I doubt anyone will speak against speedruns, they are really great. Especially when they are constrained to a certain gearlevel. I mean Arachnophobia is hardly going to be even worth considering in T9, likely it will just happen as part of any Naxx clear then.
Speedruns are one of the most gear dependent types of achievements. As your gear increases you get a lot more out of your DPS while being able to knock out healers increases your speed even more. Knocking out healers can be pretty annoying for them as is already the case for Malygos-6 minutes etc (unless you've got superb dps or good enough gear to power it with an extra healer/tank).
Speed runs can be fun but they can't be too long without people starting to need bathroom breaks (and it's just not healthy to sit in front of computer for even 45 minutes without getting up for a minute or two to stretch).
Speed runs are cool by me as long as they don't take too long and aren't too abundant. Besides, speed running is one of those aspects where you can compete even without the achievement system, all you need is fraps (or just a stopwatch).
Speed runs can be fun but they can't be too long without people starting to need bathroom breaks (and it's just not healthy to sit in front of computer for even 45 minutes without getting up for a minute or two to stretch).
That's where the balancing becomes a bit tricky. ZA bear, Strath dead, Oculus, and Bronze drake runs are great because they fit nicely in at 45 minutes or less, which as you say, isn't difficult to expect people to sit down and not move for. Any full-instance timed run (like 1:45 Naxx as someone mentioned previously, for example) should be tuned so that at the desired gear level (say, in ~90% gear from that tier), a given skilled, focused group can expect to meet that while allowing 1-3 people at a time to AFK during trash for bio/drinks/sanity.
The Ulduar achievements really make me curious, though. ZA bear runs were very well tuned when they first came out, with good guilds finishing with a few minutes to spare at first, and by the time the last 2.x patch was drawing to a close, it wasn't uncommon for groups in all BT+ gear to have 10-15 minutes or in some cases a lot more left. That makes it sound to me like the tuning was spot on for the gear available at release. Similarly, Make It Count is very well tuned, as is Arachnophobia--both require the raid to be there and attentive and not totally screw up, but they allow a little room for error. (Okay, Arachnophobia allows a lot of room for error. Still, you get the point.) Yet, they don't seem to have a good idea of how long it should take a well-geared, coordinated group to complete a single boss encounter? Seems inconsistent, especially considering how long Ulduar has supposedly been in development.
In a winged instance, they could theoretically break up the wings and still have a good timed run achievement. For instance if the criteria for the achievement for Naxx were;
In a single reset:
- Kill Maexna within 20 minutes of engaging Anub'Rekhan
- Kill Thaddius within 30 minutes of engaging Patchwerk
- Kill Loatheb within 30 minutes of engaging Noth the Plaguebringer
- Kill The Four Horsement within 30 minutes of engaging Instructor Raszuvious
- Kill Kel'Thuzzad within 15 minutes of engaging Sapphiron
You'd impose an effective 2:05 hour timer to beat, while still allowing people to take regular breaks and not burn out - it also lets you tune particular bits individually, since the spider wing part would be easy and the Frostwyrm's Lair part would be hard. Failing any of the criteria loses you the achievement for the week, but you can check your progress at every wing, and even split the attempt over several nights (so long as they fall within the same reset, a la Immortal).
edit: alternatively, they could just make only part of the clear timed. Our bear runs used to be beautiful right up to killing Halazi - after which with the pressure off, we'd become the biggest bunch of failures to ever clear the instance, and have something like 8 deaths over the two remaining bosses some nights.
In a winged instance, they could theoretically break up the wings and still have a good timed run achievement. For instance if the criteria for the achievement for Naxx were;
You'd impose an effective 2:05 hour timer to beat, while still allowing people to take regular breaks and not burn out - it also lets you tune particular bits individually, since the spider wing part would be easy and the Frostwyrm's Lair part would be hard. Failing any of the criteria loses you the achievement for the week, but you can check your progress at every wing, and even split the attempt over several nights (so long as they fall within the same reset, a la Immortal).
edit: alternatively, they could just make only part of the clear timed. Our bear runs used to be beautiful right up to killing Halazi - after which with the pressure off, we'd become the biggest bunch of failures to ever clear the instance, and have something like 8 deaths over the two remaining bosses some nights.
That's an awesome idea, speedrun meta so to speak.
