But that's the whole point of raid achievements. Most achievements aren't "Here, you beat this instance, now have some more rewards for doing the same thing you do every week." Achievements are meant to be a choice to work on something new-ish, so you're not just doing the same clears every week.
The only two Achievements that prevent people from getting loot are intentionally getting "Gotta Go When the Volcano Blows" and "Zombiefest". A few achievements could lock out other achievements - undermanning might prevent the timered achievements and intentionally wiping to get Spore Loser/Shocking etc. would stop Undying/Immortal.
What do I tell the people that want Ulduar Immortal vs the people that wants their best-in-slot item from a hard-mode boss? I understand that raid achievements are supposed to seperate out guilds and players, but it's poor design to have an achievement that conflicts with loot.
What do I tell the people that want Ulduar Immortal vs the people that wants their best-in-slot item from a hard-mode boss? I understand that raid achievements are supposed to seperate out guilds and players, but it's poor design to have an achievement that conflicts with loot.
Maybe Uldar Immortal will require the hard-mode chain. Have to admit that would be pretty hardcore, every single fight on hard-mode + Alganon the Raid Destroyer without dying.
This is quite incorrect. Once your gear has been upgraded you can drop people easily.
That's his point: The design of the encounters is not interesting because the finesse of the encounter can be powered through by bigger numbers, and this is not good design. If the only thing that makes the encounter hard is the numbers, it's not well-designed. Egregious example: C'Thun's arcing eye-beam cannot be healed through, even four yeras later, you need to dance around it. Granted, that's something where undermanning actually helps rather than hurts, but the point is that gearing up does not have to make the encounter easier, depending on the encounter design. Every instance wants a patchwerk, but every it would also be nice to have encounters tightly tuned around individual duties rather than numbers.
That's his point: The design of the encounters is not interesting because the finesse of the encounter can be powered through by bigger numbers, and this is not good design. If the only thing that makes the encounter hard is the numbers, it's not well-designed. Egregious example: C'Thun's arcing eye-beam cannot be healed through, even four yeras later, you need to dance around it. Granted, that's something where undermanning actually helps rather than hurts, but the point is that gearing up does not have to make the encounter easier, depending on the encounter design. Every instance wants a patchwerk, but every it would also be nice to have encounters tightly tuned around individual duties rather than numbers.
The guilds with 25 people who are always on 100% focus are very rare. My guild is currently 50ish rated in the EU or so and I can easily call out 2-4 people each raid who weren't fully focussed and had 0 impact in our succes, even from the first naxx clear we ever did in WoTLK.
Perfect execution defenitly gives room for 5 less people, even on fights where the Enrage timer actually matters.
It's not like Ulduar is going to be as closely tuned as Sunwell was.
The main problem with 6-minute Maly is that the margin of error requires either going for a 5:30 kill OR risking a 6:01 kill.
We've had wipes called with less than 5% remaining and a lot of stacks and still succeeding. The only thing they should do to clean this up is make you die instantly once you dismount and you could call a wipe and despawn the boss in <2 seconds.
I'm pretty sure multiple guilds had less than 30 seconds left on their first kill actually, it's not because you have a 1 vortex p1 that nothing can go wrong in p2 or 3.
Originally Posted by Bornakk
Remove "Gonna Go When the Volcano" from meta
No plans to remove this achievement. If you want to get it you can not do 3drake Sartharion for a week and get it for a bunch of people. If you feel the loot is more important, focus on that instead. Prioritize.
I really, really hope they don't have anything like this in Ulduar. I think "Gotta go..." is the only part of the Glory meta achievement that actually encourages dying on the encounter, and is basically impossible for most of the raid otherwise, especially with drakes up. The most baffling part is that Blizzard doesn't say, "Ok, you should be able to do this without dying," but they acknowledge that the easiest way to get it is to have most of your raid die and 10 man Sarth with 0 drakes. Good design? Oh well, it's what we have.
Hopefully every achievement in Ulduar requires using a full raid every time. It just seems silly otherwise.
Gonna Go could have been a less degenerate achievement if the landing spots of Lava Strikes were clearly visible, like the void zones, so that people can easily see they're being targetted and conscientiously avoid them. Unfortunately, the implementation of the ability limits the acheivement to members of the raid who have less chance of getting hit (Sarth Tank/Healer standing by themselves for most of the fight) or if you just suicide mode.
Gonna Go could have been a less degenerate achievement if the landing spots of Lava Strikes were clearly visible, like the void zones, so that people can easily see they're being targetted and conscientiously avoid them. Unfortunately, the implementation of the ability limits the acheivement to members of the raid who have less chance of getting hit (Sarth Tank/Healer standing by themselves for most of the fight) or if you just suicide mode.
I cheated and just healed while swimming in the lava to get it on my shaman, ranged dps could possibly do something similar depending on positioning. But yes, its a silly achievement.
