Raiding Poll

[Righ]

the "core" members

-100 points for using a recent McQuaid meme.

have Ouro/C'thun on farm status

The level 60 of today. As in "you're not level 60, your opinion is worthless". This sets you at Blizzard forum retard level.

[Sogrinaugh]

the "core" members

-100 points for using a recent McQuaid meme.

have Ouro/C'thun on farm status

The level 60 of today. As in "you're not level 60, your opinion is worthless". This sets you at Blizzard forum retard level.

A)  I've never read anything i can think of by McQuaid
B)  Has nothing to do with a "you're not level 60".  One is a value judgement on the worth of someones opinion based on character level.  Whereas what i am saying is, if you claim that "raiding is easy", but yet you are unable to defeat the hardest raid bosses currently available, then your claim is false.

[tazelbain]

>  B)  Has nothing to do with a "you're not level 60".  One is a value judgement on the worth of someones opinion based on character level.  Whereas what i am saying is, if you claim that "raiding is easy", but yet you are unable to defeat the hardest raid bosses currently available, then your claim is false.

The "hard" you are talking about is not difficultly. It means "furthest along the item treadmill".

[Paelos]

Yeah, your B) is a flawed conclusion. The ease of any abstract pursuit such as raiding doesn't hinge on the difficulty of the top tier.

[Zane0]

Well, in MC and BWL you could bring 20 retards and 20 people who were on the ball, and still get things done.  You'd have trouble in BWL, but it'd be possible; I know from experience.  The later half of AQ is rather different though. The Twin Emps splits your healers, and throws ae around, requiring every single one of them to perform competently and be prepared to move.  DPS can't slack, because there's a time limit.  C'thun takes this even further- a highly mobile fight, if a single person is in the wrong place for 5 or 10 seconds, there is a good chance a beam will chain and fuck your attempt.  12 minute run back.  You can't do the fight with more than 2 or 3 semi-idiots.

Plus, AQ drops don't really bring gear to the next level, so there's a very real increase in difficulty.

[Righ]

I dare say that its as easy as everything else once you are all familiar with a working strategy and have a group predominantly outfitted in the appropriate level of mudflated epics. Of course, what do I know? My knowledge of raids beyond BWL is indirect, so...

[Xanthippe]

From everything I have heard of AQ, it doesn't sound fun.  I wouldn't know, because I am one of those people in my guild who is only there for the scene.  I have no NR gear; I don't want one of those sought-after spots, I don't care about the loot, and don't have the time to put in night after night. 

I enjoy being in groups when people need to function but the reality of > 10 person groups generally means some don't have to function above barely.

I care more about what loot looks like than how it helps me; I spend most of my time looking for dragons, or finding herbs, or goofing around on an alt, or "roleplaying" on my pvp server (god it pisses people off heh).  All of which are more fun for me than being with 39 other people doing anything 40 people are required to do.  Fun was the first time I went to Ragefire Chasm as a level 15 with a group when nobody really knew what was what.

But I do understand that people have fun differently.  I don't care if Blizzard makes more AQ type dungeons.  I just want some more Ragefire Chasms.  I don't care if they drop oranges or purples or blues.  I mean, I enjoy it when I am fighting pirates and a grey Parrot Skeleton drops.  That's fun.  The Link series in Un'goro - hugely fun.  Protecting my farmers in Hillsbrad on a little alt against the Horde - that's fun.

I haven't run out of fun quite yet, but I do think that Blizzard would do well to toss more content toward the non-raiders.  People end up leaving when they run out of things to do (except raiders who are compelled to keep trying to get that set! 30-40+ times over and over, run MC run BWL run AQ gogogo!).

Blizzard should have an exit poll.  That would tell them loads more than anything else.

[Sogrinaugh]

I dare say that its as easy as everything else once you are all familiar with a working strategy and have a group predominantly outfitted in the appropriate level of mudflated epics. Of course, what do I know? My knowledge of raids beyond BWL is indirect, so...

No.

