• Playered

Theres two aspects to think about concerning the Timed/Lite/Multiple Method Bosses.

1) Difficulty Difference -

• Bug Trio was a better example here, doesn't really need to be explained as im sure everyone knows it.
  
• Timed versions? well ZA is more about pimping your setup and focusing on trash than it is really about bosses (beyond just doing more DPS).
  Good example here being back when Illidan got the 15min Beserk; at first there was a plethora of complaints about how impossible it was, then slowly people started cutting the fat and really pushing him properly and suddenly there were WWS reports all over the place of guilds beating it - stating how fun and challenging they found it compared to norm, throw in a chest or something for the effort and its quite good.
  
• Normal/HC modes, so normal Naj'entus will shield people for 6K, and HC Naj'entus will hit them for 9K - it would be hard to balance well if they intend to have an actual significant difference between them both, the normal mode will be too easy and the hard one will most likely be not worth the effort to do it. This also has problems when you just twiddle with raw numbers, the gear gaps are so small that you couldn't really have a major change and keep it viable.

2) Rewards and Benefits-

• Silly rewards; like getting the Phoenix from Kael (or the correctly implemented version that is the Bear Mount) are good things to have here, they are status symbols and something which has been taken away from raiding - however they should only be perks for completing, not reasons for doing it.
  
• Better items; things like Memento, Glaives, Skull, Tempest, Choker, are generally the main reasons you even care about half the bosses. Having them thrown onto the 'extra reward' only would seem good, but the definition of 'the best item' can vary depending on the POV of the player (the healer saying Memento, the caster saying Skull, and the melee saying Glaives for eg). You could have a very small bonus loot table (max 3) on some, but others have next to no loot worth counting as good enough to be worth it.
  
• Enhanced items; basicly here its along the lines of one method having T6, the harder having T6.5 - however these days the typical tier jumps are so small this one seems rather pointless, and it messes with itemization abit.
  
• More loot; this area is a gray one really as they dont want to make you 'finish' with content sooner when your an advanced raider, nor do they want to specificly make casual players gear up slower (infact the reverse). An additional chance at the rarer loot (as above) would be the only real thing to implement here but its a stretch at best.

The one additional benefit to things that yield different loot (ie Bug Trio) is that it gives some very much needed control over loot in PvE.
That alone would be very much appreciated by alot of raiders I believe - you could have it on meaningless conditions (Killing left Flame of Azzinoth first results in caster loot, the right one resulting in physical loot) at worst. Ofcourse it has the potential to cause some drama by the loot horney people (Hey I want it killed the way which gives MY loot or im going to throw a tantrum) but those people really dont deserve to be there.


Overall I would favor more conditional loot events (Bug Trio) and timed versions than a Normal/Heroic system - but thats mainly because part of me is an elitist who believes the content shouldn't have a baby mode for people not ready for it, these things would be more like additional challenges to keep the higher end raiders occupied.


NB: sorry this post ended up slightly more derailed than intended.

I think you will be sadly disappointed as I seem to recall Naxx v2 being referenced as a MC level dungeon.

While I dont believe Gruul v1 was a good example of entry level content, you need to keep in mind that even 5mans tend to be far more complex now than they used to be Pre-TBC. This has a direct effect on how difficult raids should start out as and I dont believe we could ever go back to a MC level of (in)complexity due to this alone.

 

Nezralix

I hope the food is good in that fantasy world of yours. If you're too cool for WoW, Everquest is still taking subscribers. Blizzard is still interested in creating a game that real people want to play.

