Is the PVE game dying?

[AngryGumball]

RiP on Coilfang Alliance server had 30 people online Saturday night.

Many calls for PvE raiding, goto Gruuls we got enough people on, got enough healers, and tanks on, and DPS.
Raid did not happen.

People were to interested in BGs and Arena, 5v5 won out over 25man raid. Was sad. We were 6 people in guild short of going.

[bhodi]

My old guild on icecrown disbanded due to attrition; we were one of the top raiding guilds back in the AQ/Naxx days.

[Threash]

RiP on Coilfang Alliance server had 30 people online Saturday night.

Many calls for PvE raiding, goto Gruuls we got enough people on, got enough healers, and tanks on, and DPS.
Raid did not happen.

People were to interested in BGs and Arena, 5v5 won out over 25man raid. Was sad. We were 6 people in guild short of going.

Why is that sad?

[Jayce]

My old guild on icecrown disbanded due to attrition; we were one of the top raiding guilds back in the AQ/Naxx days.

I've heard the average life of a raiding guild is six months.  If you beat that, you're doing well.  Unless you have a lot of really close friends together in a guild, ordinary stresses magnify and the members reform into other groups.  I wouldn't be surprised if it was some well-known sociological phenomenon.

[Arrrgh]

If all you want to do is pvp then you'll want all your gear to have resilience. The vast majority of raid drops are then worthless to you so why bother?

Raiders though can use the arena weapons so they come and get spanked once a week for points to buy a weapon.

Arenas have something to lure raiders. Raids have nothing to lure arena PVPers.

[Threash]

If all you want to do is pvp then you'll want all your gear to have resilience. The vast majority of raid drops are then worthless to you so why bother?

Raiders though can use the arena weapons so they come and get spanked once a week for points to buy a weapon.

Arenas have something to lure raiders. Raids have nothing to lure arena PVPers.

Theres drops with resiliance in serpentshrine cavern and i believe ZA.  Also not every class should be wearing pvp gear in the arena, the paladin on the top 5v5 team in our battlegroup last season wore a total of 20 resiliance which came from his pvp trinket, the rest was top end pve gear.  The weapon thing goes both ways though, if you are just starting to pvp you'd be better served getting some ZA weapons and saving your points for armor.

[Fabricated]

90% of the people in my little guild think arena/PVP is too much of a pain in the ass to bother with...a couple of our rogues and one of our warriors are grinding out some weapons but they're not interested in the armor. I think it just depends on the people in your guild really.

As for the PvE game, there definitely seems to be a brick wall in content after you get past Kara/Gruul.

[Nebu]

I'm going to solo my gnome rogue to 70 seeing as much as I can (currently 65).  When I'm finished, I'll level a horde character to 70.  Then I'm betting I'm done.  Without 4 other people to play with consistently, there isn't really much hook to this game.  I guess that makes sense... MMO's are all about the social. 

Now... do I play my troll hunter or my cow druid?  Decisions decisions.

[Chimpy]

I'm going to solo my gnome rogue to 70 seeing as much as I can (currently 65).  When I'm finished, I'll level a horde character to 70.  Then I'm betting I'm done.  Without 4 other people to play with consistently, there isn't really much hook to this game.  I guess that makes sense... MMO's are all about the social. 

Now... do I play my troll hunter or my cow druid?  Decisions decisions.

Druid will take you a bit longer, with more "interesting" stuff to do (form quests etc). Hunters are horrendously overpowered levellers once they get a pet, and there are no "hunter flavor" quests out there really. Plus, Mulgore is a much much more pleasant place to start than Durotar....ugh.

[bhodi]

I've heard the average life of a raiding guild is six months.  If you beat that, you're doing well.  Unless you have a lot of really close friends together in a guild, ordinary stresses magnify and the members reform into other groups.  I wouldn't be surprised if it was some well-known sociological phenomenon.

It might be true. This one, however, lasted way back into EQ and had run for years and years. I joined in WoW nearly after launch and raided for over a year with them and quit not long after TBC came out. Eventually, they just couldn't field the numbers or get the interest anymore. From talking to people who are still in the game, it really seems to be a pattern.