I got Gonna Go while tanking with 3 drakes up. I will not disagree it's a stupid achievement, however.
People complaining about Immortal being down to RNG and luck are just not approaching it correctly. It is YOUR job to anticipate what can go wrong and have backup plans. It also wildly depends on your raidleader's willingness to go in overdrive for the duration of the run and just go through every doom scenario in his head before they happen. That's how I've successfully raidlead two Immortal's now anyway. You are there to hold people's hands and make sure everything happens safe. Again, Stratfu has an entire page on Immortal which has some amazingly handy tips for "what can go wrong".
You might call it stupid design, but as long as there's nothing that will absolutely just fail your run without you being able to do about it, it's a good achievement.
I can think of one scenario where this applies and it's on Kel'Thuzad (by far the most trickiest boss to successfully do without deaths - there are a LOT of random factors on Kel'Thuzad. This week's alt run for example had a whole whopping two Frost Blasts and ONE mind control... at 2%); Having a MC'd person wander around in a CC, to stop being mind controlled above a void zone just as it's about to go off. It's very unlikely that this would happen, but it is possible. That's the only one I can come up with.
Gotta Go was a silly mechanic, because the entire lava burst mechanic is silly.
It doesn't hit for enough to make dodging it a priority, or even particularly important, and the large number and quick nature just makes dodging every one more trouble than its worth.
The damn shit should have done 3x as much damage, happened 1/3rd as often, and moved at 2/3rds the speed with a large clearly defined graphic.
Then it would be a good mechanic that forced more situational awareness and dodging without necessarily causing a wipe as punishment for your bad play.
As for heroic DC immortals screwing you - Heigan, Thaddius, Grobbulus, 4 HM (back section, with voids), Sapphiron (hi ice bomb) and KT all have points where a random DC ends the immortal run.
Sarth+3D (10-man) is simply not realistically doable in 10-man gear. It doesn't make sense to me to have achievements that can only be completed once you outgear the zone, especially if the rewards are going to be removed before the intended audience (10-man guilds) will have access to a zone where they can even obtain gear to make it possible.
Why not? This isn't a new model, it is an achievement for people who outgear the zone and still get a challenge from it. Same happened in ZA, ZA was put in for casuals/ mid tier raiding guilds but a hard mode was added to give challenge and interest to people who significantly outgeared the place. Maybe you could argue the case that it shouldn't be on the meta achievement but that is a bit different. There's nothing wrong in my opinion with adding hard modes for people who outgear the place to give them more incentive.
@Underman achievements: I don't think anyone is saying they are too hard, just they are pointless and sure you have to leave people out every week, why add another 5 to that. Also it prevents hard mode achievements and thus loot which isn't fun (in the case of Sarth). In my eyes it just shows a lack of imagination and a "Well let's just throw a few more in" mentality to the design of the achievements. People like playing with their raid and don't like sitting out, whilst some is necessary for a proper rotation this is just needless aggro on top. For the record we already do two runs a week, getting this isn't/wasn't a problem, it is just as I said not fun or challenging.
@Immortal: It is doable but requires good concentration for the whole run. The only sticky situations, DC's apart, are really some funny MC combos that can arise on KT and need everyone to be on their toes and be burning abilitys they don't want to be used if they get MC'd (Hand of Sacrifice, AoE fears, etc...) just like any other MC boss since the history of them. That said again I'm not really convinced on the fun aspect. It works in Naxxramas because there are no optional loot encounters. If it is added in Ulduar where it is claimed nearly every boss has multiple modes, it doesn't fit well together. It requires you to forego every extra loot encounter hard mode to ensure that everyone survives, and if at some point during the run something bad happens then you've lost all that potential loot for nothing. Separated into wings might be an easier solution, it would certainly result in less lost loot, but it still isn't ideal.
To be honest I actually wonder if they will even bother with the "silly" achievements this time round. If you assume 12 hard modes (and at least two have medium modes) then thats 14+ skill based achievements right there. Not sure theres any need to go adding "Kill Hodir with no raid member wearing pants" type achievements.
Originally Posted by Shadowed
The best part is, not only were you late in linking it, that's an April fools topic from 6 months ago.
Regarding Underman achievements I think they are a decent way to introduce difficulty and challenge even with the "leave people out issue".
A good solution would be to rework those achievements in something like :
[I'd rather be watching]
Defeat the bosses of Ulduar on Normal Difficulty with less than 9 people involved in the boss encounters.
I would just check damage/healing done or threat during boss fights. Which mean that even if the difficulty remain the same (perhaps slightly easier due to buffs from the 2 last peoples) 10 peoples would get the achievement.
It's all well and good that there are workarounds for disconnects and lag problems when trying for Immortal. The point is that when the only thing that's hard about it is not disconnecting, or hoping the person who does disconnect is able to be saved by the holy priest with Guardian Spirit, then that's not fun or challenging, just stupid.