 

Himmel

I think TBC contains it's own independant learning curve and it was intended this way.
You have void zones on first boss in arca - you see same zones at netherspite in KZ.
Trash in Black Morass gives idea how to fight waves of endless mobs wich will be handy later.
Last boss in HC: Blood Furnace (Come! Come closer.. And Burn!) teaches not to listen to bosses.
You don't need to kill c'thun now to learn how to dodge dark glare as you have Lurker and his spout.
Compare whirlwinds of Kargath and Leoteras the blind.
Last boss in underbog and 2nd boss in HC:ramparts debuffs player wich forces this player to move the hell away from rest of the group (Wrath of the Astromancer by Solarian comes in mind)

and there's dozens of such examples


I think such cross-boss references are planned by blizzard especially for those who didn't see these elements before TBC.

The only thing that sustains one through life is the consciousness of the immense inferiority of everybody else, and this is a feeling that I have always cultivated.

Oscar Wilde, "The Remarkable Rocket"

 

• The Gopher

I only raid 10 hours a week. The content is doable casually if you're implying I'm advocating stupid time sinks. Just because it's a game doesnt mean there there's no need to have a degree of intellectual stimulation necessary for completing difficult tasks.

Right now in Kara, as an exemplary example, most of the fights require you to pay attention to basic fundamentals, being able to react to aggro (or just watching Omen), moving out of the fire, switching targets for dps. For raiding in general, Karazhan is a perfect starting place for a brand new guild. The 25 mans are supposed to be harder, and there's no need for a "my first raid" instance to ease people into raiding. You can learn almost everything you need to know on how to raid in a 10 man instance.

 

firebird365

Perhaps I'm being selfish or unreasonable, but I think that the idea of "lite" instances diminishes the sense of accomplishment that comes with beating them. I don't want to step into an easy version of a difficult instance and take down Illidan by clicking the anti-Heroic button on my party tab; if I'm facing a significant boss, the hurdles to kill that boss should be equally significant. However, that's not to say that instances shouldn't be well-designed. I think that Karazhan is an extremely cool concept that incorporates lore without compromising accessibility. I think it's important to retain the epic nature of certain encounters, and being able to tone them down with a mouse click eliminates that.

To further put my opinion in perspective, I don't have time to raid and I haven't been in Hyjal or Black Temple. Regardless, I would consider my experience diminished if I could enter (and beat) those instances through some handicapping system. Maybe the previous expansion's raid bosses could become the next expansion's 5- or 10-mans (optional instances, if it was the latter) if Blizzard wanted to recycle content.

 

Hypatia

I think I like this as well—it doesn't address the difficulty curve issue, but it does address some of the loot table issues we all have. I’d say that the right way to handle it is to explicitly not make it based on “if you change how you do the encounter, it makes it harder, and the loot becomes better”, but “if you change how you do the encounter, it changes the tenor of the fight, and the loot becomes different.”

Now, you have a fight that always has the same core concepts, but which the players can explicitly choose to change up in ways that make it feel different. That makes the fight less of a burn-out, as well as providing ways for the raid to tune which loot they get. Clearly, the raiders should never have perfect control over what drops, but if you have a loot table that's just slightly larger than current loot tables over-all, but which allows you to get access to two overlapping subsets depending on a choice you make, the chance of getting something you really need is somewhat improved.

One potential downside is that the politics of which thing to do may be slightly hard. For guilds with a loot council, it’s pretty easy to just declare which mode is being used based on what the council feels the guild needs more of. For guilds with a DKP system, I think it'll still be pretty easy to work things out—and it might even make the raiders who are “spending” their DKP think a bit more about how choices impact the raid as a whole, rather than feeling entitled to lootz0rz. (Because even when people are for the most part smart about DKP, there's a tension between “if I don’t get it now, I’ll never get it” and “if that person gets it, it improves the raid force more than if I get it”.)

I like. Hope the Blizz devs eyes come across this thread, or that they’ve already had the idea.

 

• songster

Well, you can mix it up.

1) Different kill order for multiple targets. Bug trio. In TBC context, say one of the items on Kael's loot table was determined by which advisor you kill last, with Thaladred being the real bonus prize.

