dinesh

With all due respect, you are doomed to disappointment.

First, because you are vastly outnumbered by people who do want (or more to the point, need) boss nerfs in order to achieve content progression.

Even assuming that issue were somehow resolved, say using 25-man versions of heroic switches, you're still going to hit a second issue, which is expansions. Every time an expansion is released and the level cap grows, earlier content is almost instantly discarded.

If you are progressing at a pace which doesn't have you clearing all content before the next expansion is released, you're not going to get to experience all the game has to offer at the same difficulty level. I know my guild never got to finish AQ40 or most of Naxx for this reason, and it's going to be a close call for Sunwell, most likely.

Even with the nerfing, there are a substantial number of guilds who get trapped by this. I can't imagine you'd have a prayer as a low-time raider trying the fights at original difficulty levels.

 

tommtomm

Your showing the danger of discussing ONE statement out of a multi point thread.

Casuals do not need less difficult bosses, we need less time intensive runs with less trash so that we can get to the boss fights, that all of us want to do. Progression will come faster when people are not wasting a bunch of time killing 50 trash mobs in an instance. Boss fights are about tactics, coordination and precise execution. With enough practice and repetition, any properly geared group can down a boss. I'd just rather spend my time working on that, then killing trash. Don't forget, we do enough of that grinding mobs/dailies/etc, just to fund all the repair bills/enchants/gems/etc, that we need for the boss fights.

There would be another benefit for everyone, including the hard core guilds. We all enjoy going through an instance the first 3-5 times, but when you factor in the random drop generator that hates us all, especially me, you end up in a situation that it takes months of running the same instance over and over to get the gear you want. Past those first 3-5 times, its nothing but a grind like all the others, and we all hate grinds. We would all benefit if the time that we have to spend grinding for gear was reduced.

 

wind

Reading this thread was like going through a long period of crying and whining on the official wow forums. The same war raging on between the cool, pro, "I don't want to spend lots of time on this nonsense" casuals, and the big bad "raiding is my life" hardcore elite imba having-epixx-dangling-from-every-possible-appendage players.
Please, get a grip. The first main argument casuals give towards nerfing/removing/diminishing the number of trash packs is that their subscription fee is as the hardcore raiders' , and that entitles them to the same content. That's not really an argument. If Nihilum had to crawl through one million trash packs, why shouldn't you? If you are not willing to put the time in, don't whine about there not being enough content, because there is. Go run 5man instances, Karazhan, Zul'aman. Go get welfare epics, go get exalted with every faction, or just sit on the Aldor bank ledge looking pretty. Save badges for 2.4, and get t6 equivalent loot, from a vendor.
It just seems funny how every casual player stresses that he's a really good player, knowledgeable about his class, but that he just doesn't have the time/doesn't like raiding for more than one hour at a time, once per week. Well, tough. As far as I'm concerned, making some people spend 100+ hours on getting attuned for black temple (which is an average figure, once you take into consideration the fact that SSC/TK attunement was linked to BT/MH attunement), and then removing that requirement is unfair. Even *IF* I get a pretty title out of it.
At least on my server, nobody does Magtheridon anymore. At all. Once he was removed from the attunement process, he became unneccessary content. With the removal of the vials, I'm half convinced Kael and Vashj will as well. Mr. Joe Iraidonweekends will much rather go and farm MH trash(if that will even exist anymore), and hope for an imba trash drop, than go wipe for hours on end learning Kael-that-drops-tier5.
So yes, I perfectly understand that some people would like to have 1 trash mob, and then a quick succession of bosses, all displaying a list on your screen(either before, or after death; preferably before) with the preferred loot that has to drop. I also understand that you do not want to kill Illidan more than once, and that WHEN you do, you'd rather it only took 45 seconds, as not to interfere with the other tasks and activities of your busy day. However, as far as I'm concerned, the longer it takes you to learn it, and beat it, the better it feels at the end. If you don't want to put the effort in, you shouldn't be able to get the same rewards either.
If you want to compare the nerfing of end-game raid instances to something from real life, at the moment it seems to me like every single person that can run is asking for a chance to win the olympics. Their own, special little nerfed-down and tailored based on personal ability version of the olympics. Even though the time they'd like to put into training is one hour every week, and their average run speed is a third of Carl Lewis'.

 

Essarhaddon

A not unreasonable position. The trouble is that I expect it does not maximize Blizzard's goal which making sure as many people as possible keep paying them money.

Assuming that anything in this thread actually is read by Blizzard and registers with them, it seems to me that the the point should be suggesting proposals which maximize that goal for Blizzard.

Assuming Blizzard does consciously go through a "nerfing" process with respect to raiding, what is the least painful and most beneficial way for that to happen?

