I propose this: Give the raids back to the raiders

[Crispin]

The horse is dead, stop beating it.

Blizzard didnt create wow, to carer for hardcore players, it's a game, and they wanna hit as broad an audience as possible, no amount of complaining about the current setup will make them change it.


They'll gladly take a ton of heat from the minority of the playerbase, before cutting off the majority of their playerbase from certain content, it's really a situation where you can either accept it or leave it, or ofcourse buy your way into influencing the decision making at Blizzard, but that's the only way you'll have it your way.

[gneugen]

5 years later, this thread is still being created. It's like a rite of passage for forum posters or something. You have to have created at least 1 "Raiding should be like X" in order to progress to the next level.

Newsflash: you will never get what you want from WoW. They will implement special things for the hardcore like Challenge Modes, but you're not going to get the exclusive nature of Vanilla and BC back. It just won't happen. Sorry. Blizzard is in the business of making money and pandering to a handful of players at the expense of the millions who pay their bills just WON'T happen. These threads are entertaining though. Pipe dreams, and what not.

[Deleted]

I do enough work with computers to know that it is EXPENSIVE. Music. Art. Writers. Programmers. Hardware and phsyical costs.

Really, "doing work with computers" qualifies you to judge how much it costs Blizzard to develop a raid? No. You have absolutely no clue how much it cost Blizzard to develop FL or DS, for example.

MOST players didn't engage in raids. The vast majority of players didn't engage in raids. Blizzard could have cut raids entirely and barely seen a blip on subscriber numbers. So the link you posit between the old raids and the subscribers simply didn't exist. Players played WoW for other reasons....its a good game with plenty to do.

And you keep repeating this fallacy. So what if most people didn't engage in raids? You have this incredibly naive, simplistic model in your head of how the game works. People don't come to WoW to see some reused boss models and textures with banal lore, i.e., the stuff Blizzard likes to call "content", but rather they are attracted by the overall experience of the game. That experience has been degraded by the new end-game model, which has destroyed many of the pillars of WoW's success, like highly organized, large guilds and hard challenges that motivated players to get better all the time.

[Deleted]

Really, "doing work with computers" qualifies you to judge how much it costs Blizzard to develop a raid? No. You have absolutely no clue how much it cost Blizzard to develop FL or DS, for example.



And you keep repeating this fallacy. So what if most people didn't engage in raids? You have this incredibly naive, simplistic model in your head of how the game works. People don't come to WoW to see some reused boss models and textures with banal lore, i.e., the stuff Blizzard likes to call "content", but rather they are attracted by the overall experience of the game. That experience has been degraded by the new end-game model, which has destroyed many of the pillars of WoW's success, like highly organized, large guilds and hard challenges that motivated players to get better all the time.

Better at what? If people don't raid then raiding experience and expertise is worthless to them.

Most people quested and pottered about with the odd BG. Cata was light on that sort of content.

[Talen]

Really, "doing work with computers" qualifies you to judge how much it costs Blizzard to develop a raid? No. You have absolutely no clue how much it cost Blizzard to develop FL or DS, for example.

You don't even know what I do for a living or exactly HOW my expertise may give me knowledge of the costs of software and game development.

Regardless, game development is expensive. It requires the input from a lot of people. You may want to dismiss that idea in some vague hope of havign your argument strengthened by it, but that doesn't change reality.

It takes time, money and effort to develop a patch and raid. There is only so much of each available and raids eat up a lot of what is. Of these, money is in some ways the least important.

And you keep repeating this fallacy.

Fine. Show me where Blizzard lied.

So what if most people didn't engage in raids?

It means raid development takes a back seat because not many people engage in that activity. It doesn't matter if it is profitable if Blizzard can get a better return from the same resources using them elsewhere.

You have this incredibly naive, simplistic model in your head of how the game works. People don't come to WoW to see some reused boss models

No. They come to play a game. They DON'T CARE about reused models. Thats why doing so makes perfect sense. It saves time, effort and money to do so. Unique models have their place in game, but so do reused art assets.

That experience has been degraded by the new end-game model, which has destroyed many of the pillars of WoW's success, like highly organized, large guilds and hard challenges that motivated players to get better all the time.