2) Races. Baron run or similar. Plenty of this in ZA, but it could also be done on a boss-by-boss basis. Kill Lurker before he submerges for the Xth time, and he vomits up a seashell with extra loot. If you're too late, all you get is a [Partly digested seashell]

3) Execution challenges. Something more subtle. Let's say the pillars in Morogrim's room are destructible. When he does an Earthquake, the pillar nearest him collapses. If you kite him around and knock them all down, the roof drops in and you get an extra loot item.

4) Unlockable "insanity mode". Let's say that there's a flash of energy when you dunk the final core and break Vashj's shield.. This has the side effect of any striders left alive invulnerable to damage. You have to keep kiting it till Vashj dies. Normally, you just make sure none are dead when you dunk. If you manage to kill her with striders still up, then each one drops a [Charged Strider Carapace] that can be crafted into something amazingly imba.

 

◊ Vaccine

I'm all for a learning raid instance. The beauty of having it in Nax is the very segmented structure of the instance. Theres nothing stopping them making two easy wings, a medium wing and a hard wing. If we only require the 4H to die to unlock Sapphiron and Kel you could then give the Hardcore guilds the option of heading straight to 4H, clearing the instance and moving on whilst the less experienced guilds could cut their teeth on the first easy mode wings that introduce mechanics like aggro reduction, add handling etc..., fundamentals of raiding.

What I'm more hoping is that Blizzard will not continue this trend of adding two dungeons to T5 and T6 raiding levels. I'd much rather have a progressive stream that maybe increases in 0.5 tier steps each dungeon. So TBC would have launched with Mag, Gruul and SSC. After 4-5 months they'd have put out TK as a step up from SSC (tuning bosses to be harder) with similar loot. 3-4 months after that Mount Hyjal is released and 3-4 months later Black Temple. Whilst it would leave some guilds waiting frequently, the wait would only really be a couple of months at tops for the cutting edge guilds between content. This release schedule they've implemented now has some people waiting 7+ months with no sign of new content yet coming soon either.

Launching WotLK with Nax, an Onyxia style 1/2 boss dungeon and 1 more thats above nax of a decent length (6-7 bosses) and then launching a new raid instance, even if its just a sidegrade/partialupgrade one like AQ40 was to BWL, every 3 months to help prevent long stretches of no content. This actually fits with their philosophy of shorter more frequent patches, even though that seems to have been thrown away or ignored.

[G] <70:Timby>: I downloaded 26gigs of poirot episodes overnight
[G] <70:Timby>: and still missing seasons 11-13
[G] <70:Timby>: am I crazy?

 

Griswolde

I think the raid content simply needs to be easier, pretty much across the board. I'm sure most people on this board will disagree with me; that's fine. The fact is that the current content is too hard for most of the WoW population. Why is blizzard spending so much development time on something that so few will see?

I haven't raided in TBC. Prior to TBC I did all content up to 4HM. I should also say that I personally never found any of the fights particularly hard. I think I got hit by dark glare once (on like our second attempt) and never died on Heigan. For most people though, those kinds of encounters are just too difficult. C'thun was never a guaranteed kill for our guild even long after we got our first kill. Some people just aren't good enough at video games for fights like that and if they mess up, it's a wipe.

When I look back at pre-TBC content the fights that I have fondest memories of are actually the easier ones. I liked all of BWL and early Naxx. Being able to work on a boss for 2-3 hours and get him down even with "dead weight" is simply more fun than struggling for days because there are a few people in your guild that aren't that great.

Now you can certainly argue that the current state of affairs is fine and you just need to find a guild where everyone is good, but what that means is that most guilds simply won't see the majority of content. Forming a guild (and maintaining it as people leave) where no one is dead weight is really, really difficult.

 

Hildegard

Karazhan depended a lot on class composition in the beginnings. With blue/green gear and without priests and paladins Moroes was pretty though, as well as Aran without warlock/rogue/shaman. Nightbane without a warrior or a dwarven/dranei priest was close to impossible before the first nerf and even after that very annoying. You can continue this list. With the right class compositions and heroic gear and massive pots most fights were easy - yes. But a non-experienced guild with no priest/paladin trying to do Moroes could frustrate really soon.

