OzzymandiasKJ

Disclaimer: Some of the topics being discussed here may hit close to home for a number of raiders and raid leaders; however, I implore you to refrain from using these topics as an excuse to vent anguish or rant without actually contributing to the discussion.

I've come to realize a contrast in regards to the social atmosphere in the raiding community between The Burning Crusade and WOTLK. The differences being that there are a lot more raiders, a plethora of raiding guilds, and more opportunities for casual players to raid. Assuming that this has been Blizzard's goal since the seemingly wide variety of upset players during The Burning Crusade; Blizzard has successfully found a way for everyone to raid *hooray* - but what kind of effect is this having on the social atmosphere amongst raiders? Is there even a differentiation between "raiders" and "casuals" anymore? And finally, assuming that future raid content will continue to be accessible to social players, what kind of changes can we predict in regards to the sort of social minigame of WoW? The following is a collection of thoughts and observations that lead me to believe that accessibility to content for everyone is, in my opinion, rendering a negative effect to the social game by encouraging mediocre players to maintain their bad habits and by making it difficult for growing guilds to seek out raiders of high calibur.

The other day I was speaking with a player who just recently started playing the game again. He was laughing at the idea of people being able to join pick-up-groups to raid. At first I argued that this was a good thing; Blizzard's goal has always been to make their content as accessible as possible. This is evident with their age old habit of nerfing content after long periods of time so that players who aren't as dedicated, knowledgeful or even capable as say the top guilds can at least see the content. Mid-way through our conversation I realized that both of our opinions began to change as we discussed the current situation in more detail. He believed that accessibility is fine so long as progression-oriented players still have goals to strive for that a pick up group wouldn't normally be able to accomplish; such as, Sartharion with 3 drakes, Immortal Naxxramas, etc. I agreed to a point, but I was disgruntled to think of the idea that this is how progression guilds will have to prove their worth - through gimmicky titles and achievements. There's something about the feeling of killing a boss and knowing that you're amongst a select few who have seen his body hit the floor.

We continued to talk about how this kind of accessibility is effecting established guilds versus growing guilds. I'm a part of a growing guild - I came back late into WOTLK and convinced as many of my old guildies as I could to come back but obviously there's some recruitment to be done. One thing I've found is that we're not the only ones in this boat. There are countless guilds stuck in the middle of the road. Having too many raiders to do 10 mans but not enough to field 25 mans. It wasn't quite like this in TBC since progression was very linear right off the bat. People who cleared Karazhan would guild together to go kill Gruul. People who killed Gruul would seek others who have done the same and then would go and proceed to SSC, and so on. That kind of linear progression seems absent in the current content. Naxxramas, Malygos and Sartharion don't really come one after another. What's more is that its all puggable; rendering even less motivation for players to seek out guilds when they can easily log on at their own leisure, find a raid in LFG and have at it. Growing guilds are particularly feeling hurt from this result since there's no incentive to join a guild that's aspiring to clear content - you can clear it without dedicating your time, effort and energy to one particular group. At this point my friend argued that there's incentive to join guild that aspire to complete the optional challenges, hard modes and achievements. Unfortunately I believe that this simply isn't the case - I suppose I can put it this way: why join a guild that aspires to raid Ulduar when there's so many guilds that are already ready to raid Ulduar? In BC this simply wasn't an issue since guilds that were further ahead wern't ahead by having earned achievement points, but rather by actually being in a whole other tier of progression. And the only way to catch up was to find a guild at your current level of progression and to work with them to get up there.

The only thing we agreed on was that the standards of being a raider have seemingly gone down a notch. Which is again, in my opinion, a direct effect from not just the ease of the current content but because of its accessibility. Now, I know that Blizzard is promising harder stuff; hopefully something that will challenge more than just a player's gear. My dissatisfaction with this idea is that now I have to wait for new content before I can even judge whether or not a player knows what he's doing. With no apparent test of decision making skills its rather difficult for me to determine who I'd want to take to Ulduar. You could argue that Sarth with drakes or Immortal Naxxramas might be good ways to test a player's ingenuity; but I just feel that there isn't any kind of content that takes a player out of their element enough to test their stability as a raider. And though Ulduar seems like it might introduce something to help in that regard (vehicular boss fight, for example), I'm still rather disgruntled to think that I have to wait for Ulduar to judge whether or not my raiders are capable players.

