay back in the Core, and it frustrates them. It's still doable, but it seems to come at a significantly higher price for them, since they have to piece together the fundamental concepts of tanking, healing, and DPSing as well as multi-target fights on their own, without the benefit of individual encounters specifically designed to teach each one of those concepts individually, and then building on them. Personally, I think it's that, more than anything, that is the main cause of the dramatic increase in PvP; personal opinion, but it seems to me that people simply want something where it doesn't matter if you're necessarily bad at your class or not, because odds are you'll be going against people just as bad as you, so it's a more even playing field, and somewhat more forgivable.

They weren't a challenge hardly at all; and MC did not teach you how to tank. UBRS and LBRS and BRD taught you how to tank. In the same vein, Kara doesn't teach new people how to tank; all the heroics and normal instances prepare them for that. In small doses.

They don't need to learn things from 'the Core' because 'the Core' was a terrible instance and there is nothing to learn from there except 'how to not ever put trash in an instance ever again' Or maybe 'examples of terrible raid aesthetics' or 'the most uncreative boss names in the world.' You can learn the exact same things, if not better, from TBC instances. Everything you need to prepare yourself for karazhan, including tactics, is in TBC.

It became reflex for you back in 'the Core' because that was your first instance. For many people, their first raid instance is karazhan, and 3 expansions later, these same people are going to be saying the same thing you are, only inserting 'Karazhan' in place of 'the Core.'

It matters today if you are terrible at your class; it did NOT matter back then. You could take all the crappy offspecs back then because having a ton of dead weight in your raid didn't matter as long as you had really awesome tanks & healers; you could beat your head against the wall and eventually the wall would fall down. Now, DPS has a large burden. Enrage timers and crap keep everyone on their toes; not just tanks and healers. This is a GOOD thing. Would you rather go back to 'AFK Autoshot?' Fuck that all over the place.

The old 40-mans were aesthetically atrocious compared to today's raids; the music was crappy; the trash was horrible. Like, we're talking about the trash as a monumental failure. Also, people don't seem to remember how bad it is to have to put together 40 people for a raid, not to mention what happens if 1-2 don't show. Plus the sheer amount/block of time involved to clear an instance was so much larger than today. Also, consumables were terrible to have to farm back then. TERRIBLE. The ability for different classes to fill different roles has been exponentially widened, particularly/specifically for hybrids. Class balance has come so far; the new abilities and raiding tactics that have been added/introduced are far superior on many levels to the old instances.

Like about the only thing good about those places was how epic feeling they were; but seriously; who in the world wants to walk that far every single time? Come on; you couldn't pay me enough to do that anymore.

What I wonder is, maybe it might be in Blizzard's, and raider's, best interests if that same sort of learning curve is re-introduced, bu at an accelerated pace in WoTLK. Instead of forging huge 25-man instances (or even 10-mans) that gradually introduce these fundamental concepts (you can't tank with a 2-hander, watch your damn aggro, healing is a marathon not a race) in 5-mans specifically designed to tackle these concepts in a narrow, intensified manner might result in a new generation of players that are at least more prepared for the kinds of situations we'd expect to see in end-game encounters, allowing a larger cross-section of players to experience what really are very well-done and highly entertaining encounters, as well as soften attrition curves for the established guilds.

Heroics?

Well, I'd say heroics pre-nerf, but nonetheless; heroics?

The flipside is this: will experienced guilds get bored with going through the curve again? After all, we've already learned through trial by fire. Rehashing the same stuff we learned for new people might feel like a downgrade in entertainment, right? That's why I think that, say, the first 10-man (probably that Utegard place) might need to be somewhere along the same complexity as Kara/Gruul's, since by this point, the newer players will have had time to absorb these fundamental concepts and allow for victories to come easier than they were for utterly new players in TBC, giving them a taste of raiding, and allowing the victories to fuel further pushing, creating more sophisticated raiders over time, while not dumbing it down very much for experienced veterans that might still be growing into 10 levels (and a new class's) worth of abilities and talents.

I do NOT want 15 extra retard slots to fill in my raids. I do NOT want 25 minute walk backs. I do not want trash that is harder than the boss. I do NOT want a game where tons of specs of different classes are totally excluded. I do NOT want to deal with retards in my guild who then wipe us over and over again while I'm taking 15 different consumables. How in the world does that kind of stuff help me learn? There is absolutely nothing to be gained from old world content that can't be gained from TBC in a better, more efficient fashon.

Why does everyone put rose colored glasses on when it comes to pre-BC raiding content? Pre-BC raiding content was 1000x times worse on almost every level you can compare them. It is DEFINITELY not some genius idea/development in gaming. Probably the opposite. I hope Blizzard NEVER EVER goes back to it.