Stupid people in your raid will wipe you regardless of gear, the fight was specifically designed to do this, and i am thankful for it.  Gear will not save you from a Dark Glare that does 50kish damage.  Nor will it save you from some fucktard that scoots a little to near, or worse, someone who was late getting into position after a rotation, and inadvertently fills a gap between you and someone else in your group, linking you into a nice clusterfucked chain lightning (the damage doubles, without limit, each time it jumps, again, gear will not save you).  Gear also wont save you from someone else on the other side of the boss who didnt react quickly enough to the mindflay eye tentacle that is doing 750 dmg/tick to you from across the room and slowing you to the point that you can't escape the Dark Glare.

100% of the raid has to be on point.  Yes, the tanks need good gear to tank the giant claw tentacles, and dps needs good gear to drop everything quick enough, but it only grants you the ability to do what you need to do, lack of correct player action will still wipe your raid.

The whole reason you see guilds merging to beat this boss is because people realized this isnt something you can do with your friends, your wife, your co-workers.  If you want to defeat this encounter, you will go in maximally buffed with the best players your server has to offer, who are 100% commited to defeating the encounter and are unburdend by distractions (get up to answer door, tip the pizza guy, run back, your dead).  Its not ebonroc, or nefarian, where 1 healer not healing or 1 dps autoattacking isn't going to make a huge difference.  You will get fucked, over, and over, and over again, for lack of skill on part of any of the 40 people in your raid.  Imo, it is the best encounter blizzard has ever made.

Can't really speak on Ouro, as my guild has spent no time on him.  I hear, he's also hard.

[Calantus]

There's a definate progression in how skilled and/or attentive people are having to be in the raiding game. C'Thun for instance, if 3-4 people are dead in the first phase you had better execute the 2nd phase flawlessly or you're gonna wipe. When we killed Nef for the second time we had 1/2 the raid dead and it didn't even matter, just made it take longer than it had to be. C'Thun is a fight where you can lose 3-4 people on the pull if you don't execute it right. One person is out of place and chain an eye beam... and boom 2+ people dead. A person doesn't run from the dark glare within a second of it starting up? Another person dead. Mindflay tentacle up for ~10 seconds? Probably another person dead.

Similar to how guilds struggled going from MC to BWL, it was a step up in skill/attention needed. It sure isn't rocket science, but there's a lot of people that somehow amazingly cannot do it but function perfectly fine in MC. That's how late AQ is, you have to be a little less braindead and have a bit better understanding in WTF is going on in the fight. I've never had a problem with it (cept the first 3-4 C'Thun attempts where I was getting used to so much shit going on) but evidently some people do. If a BWL guild went to C'Thun I'd bet 20-30 of their members would get the fight within the first few wipes, no problem. But then you got the 10-20 other idiots who just don't get it. That's what makes it hard.

[Ironwood]

Watch The Fucking Tail!

Those two posts alone sound like the most unfun punishment in the history of punishments.  And I'm including the Guillotine, complete with Old French Ladies knitting.

Jesus.

[Righ]

None of that makes it "not easy". All you're saying is that there is less room for people to go AFK and have a shower (as one of our off-tanks did on a Ragnaros once). That doesn't affect the skilled and attentive player one iota. All it affects is that the logistics of getting 39 other worthy people are more challenging, means you have to more of an asshole and tell mediocre players to piss off even if they are friends, and distribute loot to best serve the raid rather than giving a shit about your fellow players equally. Those logistics were always too bloody challenging, because 90% of players are useless and most everybody is greedy. That's what I've been complaining about. How will these super fun encounters bring more to the table when they're just more of an organisational cockblock?

Raiding is easy. You cannot make a raid encounter that is not easy (for as skilled and most excellent a player as me). The only thing that isn't easy is dealing with the other plebs in your guild. Got my drift now?

[Ironwood]

I do.  It's what I've been saying all along.

My Raiding Group is a fun and nice bunch of people.  After only 2 initial succesfull attempts we put Raggy on Farm status.  We're doing well and gaining the lewts and working the instances.

Raiding is STILL not fun or, to my mind, what the endgame of WoW Should be about.  It is in fact a cop-out perpetuated by the EQ mindset that refuses to let go.

In My Opinion.  Which I fully admit is worthless.  Regularly.