Therefore, I ultimately believe that with the state of the game's current content, there is an overall concerning effect on the raiding community. Easy access to all raid content is sort of lackluster - killing a boss in "hard mode" just doesn't seem so exciting after having killed him so many times before on "normal mode". A part of the excitement of progression raiding has always been to see a new boss go down after a long and hard period of attempts. Now it just seems redundant to have to kill a boss and then learn it over again with an added challenge. Getting into raids has become easier for the individual, sure, but growing guilds seem to be experiencing a lot of trouble in terms of finding like-minded players to recruit, because there's no linear progression within the current content there's no way of determining whether a particular guild is at the same level as you. Unlike in TBC when it was obvious that if you had only killed Gruul then you should seek out a guild that's working on SSC. And finally, there are a lot more people raiding, sure, but there's no incentive for players to go above and beyond because there's no content to challenge them for it. As a result, players are being encouraged to play poorly and its going to add a lot of frustration when (hopefully) harder content is released.

What are your thoughts?

 

g0rby

How much WoW has been bastardised just depends on who you ask. For me its actually quite hard to gauge how well the current game is received, but I think the main reason for that is that a significant %'age of the WoW playing public dont behave in the same way other gamers do, they wont post on many forums when they are having fun, nor will they be particularly vocal if they are not, they just vote with their feet.
Before WoW there had not been an MMO that attracted an audience across such a wide spread of demographics. They got their audience and each new expansion pack has tweaked their formula to try to appease the concerns of those particular demographics. Its no surprise to me that now, by WoW 3.0 we have something that is alienating a lot of initial people it attracted. I also believe that those key points that pertain to specific demographics will be identifiable in blizzards new product ranges.
Look at previous renaissance movements, initial audiences/ critiques are always get snobby and worry about whether their art form has become diluted or not.
Since WoW came out gameing has changed signigicantly - for a while its been moveing from something thats considered insular and nerdy towards something that is acceptable as part of a 'normal' lifestyle. You can see that part of blizzards design ethos embraces that tennant, but to me thats at odds slightly with thing things I really enjoy about the MMO game that were perhaps mashed together from 10+ years worth of previous online gaming experiences that catered for a different type of main-stream gamer.

 

Valerian

This is really just a paradigm shift people need to get used to. I mean if there was another dragon in one of the other chambers under wyrmrest that had no adds or void zones, you'd easily consider it a different boss than Sartharion. Frankly I was just as excited to kill 3 Drake Sarth as any "new" boss. It was clearly a different fight, though clearly it had shared elements with regular Sarth.

That's just because there was more to start with in BC. Right at the start of BC Gruul was essentially unkillable unless you were a top tier guild. Same for Magtheridon. This locked out your access to SSC and TK entirely. Once Ulduar is out for a bit hopefully that same sense of "progression" will be there (i.e., you need Naxx/Sarth/Malygos gear to perform decently in Ulduar).

If a guild is finding a lack of like-minded players to recruit this is not necessarilly a problem. If people don't want to be forced into guilds and scheduled raids and would rather PuG them (with the consequences that come from that) I don't see why it needs to be "fixed". This just indicates that previously people who disliked having to schedule their raid times were forced to due to no other option.

I don't know about this and how it relates to anything other than current raid difficulty and a bigger pool of raiders. Assuming people didn't suddenly get worse at the game, there's likely still a similar % of "good" players. Its just that the ratio between "good" players and the number of people raiding has changed. Fights like Sarth are fine for weeding out recruits who are bad. Even Naxx fights let you get the really bad people out and performance indicators (WWS etc) can be used to help as well. Its just there's a much bigger pool to wade through now so its not suprising you'll SEE more bad people because before these bads just didn't raid. I don't really see how you can say players are being "encouraged" to play poorly, though.

 

Lodekim

I've actually got a lot on my mind about this too.

I think the issue becomes can achievements and hard mode stuff ever be the kind of progression that high end raiding guilds want. I agree fully that the feeling of dropping a new boss was pretty awesome, but that said, 3 drake sarth was about even (given how easy it really was)

I have found however that without appropriate increases in rewards and without real difficulty in the actual encounter my guild isn't really caring about the content. I've personally gone from someone who would be the guy telling people to stop fucking around and pay attention when we wipe on ROS, but now we have people who just don't care not paying attention, we don't have Shocking or The Immortal because no one cares about those.

I don't believe that things that are essentially the same fight will ever have the same sense of achievement and accomplishment as really killing something no one has before. I've got no interest personally in trying to do any of the achievements (other than 3 drake which we did) because it's not really anything different, it's just being weird or being flawless at a fight we've already done. And it has a lot of influences on our guild dynamics. I don't really see the same sense of camaraderie that I'm used to, and pvp being all about your team removes what there could have been. I don't have any interest in playing outside of raids, because I don't have anything I consider something to work towards as a goal. I still see people applying, and I don't think it will make it impossible to recruit for progression or anything though.

