Cracks starting to show?

[Merusk]

What Surf said.  If there's no raiders, heroics become an even bigger clusterfuck, meaning more and more people just stop giving you their $15 as they can't do anything else.  Raiders are the ones dedicated to the game by a larger margin than the folks running serial heroics, so they'll put up with more.

[Ironwood]

Just in a HHoO where the main DPS dropped because we wanted to pursue some bosses.  For us, they were Justice Points and possible Loot.  For him, they were an utter waste of time and a cockblock towards his Valor points.

That's a fail right there.  The sooner people have more shit to spend Justice Points on, the better.

[Merusk]

I blame that syndrome on the design of HOO more than anything.  When you let players skip 4 bosses, chances are they're going to do so. Hoo is effectively a 3-boss dungeon anymore.

[Ironwood]

Yeah, but it's easily sorted, methinks.

Gadzooks.  And whatnot.

[Lakov_Sanite]

if it was a dps and you wanted to do the other 3 last bosses before the sun guy you should just do the sun guy, let the dps drop and find another. not everything needs to be a drama fest.  if it was the one other optional boss earth rager guy than yeah tell the dps to suck it up and stop being a pussy

[kildorn]

Imo if someone is going to drop because OH GOD THREE OPTIONAL BOSSES WITH ONE TRASH PULL EACH, then let them drop and get their VP elsewhere.

When tanking I refuse to do Rajh until last on general principal. I may not need any gear from the others, but I'm not going to cockblock the rest of the group over a completely painless optional boss. I also always do earthrager first.

Don't like it? Punt me. It's ten more minutes of instance, assuming the group is slow.

[Paelos]

I skip everything unless directly requested that a person is looking for an upgrade item on a boss. However, each dps gets one pick. "I need upgrades off all of them" is not acceptable unless you a friend of mine I'm helping out.

[Maledict]

What Surf said.  If there's no raiders, heroics become an even bigger clusterfuck, meaning more and more people just stop giving you their $15 as they can't do anything else.  Raiders are the ones dedicated to the game by a larger margin than the folks running serial heroics, so they'll put up with more.

I can guarantee my playtime is less than most peoples, and I raid. Raiding covers such a huge variety of playstyles now, it's not just the hard core.

Re. Item, my point isn't to prevent non-raiders getting a few epics. The easier non-raiders can get a few epics and 'catch up' to a base level, the easier recruitment is. I do think it a monumental design failure that apparently you NEED to make raiders monotonously grind out content they have already completely surpassed to progress. You wouldn't be happy if you were still running halls of reflection on a daily basis, yet for some reason it's okay to serve shut up to raiders because they will put up with it more?

Personally, I'd relook at the progression path completely:

I) remove the need for raiders to get VP, but leave the items there for non-raiders. I.e. You can still buy your set robe for 2200 VP, but you also get it as a quest reward for completing a quest to kill Cho'gall / Nefarion / Al'akir etc.

Ii) lower the difficulty on current heroics slightly, and remove more trash in the more grievous cases.

Iii) add in a third difficulty tier, Epic. Tune it around 346 gear, and make it so you can only do one epic dungeon a week. Have the end boss drop 359 blue gear (but not weapons). Have the bosses drop VP instead of JP. Don't allow the LFD system to allow folks to do this tier.

If blizzard want people to join social networks and, eventually, progress to some form of raiding (which they do, it massively increases retention), there needs to be more granularity between the options casual players have. At the moment one of the biggest issues is that the new heroics are tuned to a certain level of competance, but clearly a lot of people aren't at that level. Rather than making peoe find appropriate social settings in which to play the game however, folks are just struggling through with LFD andgetting very pissed off. Blizzard need to incentive folks to leave LFD (which is built for random, quick easy bursts of content) and move towards more organised social settings.

[Ashamanchill]

What would raiders do when they are not raiding then?

Besides which, what the fuck was the point of making heroics more challenging, then having raiders turn around and say 'once I've cleared then, I don't want to do them anymore'? If they are going to deincentivize raiders to run them, then they might as well just nerf the heroics back to wrath levels and let people chain run them to get to raid levels again.