[Tebonas]

At some point in those game, the masochism takes over. Its like getting trained on a parcour and getting electro shocks if you take the wrong steps, and if you avoid getting the shocks for some time you feel proud of yourself and eat the cookie they give you. But they still send you through a frigging room where they taser you randomly.

Whoever wrote how Everquest broke you people and make you suckers for punishment was oh so right!

[Calantus]

(note: for the below put a silent "for me" with everything I say, I'm not trying to say everyone is like this, but I cbf'd clarifying every statement.)

Hmmm... I'm trying to think how to put this. I guess a good start is that raiding is all about achieving. It's the same sort of thing as killing a hard boss in a single player game, playing a game on hard mode, or trying to beat a high score/fast time. The enjoyment isn't so much derived from the activity, but from the feeling of achievement that comes from succeeding. Now the base activity has to be enjoyable enough to keep going, but it's not the enjoyment payload.

Now when you kill a raid boss you're not just getting the sense of achievement from killing the boss yourself, but also from your guild's/raid's achievement. You can even get a sence of achievement from your guild killing a new boss when you're not even there. I guess it's kind of like how people get excited when their sports team wins a game (which is something I never understood until just now). Now if your team lost players to injury, got screwed in the draft, the coach/key player retired, or a win has simply not come in a long time, the sense of achievement is magnified when you win. The game itself might have been just like any other game, unnaffected by the out-of-game drama/hardships, but they still affect how much you get out of the win.

It's the same for when your guild finally downs a boss that has been nagging at you for a while. Sure you might have gotten your role down ages ago, but other people in your guild didn't, or you've been having attendance problems, or drama was seemingly pulling your guild apart at the time making it hard to progress. So while the fight itself wasn't so hard in a game sense, only requiring you have the basic strat down and then everyone take their game to a step above being retarded, the other aspects still make it a hard fight for the guild. I've always thought it funny when people say stuff like "Boss X down after only our 3rd real attempt!!", but have been at that boss for weeks. The fight wasn't 2 wipes to learn and then kill them. The real fight was the weeks of recruiting and/or getting people to come to learn the boss. It's the whole thing, not just what happens from when you engage the mob to when win/wipe.

So when your guild defeats a boss that is difficult in a metagame/guild drama/whatever sense, you get that boosted sense of achievement. C'Thun is a boss that makes it harder for the guild to down as you can't carry as the quality of your players has to go up on average by cutting the crap ones, it also makes for lots of drama due to cuts, and people not wanting to come because they get frustrated by other people fucking it up. C'Thun IS hard, regardless of what you do in the encounter itself,so the sense of achievement is magnified. We've been saying for ever that it's all just DING! GRATZ! and hamsters hitting levers for food pellets, and it's true. Well, raiding is getting 40+ people to jump on a lever to get one big giant food pellet you all get to share in.

And I see nothing wrong with that.

[Ironwood]

And Here's The Deal, Calantus :

I Don't Disagree With What You Say.


However, I think that it should be an Opt in/Opt Out situation, which it is NOT at the moment, no matter what anyone says.  As you rightly pointed out, it makes the PEOPLE and herding the PEOPLE part of the game and part of the encounter.  This is Far, Far too random to be Fun for me.  Notice up the top where I said about it stopping being a game and starting being a sport ?  Yeah, read your post again and look at all the metaphors and analogies you used.  You're in a Sport, Mate.  And that's not really what I want.  I want a game.

How to fix that then ?

Scaleable Instances Please.  Let's have inclusion for EVERYONE.  If you wanna do the 40 man thing - You GO GIRL !  You want to jump in with five of your closest mates for a GAME ?  YOU GO TOO !

Wheee.

:)

[Tebonas]

What he said. I derive pleasure from tactics, from thinking on the feet and quick changes of strategy to accomodate a changed situation.

All things that, if tried in those raids, quickly wipe your ass. You have to prepared beforehand. You have to have you battleplan ready, everybody has to know where to stand and what to do. It a strategic game, where you know beforehand what has to happen to get the mob down. Or dying to find out a new piece of the big picture that lets you kill the mob in one of your next encounters. You simply can't turn around the fight if something unforseen happens and things start to go wrong. If things start to wrong, they go wrong and everything is over. No skill, no quick thinking, no calm demeanor and force of will can prevent that.