The same content that few people ever saw, let alone tried. Raids provided a focus for the game which is why they got such hefty investment. They provided stroy, gaming material and an opportunity for people to work together. And all of this can be provided via other mechanics that are more accessible, cheaper and easier to develop and integrate. And for ciontent that so few people experienced, that meant those resources could no be justified being spent on raid development. Bang for buck, raid devs generated a squib.

As it is, raiding has not been destroyed. 25 man raiding hasn't even been destroyed. Indeed, its more popular now than ever with the LFR model. Whats gone down is the number of people willing to put up with the issues of 25s to get the gear, and its gone down because they have other options.

What the new model does is:

1: Make raiding more accessible by implementing difficulty modes
2: Addresses the issues affecting game balance and design, gear inflation, guild interactions, etc that Blizzard mentioned in its debates about his design.
3: Provide a system to introduce people to the raid concept.

There are other pluses.

It falls down in one area. People need incentives to run the 25 man raid. When those incentives were removed, that model had to stand in its own merits. And it simply didn't have many, and less people cared about. Most of the players who went to 10s did so gladly. It offered them everything 25s did without any of the problems 25s had.

The problem here is that in doing so, the numbers of people willing to put up with those issues dropped. They don't have to put up with the aspects of 25s they dislike to get the rewards they want...because those rewards are available elsewhere. And in that sense, the sense that the players run from a format that has aspects they dislike, the issues that affect 25s can be seen as a deterrent to that format.

What its unfortunate about that is that there are plenty of players who DO get something from 25s that they don't get from 10s.

But that does not mean every one feels the same way. It does not mean their experience is standard. And simply offering extras choices to the system does not mean those players get their options removed.

Given a free choice, players decided they didn't want to deal with the problems that are inherent in 25s. That isn't news. That isn't even surprising.

There isn't, however, any easy way to address this issue. A year of debate and more by several people on this and other forums has resulted in no acceptable solution either. You can't incentivise 25s without killing 10s. You an't return to the old model for the same reason. You can't make 25s the prime mode without affecting the viability of 10 man guilds. You can't get rid of LFR without accepting raid development budgets will get huge cuts.

And so on.

So the core problem is simple. Blizzard is looking at 25s and has decided that the issues affecting 25s affect a free choice. Given a free and fair choice between the raids themselves, given all else is equal, the various issues affecting 25s act as a deterrent; of all the people who run 10s, there is a subset, large or small, who do so because they run from 25s instead of running to 10s.

What we want to have happen is to stop that "running from" attitude. We want everyone to "run to" the format of their choice.

And so far, no solution has been found.

EJL

[Vice80]

You raider elitists need to stop being so ignorant. The game isnt just for you, you arent paying for it yourself. Im sick and tired of people saying shit like casuals shouldnt raid this or should just stick to this etc. We ALL pay for the game to experience ALL the content however the hell we want to experience it. God I just dont understand the mentality of you elitists.

^ This. Even though I do understand their mentality. They want to be special, because they're ain't nothing in their sad real lifes.

I propose different thing: leave LFR as is. Delete normal raids, make ONLY super hard raids for elitists, BUT make best gear (stat-wise) obtainable through same means as in GW2 -- aka crafting mostly, absolutely solo. You want challenge? Sure, there you go, your super hard raids. You can have achievements. But I don't want to have worse gear just because I don't have much time on my hands or just can't be arsed with it. Make gear harder for solo players, like I'll have to grind for a month, while you may get it as direct drops from bosses.

[Grogo]

A lot of good points brought up in this thread. My perspective has not changed since I posted this. My impressions from this thread so far:

Camp A) Do not have time to raid, bring it down to our level

Camp B) Do not bring it down to their level as that in turn screws our level

Camp C) I want to win this argument

Camp D) The casuals won get over it

Camp E) The OP is a whiner elitist

Camp F) Let's argue about numbers and who has the pedigree to post the facts

Camp G) I am sick of these threads and yet I still come in to comment

Camp H) Rehashed bosses suck

Camp I) I hate LFR, it is not raiding

Camp J) I love LFR, it's raiding

Camp K) Either raid or get off the pot

Camp L: I am entitled to get anything you are after, just make it easier for me if I cant compete

Camp M) Ah fuck it, I cancelled my accounts (which i just did for the first time in 7 years)

Camp N) don't let the door hit you on the ass on the way out, good riddance, you suck and we hate you

[Inspectre]

It's possible the OP is missing one perspective. With millions of people seeing raid content now and in the future, raiders may now get more raiding content than ever before.