Hildegard Sprigglespruxx - Wissenschaftlerin am Institut für Pfuschkunde

http://forscherliga.wikia.com/wiki/Hildegard

 

Medusa

I think that the most important things was already postet by Sirloin on the 1st page. I realy remember my leveling time, the 1st time in MC without even Damagemeter or Decursive. The Information on the web was very limited at that point.

Afer BC a few newbies starts to Raid in my guild, after a few raids i was very impressed how well some people do without raiding pre BC or even without knowing the game before.

I am sure that the dificulty curve will raise again in the next expansion. It will be intresting if the Raidinstances will become like Black Temple (no big Nerf Need) or like Gruul/Maggie/Nightbane with was Contentblocker untill some bigger adjustments.

 

• songster

I'm hoping the exact opposite. Cockblocks break guilds. If you have a single linear progression, there will be block after block. Moreover, having a single progression means that when you're stuck on boss X you have to keep throwing yourself at it night after night even if your raid signups happen to be unsuitable. You're on Kael and your Capernian tank has an attack of RL? Sod you, you have to go in without him and wipe for hours.

The beauty of having two raid instances is that you can make progress in instance B even if you're blocked in instance A. It lets the slower ones gradually gear past the gear checks, and prevents the drama of being forced to throw yourself at boss X with unworkable raid compositions. Where does TBC progression currently break guilds? It breaks them at precisely the point where the parallelism fails - at Kael. When you get to Kael, you have no alternative options.

What I want to see in WoTLK is proper parallel progression. You have instances (in order) A, B, C, D. Completing A gives you access to C. Completing B gives you access to D. That way you always have options. You start with A. As you get towards the end of A, you add in the start of B. When you complete A, you're able to start C. That leaves you working on the end of B and the start of C - and so on and so forth.

The existence of parallel instances also helps overcome the problem of loot whores who only sign for farm content. With a linear progression, you know that the farm content is generally at the start of the week, and the progression happens at the end of the week. If you have parallel instances, you can mix it up. Train Hyjal all weekend and then knock off the first three farm bosses in BT on the last day before the reset. With a strict linear path, the only way you can shift any farm content to the end of the week is by going back to farm previous-tier content that people are bored of and is unlikely to give you many real upgrades.


Edit to add: After the many changes and nerfs, I'd now say that the current raiding scene, from a learning curve perspective, is close to perfect apart from the hideous Vashj/Kael block as detailed above. The first few bosses in SSC are achievable even by comparatively "casual" (read: low time commitment, very variable signups, under 50% attendance) raid groups. Mechanically, they are not too complex. That level of encounter complexity is fine for the starting raid in WoTLK. To make it simpler than SSC would be a waste.

What needs to change in WoTLK is not the learning curve but the gearing curve. The entry level raid should be tuned for a mixture of quest blues and dungeon set gear, so that you can hit 70, gear up in 5-man content and move straight to 25-man raiding. 10-man and 25-man need to be parallel paths, not one as a prerequisite for the other.

 

Grogi

I think time trials are right way to go. Really talented raiders have so huge skill, organizational and motivation advantage compared to majority of the raiders, that Blizzard has to find cost effective way to reach both groups (and everything in-between). Time trials (hopefully multiple tiers) will do just that. More raiders in general will reach to final boss, but at the same time world first kill guilds have something to compete on.

 

Shandara

Well, Vashj and Kael have been retuned enough so that, really, the only point of failure would be you raiders. The strategies for both are well known and clear enough to understand that it really depends on the people you are raiding with whether they are cockblocks.