Talibb · 02/07/08, 11:38 AM

I think some of you are forgetting how hard/poorly designed some of these encounters were early on. We cleared up to curator the first week of TBC, and we probably would've gotten further if we didn't spent like 4 hours on R/J, because Romulo tore our tank apart every attempt. IIRC, he reported an 8k crushing from him (I could probably dig the SS up, if I were at home). This eventually got nerfed (like...3 times?) Remember Nightbane 1.0? I wonder how many guild killed him without BoPing off the debuff (which was a questionable tactic). Pre-nerf Gruul and Mag, Hydross'crushing blows, Leo's super tight enrage timer, Al'ar, Solarian, etc etc.

Either Blizzard had KT killing guilds in mind when they designed this stuff, or they rushed TBC by a longshot. Keeping in mind how terribly designed the gear was, it could be either. Now it seems that the design philosophy is to not just restrict raiding to the hardest of the hardcore raiders, so I would think it would remain the same come WoTLK.

Fenwick · 02/07/08, 11:45 AM

Speaking personally, I didn't raid pre-TBC. I got 3 characters to 60 (tank and two dps), and stuck with the 5-mans or UBRS. So I missed out on any "veteran" learning that I could have done.

When BC came out, somewhere along the rush to 70 I decided that I wanted to be a really good rogue instead of one of the thousands that suck and are still asking at 70 where they go to learn poisons. Before I set foot in Karazhan, I had already read up on my class and on several boss fights that I was likely to encounter early on. To this day I continue reading up on my class here and otherwhere, and when a new fight approaches I make sure to research it. So I'm one of those guys that, while I lack "old-school" raiding experience, I'm self-motivated and have the drive to excel, thus I learn and adapt quickly.

My guild is working on downing Vashj at the moment, so I haven't experienced the full spectrum of BC raiding as of yet. However, I have seen how different fights are there to teach different things, and each is its own challenge. The introduction of ZA taught even more things, and I like how that instance teaches you to work under constant pressure (considering we're not in T6, that is). The learning curve I've experienced has been good; it could afford a bit more difficulty, but I'm comfortable where it's at, and would like to see similar things in WotLK.

I would not like to see the difficulty ramped up too much, however, and it's not because I dislike challenge. The problem I see with jacking the difficulty up is the surplus of guilds like mine. We're filled with a handful or two of players that are "hardcore" about playing their characters and raiding, but either don't usually have the time or don't want to raid 5+ days a week for 4+ hours a day. The rest of the players that raid are either around average (nothing wrong with that) or sub-par but required to fill out a raid. This doesn't hamper things on your typical raid boss, but when you've got people that have been raiding for months and still don't know which way is east or that they really shouldn't AoE/DoT the sheep, throwing in too many complicated fights like Vashj will kill off a large amount of raiding guilds out there.

Your bleeding edge guilds will of course rise to the challenge and overcome it, but that's only a small amount of guilds per server. The rest of us will simply end up frustrated and perhaps eventually quit because we're essentially taking 15 people to a 25-person fight. It would be nice to see a split series of dungeons, one set for the really hardcore guilds and one set for the rest of the people, but that doesn't really seem feasible.

• Falk · 02/07/08, 11:57 AM

Originally Posted by Emily

See also:

Wait, what? Last I remember was Blizzard saying the gear reset would have Sunwell/S4 loot coming to around the level of lv80 dungeon blues, which would by all logical conclusions still be inferior to Naxxramas 2.0 loot. Linkage for me, please!

javelin · 02/07/08, 12:02 PM

To be fair, when did I ever say, "We should go back to 40 man raids with consumable lists that take a whole column of my screen and demand an exact raid lineup down to the individual specs." I don't think there's a soul here that doesn't think the revisions to consumables was not the best thing Blizzard ever did for raiding. I was herb/alch and I got down on my knees and thanked God for smacking some sense into Blizzard over it.

I don't ever recall saying not doing this would hurt WoW. I DID say, that doing something like this might help, though. I'm not sure how this turned into a 25 vs. 40 fight, but that's long since over, and I personally think it's great.

And no, LBRS and UBRS, and BRD and Strat and Scholo didn't teach what a raid was like, simply because the encounters were not on the same level of difficulty. They were places to go to get quick gear so you COULD go to the places with the challenges in them. Any group of retards back in vanilla could get through an instance with minimal difficulty, but those tards showed their colors when they hit a raid, simply because they never had to learn to do things the right way in the 5-mans and couldn't see how doing things differently was necessary, and ended up as your 15 extra retard slots. Heroics fundamentally teach you very little, other than gear makes a difference, and aggro is bad. They are meant to be exactly what old 5-mans were: a place to get gear so you can go to raids. After all, if 5-mans taught you all you needed to know to be successful in end-game encounters, there would have been many MANY more people through AQ40 and Naxx pre-expansion, and many MANY more people nearing completion of TK and working well through BT now, right? Especially now, since the basic time and energy requirements of raiding has been dramatically decreased thanks to the consumables revisions. How come it's not then?

:edit:
Meant mostly for Ailetha.

