Icecrown Citadel "Gating" system - Page 3

Bullshot · 11/19/09, 5:39 AM

Originally Posted by KamPa

Still doesn't solve another issue, that should be pretty well known with Tribute runs. "Bring the player not the class" - not only about class stacking, but actually bringing new people in. Unless new recruit is truly a genius, he will need at least one attempt(realistically - several) to get some practice, costing you 20% of your weekly tries. That's stressful both for them and the guild - making "let's just stop for today instead" a better option.

This is my single biggest gripe with the limited attempt system; it encourages raid leaders to constantly bench players who were not lucky enough to be in the raid group during the first attempt of Boss <X>. It is surprising that Blizzard went ahead with the limited attempt system in addition to gating the content. One would think having one or the other would have been the ideal choice.

As mentioned above, the only part of the announcement that was welcoming for me personally was the removal of the "better rewards" system for a perfect run. But even though there won't be achievements related to the amount of tries you had left when you cleared Icecrown Citadel, progression sites like Wowprogress will still rank guilds based on when they cleared the zone; was it when the maximum attempts were 15 or 25. This will again bring up the benching problem mentioned above, at least till the guild first clears the entire zone (which may be a long time for most of the middle-of-the-road guilds).

This also effectively kills pugging the zone, which is surprising given Blizzard's much talked-about plan to let everyone see and experience the Lich King fight in WotLK.

suicuique · 11/19/09, 5:50 AM

Originally Posted by Bullshot

This also effectively kills pugging the zone, which is surprising given Blizzard's much talked-about plan to let everyone see and experience the Lich King fight in WotLK.

How does it kill PUGs? The limited tries are relevant to a few select bosses only (4 of 12 IIRC). PUGs will have a harder time clearing the zone admittedly, but it will hardly kill PUGs per se.
I'd go as far and say that trash and the amount of bosses in the zone (vs the trash free 5 bosses of ToC) is more detrimental to PUGs than the limited attempts. ToC was way more PUG friendly than Ulduar because of this.

Hamano · 11/19/09, 5:53 AM

Limited attempts has no influence on pugs whatsoever, most (if not all) pugs disband after ~5 wipes on a boss.

Fugazor · 11/19/09, 5:55 AM

Gating
ToC all over again and I advice everyone to get used to it - it will most likely happen again. Overall it is not big deal, you just start HM few weeks (months?) later. I buy argument that this is better for game, you can chill and enjoy patch content while waiting, they have more time for internal testing, patch is not delayed due to unfinished instance etc.

Limited attempts
I think there is a lot of misunderstanding about it in ICC. You have will have only 15 tries when HM open but keep in mind that:
- It only affects 4 last bosses, so on other 8 you can wipe 24/7 if you want
- Number of attempts will increase over time
The only thing that sucks about such low amount of tries is server lag etc. Overall it is not as big deal, again, as people make it. I am sure having 8 hard modes without limit won't be boring.

Achievements
While I appreciate removal of "Immortal" and "no wipes bro" achievements I think something like 25/50 and 45/50 should stay - so translating to ICC it would be 5/15 and 10/15. I think better "farm" performance should be rewarded, just it should not go too extreme.

Buff
Something new here, interesting how it will play out. I think, along with gearing up, it can make instance way too easy. However as with all new things we will need to see how it works in practice.

KamPa · 11/19/09, 6:06 AM

Originally Posted by Fugazor

Limited attempts
I think there is a lot of misunderstanding about it in ICC. You have will have only 15 tries when HM open but keep in mind that:
- It only affects 4 last bosses, so on other 8 you can wipe 24/7 if you want

Are those truly "last bosses", or last bosses of their respective wing? Also, can you freely access other 8 bosses while ignoring those 4? I kinda thought those are gateway bosses, not optional ones.

Anaram · 11/19/09, 6:08 AM

Originally Posted by Fugazor

The only thing that sucks about such low amount of tries is server lag etc. Overall it is not as big deal, again, as people make it. I am sure having 8 hard modes without limit won't be boring.

It might not be a big deal for some people but you should not dismiss that this might be the dealbreaker for few. For me personally every pull with limited attempts is more about stress than it is about fun, that's how it was in toc and I don't see a reason why ICC should be any different. I can understand that some people like the challenge and the excitement in limited attempts, good for them.