I've survived single groups where things went wrong and everything was headed downhill. But people pulled themself together, everybody gave 150% and at the end we were still standing despite the odds. Thats where I get my kick from.

Complety different game!

[Calantus]

And I don't disagree with adding more options for non-raiders. What I do disagree with is directly scaled instances, because it takes away the loot incentive, and lessens the achievement incentive. I've gone over it before, but just to recap, there are a lot of fringe raiders who either don't mind raiding one way or the other, but do it because of the loot. There's also other people who like raiding, but would never know it if not for trying it out because of the loot. And with how spreadout the WoW population is, you can't afford to lose those fringe players or high end raiding would die on a lot of servers. So basically raiding has to be the ultimate thing or it dies (unless Blizz made [Raid] tagged servers for people to congregate to... but they'd never do that). And since Blizz wants to be everything to everyone, they don't want to kill it off.

Now that's not me disagreeing with scaling alltogether, but only with direct scaling. There should definately be 5/10 man versions of the raid dungeons that tie into the overall story so non-raiders aren't left out. Those instances should also give loot that makes the gap much narrower than it is for PVP reasons. Basically as long as non-raiders and raiders alike can partake in the ongoing story, both have roughly the same amount of things to do, and the loot gap isn't too bad I think that's all that can be asked for.

The current situation is mostly created by Blizzard playing catchup with the raiding game. If the game shipped with BWL/AQ, and then Naxx/Dire Maul were added afterwards then nobody would be complaining about the amount of time put into raiding vs non-raiding. Of course then there are loot complaints, but Blizz seems to be learning there. Then there are the lore inclusion complaints, which again could be solved by putting in the equivalent smaller instances.

Just making it so you can kill C'Thun with 5 or 40 and number of drops being scaled accordingly doesn't seem like the right approach to me.

[stray]

You're in a Sport, Mate.

Not even a sport really. More like a marathon.

[Glazius]

some stuff about raiding difficulty

So you're saying that if the wrong person's connection lags for a second, everyone dies and you waste two hours?

Ouch.

--GF

[bhodi]

So you're saying that if the wrong person's connection lags for a second, everyone dies and you waste two hours?

Pretty much. You don't waste 2 hours, you do waste about 15 minutes becuase you have to resurrect and re-buff the party. This *is* blizzard after all, they fuck you, but they do it with lube. Right now, it's a 6 minute run back to the end game boss (C'Thun), followed by the 15 minute buff/prepration to go again. Blizzard deemed it too long so next patch will be opening a door to let people skip that long run back.

Generally, if your main tank or other critical person disconnects you are going to wipe. There's simply no avoiding it. The real difficulty (and tragedy) is that in the later instances one or two fuckups from *anyone* in the 40 man raid can completely ruin it for you, there is no opportunity for the rest of the raid to pull out the stops and overcome it. Everyone does their job flawlessly or you start over, learn from your mistake, and try again. and again. and again.

Blizz chose not to scale the difficulty in the learning of it, since people can learn the instance very fast unless you put artificial cockblocks in like "you can only try this boss once an hour/day/week". They're forced (since people hate obvious cockblocks) to scale the difficulty in the execution by making the timings very tight and making you rely on every member of your raid to do their job perfectly. They put the delay not in the 'learning' phase, but in the 'execution' phase. This can get pretty demoralizing after a while and can easily tear guilds apart from the blame game and frustration at hammering the keys all day but not getting their pellet epics.

[Ironwood]

And I don't disagree with adding more options for non-raiders. What I do disagree with is directly scaled instances, because it takes away the loot incentive, and lessens the achievement incentive. I've gone over it before, but just to recap, there are a lot of fringe raiders who either don't mind raiding one way or the other, but do it because of the loot. There's also other people who like raiding, but would never know it if not for trying it out because of the loot. And with how spreadout the WoW population is, you can't afford to lose those fringe players or high end raiding would die on a lot of servers. So basically raiding has to be the ultimate thing or it dies (unless Blizz made [Raid] tagged servers for people to congregate to... but they'd never do that). And since Blizz wants to be everything to everyone, they don't want to kill it off.