For example, about a month ago we had an undying run going until Kel'Thuzad. At about 15%, our main tank's power went out. We didn't realize it had happened until about 5% when he finally went offline and the Guardians and KT ran over and one shot the healers. We executed the fight properly, and due to things that we couldn't prevent, lost the achievement for the week. Is this supposed to determine who the 'elite' are?
Did you not see him leave vent? DC from game message?
I'll assume this is completely true and theres nothing you can have done. What happened in the last 3 weeks?
My hope for the Ulduar achievements I think is that they simply don't make the easy and/or silly ones part of the "Glory" title/drake. Sarth+3D, Maly-6 minutes, and Immortal are the only really hard ones in the current tier - if you can do those three, there's no real doubt that you can do all of the rest. They could thus have just based the title on those three (which also neatly encapsulate all the current raid content) and left "Gonna Go," "Dedicated Few," "Denyin' the Scion," and so on to the achievement hounds out there.
Immortal just shouldn't be included in the meta. It has a title of its own. Now it makes the clock really ticking. Everything else can be brute-forced, you can do it over and over again, until you have it. But Immortal is one try per week, now with a limited (yet unknown) amount of tries.
Regarding Underman achievements I think they are a decent way to introduce difficulty and challenge even with the "leave people out issue".
A good solution would be to rework those achievements in something like :
[I'd rather be watching]
Defeat the bosses of Ulduar on Normal Difficulty with less than 9 people involved in the boss encounters.
I would just check damage/healing done or threat during boss fights. Which mean that even if the difficulty remain the same (perhaps slightly easier due to buffs from the 2 last peoples) 10 peoples would get the achievement.
While I agree your version of the achievement is better than Blizzard's, it is still something that's stupidly designed and should not be there at all. It seems to be a really lazy way out to create challenges effectively by saying: hey, we want you to defeat this encounter as if you have 5 retard guildmates that just died off the bat. Hopefully they completely remove such achievements in future instance because it serves no point. It's as dumb as (defeating said encounters with no talent points spent, or defeating said encounter in all blues), does it make the fight harder/more challenging? definitely, does it serve a purpose? not really.
As for immortal, it is reasonable to a certain extent. Losing immortals to random disconnects is very dumb, but that's really it, as even the worst of cases, such as your KT offtank getting frost blasted while having 4 adds on him (i doubt any guild will put an offtank on all 4 with immortal on the line, with that said) can be offset through cooldowns from other players and healing. But I don't really have a solution for disconnects. I guess it's just the same as losing a Hardcore character in Diablo 2 due to disconnects, just suck it up.
As for heroic DC immortals screwing you - Heigan, Thaddius, Grobbulus, 4 HM (back section, with voids), Sapphiron (hi ice bomb) and KT all have points where a random DC ends the immortal run.
But here's the thing. They don't. Heigan is EASILY healable, Thaddius just requires you to move the boss. Grobbulus is EASILY healable, 4HM can be nasty - but if your people are logging back in after disconnecting, rather than timing out then you're doing it wrong. Sapphiron can be solved with a Guardian Spirit. Kel'Thuzad has only one scenario I'd say. But I've said that before.
But here's the thing. They don't. Heigan is EASILY healable, Thaddius just requires you to move the boss. Grobbulus is EASILY healable, 4HM can be nasty - but if your people are logging back in after disconnecting, rather than timing out then you're doing it wrong. Sapphiron can be solved with a Guardian Spirit. Kel'Thuzad has only one scenario I'd say. But I've said that before.
Just a side note to that: 4H is not even part of immortal. It's an event rather than a boss.An alliance guild on my server obtained Immortal while having two people die on 4H. This is probably why it's not on the undermanning achievement either.
It's called Bloodlust, not Heroism. What kind of pansy name is Heroism, anyway?
<Bad> Dragonmaw US www.damnwesuck.com
12/13 [25] Heroic - Recruiting exceptional players.
But here's the thing. They don't. Heigan is EASILY healable, Thaddius just requires you to move the boss. Grobbulus is EASILY healable, 4HM can be nasty - but if your people are logging back in after disconnecting, rather than timing out then you're doing it wrong. Sapphiron can be solved with a Guardian Spirit. Kel'Thuzad has only one scenario I'd say. But I've said that before.
Certainly on some Thaddius disconnects you can move the boss, but if someone disconnects just as their polarity is swapping, you're pretty much boned.
While I agree your version of the achievement is better than Blizzard's, it is still something that's stupidly designed and should not be there at all. It seems to be a really lazy way out to create challenges effectively by saying: hey, we want you to defeat this encounter as if you have 5 retard guildmates that just died off the bat. Hopefully they completely remove such achievements in future instance because it serves no point. It's as dumb as (defeating said encounters with no talent points spent, or defeating said encounter in all blues), does it make the fight harder/more challenging? definitely, does it serve a purpose? not really.