Additionally the attempt limit greatly slows down the pace. Instead of making pulls, trying different strategies and actually playing the game we'll now (still) be browsing through datamined abilities and watching videos of our previous attempts. In TOC we would have to break off raiding for hours at a time because some people's connection couldn't quite handle Anub'Arak and we could not affort to squander attempts on disconnects. The longest we had between attempts just for strategic discussion was 90 minutes.

I recognize people are different in what they like but I do find it slightly insulting when people say it's not a big deal. For some people it IS a big deal.

tommynt · 11/19/09, 6:10 AM

In fact all of this is just to extend the time people (casuals, evening raiders, hardcore raiders) spend in the instance over a longer period of time.

Blizzard realized that there is absolutly nothing else (PvP aside) to do in WoW then raiding the last tier of content so they gotta make sure that there is allways a "new" last content available.

I truly wonder why there isnt more disappointment about the oppening of hardmodes like three month after instance release in this thread.
Doesnt it mean three more month of "boredome" for hardcore guilds?
This also means that all the gear obtained in Hardmode Coloseum will be outdated once IC hardmodes are available.

If there is such a thing as "gearing from previous tier for next tier" this now means "gearing from normal modes for hardmodes". Replacing normal t10 with hardmode t10 all over just seems wrong.
Also the "option to choose" is kind of taken away when 95% of all guilds will be so bored of normal IC after 3+ month of opening that just the usual progresion will be to start hardmodes as soon as they are available for most guilds

Asimo · 11/19/09, 6:27 AM

Originally Posted by tommynt

I truly wonder why there isnt more disappointment about the oppening of hardmodes like three month after instance release in this thread.

Eh. That's mildly annoying, but it's both understandable from a game design angle and in practice doesn't really matter for day-to-day raiding. It's a passive thing. Either the later bosses are unlocked, or they aren't. You can spend as much time as you need to on the current-top-tier bosses without worrying about connections or lag or new players or whatever. While with gated, limited attempts you have explicitly finite number of attempts, and by extension, each attempt suddenly gains a specific sort of value. While everyone pays for consumables and repairs and such, sure, those are both more or less important for individual guilds and players, and scale pretty much linearly with how much you're attempting/wiping on a boss. But with limited attempts, every wipe - even if it's to something beyond your fault - costs you something immediate and finite, complete with a counter staring you down at the top of the screen. Can you imagine the "fun" of someone, say, having their main tank disconnect mid fight, and reconnect on top of the boss after it's respawned, managing to waste two attempts for you?

It's an improvement over the Algalon "boss despawns in an hour" system, in that it's finite but still removes the rushing time pressure from the equation, but that's the only thing the setup has going for it.

Camaris · 11/19/09, 8:11 AM

From a mid-level raider's POV (wouldnt say entirely casual), depending on the actual difficulty of the encounters, I expect that guilds like mine might not even make it to the wing endbosses in time before the next wing is released (and the number of attempts go up). So I'm hoping that particular concern will be more an issue with cutting edge raiding. At least, I'm dreading the idea of wasting attempts on early bosses, and then having to quit ICC for the week because we can't do Arthas anyway.

Rhaegal · 11/19/09, 9:06 AM

Originally Posted by KamPa

Are those truly "last bosses", or last bosses of their respective wing? Also, can you freely access other 8 bosses while ignoring those 4? I kinda thought those are gateway bosses, not optional ones.

If I understand the layout of ICC properly, it's linear through Saurfang (with none of the bosses to that point being one of the four attempt-limited bosses). After Saurfang, it forks and you can choose (once more than one is open anyway) whether to go to the Plagueworks (end boss: Putricide), the Crimson Hall (end boss: Lana'thel), or Frostwing Halls (end boss: Sindragosa). You could theoretically go far enough in each to wave at the end boss, then turn around and clear through the others until their respective end bosses. So yes, that strategy of leaving all four attempt-limited bosses to the end of your weekly clear would work in theory. I suspect it won't be the general strategy, though, as those bosses are going to be higher-stress than the unlimited ones, and at least for my own raids, I'd rather spread them out for that reason alone. That said, it does mean that once you do reach your limit of attempts on those bosses, you can still go around and clear up every other non-limited boss in the zone on that reset.