[Phred]

90% of the people in my little guild think arena/PVP is too much of a pain in the ass to bother with...a couple of our rogues and one of our warriors are grinding out some weapons but they're not interested in the armor. I think it just depends on the people in your guild really.

As for the PvE game, there definitely seems to be a brick wall in content after you get past Kara/Gruul.

Ya, on my server at least, the brick wall seems to be finding 10 more people. The number of guilds I've seen this crush is huge.

[Merusk]

As for the PvE game, there definitely seems to be a brick wall in content after you get past Kara/Gruul.

There's a definite step in difficulty and coordination after Kara & Gruul.  In early raids you screw up (and aren't the tank or healer) and you only kill yourself.  In fights like Magtheridon, Astromancer, Voidreaver you screw up and you're killing a good 4-5 other people.  You get a glimpse of this in the actual Gruul fight, but it gets worse.

For example, Mag's fight has 5 cubes that need to be clicked at the same time to stop him channeling a blast wave that will kill everyone in the room.  If one person can't get to their cube or is too laggy to click, everyone dies.  It's also not as simple as "just reclick"  because it puts a debuff on you so that you can't click again for 2 mins.  So you're rotating teams of 5 people out every other blast wave.

The step in coordination is something they won't be able to nerf to make it more accesible. At least not without removing the debuff itself, which is what makes the coordination so required.

[ajax34i]

I've seen the 6-month thing in the 2 end-game guilds I've been in, and they both disintegrated due to drama, but now that I think of it, it could be tied to how long it takes a guild to fully gear its team in a tier.  Granted we were on a casual server, not progression-focused, but still, pre-BC, we could only do 4 MC runs a month, and had to gear 60 or so in 8 pieces each, so that was pretty much 6 months.  With the Burning Crusade, one would expect it to take a lot less, and I guess now with badges and easier heroic access it probably does, but the faction work for blue gear keys for Tier 4 took a long time, at least with us.

And yes, Kara is a lot easier than SSC, I've seen that.

I'm thinking that the tank outage and now the lack of interest in raiding are because Blizzard decided that "fun" instances are those that require you to be hyper-attentive for 4-6 hour periods.  Used to be a healer in BWL, used to be like that only for healers, everyone else could go afk if they wanted to.  Now, tanking is like that, heck DPS is like that if you want to beat the enrage timers...  anyone blinks you wipe.

Anyway, got a full set of Kara/Gruul gear, killed Voidreaver a few times, that yellow bird, Lurker, took 3 months.  I can't get myself to continue with that character, or level my old priest from 64 to 70, or start any other alt anywhere, too much time investment required.

[Chenghiz]

Also not every class should be wearing pvp gear in the arena, the paladin on the top 5v5 team in our battlegroup last season wore a total of 20 resiliance which came from his pvp trinket, the rest was top end pve gear.  The weapon thing goes both ways though, if you are just starting to pvp you'd be better served getting some ZA weapons and saving your points for armor.

Paladins are the only class that don't need resilience gear in arena.

[Phred]

As for the PvE game, there definitely seems to be a brick wall in content after you get past Kara/Gruul.

There's a definite step in difficulty and coordination after Kara & Gruul.  In early raids you screw up (and aren't the tank or healer) and you only kill yourself.  In fights like Magtheridon, Astromancer, Voidreaver you screw up and you're killing a good 4-5 other people.  You get a glimpse of this in the actual Gruul fight, but it gets worse.

For example, Mag's fight has 5 cubes that need to be clicked at the same time to stop him channeling a blast wave that will kill everyone in the room.  If one person can't get to their cube or is too laggy to click, everyone dies.  It's also not as simple as "just reclick"  because it puts a debuff on you so that you can't click again for 2 mins.  So you're rotating teams of 5 people out every other blast wave.

The step in coordination is something they won't be able to nerf to make it more accesible. At least not without removing the debuff itself, which is what makes the coordination so required.

I believe they removed the debuff last patch.