The loot scales too.  Obviously.

 

So, killing Raggy five man will give you a "Chance" of an Epixx, much like Strat.  Whereas Killing him full 40 and you've got your usual 4 guaranteed epixx plus whatever extra shit.

[Dren]

They could do a lot just by changing the loot tables now.  Make it so there is a very small chance that any of the epics or whatever "could" drop in a 5 or 10 man instance.  Make it so it is more D2'ish.  The 20+ instances can continue to practically guarantee epics, etc.

This at least lets the casual player feel like they have a chance.  At this point, I look at the instances that I CAN get into (5-10 man) as just a way to get to know my guildmates better, etc.  I never go in thinking I'm going to get some uber piece of armor or weapon, because there is absolutely no chance of it.  We end up just DE'ing everything.

It would be nice to have somebody get a 1 in 10 run instance get some item that makes everyone stop and stare in awe once in awhile.  You'd be amazed at the amount of pull that kind of jackpot mentality would get.  It certainly worked for D2.

[Righ]

It has been alluded to by several raiders here that they would not like that situation, as a catass non-raider could end up with the same goodies. There's two reasons that that doesn't work for them - one is that there is a potential for their exclusivity to be diluted by people who don't undergo the psychological trauma of dealing with a raid full of chucklebutts, the second is that some of the people currently "forced" to raid to get their epics will do the more convenient and interesting route, thus denying them easy access to a raid full of decent players. This clearly is not optimal for somebody who actually gets their jollies from large-scale raiding.

[Fabricated]

Or they could just stop releasing fucking raid dungeons in every patch and put in some new 5/10/20man content. I for one would love a new 10-manner.

I don't get the point in having 4 full tiers of equipment before expansion drops since there will be no real incentive to get any of it when you can just grind to roughly level 64-65, so the blues and epic world drops are better than Tier 3 stuff. Of course, Blizz has fucked its itemization up by making items from the 3 tiers better and better despite the fact they're the same rarity/item level and geared towards the same specs roughly.

A level 60 Epic Rogue Dagger from Naxx should NOT be significantly better than one from MC.

[Merusk]

The only problem I'd have with scaled raid dungeons, is the inevitable whines from the 5-man groups when an Epic dropped and nobody could use it.  You already see this in regards to Scholo & Strath if, for example, you don't have a Druid but the Wildheart helm drops off of Gandling.   I can only imagine the complaining.

 "We spent X-hours doing MC in our 5-man and this is our 5th time killing Rag. First time dropping a purple and he dropped Fucking HUNTER pants! We didn't have a Hunter! Bliz fix this so it only drops gear usable by the folks in there!"

[Signe]

I don't see why there should be that much of a problem with raids that scale.  It could be that a 40 man raid would be rewarded by having more of the epics drop.  The detriment would be, as Merusk said, that smaller groups might find that there is no one in their party who could use certain loot.  If the dungeons can be made scalable to the number in the group, why not the loot?  As for complaining... they'd get that regardless.  That's what people do on game forums, for the most part.  I'm sure they're used to it.  If not, they've been in a coma since the first day WoW launched their board.

I can see how this might upset the apple cart for Cal and others, however.  They might, indeed, have difficulty filling a 40 man raid group if smaller groups can do the same dungeons.  Of course, this simply tells me that smaller groups might be more fun (certainly less frustrating and more social) and that more people would enjoy raiding if they could achieve it that way.  I know I'd be more likely to take part in a much smaller raid group and I have absolutely no interest in the groups with more than 8 or 10 people.  I have no way of knowing if I'm the majority here, or if Cal and Sogrinaugh are... I always bet on me, though!   :-D

[angry.bob]

The only problem I'd have with scaled raid dungeons, is the inevitable whines from the 5-man groups when an Epic dropped and nobody could use it.  

If they go to the trouble of making the encounters scaleable, it wouldn't take much more effort to build the loot table for the instance to only drop epics usable by the classes in it.

[tkinnun0]

there are a lot of fringe raiders who either don't mind raiding one way or the other, but do it because of the loot. There's also other people who like raiding, but would never know it if not for trying it out because of the loot. And with how spreadout the WoW population is, you can't afford to lose those fringe players

You know, I know exactly how you feel.

