Another nail in the coffin for casuals: Upcoming Raid Reset Changes

[Jeff Kelly]

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?FN=wow-general&T=5897985&P=1

In 1.9 nearly all raid instances will be reset on maintenance day and set to a seven day timer.

This will make it even harder for our guild to schedule raid evenings.

[Fabricated]

WoW pretty much stops being for casual players after you hit 60 and clear Stratholme, Scholomance, and Dire Maul. Shit, we should feel lucky they let us have those.

[Mesozoic]

My plan is to not hit 60 till the expansion.  I have no desire to play virtual Vegas, where hours are invested in a raid for the chance to maybe get an epic drop. 

[Merusk]

How does this affect casual raiders? If you're casual you're just doing something like ZG on the weekend, or maybe a pick-up MC group.  This won't affect the Pickup MC group at all, since it's resetting at server maint.  Since they're resetting the instances in 'off-peak' hours, the every-3-day resets will probably happen at like 8am pst when they hit on the weekends.

All a reset does is repop the zone and bosses.  If you're a 'casual' raider you're probably not hitting/ killing these guys anyway, so it doesn't really affect you.   

If you're not into the 'raid' thing, the time is better-spent in battlegrounds, anyway. Getting your rep (not rank) high enough with any of the various leagues takes about as much time, and produces equal quality gear.  Plus you won't be paying the 3g a night repair costs of the raid set.

[El Gallo]

Yeah, I am not getting why this is a big deal to anyone.  If you raid twice a week to clear half the place, you can still do that.

[HaemishM]

Just don't start one of these raids on a Monday night unless you plan to/are able to finish it. What's the problem?

Also, if you think you are casual and you raid, you are wrong.

[Jeff Kelly]

Just don't start one of these raids on a Monday night unless you plan to/are able to finish it. What's the problem?

It's already hard enough to schedule raids when the members of your raid group have jobs and personal lives without trying to align the schedule to a fixed 7 day period starting on wednesdays (maintenance is wednesdays on eu realms) but we can eventually handle that although we will have to reschedule our raid days which will take weeks before we find another date where most can find the time.

The problem lies with the 20 man raids. The fixed respawn timer is 3 days. This means that the casual friendlier 20 man instances reset on a different day every week. That is a bitch to plan for if you don't have a raid of basement dwellers.

Also, if you think you are casual and you raid, you are wrong.

Well either raiding MC or quitting. At the moment we try to achieve the former if this is not possible we will look at the latter option. I at least am unwilling to pay 13 Euro for the opportunity to sit around in Orgrimmar.

[HaemishM]

I feel your pain with the casual raiding. I led a large guild in EQ that was focused on being a casual, "family-oriented" guild. Not that we were family values types, but that we tried to create a brotherly atmosphere more than just trying to be the most efficient, uberest guild out there.

Raiding killed it. Or at least, it killed it for me, I quit the game, then the guild after it turned most of the people into lewt-whoring, backstabbing assmunches whose only concern became leveling and raiding so they could get the next shiney. It was a sad fucking sight to watch friends squabble over drops like "A Ball of Clay" just so they could get their epic first. Fucking pathetic actually.

Frankly, I think you should quit while your ahead, or shift to a PVP focus. The way of raiding casuals is lined with the heartache of uber wannabes, drama queens and lewt whores. Nothing good can come of it.

This post was brought to you by the letters Bitter and the numbers /rand100.

[Paelos]

I love watching the Aussies bitch whenever a time issue pops up. OH NOES!

Considering I'm on Proudmoore, the Aussie craphole, I would politely like them to all go fuck themselves.

[Merusk]

Just don't start one of these raids on a Monday night unless you plan to/are able to finish it. What's the problem?

It's already hard enough to schedule raids when the members of your raid group have jobs and personal lives without trying to align the schedule to a fixed 7 day period starting on wednesdays (maintenance is wednesdays on eu realms) but we can eventually handle that although we will have to reschedule our raid days which will take weeks before we find another date where most can find the time.