I don't see the limited attempts thing being as big of a deal as some people (not necessarily here) make it out to be. Since there's no tribute reward, a disconnect or two won't kill your week when it's on farm. For people who weren't there for a first kill, they can still come in and learn it in an attempt or two without costing the raid rewards. The 50 attempts in TotGC seemed highly excessive to me; maybe my guild is different in this regard, but once you beat a fight one week, it'll most likely be a 1 to 3 shot (5 at the very most if your group has huge turnover) deal from then on. The limited attempts are there to slow down the speed at which guilds can learn the fights, and that's all it seems like it will do.

Fallenangel · 11/19/09, 11:29 AM

Yes once you learn a fight 50 attempts is a lot, but the learning part is tricky. 5 attempts for a fight you know nothing about and is presumably not easy might be too harsh and you have to factor in the hard modes as well.
Someone said it won't be as Ulduar where you had to decide whether to kill XT easy to get to Yogg or not, but it sounds exactly the same here, albeit with only hard modes. Once you kill Arthas-normal, you only have 10-15 attempts (leaving 3-5 for normal kills) to learn 4 hardmodes and you have to choose which one you're going for.
Possibly by the time the hardmodes actually open up the number of attempts will increase, that remains to be seen.

Rhaegal · 11/19/09, 2:18 PM

Well, the learning part is supposed to be tricky. That's the whole point of the limited attempts. I think TotGC failed at making learning tricky because the 50 attempt "limit" was hardly limiting--we spent two nights of 2-3 hours each learning Anub the week we got to him and, had we felt like it, we still had enough attempts left for another full night. However, the one hour per week of Algalon attempts seemed to succeed in making it limiting enough that it held groups back from killing him for a little while.

If Blizzard's goal is to limit progression speed, they have to do it by having the number of attempts (or amount of time, as with Algalon) be meaningfully limiting. By definition, it has to be too few attempts at first. Whether 15 attempts spread out over four bosses is the right number, time will tell. As for the 5 attempts at first for Putricide, I hardly think it's a "fight you know nothing about." Normal mode information is already being circulated, so it's not like it'll take a few attempts to discover that there's slime, and exactly what it does. And assuming your guild learns Putricide well enough in the first 2-3 weeks, Lana'thel will effective have 8-10 attempts to learn. Similarly, there will be 13-15 attempts to split between Sindragosa and Arthas when the final gate opens up.

Royalite · 11/19/09, 2:58 PM

Originally Posted by Hamano

Limited attempts has no influence on pugs whatsoever, most (if not all) pugs disband after ~5 wipes on a boss.

I'd disagree with the opinion that it would have no influence on PUGs whatsoever. In PUGs there is a tendency for players not have as much of a commitment to the PUG group over a guild raid. Having a few players leave the raid for whatever reason on the third attempt makes it harder for replacements.

I run PUGs typically on the weekends for ToC25 and there hasn't been a PUG where even if the group was progressing nicely a player would leave the raid and need to be replaced.

My thinking is even if the PUG is good enough to down the boss and the first three attempts were close, finding a replacement is going to be hard. To convince someone to come in with the risk of being locked out of the ecounter after only two attempts instead of 5. It would be a hard sell.

I think the limited attempts are going to magnify the disadvantages of PUGs especially when trying to replace a raider midway through attempts.

Robertthorn · 11/19/09, 4:11 PM

Originally Posted by Frozenn

Of course, earlier bosses will still soak some time. But I don't realistically see how my guild could have fun learning bosses with that few attempts. We aren't the best I guess, but we need to wipe around a bit to learn new mechanics until we get them down. This system encourages PTR/alt raiding to an insane degree, and it'd be nice if we didn't have to do either of those to put some proper time into the final 4 encounters of a raid.

This is my concern with very limited attempts for normal mode encounters. Guilds that have spent time on the PTR and watch many videos will probably have no issues with the attempt limits. Those that planned to learn the encounters when they are live now have to rethink their plan.

Five attempts for Putricide means there is no room for "lets see what happens" attempts. I'm going to have to make sure everyone understands all the abilities and has watched a video. Maybe I'll want to push the 25 man to later in the week so people can learn it in 10 man. I expect this extra raid management work for hard mode fights, but I don't think it's necessary for normal modes.

Krazen · 11/19/09, 4:15 PM

Originally Posted by Bullshot

This also effectively kills pugging the zone, which is surprising given Blizzard's much talked-about plan to let everyone see and experience the Lich King fight in WotLK.

Was this every actually explicitly stated, or is it an assumption by the playerbase?