PSGarak · 02/07/08, 12:28 PM

Doing heroics, pre-nerf, as soon as you were able to zone into them (which was usually well before you outgeared them) could teach you a lot about situational awareness, reactions, multi-tasking, agro, and so forth. At the time that it was still cutting-edge content for the people who were doing it was an excellent test ground. And while it's impossible to teach you to coordinate 25 people in any situation that doesn't have 25 people, TBC instances do a comparatively good job of showing the bits and pieces that boss fights are made of so that people get experience with their job in isolation.

This would seem to indicate that, if the 5-mans introduce individual mechanics well enough (and by mechanics I mean "Get Out The Way", "Run Out Of LoS", "CC The Add" and so forth), then the intro raids should be introducing coordination rather than mechanics and min-maxing. In this respect our favorite example of Kara has a ramp-up, but probably a rather sudden one: The first boss requires just tank pick-up on a second target, not hard to coordinate, while the second boss has five targets that require individual CC and/or tank attention, a well-defined kill order, spell interrupts, and a generally coordinated healing strategy if you don't outgear the Garrote. Each of the individual bits is simple bread&butter 5-man stuff (allowing that pally fear isn't common), but in terms of getting people to do their respective, heterogeneous tasks in a coordinated fashion it's a massive departure from the fight before it. Just in terms of coordination, illhoof and curator would have made better stepping stones. Aran (elemental phase) and prince do serve as nice culminations in that respect, though.

Copernicus · 02/07/08, 12:37 PM

I think the main learning curve needed for 10/25-man raiding is a way to ease people into a raiding schedule. For MC, it was possible for a guild to zone in with 35ish people and start killing bosses in there. If I was designing WotLK Naxx, I'd make sure one wing would be built around a 20-person raid for healing/DPS requirements.

I think one of the hardest things in TBC raiding are the many encounters that introduce a new mechanic just for that encounter. Magtheridon, Vashj, Kael, Archimonde, and Gorefiend all have something completely new that can't be taught except on the encounter. Those encounters would have been much easier the first few times if there was something in the 5-mans, questing, or trash that would have taught people how to handle inventory with a combat system or what to do when suddenly controlling a pet.

In terms of teaching basic raid mechanics, Gruul did a very good job of that. Aggro, healing reserves, soft enrages, and raid awareness were all quickly taught with that encounter. And those are things that are difficult to translate into a 5-man fight. I don't see how you can make a "healing longetivity is important" on a 5-man encounter.

andastra · 02/07/08, 12:50 PM

I think they can do it with 5-mans. Vanilla 5-mans were almost exclusively tank and spanks. There was precious little movement required. There's a little add control here and there but nothing remotely complicated. TBC 5-mans and especially heroic 5-mans added more elements, even ones that are from raid zones. The first boss of SH has void zones. The first boss of heroic Mechanar has polarity. Heroic Murmur has the bomb and proper movement.

They can then let raiders apply these lessons in Naxx. It's not really the boss abilities that define entry level but how forgiving it is. There's a difference between having to move out of the fire before the second tick and having to move before the fourth tick.

Utron · 02/07/08, 12:57 PM

Originally Posted by Copernicus

I think the main learning curve needed for 10/25-man raiding is a way to ease people into a raiding schedule. For MC, it was possible for a guild to zone in with 35ish people and start killing bosses in there. If I was designing WotLK Naxx, I'd make sure one wing would be built around a 20-person raid for healing/DPS requirements.

People will complain about anything given the opportunity. Having a whole wing of instance too easy is just giving them a whole lot of complaint-fodder.

◊ zeidrich · 02/07/08, 1:05 PM

I think the primarily important thing, and what was missing in TBC release, is to give new raiders enough 25-man content to fill up a couple of raid nights, before adding the challenging content. Encounters that are on the level of post-nerf gruul and Lurker.

The biggest thing that was missing in TBC release was a foothold for guilds to put together 25-man raids, and kill stuff, while working on new content. You had pre-nerf gruul and magtheridon, which were necessary for entry into SSC/TK, and they were hard as hell. But not only that, you had no way to develop group cohesion for your 25-man raids, because the only stuff you could raid otherwise was 10-man.

You didn't even really have trash you could practice on. It was just 2 pulls then maulgar, 5 pulls then Gruul. 4 pulls of death then Magtheridon. Couple this with a requirement of incredible coordination and control over your DPS, and it's no wonder the first tier of raiding was such a failure on TBC release.

What I would have preferred to see would have been gruul's lair being larger. Magtheridon's prison being larger. Gruul's lair housing some lesser gronns, the ogre council, maybe an enslaved black dragon, ogre champion etc. Same with Magtheridon, have some shadow council boss. Some great fel orc like gurtogg that overdosed on Mag's blood and is being detained by the shadow council.

Then they could have left Gruul and Magtheridon being plenty hard, because your 25-man raids can learn their skills on their minions. They could get 7-8 bosses down, get 14-16 pieces of loot. And not feel like they're wasting all of their time in 25-man raids bashing their heads against a brick wall.