Unless you were actually clearing MC and going from Saturday to Friday to do it, this won't affect you at all. An instance is "fresh" until you kill the first boss. Then you're locked-in and can't do another for a week. This change just means if you do MC raids staring on Saturday, you only have until Wednesday to clear the place out before all the bosses repop.  If anything, it helps folks because if you time it right you can kill bosses twice in the same raid group. (Something that I don't think Blizz has thought-through, unless the "rest" is also resetting raid lockouts.)

The problem lies with the 20 man raids. The fixed respawn timer is 3 days. This means that the casual friendlier 20 man instances reset on a different day every week. That is a bitch to plan for if you don't have a raid of basement dwellers.

This is a valid complaint. However, they did clarify later-on that the resets were being set for when the fewest raids were active, based on previous logs.  That means it's likely to be early in the day when it falls on a weekend, since most raids happen in the late afternoon/ evening. If you don't raid at the time period these resets are set for, it's not a problem.

Also, if you think you are casual and you raid, you are wrong.

Well either raiding MC or quitting. At the moment we try to achieve the former if this is not possible we will look at the latter option. I at least am unwilling to pay 13 Euro for the opportunity to sit around in Orgrimmar.

PvP is much more fun and, like I mentioned, provides equivalent equipment for the time invested.  Since you're playing Horde, chances are you're outnumbered by the Alliance anyway, so you'd actually get the required reputation much faster, since most Horde can enter a battleground almost at-will. (Even if there is a wait, it's certainly not the 1 1/2 hour wait Alliance suffers from.)

[Jeff Kelly]

PvP is much more fun and, like I mentioned, provides equivalent equipment for the time invested. 

Doing Warsong Gulch ad nauseam for three months in a row is not my kind of fun.

[Cheddar]

PvP is much more fun and, like I mentioned, provides equivalent equipment for the time invested. 

Doing Warsong Gulch ad nauseam for three months in a row is not my kind of fun.

I concur with this statement.  I have been playing AB almost none stop, and am barely halfway through friendly with the faction.  I did reach "First Sergeant" rank today though, so go me!

It is a long grindy road though to exalted status.   

[Dren]

I contend you are not casual if you are doing either raiding or BG's.  Raiding for obvious reasons.  BG's because you have to be willing to sit around for hours before one even starts and then be able to do that every night of the week for 3-5 hours.  At that point, you are not casual.

Past 5 man instances, you've broken into hardcore territory people.  Or you just like killing peeps as a sport, not a means to an end.

That's why I do neither.  Well, I kill people for sport to change things up a bit.

[Merusk]

PvP is much more fun and, like I mentioned, provides equivalent equipment for the time invested.

Doing Warsong Gulch ad nauseam for three months in a row is not my kind of fun.

You'll be doing raid instances three months in a row, ad nausim for the same gear. Sure, you may get it first, but you'll still be in there with the rest of your guild long after that until everyone's equipped. If not, you'll find yourself so far behind on DKP when the next 'big shiny' shows up that you'll be the last equipped next time... if they don't kick you out first for basicly dumping them and saying "I got mine."

The long-grindy road to Exhalted status in PVP realms is shorter than the long, grindy road to Exhalted in smaller raid instances like ZG, or the DKP road in large MC guilds. (Unless you're there on every single raid, doing every single thing, but then you're hardly casual.)

Fact is, the endgame takes a long time to get anything.  Either you're into one of the various aspects, you cancel, or you roll an alt. That's the problem everyone should be bitching about. :D

I contend you are not casual if you are doing either raiding or BG's. Raiding for obvious reasons. BG's because you have to be willing to sit around for hours before one even starts and then be able to do that every night of the week for 3-5 hours. At that point, you are not casual.