Blizzard always had an inner conflict with creating content that only a few percent of the community would participate in. Yes, there is a small sacrifice to raiders egos that everyone can do and see the same content now, but on the potentially major upside is that raiders might be knee deep in new content in this expansion.

Even with all the explanation and narrative given by the OP, his attitude comes across rather self important. As he says; he's arguing on behalf of the "Raiders", but he really seems to be talking about himself. Me, Me, Me!!!

Let's hope he finds someplace where he can be happy, but remember you'll tend to find what you're looking for. BC is dead, it's over, and isn't coming back. Maybe you could live a little more in the "now?" After all its the only now you have. If you're looking for problems and reasons life should be different than it is, you will most certainly find them, and you will be the only one that suffers for it.

Besides, it's just a video game. Now let's go have some fun! Pandaria awaits!

[Deficineiron]

Raids costs a lot to develop and ever experienced by a TINY percentage of the player base. The percentage of players who entered Sunwell was the single figures. Not toons...players. And Blizzard recently stated that the fact that raids are now seen by millions has allowed further development in MoP.

The fact they stated this is interesting - why did it allow further development? Wow is bringing in a LOT less revenue and presumably income than in the SWP time-frame. Less income means more development?

Maybe the above statement is true because meeting internal raid participation targets was required to allow certain other development investment?


[edit - rereading, I think this isthe case - in order to get resources for more raid development, they had to show x participation rate. was this what you meant?)

I read your entire reply, of course, but don't see what else I can add- without hard data from the company, all I and anyone can do is speculate and try to extrapolate from an in adequate data set.

---------- Post added 2012-09-25 at 04:41 PM ----------

Personally, I think the usual explanation of "Tuned to what blizzard wanted - release - actual play showed it was easier than they wanted" is likely more correct.

only thing I can add as a corrolary to this is that heroic 5-man mob damage barely increased from tbc heroics to wotlk heroics despite substantially increasing player health pools. This to me implies a more intentional reduction in overall difficulty of the game (though it isn't naxx-specific.)

[Grogo]

It's possible the OP is missing one perspective. With millions of people seeing raid content now and in the future, raiders may now get more raiding content than ever before.

Blizzard always had an inner conflict with creating content that only a few percent of the community would participate in. Yes, there is a small sacrifice to raiders egos that everyone can do and see the same content now, but on the potentially major upside is that raiders might be knee deep in new content in this expansion.

Even with all the explanation and narrative given by the OP, his attitude comes across rather self important. As he says; he's arguing on behalf of the "Raiders", but he really seems to be talking about himself. Me, Me, Me!!!

Let's hope he finds someplace where he can be happy, but remember you'll tend to find what you're looking for. BC is dead, it's over, and isn't coming back. Maybe you could live a little more in the "now?" After all its the only now you have. If you're looking for problems and reasons life should be different than it is, you will most certainly find them, and you will be the only one that suffers for it.

Besides, it's just a video game. Now let's go have some fun! Pandaria awaits!

The "now" doesn't make it it right, it makes it reality yes, the "now" can change and suddenly the shoe is on the foot. What may be "right" for you can also make a wrong game for many others. The fact is, the many others tipped the scales towards gluttony. I want it fast, i want to get it easier, let's pull into the WoW drive-thru...I have no time for a BC burger.

I get it, I got it, it got through to me. My side lost, good business and all that. Account is cancelled. Enjoy, perhaps MOP will have a good balance. Cheers.

[Matson]

It's possible the OP is missing one perspective. With millions of people seeing raid content now and in the future, raiders may now get more raiding content than ever before.

Blizzard always had an inner conflict with creating content that only a few percent of the community would participate in. Yes, there is a small sacrifice to raiders egos that everyone can do and see the same content now, but on the potentially major upside is that raiders might be knee deep in new content in this expansion.

Even with all the explanation and narrative given by the OP, his attitude comes across rather self important. As he says; he's arguing on behalf of the "Raiders", but he really seems to be talking about himself. Me, Me, Me!!!

