Valerian

I think the problem lay more in how quickly the zones were cleared rather than the stagger of the release. Pre-BC felt less long due to the difficulty in clearing the available instances (due to both cockblocks and the need to farm gear far more than currently).

Staggering the current content would simply have made people farm SSC/TK longer. The fact that BT and Hyjal got cleared so quickly is the larger issue I'd say.

 

Jaxtrasi

That works both ways. If they're not good enough to put out quality content often enough, they can put out cockblocks. That gives them more time to release a new 25-man dungeon, and to retool the smaller ones.

I wasn't really saying that staggering content is bad, just that I think it's likely that the same people saying "This would require a lot of development effort" would also complain about the long lapse between BT and Sunwell.

"I've never known people as dogmatic as those who insist that all opinion is equally subjective."

 

Ghando

You're neglecting this crucial point: the universality of small-group content. It may or may not be easier to just move everything down one development peg (I'm dubious about this; art doesn't need extensive QA testing, dungeons do). But if you move everything down a peg, where's the incentive for people who've already completed the content to go back and re-complete it? If they released 10-man SSC/TK in the next patch I very much doubt I'd want to run it, whereas I guarantee I will run MT at least once in the week after 2.4 drops. Blizzard has made it a point in every new wave of content release to give even hardcore raiders a reason to go back and do "casual" content. Zul'gurub was pretty trivial for BWL guilds at the time, but even so there were plenty of reasons for a BWL raider to go. Same with ZA (especially the timed run), same with MT, same with daily quest hubs. Blizzard won't release new content that the most hardcore/devoted players will have no interest in.

First, there's far more 5-man instances with a huge variety of bosses/artwork/storylines (since that's what you seem to care about most) than raid instances in the game. You could run a different heroic every day for a couple weeks before you had to see the same instance twice. Second, consider the state of 5-man instancing as opposed to raiding for the start of TBC. Blizzard already prioritizes the content everyone will see above the content they won't; this is something raiders put up with as a matter of course that the population at large would not.

 

Jaxtrasi

Frankly, that's pretty selfish. You're saying that *even though* you'd be getting a new (and let's optimistically assume, good) 25-man raid instance, you'd be unhappy because the retooled 10-man and 5-man dungeons were old content for you?

In any case, the 5-man and 10-man content still has uses. DST, for example.

"I've never known people as dogmatic as those who insist that all opinion is equally subjective."

 

Ghando

I think you're looking at it from the wrong perspective. I'm not calling you selfish for wanting new content and new gear for the trifling effort of doing 5-man instances. What I'm saying is that while not every player will experience every new dungeon, there's a difference between saying "I don't have the time/inclination to be a serious raider and experience X content," and "Why would I waste my time doing Y content? There's nothing in it for me."

With the former, you're acknowledging that you WOULD like to run the content; it's just not convenient for you to do so. The rewards are desirable, some people just don't want to put in the time/effort. That's fine. But it's a far cry from the rewards being undesirable and that being the motivation for passing on the content. It's very important to Blizzard that ALL new content have desirable rewards. Even if some people will find the rewards more desirable than others, there's motivation for everybody to get in there. Saying all content should be rewarding for all players isn't an outrageous statement, especially in a game where almost all of a player's decisions are motivated by self-interest.

edit: DST and items like it (fantastic nearly-irreplaceable things that drop from lower-tier content) are exceptions rather than rules, and I'd contend those items were a mistake to begin with.

 

Douglas

I don't see this as a show-stopper.

Consider the tier 0.5 quest chain. Speaking for myself, I loved it (and still have full 8/8 Feralheart banked). If I'd been in T2.5 already when the chain hit, I'd have been silly to do it, unless it was just for fun. The content was clearly aimed at nonraiders, and not intended to be attractive to raiders (in terms of rewards), and that was okay.

 

• Mjollnir

Heroics were (past tense) awesome. The insane hitting mobs that 2shot tanks (original H-BM) and crazy gear check provided a very solid challenge to an all-blued out 70 (dare I even say incompletable at times unless fully t4 geared?). The only thing with original heroics that was somewhat irking was the CC stacking in order to complete some, if not the majority, of them.
Contrary to nerfing them, they should have been expanded on (explained lower). Another issue is progression pacing which has been rehashed till death on these boards.

Let's assume the old heroic model where revered was necessary and mobs hit like trucks.