Except I can wait, unsubscribed, for things to get better.

[Righ]

Doesn't really matter one way or another: that some group might not be able to use a BoP epic that drops is not a valid argument for larger raids. I've seen legendary stuff get DE'd because people don't want to spend the DKP on it. No biggie, on to the next encounter/dungeon/etc. There will probably less dissention among a half dozen people than among forty. If there's tears and foot stomping, pick a different group next time out.

There are two valid arguments for raids not scaling, and I find both to be selfish:

1. The large-scale raiders don't want people who don't measure up to their "standards" from having equivalent loot/kudos.

2. The large-scale raiders feel that they need people to be forced into their playstyle in order for it to remain viable.

Number two has more merit than number one, but its still selfish. If more people would rather do instances many more times with smaller groups than do them fewer times with larger groups, then the claims that most people want to raid because its fun start to look hollow.

[Nija]

I didn't think it was possible for WoW to get even less fun than the last time I checked up on it.

I can't believe people enjoy this shit.

[Merusk]

Here's another interesting dynamic, and one I only just considered.

Most folks are arguing for the removal of "massive" from MMOs.  Smaller dungeons, smaller groups, less time, less headaches.  It seems, what is really being asked for is a Single Player game you can enojoy with your friends.


 

The only problem I'd have with scaled raid dungeons, is the inevitable whines from the 5-man groups when an Epic dropped and nobody could use it.  

If they go to the trouble of making the encounters scaleable, it wouldn't take much more effort to build the loot table for the instance to only drop epics usable by the classes in it.

True, and so long as the same mechanic were applied to all raids, I don't see the problem there.  Hell they've already got some pseudo code doing this, so you don't see Shaman stuff as Alliance or Paladin stuff as Horde off of bosses that can drop both.

 The only problem I've got with it is from a 'changing the nature of the beast' angle.  Again, it's more single-player game mechanics dropped into a more massivly-scaled game.  Not neccarily a bad thing, and probably something that needs to happen to TRULY create a "next gen" game.

[Signe]

You're in an instance.  You've already left the MM part behind.  I don't see that argument as anything but circular, at best.

[Merusk]

Good point, wasn't an argument tho just a thought I'd had about the whole process. 

Still, I'd rather see raid dungeons and the like instanced than things go the GW route, if only because GW lacks even the minor community WOW servers have.

[Zane0]

Many MMO players don't try to find fun, though.  They'll take the easiest path, and any fun they have will be incidental.  Of course, when they max their character, they will not generally go back to find the harder paths that are perhaps more entertaining.  That's what makes this stuff so damn hard.

If we look at a raid group and sum up the time they spend- perhaps two weeks to learn each encounter, about four hours every raid; not counting meta-game activities like organization, forums, tactics, etc.  We're looking at what can be weeks or months at a time between epic drops for each person.  What makes them keep at it?  The social elements- vent, forums, the excitement of 40 people acting together, etc.

Is it readily imaginable for someone to go through a 5-10 man instance for weeks or months at a time to get a single drop that is itemized at the same quality, and to enjoy the experience?  Are they going to have any fun?  That's the problem with "scaling down".  There are, by the way, epics one can find outside of large raids which are as good, but do you know how often they drop?  At about that same equivalent rate as a 40 man raid, per person.  Rep grinds are a naked reflection of how unentertaining this is.

Now, I do hear that Blizzard is tinkering with a massive 10-man, Kharazan, for the Burning Crusade, which will have a raid instance timer.  This might make for some interesting concessions to those who don't like to raid but are very organized.  I don't expect that the very general picture will change, however; the harsh reality of Content consumption won't allow it to.

[tkinnun0]

There are, by the way, epics one can find outside of large raids which are as good, but do you know how often they drop?  At about that same equivalent rate as a 40 man raid, per person.  Rep grinds are a naked reflection of how unentertaining this is.

I might be able to tolerate them, if I could exchange my accumulated rest exp for faction. 2 weeks of rest exp are equal to 1 week of grinding, or somesuch.