[Simond]

I've heard the average life of a raiding guild is six months.  If you beat that, you're doing well.  Unless you have a lot of really close friends together in a guild, ordinary stresses magnify and the members reform into other groups.  I wouldn't be surprised if it was some well-known sociological phenomenon.

It might be true. This one, however, lasted way back into EQ and had run for years and years. I joined in WoW nearly after launch and raided for over a year with them and quit not long after TBC came out. Eventually, they just couldn't field the numbers or get the interest anymore. From talking to people who are still in the game, it really seems to be a pattern.

I'd say the pattern was in EQ rather than WoW - non-instanced raids meant that if you were in a half-decent guild that was doing well you stayed there* because the alternative was dropping down a raiding tier or three semi-permanently because they guilds above you kept all the raid mobs above them perma-killed (i.e. you raided for the MMOG equivalent of table scraps). EQ post-PoP (with its instanced raids combined with the gutting of its playerbase) had a lot more guild member mobility along similar lines to WoW.

*Unless, of course, the resident uberguild of the server was recruiting members of your class and they liked you.

[Merusk]

I believe they removed the debuff last patch.

Nope, they moved when the debuff occurs.  It now happens after Mag's banished, where before it happened as soon as you clicked the cube.  I'd forgotten about that, so it is just as simple as 'reclick' if someone's laggy but you still need to rotate teams once you've banished and stopped the casting.

[Righ]

I'm going to solo my gnome rogue to 70 seeing as much as I can (currently 65).  When I'm finished, I'll level a horde character to 70.  Then I'm betting I'm done.  Without 4 other people to play with consistently, there isn't really much hook to this game.  I guess that makes sense... MMO's are all about the social. 

Now... do I play my troll hunter or my cow druid?  Decisions decisions.

I would suggest that you join a medium-sized non-raid guild - it takes away 75% of the hassle involved in getting a group together and typically won't involve any commitment. And go for feral druid. Its like being a rogue that doesn't need to constantly upgrade gear, can break any snare, heal itself, turn into a tank instantly and travel quickly at lower level, from within combat and on the cheap. You'll wonder why you ever played anything else.

[Xanthippe]

There are flaws in the pve progression game.   One is that people have to be incredibly tolerant of douchebags in order to raid with said douchebags, since the overriding concern is not maturity or courtesy but gear and ability to show up reliably. 

***Note: I'm not saying raiders are douchebags, but I am saying that if you're a raider and you don't tolerate douchebaggery, then you become very limited in who you raid with or which guild you join.

Another flaw is that the progression players have to be very dedicated over a long period of time.  Six months is a long period of time. 

If people arena or go to the battlegrounds, it could either be because they find it more fun or because it's doable in smaller chunks of time without requiring the dedication raiding requires.

(I arena solely for gear; I don't enjoy arena much, and wish I could get equivalent gear doing battlegrounds - I would not mind a personal score being added to battlegrounds.)

[Jayce]

Nebu, your post has been bothering me, but I don't have the experience to give you an exact answer.  I get the sense that there is a large amount of solo friendly content even at the level cap.  I haven't played a lot at the level cap though, since I have alt-itis and I tend to end up in raiding guilds for some reason, and end up skipping a lot of it.  But I keep finding out new things to make a mental note to do once I get to 70.  Things like all the quests you didn't do as part of the leveling process (especially Netherstorm and SMV), daily quests, rep "grinds" which are mostly not grinding nowadays, playing the AH, fishing, crafting, then of course arenas and BGs.

Also to Xanthippe's comment, I think you can get the arena gear from two seasons ago with honor now, right?  Or are you beyond that point gear-wise?

It seems to me at least that they've added a lot for the solo player since the old days of essentially forced grouping at max level.

[Nebu]

Nebu, your post has been bothering me, but I don't have the experience to give you an exact answer.  I get the sense that there is a large amount of solo friendly content even at the level cap.  I haven't played a lot at the level cap though, since I have alt-itis and I tend to end up in raiding guilds for some reason, and end up skipping a lot of it.  But I keep finding out new things to make a mental note to do once I get to 70.  Things like all the quests you didn't do as part of the leveling process (especially Netherstorm and SMV), daily quests, rep "grinds" which are mostly not grinding nowadays, playing the AH, fishing, crafting, then of course arenas and BGs.