 

wind

I think that simply releasing the content by removing attunements is enough of an incentive to maximise a raid instance's exposure to the casual population. However, I also think the current process of "keying up" in a per-character manner is flawed, and a little unfair. Maybe make it a guild-wide quest, that requires a guild to kill a boss(guarding the instance doors) with an extremely high <dps/situational awareness/raiding experience> requirement. After that is completed, the guild as a whole is attuned to the new raiding instance. Including alts, trialists, or people that happen to join after the event. Then, some time afterwards, once Blizzard decides that particular raiding instance needs more exposure, the guardian is removed.
I do agree that my idea might lead to some people getting free rides through an instance, but honestly, I don't see it as being that much of a problem. Considering there will be at least one fight in each instance acting as a retard check(Solarian, Lurker, Rage Winterchill, Teron), the people that shouldn't be in will probably not get taken to a raid, due to them causing wipes.

 

dinesh

I don't think that I am.

Don't get me wrong, I would rather the trash be tuned down as well, but that is primarily because I know I am in a second or third tier guild. As I have posted before (and I'm sure I'm not the first), trash is an essential pacing mechanic for slowing down the bleeding-edge guilds who would otherwise finish all the content in a month, then twiddle their thumbs for three. It serves remarkably limited useful purpose for guilds who are otherwise not finishing the old content before the next round of new content gets released, however.

Let me put it another way. Whatever your ideas for changing things so that you, a limited time raider, can complete progression content at its original difficulty level before the next round of new content gets released, let's assume that they are implemented.

Does it not follow that the other, non-time-limited raiders will complete that identical content faster than you, likely in a timeframe proportional to the amount of additional time they are willing to spend? If so, what exactly are those players going to be doing during all that suddenly free time?

Once again: the reason for nerfing difficulty level is to try to turn what would otherwise be a linear process into something exponential (or logarithmic, depending on your point of view), delaying the "hardcore"/experienced raiders as much as possible with more challenging content, while at the same time speeding up the progression of "casual"/time-limited raiders with nerfed content, so that the two extremes are closer in time, making more people happy with the rate at which new content gets released.

 

Douglas

I want this. I want this badly. I don't care whether people call me hardcore or casual or Sally, but I do not want to be forced to do an entire raid within one week. If I could spread a Karazhan run out over an entire month, I would (sometimes) do so.

Another thing that would do the trick for me, which I've heard discussed from time to time on these forums, would be reputation-based "checkpoints". Like, at Honored with Violet Eye, the back door starts out already open, that sort of thing. The point would be to permit me to progress through a given raid more slowly than the maximum rate Blizzard is using to throttle gear/progression, while still actually progressing.

(I prefer to raid no more than one or twice a week tops, and I prefer to only raid between 8pm and 11pm, and I stop having fun if the group is in too much of a rush. This hasn't been a great combo...)

That ain't the only problem the groups I run with have had. There are some of us who are more dedicated to learning encounters and experimenting and studying and trying new tactics. For example, I don't feel I've beaten a raid encounter until I've personally beaten it as tank, DPS, and healer. There are others who approach such stuff with a more relaxed attitude. And, there are others who approach such stuff with a less relaxed attitude -- folks who don't want to start running Karazhan on alts until they're further along in 25-mans on their mains.

We're buddies. We want to play together because we enjoy each other's company, even if playing together isn't the only way we play. When we try to put a run together, lockouts wreak havoc.

I want to see some mechanism by which someone who is already locked to another instance can join someone else just for fun/experience, with no participation in the loot. That way, on my more well-geared warlock and resto druid, I can hang out with my more-progressed friends and learn encounters with them, but if my less-advanced group ends up with an extra tank and needs me to bring my healer instead in a given week, I can do so without lockout trouble.

 

• Beliandra

While I trust you when you say that that is what you need, I don't think you can generalize from your own "experienced but time-poor" perspective to the broader player base. I think you overestimate the average player's capacity for "tactics, coordination and precise execution".

 

Nezralix

It's absolutely true that resets need to be more flexible. One-week resets just don't work for casual-ish guilds who may have a few different things going on (i.e. getting newer players up to speed, while also working on progression content). This has been discussed a number of times; Blizzard should really make it happen.

 

Hildegard

It would be ok to lenghten the timers, but to shorten them could cause serious problems. Some guilds would clear the temple five to seven times a week, which would clearly penalize anyone not wanting to raid the same instance over and over again.

You would need three to five intense weeks until a progressed instance is burned by fast guilds.

The idea of being able to skip stuff once you downed the end boss or have enough reputation sounds good. Like the back door in Karazhan or Vashj/Kael with 2.4. I would really love more of that.