But again, my primary interest would be in stuff that had little or not impact from gear. Just pure old skill.
Something as simple as "Kill Patcherwerk on the far side of the ooze minefield having only one character pull aggro." This is already an 'old' joke and fun achievement. And there is no doubt that gear will never have an impact on it. Easy to some I'm sure, perhaps too easy, but that isn't the point. It remains equally hard every time. I'm sure others can find suitably fulfilling things to do.
While Twilight Vanquisher is pretty easy, Of the Nightfall isn't. I really like 10man 3 Drakes. It's really well designed and tuned. A series of easy tasks combined that make one hard task.
I won't say nightfall is entirely hard. It boils down to raid stacking on how you stack the raid whether you favor caster or physical and what healer you use either 2 healer or 3 healers.
if you do with the proper composition, it wouldn't be very hard if you know the drills and the mechanics of the fight.
The problem with of the Nightfall is that's it fairly trivial to do with a melee stacked raid and insanely hard with a caster one.
In my guild, a melee group did it a fair few times and they generally zerg doen Shadron before Vesperon even lands, making the fight as easy as they 25-men one where you can basically do the same given current gear levels.
Meanwhile, our caster group has struggled tremendously for various reasons. The two major ones being a lot of lost DPS time due to have to move a lot (something melee doesn't suffer from) and no way to tank the portal adds before all the drakes are dead. Effectively this means that not only you have to deal longer with Vesperon + Shadron, but also that the best way to handle that situation, killing Vesperon's add, is not an option, because you have no way to tank said add.
Don't get me wrong. Sarth +3 on normal mode is an excellent challenge and arguably the only challenge in WotLK, but I don't think it's designed very well because it's so extremely susceptible to raid setup. I don't mind a bit of stacking-light to make the job easier, but I believe S+3 10-men is pushing it.
I'm not such a fan of these "fun" achievements. Who cares if you kill a boss wearing a dwarf costume? Timed achievements are a good idea actually (and I think the general raiding community has agreed with that since ZA). A staged timing achievement would be even better.
For example, when you Thaddius within 40 minutes of engaging Patchwerk, you get 1 extra piece of loot. If you do it within 30 minutes, you get 2 extra drops, one of which is a higher ilvl and if you manage to do it within 20 minutes, you can the two extra pieces of loot AND an extra shard of Atiesh. Splitting it up in several tiers of timed runs would alleviate the "outgearing" problem a bit (or at least delay it for a tier) and would allow guilds to work towards a timed run that's in range of their gear/skill/ambition.
I won't say nightfall is entirely hard. It boils down to raid stacking on how you stack the raid whether you favor caster or physical and what healer you use either 2 healer or 3 healers.
if you do with the proper composition, it wouldn't be very hard if you know the drills and the mechanics of the fight.
Nightfall is very hard done in 10 man gear only. Although it's arguable whether it was designed for that I suppose.
The problem with of the Nightfall is that's it fairly trivial to do with a melee stacked raid and insanely hard with a caster one.
In my guild, a melee group did it a fair few times and they generally zerg doen Shadron before Vesperon even lands, making the fight as easy as they 25-men one where you can basically do the same given current gear levels.
Meanwhile, our caster group has struggled tremendously for various reasons. The two major ones being a lot of lost DPS time due to have to move a lot (something melee doesn't suffer from) and no way to tank the portal adds before all the drakes are dead. Effectively this means that not only you have to deal longer with Vesperon + Shadron, but also that the best way to handle that situation, killing Vesperon's add, is not an option, because you have no way to tank said add.
Don't get me wrong. Sarth +3 on normal mode is an excellent challenge and arguably the only challenge in WotLK, but I don't think it's designed very well because it's so extremely susceptible to raid setup. I don't mind a bit of stacking-light to make the job easier, but I believe S+3 10-men is pushing it.
Your sart example may very well be guild specific though. In my guild, casters in general are much better players than our melee and this also shows on our sart 3D 10m. Caster kill is usually controlled and clean, melee is horrible.
Your sart example may very well be guild specific though. In my guild, casters in general are much better players than our melee and this also shows on our sart 3D 10m. Caster kill is usually controlled and clean, melee is horrible.