My opinion on the way to adjust is something along the lines of acknowledging that hardcore raiders probably don't care what everyone else does as long as there is something for us to work towards that not everyone can do because it challenges us. The players not capable of that want to see the important stuff. I actually think the idea of hard mode encounters is a phenomenal way to do it, I just think that it could be improved through the use of optional bosses that could be the most difficult encounters and hard mode encounters that are actually different (like 3 drake but more so) with meaningful loot progression. I think that something like that might allow the dynamic to continue where everyone can raid, casuals can see Arthas die, and someone who really wants to be challenged can have that one/two fights per dungeon that are really hard and are optional, or are like completely different fights that don't prevent anyone else from seeing content, just let us know that we've beaten a real challenge.

 

◊ Hanos

I will not dispute that the current content is easy. It was mildly challenging the week or release in level 70 gear, but since then it has basically been a walk in the park.

That being said, saying that none of the content is challenging when you haven't done it all is no different then saying M'uru looks easy based on watching a video. You don't have even a two drake kill on 10 (you have 2 but not 3 on 25 man), you don't have any 6 min (or 5 min Malygos kills), you don't even have 3 minute Patchwerk, Safety Dance or Shocking. You want to know if your raiders are good, start working on those. You can say all you want that it isn't the same, but will it make a difference when the boss drops better loot for Hard Mode, like the Bug Trio and Sarth? The reason you are seeing what you are seeing is most PuGs can actually clear the content as well or better then your guild, if you play at a PuG level you have to deal with a PuG mentality.

Start differentiating yourself and you will see things change, top guilds aren't having recruiting issues that I know of. People in top guilds know the difference first hand, I show up for guild raids because I know we will clear everything in 3 hours, if I join a PuG I will spend 4+ clearing half of it. Also, how is a title or a drake any different then a piece of loot in the long run. Two years from now I will still have Obsidian Slayer, Magic Seeker, etc., long after any loot has been sharded and replaced a dozen times, and I will still have my Proto-Drakes, Black Drake and Twilight Drake.

Until you do the content don't say there isn't any differentiation, 3 Drake Sarth is a different fight, 10 man even more so, one you can face roll with 9/24 idiots while watching TV, the other is not. Doing an Immortal run is completely different then a non-Immortal run, having those titles means something. Plan on content being easy at the basic level for the next tier or two, but for the best loot, the titles and everything else that matters you will have to perform at a higher level... I think most of the people at the high end are fine with that, the only people complaining are the people who can't fill a guild run because they aren't any better then the PuGs on their server.

PvP = The Reason We Can't Have Nice Things

 

Corronach

Hanos, the initial post already addressed your statement.

Sarth 3 is undeniably content, but 6 minute Malygos, 3 minute Patchwerk, Safety Dance, or Shocking are clearly up for debate. It's a very superficial argument though based on opinion, so I won't harp on it.

With that in mind you can discuss the impact debatable content is having, as evidenced by the poster before you, the original poster, or my own experiences. I don't have a doubt that the current state of raiding is causing people to be far more casual about their attitude towards raiding. Whether it's having 1 or 2 gathering professions, pvp glyphs, the same people who you could reliably count on to always have all the consumables they need, every possible preparation imaginable just don't care because "it doesn't matter." But what percentage of the players who will "turn it on" for Ulduar, actually will?

This might still apply to guilds such as yours, but it applies higher than you think. I'm the recruiter for Afterlife, we've been the best on the server for almost the entire duration of WoW, we have an established history of high end raiding and long term stability. We've also been looking for a resto shaman since the start of WoTLK, and we've received 0 applicants. Not 0 qualified applicants, 0 total. There are two problems we're facing, raids are so easy that people are content with their current guilds. The second problem is that when I use tools like wowprogess and the armory, I have no way to judge if a player is good. Gear can no longer be considered an indicator.

 

GSH

Shouldn't this be the way things should be? Why should someone have to leave a group of friends that they enjoy playing with in order to see new content or improve their character?

I mean, your guild not having new applications hurts, but the flip side of that is that previously a lot of guilds would lose their best players to you. That does far more damage to that guild than you not getting a trial resto shaman.

 

• Juice

I have a great idea for a new thread: A debate of casual versus hardcore. That's never been done before.