Their complexity isn't too great either, especially Kael is a very 'easy' fight to understand, with a not-too-high level of competence needed. It's just that it needs the whole raid to have this level of competence and most guilds (including mine) are too varied in this respect. Things like attendance/commitment/signups would not have such a big impact if they didn't come with a varied 'skill' level either. And most guilds do not have the slack in their roster to deal with this, but instead have to cope with it.

I don't see how it's possible to tune a fight for this kind of raid without building in a large number of idiot-proof measures (like how in MC you could lose 10-15 people and still finish the fight, since the nature of the boss didn't require any particular level of dps).

 

• songster

Actually, no. It does if you beat him with T5 gear only, of course. However, you can make it a lot easier by outgearing it to the point where all the weapons go down well before the advisors revive, and then all the advisors go down well before Kael himself comes into play. For a more casual group (such as mine) with a wide spectrum of competence, that's just not possible in T5 gear, which is why Kael is such a block. They have to do him the hard way. 1 or 2 weapons still up when the adds revive, and at least one of the adds still up when Kael joins in. In fact, we generally enter phase 4 with Capernian and the axe still up - that's what happens to work for us.

Now, imagine if you could get into Hyjal (but not BT) just by killing Vashj. You'd have access to drops from at least the first 3 and possibly the first 4 Hyjal bosses. I'm sure nobody would claim they're harder than Kael! Getting some T6 quality loot from these bosses could then be used to tip the balance on the Kael fight, for those that can't get past him on pure execution and ability. This is what I mean by saying a "double ladder" of progression helps break down the barriers for the low end guilds without trivialising things for the high end guilds. And that surely is the goal here?

 

Blackthought

I cannot believe that your gaming experience would be diminished by experiencing content that is not currently available to you. To claim that you would be dissapointed by seeing more of this game is mind boggling. Why is that? Do you feel as though you are unworthy to see Illidan because you havent dedicated enough of your life to the cause?

 

XI-

The reason the bosses are easy is because Kael is hard. The same reason Ebonroc and Flamegor were easy, because Broodlord and Firemaw were hard. If you can't kill Kael with all the nerfs, upgrades to gear, T5+ caliber badge loot, etc, you should probably go back to Hello Kitty Island Adventure.

In summary, TBC raiding is easy. 9/10 encounters can be summarized with 1 phrase. Stay out of the fucking fire. If this is too difficult BWL was still there last I checked, so go have at it for some practice.

[12:30:13] <tedv> Step 1: Find the shift key
[12:30:18] <Gurgthock> Step 2: you
[12:30:20] <Gurgthock> Step 3: stfu

[15:47:00] <Nuru> "You seem to be getting hit by fire a lot. Would you like some advice?"

 

Dralmoo

Bug trio style loot is a terrible idea, unless they drop basically the same loot but different ilevels, or maybe something that > 50% of the raid would want. It really sucks if the item you want is only off of the "hard" way - good luck getting your guild to spend time & money wiping on it. Obviously some guilds will do it for the challenge, but even when it's on farm I feel like most would rather just get the instance done faster. Nobody was ever that excited to say "we killed Kri last".

 

Valerian

This touches on the main issue. A lot of people are not "good" at this game. Back pre-TBC those who were not great could easily be carried by the good players, at least til Naxx/AQ40. Now it really can't be done. As you said, with smaller raids you can't tune it to assume 5 idiots because a guild with 25 good people is just going to roll over all content. I think this is directly a cause of the smaller raids. Each person is significantly more important to the raid so their personal responsibility increased. In addition, 25 man raids means it is organizationally easier and thus more people are raiding. However this then also means, assuming a relatively constant % of bad players, you'll see MORE bad players trying to raid as well.

It may be easy for you and your guild, but I can't imagine that is the case for everyone. Objectively saying it is easy is foolish. If the average skill level is X and that is not sufficient to "beat" an encounter, its pretty arrogant to simply say "that encounter is easy noob". It would be like a brain surgeon with 20 years experience telling you "its easy, I don't see why you killed that guy when you tried it noob".