Meh, on a good night I can get 2 bgs in about 3 hours as Alliance.  I go afk and do things around the house until I hear the "you're in" gong.  As a hordie, I'd get 3-5 instances in that timeframe, depending on how fast the Horde smashes the alliance.  (20/2000 yesterday.. GAH Alliance sucks.)

[Cheddar]

I contend you are not casual if you are doing either raiding or BG's.  Raiding for obvious reasons.  BG's because you have to be willing to sit around for hours before one even starts and then be able to do that every night of the week for 3-5 hours.  At that point, you are not casual.

Past 5 man instances, you've broken into hardcore territory people.  Or you just like killing peeps as a sport, not a means to an end.

That's why I do neither.  Well, I kill people for sport to change things up a bit.

Monday through Thursday the wait times are unreal, even for Horde.  My current modus operandi is to que up immediately after logging in; sometimes I get lucky and it opens up within 15 minutes.  Needless to say I am lucky to get in 1 BG on the weekdays.  On the weekends I have been averaging 10 or so, spread out over the entire 3 days.  Am I a catass?  Yes.  Can you be casual and do what I do?  Yes.  My friend is extremely casual and has reached rank 3 PvP doing 3-4 BG's a week, if that.

BG is generally massive chaos.  The least shitty wins.  I do hear it changes at the higher levels, but it will be awhile before I reach this.

[Fabricated]

I love watching the Aussies bitch whenever a time issue pops up. OH NOES!

Considering I'm on Proudmoore, the Aussie craphole, I would politely like them to all go fuck themselves.

I'm glad really. Maybe they'll move to another server or quit or something. Fuck 99.9% of them are decked out in MC/BWL gear anyway. Fuck em.

[cevik]

Monday through Thursday the wait times are unreal, even for Horde.  My current modus operandi is to que up immediately after logging in; sometimes I get lucky and it opens up within 15 minutes.  Needless to say I am lucky to get in 1 BG on the weekdays.  On the weekends I have been averaging 10 or so, spread out over the entire 3 days.  Am I a catass?  Yes.  Can you be casual and do what I do?  Yes.  My friend is extremely casual and has reached rank 3 PvP doing 3-4 BG's a week, if that.

BG is generally massive chaos.  The least shitty wins.  I do hear it changes at the higher levels, but it will be awhile before I reach this.

I'm halfway through 48, thus I'm fighting in the 40-49 BG, typically AB, Horde on Llane.  I just hit First Sergeant today (according to the PvP Site, I haven't logged in yet as I'm still at work, but hopefully I'll have me a nice pair of silk cuffs tonight!).  It took about 4 days for me to get almost (but not quite) through friendly on defilers, I should easily hit honored this weekend (and considering it's a long weekend, I may be able to make quite a bit of progress though honored).  I usually pvp 2 or 3 days a week (last week I pvped 2 days, had about 500 hks, previous week I did 3 days and had 700 hks, I'm a shadow priest but I spend 99% of my time healing, only throwing dots out there as far as damage goes, I switch into shadowform only for those suicide runs at lm when the zerg is up there).  According to the calculator in the other thread I should max out at Rank 8, but currently I only spend about 30% of my game time in PvP (that will change this week, I'm going to only PvP and see how many rank points I get for the week, as I do not want to move out of 40-49).  I also assume that since that Rank 8 is based on the fact that I'm fighting in 40-49, when I move to 50+ bgs (and eventually 60 bgs) I'll be able to get much more honor (much like the 30-39 into 40-49 move increased my honor significantly)?  Either way I'm pretty happy with Rank 8, I'd like Rank 10, which doesn't seem impossible if I pvp with more of my game time, but rank 8 would be fine as well.