Something that could easily have been implimented is a 5man 'attunement' for a collection of 'super' heroics. ie. Each heroic endboss drops 1 [Ember for Al'ar] but it is unique to each instance, and only drops once per player per instance. A requirement for 2/3 from each of the 5 heroic factions is needed to complete the quest (this allows for selection of which 1/3 to skip). Apon completion, you are now 'super heroic' certified, and have access to new, raid style difficulty 5man heroics. Make these 2 day lockouts and tune trash/bosses accordingly. Also, for individuals who complete 100% of the heroics not just 2/3, award a title.
Offer 3/4 zones to choose from. Incorporate Naxx floor movement dynamics or dual tank Twin Emps style encounters. Stress aggro/resistance/mitigation/avoidance in different encounters for tanks. Raid/tank/burst/longevity healing for healers. Incorporate significant benchmarks for enrage timers that require on point magical/physical dps. While it is obviously not possible to form encounters based around class-specific abilities, it is very possible to provide encounters with dynamics all classes can partake in, and gear checks.

Look at the success of ZA. It is a t5 zone in difficulty but 10man in design. It gives progression to the 10man crowd, and drops from Z'J/Hex Lord + Bear mount give something desireable for the 25man crowd.
Apply this to 5mans. Progression for the 5man crowd, and something desireable to come back to for the 10man crowd. For the 25man crowd... well there are always badges they could farm.
Speaking of badges, the decision to make epic gems 15badge requirements works perfectly with this system. Gives man or woman, adult or child reason to collect badges. So even the 'new' 5man super heroic content offers small incentive for the 25man raider to enjoy the super hard 5mans and have something to show for it on par with their 25man progression.

All in all, you don't want systems that advance while the character remains still. Everyone wants to feel a sense of accomplishment. Don't lower requirements or nerf encounters. Instead provide simultaneous paths of progression for your arena/bg/5man/10man/25man individual. When a new arena season comes out, a new bg season can come out, alongside new 5man/10man/25man zones. Loot is all equal (comparable might be a better word choice), and nothing has been nerfed or value of encounters cheapened. Instead, each new season brings new loot, and new experiences for each crowd.

 

Yakout

Not even vaguely true: "What?!? You fools to think to challenge Gruul, with so few? Kiggler, clear this rabble from my sight! [...] Does not mean anything! Olm, slay them! [...] You not kill next ones so easily! Krosh, Blindeye, destroy! [...] Good, now you fight me!"

Same graphics, general mechanics, can even have similar tactics. Different stats and scripting. Tweak the mechanics so there's some wiggle room for party makeup, but there's nothing wrong with saying "must have one ranged DPS to tank Kresh (preferably a mage, but he's retuned so it's not required)". It's doable.

The one thing I really like about this idea is that it provides a nice answer to "But why do the casuals NEED better gear?!?" If they're progressing through increasingly difficult 5-mans, they still need it. Give them something to do, some means to progress, other than losing 10 Arena matches a week or running Heroic Mech for the 100th time to get badges to buy iLevel 141 loot... PLUS an honest reason to need to do it.

 

Jaxtrasi

If it's simply a case of adding timed runs (or something equivalent) to every ten-man dungeon which can only be realistically completed by people in the next tier up, that's not a difficult addition, but it is a very useful suggestion for the outlined plan. I'll try to work it in to a more complex description of a retooled dungeon.

Really though, did Ogri'la add anything for 25-man raiders? Does that mean it shouldn't have been made? (Actually in my opinion it was a bit of a waste of time, but hopefully some solo-only players got something out of it.)

(Also, I apologise for being a bit shirty, and thank you for being bigger about it and not rising to the bait.)

I have a Naxx-raiding friend (since dropped back to ten-man only) who theorises that DST (at the time his equivalent being the ToEP) and similar items that he calls "salient" are critical to the health of raiding guilds, giving the better-tiered raiders some reason at all to go back and help out the lesser geared raiders. Of course that's less relevant given the less bloated TBC raid guilds, but it's still a factor.

You are citing an oft-repeated raider opinion that the only reason someone doesn't choose to participate in 25-man content is simply that: choice. This cuts both ways. If it is simply a matter of choice, then it is simply a matter of choice for the cutting-edge guilds not to gear down and attempt the Zul'Aman timed run in Tier 4 gear. Put simply, you cannot choose what you find fun. I do not enjoy 25-man content. That's not a matter of being lazy. You and many raiders like you don't (seem to) enjoy voluntary, arbitrary challenges.