I was typing out a response that said much the same thing. I've talked to other guilds on my server that have done melee kills with absolutely no issues and my guild is hard pressed to even put a melee run together much less a successful one. I think it's simply a matter of what roles your best dps fulfill. For my guild, that's almost invariably casters and when we did Nightfall, we had no deaths and it was an extremely clean kill.
If anything, I would think melee would probably make it slightly more difficult simple because all of the dps would be stacked in a confined area making susceptibility to void zones much more likely. Obviously if you're successfully doing the achievement, people know to watch their feet and move out of them, but with everyone in close proximity, the likelihood of having them spawn under multiple people increases quite a bit. Casters and ranged can spread out a bit to avoid having multiple people move out of void zones and sacrifice dps.
If anything, I would think melee would probably make it slightly more difficult simple because all of the dps would be stacked in a confined area making susceptibility to void zones much more likely. Obviously if you're successfully doing the achievement, people know to watch their feet and move out of them, but with everyone in close proximity, the likelihood of having them spawn under multiple people increases quite a bit. Casters and ranged can spread out a bit to avoid having multiple people move out of void zones and sacrifice dps.
This probably belongs in the Sarth thread, but you get around this by having all melee tightly bunch. All move when a void zone spawns and all keep attacking the entire time.
I think the Immortal/Undying achievements were necessary for Naxx since the instance itself is not difficult, and doing those achievements doesn't bar any gear. There are ways to deal with disconnects (which are spelled out in other threads). Getting Undying was a great feeling and it did intensify the instance (which was never difficult on 10-man). I personally like the intensity and the challenge, and since I play a healer most of the challenge is on us for that achievement. It should not be an easy thing for people to get the 310% mount.
Having that a part of the meta also balances the relative difficulty of achieving the 10 and 25 meta. It is easier to do 3D and 6-min on 25 man than on 10-man, and it is easier to do undying than immortal, thus it balances the relative difficulty of achieving the 10 and 25 man versions (which essentially give the same reward). Without Immortal/Undying there would be more mounts out there and it would be less of a reward.
For Ulduar I don't think there is any problem with an immortal achievement if it is off the meta. I am glad that they don't have any undermanning achievements, although I wouldn't mind them having it if it is off the meta, gives something else to do, adds difficulty, especially since Ulduar is harder. There will be more bars to the meta through hard modes and other achievements to make the mount sufficiently difficult to achieve.
The problem with of the Nightfall is that's it fairly trivial to do with a melee stacked raid and insanely hard with a caster one.
In my guild, a melee group did it a fair few times and they generally zerg doen Shadron before Vesperon even lands, making the fight as easy as they 25-men one where you can basically do the same given current gear levels.
Meanwhile, our caster group has struggled tremendously for various reasons. The two major ones being a lot of lost DPS time due to have to move a lot (something melee doesn't suffer from) and no way to tank the portal adds before all the drakes are dead. Effectively this means that not only you have to deal longer with Vesperon + Shadron, but also that the best way to handle that situation, killing Vesperon's add, is not an option, because you have no way to tank said add.
I disagree with caster is slightly on a disadvantage side rather then a melee.
I've personally played both caster dps (shadow priest) and melee dps (rogue) and both of my characters have nightfall. I personally find stacking caster has a much more cleaner kill compare to a melee stack group.
The only difference i could see between caster and melee is that it eliminates the part on melee learning not to get breath by drakes and whelps aren't dead fast enough.
i personally think that playing a melee requires more higher concentration then playing a caster on a 3 drakes for 10 man normal.
* Orbit-uary (Flame Leviathan hard mode)
* A Quick Shave (Timer on Razorscale?)
* Stokin' the Furnace (Timer of Ignis)
* Heartbreaker (XT-002 hard mode)
* I Choose You, Steelbreaker (Iron Council hardest mode)
* With Open Arms (Kologarn without killing his arms)
* Getting Cold in Here (Hodir NOT hard mode -- no more than 2 stacks of Biting Cold)
* Siffed (Thorim hard mode)
* Getting Back to Nature (Freya NOT hard mode -- Defeat her while she is affected by Attuned to nature)
* I Love the Smell of Saronite in the Morning (General Vezax hard mode)
* Crazy Cat Lady (Auriaya without killing her Sanctum Sentries)
* Two Lights in the Darkness (Yogg-Saron in MEDIUM mode -- there's harder versions)
* The Undying, PartTwo (WTF???)