The nights I pvp I usually log on around 8:00 central, and stay on until 10:00, maybe 11:00 if things are going well and I decide to skip watching Iron Chef.  On Llane, as a Horde in 40-49, it usually takes between 5 and 15 minutes to get into an AB instance, and from that point on the raid leader joins us as a group, so getting back into the game usually is less than 1 minute.  It usually takes us 15 minutes or so to CRUSH the alliance (seriously, I'm going to go give pvp lessons to alliance one day.. they are really bad).. From what I can see, the PvP Rewards (Faction Rewards that is) will be, by far, the easiest of the "epic" things to get.  Assuming that I count the Defiler's staff as "epic" (i.e. I'm sure I'll never get the High Warlord staff, so I'm not even going to remotely try for that).

Anyways, it helps that I REALLY like PvP (much more than.. well.. anything else), but anyways, the PvP grind stuff doesn't seem that difficult compared to trying to wait for the stupid /roll to head your way or to get enough DKPs or whatever they are called.. *shrug*..

[Cheddar]

I'm halfway through 48, thus I'm fighting in the 40-49 BG, typically AB, Horde on Llane.  I just hit First Sergeant today (according to the PvP Site, I haven't logged in yet as I'm still at work, but hopefully I'll have me a nice pair of silk cuffs tonight!).  It took about 4 days for me to get almost (but not quite) through friendly on defilers, I should easily hit honored this weekend (and considering it's a long weekend, I may be able to make quite a bit of progress though honored).  I usually pvp 2 or 3 days a week (last week I pvped 2 days, had about 500 hks, previous week I did 3 days and had 700 hks, I'm a shadow priest but I spend 99% of my time healing, only throwing dots out there as far as damage goes, I switch into shadowform only for those suicide runs at lm when the zerg is up there).  According to the calculator in the other thread I should max out at Rank 8, but currently I only spend about 30% of my game time in PvP (that will change this week, I'm going to only PvP and see how many rank points I get for the week, as I do not want to move out of 40-49).  I also assume that since that Rank 8 is based on the fact that I'm fighting in 40-49, when I move to 50+ bgs (and eventually 60 bgs) I'll be able to get much more honor (much like the 30-39 into 40-49 move increased my honor significantly)?  Either way I'm pretty happy with Rank 8, I'd like Rank 10, which doesn't seem impossible if I pvp with more of my game time, but rank 8 would be fine as well.

<more info>

We are working on getting enough people to form a full raid group (or at least the minimum 10), but due to us being relatively selective are only at about 5 on at any one time.  We do join the que as a group.  I love BG's; it kept me away from the SWG debacle and the nifty DDO free weekend yada yada yada.  I concur on that it does not feel like a grind- but come on, it is going to take me a loooong time to reach exalted with defilers.  But I do not mind, as I am only level 42, and it would be awhile before I can use the pretty stuff anyhow.

[Lt.Dan]

queue

[Merusk]

We are working on getting enough people to form a full raid group (or at least the minimum 10), but due to us being relatively selective are only at about 5 on at any one time.  We do join the que as a group.  I love BG's; it kept me away from the SWG debacle and the nifty DDO free weekend yada yada yada.  I concur on that it does not feel like a grind- but come on, it is going to take me a loooong time to reach exalted with defilers.  But I do not mind, as I am only level 42, and it would be awhile before I can use the pretty stuff anyhow.

Joinig as a group explains your long wait times.  Joining solo always gets you in faster.  You also get more faction/ honor at 60 than prior to that.  It's silly, I know, but the system is weighted to favor the folks at the cap.

[Venkman]

Yea, I don't get the outcry here. "Casual Raid", as mentioned, is something of an oxymoron unless you played only 2 hours a week and farmed Luci only. We start our Raids on Mondays and finish on Sundays, so this'll just shift to Tuesday>Tuesday. Heck, even the Monday-night craptastic performance we've been suffering for six weeks won't impact us any more than it does.

Resetting every 3 days is rough for those on fixed weekly schedules/negotiated with partner sorta things. That'd affect me too if I ever visited ZG :)

[Righ]

This wont do much to or for casual players with regards to raiding. However, its going to bundle a lot more raids up, which should produce some interesting spikes in server and network utilization in Blizzard's datacenter.