Hildegard Sprigglespruxx - Wissenschaftlerin am Insitut für Pfuschkunde

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

 

Merrith

In a perfect world they wouldn't have to nerf instances whatsoever. Back in vanilla WoW when the top guilds beat BWL I'm sure most casuals that still couldn't beat Rag thought they'd never ever beat Nefarion. This turned out to be incorrect as given enough time, many of those same guilds progressed through at their own pace without such grand sweeping nerfs to do it. Granted the keying processes weren't on the level of TBC by any stretch, but its not like the TBC keying quests were that difficult that even most casual guilds would eventually get it done.

Perhaps its an issue with the speed at which new content is released that the top guilds see guilds below them who could never have hoped to have figured out some of the later fights as quick without nerfs or videos all over the place. I'm sorry but no title or special mount means anything next to beating an encounter you know only a very small percentage of the game population can do. Maybe that is an extreme elitist view on raiding but I don't think everyone should get to see the entire game through nerfs and making it progressively easier. If they did a better job of scaling instances/gear to require everyone to do more of a step ladder approach to raiding you would see the casual guilds slowly progress at their own pace. There would likely be much uproar over how tough encounters are and how much they want to be where the hardcore raiders are already but in the end the content is all there and accessible to anyone who wants to see it. Complaining about the difficulties of organization doesn't make it impossible or even terribly difficult.

The old argument about only 1% of the population getting to see Kel'Thuzad is a foolish one, as he represented a much, MUCH, smaller % of the entire game's content. The greatest nerf there is is simply time, and given enough everyone could eventually see all of the content, and those with the time and skill to see it faster would do so, without having to see it turned into watered down easy mode.

 

faight

I think the main solution to old content becoming discarded is heroics.

For everything.

Level 70's in epics wiping in Heroic Wailing Caverns? Yes please. This would get a lot of people to run these old instances again, make use of old content so Blizzard doesn't have to create new models/etc, and create a ton of interesting new encounters.

Also heroic strath/scholo should return to their old 10 or 15 man raid status. I can't remember which was which, I had just started playing around the time they were nerfed. This could be included in the expansion, with the "lore" reason being that Arthas pumped up all the lower level bosses with magic or something.

But honestly, I hate the fact that I never got to the end of BWL or Naxx or AQ20/40. My guild just never progressed that far. We made a lot of attempts, but being that we were casual raiders we rarely, if ever, got to the end of these when the instances were still viable for their gear. The only solution I can see to this is making normal and heroics for everything, including 10 and 25 man raids. This is along the lines of what someone posted on the first page, but I think an "easy" mode would just be lame. This allows for gear that's mediocre to drop in the normal versions which are much easier to complete, allows for "casual" raiders to complete content they wouldn't otherwise get to see, and would give them access to equipment that could be used to complete the heroic version of the instance when they gather enough of it up and have learned the encounters pretty well that the heroic version wouldn't be that much harder. It would just take longer for them, since the hardcore people would run the normal version a few times to get some gear, then use their superior skill and coordination to complete the heroic mode well before the casual raiders and get a bigger jump in gear.

Also, you could make it so that you couldn't fight the "final" boss in the normal mode. Normal BT? No Illidan. Just a sign at the end saying "Congratulations, you completed normal mode, now try heroic!" sort of like the old NES games that pulled that.

I guess I'm just sore because I missed out on a lot of really good content due to work/school/real life/etc and I never had the time to put in to getting in to a guild that would run these things.

 

Hildegard

BWL was nerfed a lot. I don't remember everything but the Orcs on Razorgore had much less HP, Vaelastrasz had less HP and some of these three dragons got also changed quite a bit.

I can see completly the point in competition, but isn't competition against casual guilds a bit lame ? I mean feeling Elite because an organized guild with experienced players can down bosses a casual guild cannot - so what ? Time based competition among raiding guilds sounds a lot more fun to me. Because of that the idea is to only give titles to this very few guilds that can down the end bosss in a very short time.

Hildegard Sprigglespruxx - Wissenschaftlerin am Insitut für Pfuschkunde

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

 

deneba

I would like to see more interactive, dynamic content in the game, like the AQ gate opening ceremony. I believe this is the perfect solution to the issue of satisfying a wide variety of people. When new content appears, give it some special rewards in its early days--rewards to those who manage the attunement, entry and conquest of leading edge content. Later on, go ahead and remove those attunements and high difficulty levels--and with them, some of those special rewards.

I do not understand why this is not a more common practice. Blizzard seems very nervous about "limited availability" content.

 

Nezralix

The AQ gate event brought the servers nearly to a halt on any server that wasn't empty. It was a slideshow for most participants. That's why they're not going to do it again.

 

Redelm

I guess I’ll chime in on this one. In my opinion the problem is two-fold focus and speed. I’ll do my best to explain these.

It is my belief that anyone that picks up wow has the ability to function / perform as an individual, at the level required to beat all content that Blizzard can come up with. There are always exceptions to this rule but 95%+ of the population would fall into this category.