There is nothing stopping those who have completed Sunwell from spending the time between now and WOTLK soloing Heroics. They won't do so, because they simply don't find it fun. It would be very strange to characterise that as "lazy" or to say that they "simply don't want to put in the time and effort".

"I've never known people as dogmatic as those who insist that all opinion is equally subjective."

 

Slowthar

Well, that's a rather ridiculous generalization, and is wholly untrue. I know plenty of people, myself included, who, once we get our end-game raiding gear, LOVE to go back and try and do ridiculous things. Stuff like trying to 2-man a 45 minute UD Strat run, 3-man heroic Shattered Halls, 6-7 man Kara, etc. To try and assert that we raiders "don't seem to enjoy voluntary, arbitrary challenges" is thoroughly snide.

At any rate, I think the solution here is the 10-man raids, and I think Blizzard will continue to push ALL PvE progression towards them. Kara was a much bigger success than they anticipated, and ZG is a great instance, IMO. I think at the end of the day, they want PvE'ers alike to be able to experience as much endgame content as they like. Certainly, it may scale the "epic" feel of a 40-man down, and it will also may push the comfort zone of 5-manners a little, but if it allows more people to enjoy more content longer, so be it.

As far as things like Maulgar go, why wouldn't you be able to scale him down to a 10-man? Ever do Moroes? What about Malacrass? I think a 5-man would just make it silly, but a 10-man could provide a good balance between challenge, organization, and multi-tasking which would properly grant the feel of the orginal 25-man encounter.

 

Douglas

I think some of the differences between 10-man and 25-man are qualitative, not quantitative.

I think one of those differences is: no 10-man encounter should ever actually require any specific class ability. Any. At all. A raid group that's generally balanced, has all the niches filled by competent people, et cetera, should be able to overcome any challenge in a 10-man, even if any one class is entirely missing.

Is Moroes easier if you have Shackle? Sure. Is it required? Nope, not at all. The same can be said (IMO) for any encounter in Karazhan. Not a single encounter actually literally requires any specific class at all. Sometimes you need one of a small list of powers, but you never truly must have one single specific ability that only one class has.

So the problem with Maulgar is simply in the details. I don't think a 10-man version could require "Spell Steal" or "Enslave Demon".

On the other hand... if the team were given trinkets or on-use objects with those effects, similar to the chrono beacons in the dark portal encounter, that'd do the trick. But I'm not sure it wouldn't be better to tweak the encounter instead, for example in the manner Yakout described.

 

Slowthar

Agreed. What I would hate to see is over-homogenization, which I feel is already an issue with the classes (separate topic). Suffice it to say, it would be boring as hell to have every fight with more than 1 mob be completely dependent on a combination of CC/burndown. One of the interesting things about Maulgar is the Mage-tank and Lock-tank requirements. Indeed, that's one of the things that give a lot of flavor to 25-man encounters -- requirements of a certain class/ability. You would completely lose that if you made everything a 5-man.

However, now that I think about it, I think if you were talking about making 10-mans a true progression path, it would be realistic to have certain encounters that require a certain class.

 

Douglas

I cannot agree -- I feel that doing so would eliminate a big part of the point behind having the alternate progression path in the first place. The problem with 25-mans isn't just that they have 25 people. There are logistical problems that arise from having 25 people, yes, but there are also logistical problems that arise if you can't do the run at all without, say, a warlock.

A 10-man group is much more likely than a 25-man to only have one player with a warlock on the team (if they have any at all). If you're going to tell 'em "well, get a backup, or if that person has to sit out one night, you can't do the run that night, even if you have enough people otherwise"... my feeling is you pretty much might as well be telling them to make the jump to 25-man content. If you're going to alter the flavor of the 10-man experience that much, you're going to turn off a bunch of the people who are turned off by 25-man stuff today.

 

Douglas

You know what'd be better than trinkets?

Have an NPC mage and NPC warlock join you. Have them be mediocre-to-poor at the job, but adequate enough that a good team can still pull off a win. But if you bring your own mage and warlock, the difficulty of the encounter plummets.

That'd be better (IMO) than trinkets. But in any event, I don't feel that you could require a mage and warlock in a 10-man encounter. I assert (without proof, sure, but at least consider the possibility) that most of the people who find that kind of encounter design acceptable are probably already in 25-mans.