[SurfD]

i fear the days when 8+ guilds are all attempting Razergore and Vaelstraz at the same time on tuesday nights :(   The carnage in blackrock mountain will be nothing compared to the massive lag experienced inside BWL.

[HRose]

If you're casual you're just doing something like ZG on the weekend, or maybe a pick-up MC group.

Such things don't happen in my world (and if they do, they end badly).

The changes are horrid, though.

If anything, it helps folks because if you time it right you can kill bosses twice in the same raid group. (Something that I don't think Blizz has thought-through, unless the "rest" is also resetting raid lockouts.)

Huh?

PvP is much more fun and, like I mentioned, provides equivalent equipment for the time invested.  Since you're playing Horde, chances are you're outnumbered by the Alliance anyway, so you'd actually get the required reputation much faster, since most Horde can enter a battleground almost at-will. (Even if there is a wait, it's certainly not the 1 1/2 hour wait Alliance suffers from.)

Not really. You gain the "reputation" at the exact same pace since the system is balanced over your own faction. You gain the same reputation no matter of how many players are active and you gain the same reputation no matter of the Horde/Alliance ratio.

What changes is just the downtime between the queues.

But then whoever is doing something with the honor system is just crazy. And DEFINITELY not a casual player.

If you can do the PvP catass you can surely do the hardcore PvE. The only difference is that you need a guild (which is not entirely true since you would need a supporting guild even in PvP if you are going to seriously compete. With the difference that in this case the WHOLE GUILD has to focus to let you climb the ladder instead of a shareable goal for everyone).

Meh, on a good night I can get 2 bgs in about 3 hours as Alliance.  I go afk and do things around the house until I hear the "you're in" gong.

My battleground mod may help you. (autojoin for the win)

[Megrim]

I love watching the Aussies bitch whenever a time issue pops up. OH NOES!

Considering I'm on Proudmoore, the Aussie craphole, I would politely like them to all go fuck themselves.

I'm glad really. Maybe they'll move to another server or quit or something. Fuck 99.9% of them are decked out in MC/BWL gear anyway. Fuck em.

Heh, you know some of us are Australian, right?

[Merusk]

If anything, it helps folks because if you time it right you can kill bosses twice in the same raid group. (Something that I don't think Blizz has thought-through, unless the "rest" is also resetting raid lockouts.)

Huh?

Yea was typing before thinking. That is rather, "Huh?" and wrong.  This really only helps the raid guilds. You can kill MC bosses on Saturday, then have it reset on Tuesday so you can kill 'em again.  Then you can Spend the next Saturday in BWL and kill 'em again on Tuesday, and repeat the MC cycle on Saturday.   If the Raid ID resets on Tuesdays, it just frees up someone who's locked-in on Saturday to join a different MC group the next Tuesday, a bit sooner than usual.

Still, it doesn't help or hurt casual players, since a week is a week and casuals aren't attempting things on Tuesday nights, just the weekends.

PvP is much more fun and, like I mentioned, provides equivalent equipment for the time invested.  Since you're playing Horde, chances are you're outnumbered by the Alliance anyway, so you'd actually get the required reputation much faster, since most Horde can enter a battleground almost at-will. (Even if there is a wait, it's certainly not the 1 1/2 hour wait Alliance suffers from.)

Not really. You gain the "reputation" at the exact same pace since the system is balanced over your own faction. You gain the same reputation no matter of how many players are active and you gain the same reputation no matter of the Horde/Alliance ratio.

What changes is just the downtime between the queues.

Right, and time in the queues is the biggest hinderance to gaining reptuation points.  I'd be at friendly+ with AB if I didn't have to wait so damn long to get into a BG. The wait means that time I could be spent killing people for the 5 rep points or gaining marks for reputation is instead spent in a queue. (ususally gaining reputation with some other faction grind, like Furbolgs.) Horde (on most servers) doesn't have this handicap and can gain reputation much faster because of it.