Let's hope he finds someplace where he can be happy, but remember you'll tend to find what you're looking for. BC is dead, it's over, and isn't coming back. Maybe you could live a little more in the "now?" After all its the only now you have. If you're looking for problems and reasons life should be different than it is, you will most certainly find them, and you will be the only one that suffers for it.

Besides, it's just a video game. Now let's go have some fun! Pandaria awaits!

Hmm. For me it seems he just wanted to make it enough clear those are only his own opinions and not made up "facts".
On the other hand, how I see your post is that you are happy with the way that raiding is atm. There is nothing wrong with that opinion. ( even tho I don't agree with it). But it seems to me you cannot see the subject in any other point of view than your own , reason for this might be lack of empathy. I myself am completely fine that there are people now who can finally raid all the content because it's made easier. But for my own gameplay the current system is a raidblocker. Easy raids ruin instantly the atmosphere of the raid for me. + I'd like to do casually raid every now and then and I think it is impossible to raid heroics that way.

[Osmeric]

The "now" doesn't make it it right,

Could you define "right", please? In these kinds of conversations, it's often used as a cloak word that actually means "my personal preference".

[Grogo]

Could you define "right", please? In these kinds of conversations, it's often used as a cloak word that actually means "my personal preference".

definition is original post that has been modified a few times (updated)

[Deficineiron]

I get it, I got it, it got through to me. My side lost, good business and all that. Account is cancelled. Enjoy, perhaps MOP will have a good balance. Cheers.

However, to be fair, I see no evidence what-so-ever it was indeed GOOD business. The actual financials from late 2008-forward, as well as public events which impact those financials (change to netease from the9, anual increases in vallue-added sales as a stated major driver of wow revenue growth.stability after 2008, etc) as well as public statements by blizzard and other insiders (e.g. the vivendi chairman) paint a picture of a game that hit its western sub peak within a few months of wotlk release and never reached those levels again, AND, if you back out the netease switch in china, in fact is a game which has been on a slow revenue decline over the last few years, and that is still including the apparently huge gain in value-added (e.g. ponies pets xfers name changes hair changes race changes) revenue over time.

There are articulate posters who disagree with me on the underlying issue vis a vis sub stagnation.loss in the west, but I don't think anyone who looks into the topic seriously disagrees with the premise in general - that the western sub peak may very well have been in early 2009.

I was stunned to read that 10m of the sequential revenue decline in wow/codelite was due to a much higher value-added (pet store I think) sale number in q1 vs q2. I would not be surprised to learn total value-added quarterly is between 20-30m, or more, and that is revenue that for the most part (xfers did exist) didn't even exist in most or all of tbc, if I recall correctly.

Blizzard has the ability to compile sub data which would give them a good idea of the answer to that, of course, but 1) I do not believe blizzard makes broader tuning/target market decisions with complete independence and 2) I do not believe they are efficient enough to properly interpret their own data consistently. I will offer the initial cataclysm tuning as my support for #2. Every time I read that blue post in taglines about how they know what everyone does in game and came make great or perfect decisions accordingly or whatever I just laugh. it may well be that someone at blizzard is able to make accurate sub behavior projections based on that data and proposed changes, but I don't think they are actually making broad decisions.

[Osmeric]

definition is original post that has been modified a few times (updated)

Your vision of what raiding is supposed to be is there, but I don't see the justification for calling it "right". Such normative terms just beg the question.

Put it another way: why should I agree with you?

[Talen]

The fact they stated this is interesting - why did it allow further development? Wow is bringing in a LOT less revenue and presumably income than in the SWP time-frame. Less income means more development?

Blizzard has only so much time and resources it can afford to spend on each patch, on each Xpac. If raids cannot justify their investment...and they are relatively expensive in time and money and resources to develop...then they will either be dropped completely or shrunk down to a level of investment which can be justfied.

With millions of players now entering raids and seeing it and enjoying, even via LFR, the investment in raids becomes much more worthwhile and justifiable. It may even be worth expanding because sheer numbers taking part in an activity speaks louder than words.

[edit - rereading, I think this isthe case - in order to get resources for more raid development, they had to show x participation rate. was this what you meant?)