I wouldn't go that far. I think undermanning achievements are fine and fun to do. But not necessarily in a tier/phase limited meta achievement. I think most people's problem is that they aren't done actually running Naxx for loot and being told that they might need to figure out a way to do undermanned raids before they are past the content is a little annoying. I think Blizzard is pushing it a little by essentially cutting off the Tier 7 meta achievement as soon as Tier 8 is released. It's doable but I think it's a little out of character for a game that otherwise tends to try to let people play at their own speed and not overly reward players just for being done before everyone else. We have dates on when we have earned our rewards so people will know who the really elite players/groups are anyway.
That being said had they been upfront and said what their time frame was for individual achievements this might not be as big of an issue. Personally I doubt they had even fully decided it ahead of time. I hope they learn from the current fuss and try to be a little clearer about time limits on achievements in the future. I believe we will go into Ulduar with a slightly different viewpoint on finishing the achievements than we have had in Naxx (we for example haven't even really worked at The Immortal viewing it as something we would get eventually but not really worth the extra pressure).
Certainly on some Thaddius disconnects you can move the boss, but if someone disconnects just as their polarity is swapping, you're pretty much boned.
Sure, that's why we agreed on rotating our raid 45° clockwise (just like the old four camp strategy) when we notice a disconnect. If the RNG really really hates you then your disconnect will happen right after a switch, but yeah what are the odds of that?
Just a side note to that: 4H is not even part of immortal. It's an event rather than a boss.An alliance guild on my server obtained Immortal while having two people die on 4H. This is probably why it's not on the undermanning achievement either.
I find that quite disturbing. We have ruined an Immortal run on 4H since someone died during that encounter. After that we swapped in trials and such and I guess some more people died on Sapph/KT since not everyone was focused anymore, so we lost it. I think Blizzard could be a bit more clear in their wording. It even says "without allowing any raid member to die during any of the boss encounters". It's very easy to assume that 4H is part of the achievement as well.
Just a side note to that: 4H is not even part of immortal. It's an event rather than a boss.An alliance guild on my server obtained Immortal while having two people die on 4H. This is probably why it's not on the undermanning achievement either.
I've read that Rivendare is the 'boss', while the other 3 are 'trash'. Of course, its essentially impossible to die to Rivendare.
I find that quite disturbing. We have ruined an Immortal run on 4H since someone died during that encounter. After that we swapped in trials and such and I guess some more people died on Sapph/KT since not everyone was focused anymore, so we lost it. I think Blizzard could be a bit more clear in their wording. It even says "without allowing any raid member to die during any of the boss encounters". It's very easy to assume that 4H is part of the achievement as well.
Originally Posted by Krazen
I've read that Rivendare is the 'boss', while the other 3 are 'trash'. Of course, its essentially impossible to die to Rivendare.
I can't say that 4H not being part of the Immortal achievement is intended, however the possibility that only deaths on Rivendare count seems plausible. He's generally the first (or second) of the four to die, and the guild I spoke to (about getting the achievement despite losing people) had people die to Zeliek near the end of the encounter.
It's called Bloodlust, not Heroism. What kind of pansy name is Heroism, anyway?
<Bad> Dragonmaw US www.damnwesuck.com
12/13 [25] Heroic - Recruiting exceptional players.
Did you not see him leave vent? DC from game message?
I'll assume this is completely true and theres nothing you can have done. What happened in the last 3 weeks?
He didn't actually go offline until his character disappeared from the game. I don't think we had another tank capable of picking all of the adds and KT up if we had realized something had happened before it was a wipe. It was just silly that an otherwise perfect run had to end not to bad play, but to unfortunate luck.
More groups have gotten it done in the last three weeks, I just haven't bothered to do 10 man naxx in a while.
That's his point: The design of the encounters is not interesting because the finesse of the encounter can be powered through by bigger numbers, and this is not good design. If the only thing that makes the encounter hard is the numbers, it's not well-designed. Egregious example: C'Thun's arcing eye-beam cannot be healed through, even four yeras later, you need to dance around it. Granted, that's something where undermanning actually helps rather than hurts, but the point is that gearing up does not have to make the encounter easier, depending on the encounter design. Every instance wants a patchwerk, but every it would also be nice to have encounters tightly tuned around individual duties rather than numbers.
You're wrong. If a fight is tuned assuming the entire raid has 213 and a few 226 pieces (basically best in slot from the previous tier) then when your entire raid has 226/239 gear you'll be able to drop people. What you're proposing is that every boss be so tightly tuned that it's only possible with 25 people that have already farmed the zone. I hope you can see why that wouldn't work.
03/02/09, 6:14 PM
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