 

Jaxtrasi

Here's what I said:

Not "all raiders". "You and raiders like you." Ghando was specifically stating that a ten-man SSC would contain no content for him, ergo three-manning ten-man SSC clearly does not appeal to him. Likewise, many raiders quit once they downed Kel'Thuzad, and are planning to quit once they down Kil'jaeden. It's not snide to say that something is true of some people, especially when it is.

"I've never known people as dogmatic as those who insist that all opinion is equally subjective."

 

Fragged

I've never known a raider who thinks like that.

Certainly there will be more raider turnover after Kil'jaeden is on farm for many guilds than before, but the same can be said for any time where there's nothing left but farm content.

Aspirational content keeps raiders raiding, but once there isn't any remaining aspirational content (or any other personal goals like completing their ideal gear wishlist/etc) the game understandably gets far less interesting, the ones who leave generally do so because they get tired of waiting for a new mountain to climb.

 

Jaxtrasi

I don't understand the difference between what you said and what I said. Could you explain?

My point is that some people don't find some things fun. That's all. It's not accurate to describe someone as "unwilling to put in the time and effort" when what's actually the case is that they simply don't enjoy it. That's as true of raiders and non-raiders as it is of every human. It has nothing to do with when you quit or why you quit, simply that at some point there will be something you don't enjoy, and you won't do it.

"I've never known people as dogmatic as those who insist that all opinion is equally subjective."

 

Douglas

Seems to me that this is an aside that isn't likely to add much to the topic.

The idea that spawned this sub-thread was, if the manner in which 10-man and/or 5-man progression were implemented was to recycle 25-man content by rescaling it downward, then there would be a set of folks who, having beaten it at 25-man, would not feel an incentive to beat the 10-man version of the same content, if it was unambiguously easier and gave rewards that were unambiguously worse.

That seems self-evidently true.

The person who was pointing this out seemed to consider this a problem. It's very much not clear to me that it is, and I draw the tier 0.5 quest chain as a counterexample. Now, some more serious raiders went through the T0.5 chain and enjoyed it because there was new stuff going on (especially the Valthalak fight, which IMO was interesting and challenging, but a lot about this chain was novel). But it didn't have rewards that were of any real value to folks who had BWL on farm. So other raiders felt the content was a complete waste for them, and ignored it.

That's fine, IMO.

Now, if a reasonable and "inexpensive" way to make the content more interesting to a larger set of people can be proposed, it's almost a no-brainer to go ahead with it, no?

Maybe timed runs are a way to do that.

Know what else might be a way to do that? Titles. Might it make sense to have a title for a given instance that you can only earn by beating it on every version of that instance? Like, for one (intentionally poor) example, "Dragonkiller-killer" is only earned by beating Gruul in 25-man and 10-man. Doesn't have to be a title -- the point is, you could make some reward require you to go through every version of that content. Might that make it more interesting to some of the folks who otherwise wouldn't be interested in it? Enough people to be worth considering?

(Heck, that sort of thing might have the added benefit of getting both groups to at least give the other version of the encounter a try. I could see someone who's only been doing the 10-man version seeing the title and asking about it, and deciding that the title was worth giving the 25-man version a try or two.)

(Just trying to brainstorm here. The idea might very well be crap, but it seemed worth mentioning.)

 

Shadout

If you read the official forums, ye maybe. Where I look, it seems like people are pretty happy about Sunwell, some interesting bosses, some bosses that seems to end up well-tuned on live etc. it will obviously be a matter of opinions though. Sure, there are no 4horsemen in there, but while Sunwell might not live up to the nostalgic memory of Naxx, I dont really see the people complaining everywhere. Well, except the group of people who are complaining about anything... (Hopefully camping the official forums, rather than EJ)

The only way we will ever see them releasing all that each patch, is if they save some instances from an expansion release, although they were already done. And it doesnt really change the fact they will rather (under their current philosophy at least) spent X time making Zul'Aman, than spending the same time making copies of existing instances.
It should probably be noted that the environment art department rarely seems to be the ones delaying content. Lots of ZulAman art was done before TBC was even released, and much of the Sunwell art are variants of BE architecture which was already created. The environment art often seems to be up to a year in front of the rest of the developing.
And its not like 5-man progression would require much new art either, it would simply have to exist through the heroic instances, which are copies anyway.