There is more than enough content to get to 70 solo.  Once I came to grips with the fact that a) any dungeon quest has to be deleted or held onto until it goes gray and b) that (Group) quests need to go green unless you're a druid/hunter/warlock.  Other than that, I'm suitably entertained for now. 

Righ: There's no way that I'm going to join a random guild in this game.  I've met probably 3 people that I'd consider ever chatting with again in the last few months of play and can in no way imagine ever allowing a guild to frustrate the hell out of me in a brief play session.  Combine this with the fact that I mostly play at crazy hours and I'm nto guild material.  If there was a way that I could play with a small group of people I know from other games, I'd do that in a heartbeat.  Sadly, I'm too aware of my playstyle (inefficiency drives me insane) to ever consider the whole "wading through the masses to find a small group" dynamic ever again.

[Jayce]

Yeah, I wouldn't join a guild if I were you, from what you've said here.  I've been in lots of guilds where you are not expected to contribute anything, and the chat is mature, interesting, witty etc... but it sounds like you'd go bonkers trying to find the needle in the haystack of retarded kiddie guilds.  Probably not worth it.

Regarding my post, maybe you didn't understand what I was saying - I'm not talking about content to GET to 70, I'm talking about post-70 content that doesn't include 5-mans or raids.  I'm trying to steer clear of fanboism here (and probably failing miserably) but of all the MMOGs I've played, it might have the most non-group and non-"make your own" content at max level.

What do other games do when you hit the max?  PvP for the PvP-centric ones (UO, SB, Eve), crafting for the weird ones (ATITD), group content for the diku-grindy ones EQ/EQ2/*cough*Vanguard*cough*.

[AngryGumball]

I want PvE progression wish I did not make the mistake of rolling on Coilfang when TBC came out and stuck with some other higher pop server.

I'mnot looking for 5-7 nights of raiding 3-5 plus each time.

However if a guild slotted 3 nights a week scheduled each time so people know to be there, I would show up those 3 nights to die 20 times to learn the instance.

I don't care about arenas, or BGs, I care about BGs for fun, but since blizzard never implemented gear matching BGs its painfully obvious when BGs are worthless. Fishing time in AB when it is that obvious. I strongly believe arena gear is welfare epics, and season 1 bought for honor points is easy mode no respect earned.

But then I also loved Version 1 of Alterac Valley, over version 2 and 3.

I even rolled a healer, to help and stick with it.

[Xanthippe]

I strongly believe arena gear is welfare epics, and season 1 bought for honor points is easy mode no respect earned.

I've come around to thinking that Blizzard should merely issue gear points to people for being logged in, no matter what activity they are doing.  But then, I don't respect anyone for their gear - the biggest douchebags I've met often have the very best gear. 

I don't care about welfare epics or easy mode or how someone "earns" their gear or if they buy it off eBay.

But I do care about wretched little miscreants who afk or purposely fuck up the battlegrounds that I'm playing in.  That really bothers me because it affects me directly.  Those afkers are leeching off my effort.

[ajax34i]

I'm not looking for 5-7 nights of raiding 3-5 plus each time.

Guilds that decide to try raiding are pretty much forced to do that, once they start, because of the game mechanics.

When you start and don't have geared people, Karazhan is a 3-day event.  Add in trying Gruul, another evening, and you have 4 out of 7 days raiding.  Meanwhile, the rest of the days are spent doing heroics for gear, and doing the keying runs for the people that you recruit in order to build up your membership so you can do 25-man raids.  Basically, the guild raids heavily for a month or so, and ends up setting expectations, as well as recruiting people who expect to be raiding heavily.

Then "progression" cannot stop else your top geared people, your tanks, your raid leaders, get bored and leave.  2 months per tier or bust.  6-7 months to get through to the end (which, coincidentally, is also the average lifespan of a guild, and how often Blizzard seems to want to add new instances here and there).