[Maledict]

There's a possibility, ever so small, that just because you aren't a raider that doesn't mean the only content you want is so stupidly easy you complete it whilst reading a book and hitting tab - 2 - 3 every few seconds.

Everyone should have a progression path in the game. At some point, that path needs to become more difficult. Right now, the path doesn't seem long enough nor the system well built enough to accomodate it. I would like them to change that. What I don't want is to be running those heroics for the rest of the expansion because they provide VP. That's dumb and stupid, and if the only way you can do content is by forcing other players to do it with you then it's extremely bad design for everyone involved.

[Threash]

if it was a dps and you wanted to do the other 3 last bosses before the sun guy you should just do the sun guy, let the dps drop and find another. not everything needs to be a drama fest.  if it was the one other optional boss earth rager guy than yeah tell the dps to suck it up and stop being a pussy

You can't requeue once the dungeon is over and the dungeon is over once the last boss dies.

[Maledict]

Lso, as a question. If all you want is mind numbing easy content you can face roll through, why don't you just do normals? If you arête even planning to raid, why does the fact there's a more difficult tier that requires more time / work above you matter to you? Even if they did nerf heroics to the ground, you would still hit a brick wall in progression, andother players would still be getting better gear.

What I'm saying is - if you enjoy the fast, very easy dungeons why not *do* the very fast, easy dungeons?

[Ashamanchill]

As a matter of fact I do plan to raid, and do like raiding, because THAT is progression content, not heroics. Heroics are a means to an end, i.e. to obtain loot to raid with. If you scroll up a bit you will see that I DO plan to do nothing but normals once they make them give justice points. Once Blizzard does that I could give a rats ass how hard heroics are anymore. The need for them will have been replaced.

I think your plan of making heroics progression content is ill founded because I've seen it before. Back in BC. After the first six months no one ran heroics anymore, and they just became lifeless and extinct, because they weren't worth doing. By giving people a reason to do a heroic a day, it gives the content some life (which iirc is what the developers wanted) and gives people something to log in for each day.

[Merusk]

What Surf said.  If there's no raiders, heroics become an even bigger clusterfuck, meaning more and more people just stop giving you their $15 as they can't do anything else.  Raiders are the ones dedicated to the game by a larger margin than the folks running serial heroics, so they'll put up with more.

I can guarantee my playtime is less than most peoples, and I raid. Raiding covers such a huge variety of playstyles now, it's not just the hard core.

I said nothing about playtime, I said dedication to the game.  I never played more than 12 hours a week when I raided but I was dedicated enough to put up with a lot of shit so I could raid.  Several other guild members did (and still do the same) because that's the focus of their play.   When you decide "shit I can get by on 4 1/2 hours of sleep" or "Meh I'll take a nap after work so I can raid tonight" you're more dedicated to the game and letting it dictate your life than the guy not doing such.

[Paelos]

You know what it comes down to? Blizzard wants people to raid, but they made the mid-tier part a pain in the ass. They blew it. It sounded like a great idea to have more challenge in the game, but they put it in the wrong place by making it a required stepping stone to the higher end content. Now they just need to own up to that fact and make the necessary adjustments (which they will).

[March]

Hi, I don't want to raid.

I was perfectly happy to run heroics in PUGs (as a healer) to get gear that made me "raid ready" even if I never raided.

It *was* end-game content for me.  If they had simply done a better job of releasing Heroic Tier A, then Heroic Tier B - make the Random Heroic Queue Tier Based rather than Gear Based and you wouldn't get face-roll heroics when over geared... unless you specifically asked for that (and then you would get fewer rewards). Then I could swim along just fine... and always be ready for the Raid -1 tier in the event I thought I'd try it.

Blizz can never shake from their minds that (almost) half of their paying subscribers are utterly and completely indifferent to the raiding hokey-pokey dance.