But then whoever is doing something with the honor system is just crazy. And DEFINITELY not a casual player.

Agreed. But reputation isn't the Honor system, it's the faction system.  It'll take a casual player a lot longer to get their faction up, but at least the CAN do it over time, unlike the Honor system.  It's a system of rewards that is based on accrual, rather than competetion.

Meh, on a good night I can get 2 bgs in about 3 hours as Alliance.  I go afk and do things around the house until I hear the "you're in" gong.

My battleground mod may help you. (autojoin for the win)

Thanks, I'll check it out.

[Fabricated]

I love watching the Aussies bitch whenever a time issue pops up. OH NOES!

Considering I'm on Proudmoore, the Aussie craphole, I would politely like them to all go fuck themselves.

I'm glad really. Maybe they'll move to another server or quit or something. Fuck 99.9% of them are decked out in MC/BWL gear anyway. Fuck em.

Heh, you know some of us are Australian, right?

Doesn't mean I don't hate your countrymen, at least on WoW.

[Megrim]

I love watching the Aussies bitch whenever a time issue pops up. OH NOES!

Considering I'm on Proudmoore, the Aussie craphole, I would politely like them to all go fuck themselves.

I'm glad really. Maybe they'll move to another server or quit or something. Fuck 99.9% of them are decked out in MC/BWL gear anyway. Fuck em.

Heh, you know some of us are Australian, right?

Doesn't mean I don't hate your countrymen, at least on WoW.

Awww come on man, we all wear thongs and pat Koalas all day. How can you hate us?

[TheWalrus]

Boomarangs man. Fucking boomarangs.

[cevik]

Got honored with defilers tonight and got my nifty belt.  Could get the trinket too, but I can't use it until 58, so blah..

I've gotten a total of 9k honor with defilers so far (3k for friendly, 6k for honored), and now I have to get 12k for revered to get the next step.  Doesn't seem like the next stop is implausible, especially if I pvp heavily on the double honor/rep weekends (which is reported to be broken with ab, but I don't think it is because I got rep extremely fast on the last double honor weekend).  Also I think I'll get more rep per game after I bite the bullet and ding 50 (at least I seemed to get a lot more rep when I dinged 40 than when I was in the 30-39 group, so assume the same will be true for moving from 40-49 to 50-59).  I could ding 50 tommorrow if I wanted, but I'm going to farm more honor and rep this weekend, then ding early next week.

Out of all of the "end game" gear, it seems that Faction gear is the only stuff that you can do as a casual.  Unlike the rank grind, you can put it down and walk away for a few weeks without taking a hit, and unlike raids you can sit at the pc for an hour or two each night and work your way towards the goal.  Of course I'm a bit biased, since I'm on horde and my queue waits are usually painless..

[Kageru]

So the fact it is an absolute minimal effort / thought fix to a problem of their own devising (instance cascading) doesn't bother anyone?

The fact that it failed to consider their Australian player-base is barely worth noting, that's been the case since before launch.

[Cheddar]

My battleground mod may help you. (autojoin for the win)

Can us dumb people please get a quick "how to" on getting this to work?  I have never modded WoW.

[Merusk]

Drop it in it's own directory within your add-on directory, make sure it's checkced in the 'addons' button at char select and you're aok.    Make sure when you're unzipping that it doesn't already make its own directory, though because I don't think Addon>sub>sub stuff runs.

[Cheddar]

Drop it in it's own directory within your add-on directory, make sure it's checkced in the 'addons' button at char select and you're aok.    Make sure when you're unzipping that it doesn't already make its own directory, though because I don't think Addon>sub>sub stuff runs.

Wait a minute.  You mean Blizzard supports the mod community?  You have blown my mind.

Thank you for the information.

[Merusk]

...

Where on earth have you been for all the discussions we've had about add ons before?  You're doing pot again, aren't you.