The long wait between BT and Sunwell is not because TBC instances have been staggered, contrary, its because they werent. BT was out earlier than it should have been, which resulted in the long break.

 

Nezralix

The people who are complaining about Sunwell challenge typically aren't even the same people who have been there. Moreover, they're not looking for encounters with a challenging margin for successful execution; what they're looking for is a puzzle game that requires 25 people to participate. The only way encounters ever seem to take a long time before a world first is achieved is when the strategy is incredibly non-obvious, or seems to have unreasonable requirements.

And once the strategy is arrived at, it folds quickly for all the other top-end guilds, and begins the slow trickle of the good-but-not-top-end guilds.

 

Flamingcloud

You also forgot to mention fights that have limited amounts of trys per-week/reset, ala ragnaros 1.0, and nef 1.0

 

Addled

What? You're essentially proposing a "wave" style fight. There are already those types of fights in the game, see Skyriss in Arcatraz, Blackfathom Deeps, etc. The beauty of the Maulgar fight, I've always felt, is that there's a sort of "organized chaos". And by that, I mean there's literally several different fights going on simultaneously. Hunters doing their thing, locks their own, magetank, their attached healers, while in the meantime, the MT is getting slagged by Maulgar and getting spammed by his own healers. The first time any guild does Maulgar, there's barely concealed panic on Vent while everybody tries to coordinate.

But if you do a wave technique, you lose the whole point of Maulgar. There's no more panic. There's no more coordination. There's simply a healer spamming heals, a tank tanking, and DPS going on as usual.

Maulgar isn't a test for your gear, (Gruul will do that fine) he's a test of a guild's coordination. And let me tell you, the first time you get Maulgar down, the first time everything "clicks" into place, that is a wonderful feeling.

You'll still have regular casuals (remember, the people you're supposedly targeting) trying to stack the deck. Remember at the beginning of TBC, where the consensus on WoW forums was that the perfect group consisted of 1 tank/3 CC/1 healer, with no room for DPS hybrids like fury/arms warriors, enhance shamans, balance druids, and ret pallies? Same thing will happen. If you make it so mages/locks are preferred by the instance, they'll be preferred by the people going into the instance.

Perhaps a better way would be for a Nefarian class call system to be put into place, where there are different, but equal challenges depending on the classes in the instance.

 

◊ Quigon

Maulgar is a good fight, and was reassuring to see out of the gate in TBC. But unfortunately, Gruul set the tone for the entirety of TBC. In a lot of ways Gruul really epitomizes the failures of TBC raiding in one spot.

As for Maulgar, many older encounters had enough moving parts to have "groups" as you said doing their own thing independently. Notice that Kael'thas requires the same thing, and is also hailed as one of, if not the, best fights in TBC.

Group assignments, phases, shifting and adaptable and malleable strategy is important. Most of these things were lost in the last year and a half - I believe firmly going to 2.5 horsemen is part of the problem. In fact, it is really a corollary - for explicitly the reasons you state above. I'm not sure why it is a surprise that this happened, when history said long before TBC that it would.

 

◊ Quigon

I think this is nonsense. The amount of content has been slowing down and becoming noticeably worse in quality. Content cannot be released too early unless it isn't tuned properly. If there is a long break, it means there is a lack of content, not a pacing problem.
When they earn more dollars from expansions and mass subscriptions, there should be some level of parallelization. Development of Sunwell should not be somehow impeded by development of Black Temple unless there is a brain drain or lack of resources. Having either present at a company like Blizzard is really an issue of mismanagement.
There should be multiple development teams per group/raid community. Most MMO's split their development workforce into many units - content development in nearly every video game genre is almost completely parallelizable.

 

Shadout

You cant just hire more developers infinitely to shot out endless content. At some point it grows too big and we would see even more "oh shit"-solutions of opposite directions of the game etc. You could call that a management -issue, but I would argue its a fairly common and unavoidable one then.
Its not like Blizz doesnt have their devs split up in many units already.

Releasing content too fast isnt only a problem for the long wait between releases at some point when the development catches up, it also leads to the released content to be consumed too fast, so we have to use the lovely artificial roadblockers of attunement. Imo its negative both for Blizz and the players not to stagger the releases more.
But it probably comes down to a matter of preferences, and since we have kinda already seen a long thread about this months ago, there isnt much point going on about it.