[Paelos]

Blizz can never shake from their minds that (almost) half of their paying subscribers are utterly and completely indifferent to the raiding hokey-pokey dance.

If you believe that, you're nuts. If Blizzard didn't care about the half that doesn't raid, they would have NEVER considered redoing the entire old world content. They would have never bothered with heroic versions of previous dungeons. They wouldn't have taken out attunements. They wouldn't have lowered raid size requirements. And they sure as hell wouldn't put the same gear on 10 and 25 mans.

They want don't want to totally cater to the non-raiding playerbase unless they are pvp, because the non-raiding playerbase gets off the treadmill a hell of a lot faster. They want the players that don't raid to get into it, and the numbers shifting to higher percentages of people who raid over the years show that they could be enticed to participate.

[Ironwood]

I skip everything unless directly requested that a person is looking for an upgrade item on a boss. However, each dps gets one pick. "I need upgrades off all of them" is not acceptable unless you a friend of mine I'm helping out.

The more you post, the more I realise I don't ever want to play WoW with you.  You're kind of a dick.

Like, a real dick.

[Paelos]

I skip everything unless directly requested that a person is looking for an upgrade item on a boss. However, each dps gets one pick. "I need upgrades off all of them" is not acceptable unless you a friend of mine I'm helping out.

The more you post, the more I realise I don't ever want to play WoW with you.  You're kind of a dick.
Like, a real dick.

Honestly, that's high praise coming from you good sir. I salute you. However, I don't think it's being a dick to respect each other's time in a group. As the tank/leader it's your job to enforce it. If one dps person wants one boss that has a drop for him, I'm going to do it. If the whole group wants to clear the place, I'm all in. However, if two players want to do the whole place, and the other 2 players don't, I'm splitting the difference. Pick two bosses extra bosses you want, and we're calling it a day. I don't think it's an unfair rule. Still, if it's people in a group I know, I'm going to do whatever they want.

That being said, if they're a whiney dps from another server that wants to complain about my approach, they barely qualify above an NPC in my mind. I have no attachment to those folks, period, and there's always another one in line I don't have to worry about.

[Maledict]

I skip everything unless directly requested that a person is looking for an upgrade item on a boss. However, each dps gets one pick. "I need upgrades off all of them" is not acceptable unless you a friend of mine I'm helping out.

The more you post, the more I realise I don't ever want to play WoW with you.  You're kind of a dick.

Like, a real dick.

This is why making raiders do heroics is ultimately pointless and stupid.

If it were a guildmate wanting to clear the instance, or someone I knew from my server - no probs, we clear the place. But LFD? I'm purely there for the 70 VP. I don't know anyone else int he group, and I just want ti over as fast as possible. Nothing from any boss approaches an upgrade. When you ask to clear all the place, you're asking me to give up 30+ minutes of my time for absolutely nothing for a complete stranger. I don't *like* being in heroics after completing them all and already farming them to death, so why do you think it's being a jerk to not want to do them all for random dps?

[Paelos]

To be fair, he is right. I'm being a dick to those people in their minds. In the other people's minds I'm being totally sensible. It's really a POV assessment.

I don't schedule my gaming time for other people's convenience.

[March]

Blizz can never shake from their minds that (almost) half of their paying subscribers are utterly and completely indifferent to the raiding hokey-pokey dance.

If you believe that, you're nuts. If Blizzard didn't care about the half that doesn't raid, they would have NEVER considered redoing the entire old world content. They would have never bothered with heroic versions of previous dungeons. They wouldn't have taken out attunements. They wouldn't have lowered raid size requirements. And they sure as hell wouldn't put the same gear on 10 and 25 mans.

They want don't want to totally cater to the non-raiding playerbase unless they are pvp, because the non-raiding playerbase gets off the treadmill a hell of a lot faster. They want the players that don't raid to get into it, and the numbers shifting to higher percentages of people who raid over the years show that they could be enticed to participate.

I didn't say they didn't care about non-Raiders... I said they can't really see us as anything but almost-Raiders.