It looks like there still aren't any achievements for Freya or Hodir hard mode.
Undying/Immortal changed though.
You no longer need to kill all of them with no deaths in 1 week. Though it probably still requires 1shots on the bosses.
If you have to control a robot dinosaur that fires lazers and there's a time when you shouldn't be shooting those lazers then the encounter is clearly flawed beyond hope of fixing.
Yeah, but it and the other 2 achievements for Algalon are not part of the Uldaur meta.
That surprises me as well. It would be an extremely easy way to make the 310% mounts more exclusive. If Algalon is indeed the hard mode's hard mode, it makes sense it would be included in the meta for the instance. There's still plenty of patching to be done I suppose so we'll see.
Also, making the Immortal into a "one shot the bosses at some point" is going to completely and utterly trivialize that title.
Wow, that's kind of lame. On the one hand if Immortal is part of the meta again, I love the change. On the other hand, if it isn't part of the meta and that's an error, then that title is going to be a complete joke. Time will tell, I guess.
Wow, that's kind of lame. On the one hand if Immortal is part of the meta again, I love the change. On the other hand, if it isn't part of the meta and that's an error, then that title is going to be a complete joke. Time will tell, I guess.
It would make a lot more sense if it had to be a hard mode kill. Still not as exclusive as the current one, but a lot better than this version.
It definitely makes the titles (assuming they do stay the same) much less prestigious. I do personally like the new kind better since being stressed out for an entire 25 man run is not really my idea of fun personally. I would like it if they actually made these give NEW titles so at least those who actually got the original immortal/undying have some way to distinguish themselves.
If the Ulduar Immortal achievment stays as it is, it will be a very trivial title and nothing like the original one. I agree it's one of the possible achievements, but I don't agree that you should get the same title. At least call it "The Immortal Part 2".
On the other hand, I think it would be a great idea to have an Immortal like achievement, that requires you to kill every boss on hard mode without deaths, although not limited to the same reset. That way it's not as restrcitive as the Naxx version, yet not as easy as the current Ulduar one.
If the Ulduar Immortal achievment stays as it is, it will be a very trivial title and nothing like the original one. I agree it's one of the possible achievements, but I don't agree that you should get the same title. At least call it "The Immortal Part 2".
On the other hand, I think it would be a great idea to have an Immortal like achievement, that requires you to kill every boss on hard mode without deaths, although not limited to the same reset. That way it's not as restrcitive as the Naxx version, yet not as easy as the current Ulduar one.
I really hope this is the direction they take. Killing Sartharion without deaths while not hard is not trivial either we normally have one or two die even though we typically get Shadron down before Vesperon even lands and this is after farming it for an awfully long time. I really hope that they distance themselves from acheivements that require you to repeatedly change the atmosphere of your raids. Doing say a run with 20 people once is fine, a run once with no consumables is fine or a run once while standing on your head and one eye shut is fine as long as its one run. I have a real problem with these achievements that require you to change the way you raid until you get them though especially when theres such a large chance that you never get them at all i.e. The Immortal.
If the Ulduar Immortal achievment stays as it is, it will be a very trivial title and nothing like the original one. I agree it's one of the possible achievements, but I don't agree that you should get the same title. At least call it "The Immortal Part 2".
On the other hand, I think it would be a great idea to have an Immortal like achievement, that requires you to kill every boss on hard mode without deaths, although not limited to the same reset. That way it's not as restrcitive as the Naxx version, yet not as easy as the current Ulduar one.
I believe 3.1 only remove the drake from the current t7 achievements. Getting Naxx Immortal or Nightfall will be fairly trivial by the time we are decked out in t8 (or t9) anyway. I doubt anyone actually dies in kara by the end of TBC. In other words, the title Immortal, even if Ulduar gives a new and different one, will decrease in value over time.
As for having one-lock-in immortal in ulduar. If that means ulduar has to be tuned to as much a bore fest as naxx, tyvm.
Also, making the Immortal into a "one shot the bosses at some point" is going to completely and utterly trivialize that title.
Looking at the description, it reads as though it would be possible to wipe on encounters then keep trying until it's completed without any deaths, without the need for a one-shot. Thus making it even less luck-stricken and even more trivial.
03/16/09, 3:08 PM
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