There is a way to do it casually, but that involves a guild whose leader and officers (and members) stay in the guild because they're friends, and not because of the game.  If the officers are ok with endlessly recruiting, gearing people through whatever tier they're at (usually, Karazhan), and seeing them leave for greener pastures, and that doesn't bother them or make them not want to play, then that guild can be a casual raiding guild.

EDIT:  It's an art form, isn't it, modifying game mechanics (drop frequency, tiers of gear, faction, etc.) so that player cycles are funneled into matching Blizzard's development cycle?  We're playing the game, they're playing us.  I don't think it's just "polish" that they perfected.

[ShenMolo]

Excellent post ajax34i. You really got the essence of the "raiding guild" experience with your description.

I would offer two observations:

1. 2.3 has the potential to change this dynamic somewhat, because people can come into a guild with a level of gear higher than t4 and even t5, through PVP and Heroics. Guilds will not need to continuously run Karazhan->Magtheridon. Granted, learning SSC and onwards will still be difficult, but the gear checks that forced you to stay in Kara and continuously re-gear people have been somewhat mitigated.

2. Casual guilds do exist, and are fun places to be. The Guild Recruitment forum is an excellent place to find a new WOW experience. Character transfers open up dozens of new servers allowing for a player to pinpoint a guild that looks/sounds like the experience they are looking for. The transfer fee is negligible when you consider the amount of time and effort put into playing the game. Why pay for a sucky experience? While there are dozens of progression guilds posting every day that they need raiders for 5 nights a week, there are also frequent posts for 3 nights a week casual type guilds that are progressing into the end game 25 man instances. You just have to broaden your search outside of your own server, especially if it is a low pop server.

[Modern Angel]

I would offer one further and that is the slow shift to a five and ten man emphasis. You can now get gear equal to tier 5 in ten mans and with heroic badges. They're launchinig with four, I think, ten mans when WLK hits. More Heroics in WLK. I've said it once but I'll repeat myself: they're not dumb and everybody better be really, really worried at what market research they have that's pushing them to change they're strategy. Everyone's busy making a WoW clone based on now when Blizzard is already shifting gears.

[Paelos]

I would offer one further and that is the slow shift to a five and ten man emphasis. You can now get gear equal to tier 5 in ten mans and with heroic badges. They're launchinig with four, I think, ten mans when WLK hits. More Heroics in WLK. I've said it once but I'll repeat myself: they're not dumb and everybody better be really, really worried at what market research they have that's pushing them to change they're strategy. Everyone's busy making a WoW clone based on now when Blizzard is already shifting gears.

The reality is that smaller is better in terms of raiding. I don't really have more fun raiding in 25 mans than I do in 10 mans. However, it's a hell of a lot easier to get a 10 man functioning correctly, and everyone with 10 hours a week to play in 2 hour increments could pulll it off if they had a medium sized guild.

The only problem so far with the 10 mans is the ridgidity of class assignments. ZA went a long way to improve this where Kara failed.

[Fordel]

So far, in my limited experience in ZA (very limited, we threw together 10 folks just to see inside one day) it's a giant tease for my Balance druid. "Hey, this place it outdoors, feel free to root. Oh BTW, anything not root immune has ranged attacks ><"

At least I can hibernate the bears!

[Chimpy]

So far, in my limited experience in ZA (very limited, we threw together 10 folks just to see inside one day) it's a giant tease for my Balance druid. "Hey, this place it outdoors, feel free to root. Oh BTW, anything not root immune has ranged attacks ><"

At least I can hibernate the bears!

You could be a BM hunter and have your pet die to bombs it is nowhere near on the Dragonhawk boss, chain lightning on the Eagle boss, Shadowbolt AE on Malacrass because mend pet can't keep them alive faster than the shadow volley does dmg, or Zul'Jin where if your pet somehow survives the chain lightning in the bird phase, you can expect it to get annihilated in the holy fire plumes of doom.

It is impossible to  keep the pet alive and keep FI up (3% increased dmg for your pty) unless it is getting heals from a raid healer in 4 out of the 6 fights in the zone. Bear boss and lynx boss, the pet is pretty easy to keep alive provided the lightning totems on lynx die fast.