Their idea of caring for us is what we disagree about.

[Paelos]

I didn't say they didn't care about non-Raiders... I said they can't really see us as anything but almost-Raiders.

Their idea of caring for us is what we disagree about.

I would concur with that assessment. The designers don't want you to stop at heroics. They want to create all the raiding content for use by the vast majority of their population. I think they do consider your position, but they have no idea how to service your group in a timely manner that wouldn't cost them a piece of the larger whole.

I don't think the idea of a heroic tier of content specifically targetted at people who want to do 5 mans is a current priority, but I've always been in favor of keeping the same loot across all content while scaling the chances. I would not be opposed to having 5 mans drop tiered pieces on a lowered rate. I'd probably have 5's drop epics 20% of the time from bosses, 10s drop two epics on all bosses, and 25s drop 4 epics across all bosses.

[Maledict]

To be fair, he is right. I'm being a dick to those people in their minds. In the other people's minds I'm being totally sensible. It's really a POV assessment.

I don't schedule my gaming time for other people's convenience.

Oh I know - that was my point. People are being forced into heroics for *very* different reasons, and so have a very different mind set about them. You can't on one hand moan that raiders need to be in heroics otherwise they wouldn't be possiible, and then on the other complain that raiders just want to get the things over with fast. That's why the system doesn't work.

[Paelos]

Simple things like logistics or an expectations gap have never stopped people from bitching. 

[caladein]

Um, I think the VPs from heroics should be removed completely, not increased. It puts a horrible pressure on people to keep doing the daily heroics to maximise their raiding ability, and it's completely contrary to Blizzards design philosophy in every other area of the game.

That's what the weekly VP cap is for, which is probably a little high at the moment.  10-man raiders fully clearing all raids still need to do daily Heroics 4-5 times a week to cap while those doing 25s only need 1-2.

[SurfD]

if it was a dps and you wanted to do the other 3 last bosses before the sun guy you should just do the sun guy, let the dps drop and find another. not everything needs to be a drama fest.  if it was the one other optional boss earth rager guy than yeah tell the dps to suck it up and stop being a pussy

Actually, I am not sure you can do that.  If you are in a dungeon finder group, and just head directly for the Sun boss, once you kill him, it counts as dungeon completion, and I dont believe the dungeon tool will let you re-queue for a "complete" dungeon.   Pretty sure we tried it once and were unable to do so.

[caladein]

Yes.  You can't vote kick or queue for more people once your dungeon is "completed".

[Maledict]

Um, I think the VPs from heroics should be removed completely, not increased. It puts a horrible pressure on people to keep doing the daily heroics to maximise their raiding ability, and it's completely contrary to Blizzards design philosophy in every other area of the game.

That's what the weekly VP cap is for, which is probably a little high at the moment.  10-man raiders fully clearing all raids still need to do daily Heroics 4-5 times a week to cap while those doing 25s only need 1-2.

The problem is that the cap  is no use when raiders actually *need* the VP - which is when instances are released. When you first start raiding, you're killing 1 / 2 bosses a week, so have to do the heroics every day. By the time you are actually hitting the cap and killing 12 bosses a week, you no longer need the VP points anyway.

[Ironwood]

I note people are kinda avoiding my main point about the story :

Make the JP Worth Something again and people may, In fact, Want the JP.

I don't blame the mage for dropping.  He's got fuck all reason to stay.

That's the point.

[Paelos]

Yeah they need to have JP convert into tradeable goods again. Orbs would be tops on my list. Followed by gems.

[Ironwood]

Orbs also need to be for sale.

I now have 9 of them doing dick.

[Evildrider]

Orbs also need to be for sale.

I now have 9 of them doing dick.

The orb market is kind of dead on my server now.  it's almost better for you to make stuff and then sell it on AH.

[Ironwood]

Who can be arsed with all those stupid mats tho ?

Truegolds ?  Fuck off.

 

[Soulflame]

So I should level my alchemists, so that my engineer can actually craft at cap?  (I have no idea why I have two.)