My struggle is, with the above being said, how can casual guild complain that content is too difficult? If a casual guild sets goals and they can’t accomplish this they need to look at the bigger picture, not just blame it on content being to hard. Because it isn’t, the numerous guilds that defeated that content before them proved that. Those guilds before yours aren’t filled with “elite skilled” individuals. They are just a group of people that have a common goal and focused on what they desired to accomplish.

The next complaint is that, “Well, we can’t put the time in”. Ok that’s nice, you’ll just progress slower than the top guilds, and it’s really that simple. I would almost bet my life that there are guilds out there that have downed Illidan that only raid 2-3 nights per week. They may have progressed a bit slower, but they did it. It boils down to people being impatient and wanting things now and not wanting to work for them.

I read a post that talked about raid leader controlled reset timers. While at first glace this may seem like a good idea, it really would in my opinion significantly increase the speed at which content was cleared (gear and resist check fights aside). BT / Hyjal each zone can be cleared in one night. So in theory, if your guild only raided 2 nights per week, which easily falls into the category of casual you could clear all end-game content every reset. Of course, only raiding 2 nights per week it will take you longer to get to the one night clears but it can be done.

I guess in my perfect wow world nerfs would only happen when content needs to be balanced for the sake of making it possible. Attunements, while annoying at times, are fine. And Blizzard could focus more on bringing out new content instead of balancing the old content for impatient players.

 

Nezralix

Being able to work on content more slowly is the reason why people are asking for the option to have more control over reset timers (specifically, the ability to choose not to reset a raid when the timer rolls around).

You make two assertions here that, as far as I can tell, are totally unrelated. Neither of them make much sense.

Are you saying it would increase the rate at which content is cleared because guilds have more time to learn bosses without having to re-clear previous bosses every week? This is the only thing I can get out of this statement, but I could be wrong, because you don't clarify at all. And obviously, the tradeoff here would be less loot per week, which seems quite reasonable. The one-week reset timer makes sense as a restraint of item acquisition, but is totally arbitrary as a means of enforcing a maximum time to work on content. Just an unnecessary obstacle that may have arisen out of technological limitations.

Your assertion that casual guilds should be able to farm Illidan and Archimonde on two nights a week seems like random nonsense, so I'm not going to dwell on it.

Are you seriously suggesting that making minor tweaks to old content involves anywhere NEAR the time investment of creating a new raid instance?

 

Redelm

Yes, I am saying that a guild such as Nihilum would clear through content faster with a raid controlled reset. And yes you are correct, the trade-off would be less loot per week, but in my opinion most of the higher end guilds loot is not priority.

The one-week reset does not affect the time at which you can work on content, in the general sense. It does affect the time you can put in on a specific encounter (having to clear previous content to again reach the yet accomplished encounter). And if you dont reset the instance until you have reached the end you maximize the time that you can spend on said encounter/'s.


That statement was preceded by "In Theroy". Because it is possible many current guilds could raid 2 nights per week and clear all of the T6 content. Correct me if I'm wrong on this.


No, you are right. That should have been worded different. Obviously the tweeking of existing zones is a fairly simple process compared to the creation of an entirely new zone.

 

Hildegard

How about focussing more on the topic of competition among raiders. I think we covered the nerf-part enough by now. I really hope for some good ideas how to realise this competition.

At the moment a lot of the competition takes part on the PTR and the top guilds are a lot more like beta testers. How do you think could the competition be fair and the instances fine-tuned on release ? And how should the competition look like ?

Hildegard Sprigglespruxx - Wissenschaftlerin am Insitut für Pfuschkunde

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

 

Duodecimal

Besides some ephemeral fame, the only thing Raiders competing for World/Server firsts are vying for is to see who'll start getting bored with content soonest. Then the competition is who can whine the loudest about the lack of new raids while implying that something tragic will happen to the game if they don't get what they want as soon as they want it.

If you want the raiding game to be more competitive, the best thing to do is stagger the release of instances. BC was not good for competition because almost everything was released before the vast majority of the raiding population was ready for it. There can be some argument over whether 2.0 was cockblock or if the 2.1/2.4 nerfs are the true intended difficulty levels. Between the struggle for attunements, tank burn out, raid turnover due to dealing with perceived cockblockedness, and so on, Burning Crusade was probably more brutal than it needed to be. It was just one long unrelenting grind from keying for Karazhan to getting Illidan down, no breathers, no recuperation. The guilds that got ahead stayed ahead, and the competition pretty much stopped for most guilds halfway through.

I'm not saying anything new, the above paragraph has been a dead horse for almost a year. So, in short, bring back the staggered release schedule of raids in 1.0 and we'll probably see much more engaging footraces at each patch interval.