Don't get me wrong, the zone is cool and fun, but I had my pet die 6 times on the dragonhawk boss to bombs it was nowhere near in the 2 runs I did, and it makes me sour as my pet accounts for (with the buffs it gives me) roughly 35-40% of my DPS.

[Modern Angel]

I would offer one further and that is the slow shift to a five and ten man emphasis. You can now get gear equal to tier 5 in ten mans and with heroic badges. They're launchinig with four, I think, ten mans when WLK hits. More Heroics in WLK. I've said it once but I'll repeat myself: they're not dumb and everybody better be really, really worried at what market research they have that's pushing them to change they're strategy. Everyone's busy making a WoW clone based on now when Blizzard is already shifting gears.

The reality is that smaller is better in terms of raiding. I don't really have more fun raiding in 25 mans than I do in 10 mans. However, it's a hell of a lot easier to get a 10 man functioning correctly, and everyone with 10 hours a week to play in 2 hour increments could pulll it off if they had a medium sized guild.

The only problem so far with the 10 mans is the ridgidity of class assignments. ZA went a long way to improve this where Kara failed.

It's also a game which has grown up with its players. Assuming that the main raiding playerbase is a dude in his early 20s said dude has, in the course of his three year WoW addiction, potentially graduated college and is working a real job. Or maybe senior year. Or maybe started college. Of course that's not everyone but then raiding isn't for everyone to begin with. Hell, I started at 27 and am 30 now; I've gone from on disability and near death while having too much time on my hands to a real job, my first house and trying to have a kid. What I liked three years ago is not what I like now and I venture that I'm far from the only formerly diehard raider to feel that way.

[AngryGumball]

I strongly believe arena gear is welfare epics, and season 1 bought for honor points is easy mode no respect earned.

But I do care about wretched little miscreants who afk or purposely fuck up the battlegrounds that I'm playing in.  That really bothers me because it affects me directly.  Those afkers are leeching off my effort.

Oh I agree with you in this as well, it seems so obvious that Blizzard current solution isn't a solution, its them not being hard enough on people that do this. It is Blizzard not willing to offend the people that do this.

To show a continued breakdown on how useless a Battleground Alterac Valley is, you can be trying to take over a mine now and be made afk/unable to gain honor points until you enter Pvp combat, yet why does the mechanic exist still to take over the mine. Why does killing players or mobs still allow you to gather armor shards or other junk when by the time you run back to thehomebase the AV game is over.

[Threash]

Their AV changes made everything worse.  Games are even faster and theres less pvp now than before.  They should make it so only one graveyard can be contested at a time, that way everyone has to rush snowfall then move fowards or backwards from there, then balance honor gains accordingly.

[Arrrgh]

They ruined AV. They should revert AV and take the reinforcements idea and move it to WS where it would actually help with endless turtles.

To fix AV they just need to make people who get the AFK debuff get booted from the BG and get deserter.

[Morat20]

They ruined AV. They should revert AV and take the reinforcements idea and move it to WS where it would actually help with endless turtles.

To fix AV they just need to make people who get the AFK debuff get booted from the BG and get deserter.

Jeesus, AV sucks now. We're talking blowout games where the loser gets shit for honor.

And it is, in my experience, biased in favor of the Horde now because of the way reinforcements work.

Balinda being such a pussy (Horde can wipe any Alliance hit on Galv just by hitting the tank, but Balinda can practically be soloed by an AFK rogue) doesn't help, but the real problem is map design -- fighting around SH means the  Horde has taken a bunker, a tower, and Balinda. Which means they'll win on reinforcements alone. That's a pretty easy trio to take.

The IB GY, towers and Galv setup is far easier to defend for Horde, and it's actually a longer trip from the cave.

My experience has been constant fucking fightin on the SP to SH road, ending in like a 580-20 honor blowout that sucks monkey nuts. I understand Horde queue times are climbing as Alliance bails en masse from a slow game with insane Horde win rates and shit for honor for losers.