Any aspect of any business needs to justify its investment. It doesn't necessarily need to make a profit...so long as the investment can be justified. So loss leaders work because they attract customers who buy other goods. In the same way, raids obviously have to justify the investment placed into their development. They've been a marked focus for the game and so worth developing...but Blizzard has made it known that they weren't really happy at the low participation.

More footfall in raids means more investment can be justified. More investment means raids can be developed...either more, or better/larger or faster.

only thing I can add as a corrolary to this is that heroic 5-man mob damage barely increased from tbc heroics to wotlk heroics despite substantially increasing player health pools. This to me implies a more intentional reduction in overall difficulty of the game (though it isn't naxx-specific.)

They did intentionally reduce the overall difficulty because they tried a slightly different gaming model. This worked but led to complaints from certain players that the game was too easy....which led to the "difficulty" increase in Cata. This backfired...the easy dungeons provided a type of content that was easy and (generally) fun to do, and which allowed the player to do something meaningful in a short period of time. And this at a time when meanignful end game content was
disappearing....the availability of dungeons, to a degree, masked that because players still had something to do. Fast forward to Cataclysm and we find more dungeons, but deliberately tuned to take much longer removing them from the "quick and easy and fun" category. Worse, the challenge came from increased HP on lots of trash making them more of a grindfest, quests were more linear and less fun, dailies were starting to wear thin on the fun department and there wasn't much to do end game if you weren't raiding.

To me, that "easy" mode of playstyle was what kept LK above water subs-wise because it substituted for the end game that was disappearing. When it did go in Cataclysm, then the game losts subs in large numbers.

So...is the current raid model broken? No. It works. It does what it is suppsoed to do and it solves a LOT of issues Blizzard had with the old one.

What are the issue people attribute to it?
25s are nowhere near as common.
25s are nowhere near as prestigious
Having short cuts in the game wrecks progression style raiding.
Having an easy mode wrecks the atmosphere by allowing players to see the content.

Solutions?
1: No solution really possible. Most players ran 25s for the gear and not for the format. Incentivising players only works so far before that solution destroys 10s. The best path would be mechanics to address the logistics issues; NPC mercs, raid management position, cross realm guilds, etc.
2: Not really an issue; prestige is now assigned to difficulty than format. A 10 man Heroic mode player is better regarded than a 25 man Normal.
3: The progression style raiding was one of the issues of the old system. It shut people out by placing huge barriers in front of them if, for whatever reason, they fell behind.
4: Heroic mode probably should be run independently of Normal. However, if we see Normals as intended to be the same level as previous raids, with heroics a step above that, then this issue becomes less relevant. Better care withcare so as to ensure people aren't forced to run LFR many also help...personally, I'd simply enforce one loot roll per boss per week regardless of format of difficulty. That way, players aren't forced to run the instances, LFR gear isn't so far behind the other stages that it is a deterrent and everyone can run the raid multiple times with friends, etc. I'd enforce an individual lockout per boss option as well if a way can be found to stop exploits.

EJL

[Deficineiron]

More footfall in raids means more investment can be justified. More investment means raids can be developed...either more, or better/larger or faster.

While this theory does sound attractive, I am not sure there is a basis for assuming players actually saw more raids in cat. as a result of much higher raid participation rates in wotlk - while blizzard may consider 10/20/h/normal/and later lfr to be multiple raids due to difficulties and time invovled in tuning, players usually don't.

it remains to be seen if the emergence of LFR can be correlated to an increase in total actual raid bosses/events (not difficulties x raids) in the current expansion.

[Osmeric]

While this theory does sound attractive, I am not sure there is a basis for assuming players actually saw more raids in cat. as a result of much higher raid participation rates in wotlk - while blizzard may consider 10/20/h/normal/and later lfr to be multiple raids due to difficulties and time invovled in tuning, players usually don't.

it remains to be seen if the emergence of LFR can be correlated to an increase in total actual raid bosses/events (not difficulties x raids) in the current expansion.

I suspect that rather than feeding into some deterministic procedure for evolving the game design, what the results of the expansions actually do is strengthen or weaken factions inside Blizzard. The process, I am imagining, is more political than rational.

I also suspect someone at Blizzard has been collectiving metrics on forum posts, and using that to influence decisions. Yes, you may recoil in horror at this notion.

[Talen]

While this theory does sound attractive, I am not sure there is a basis for assuming players actually saw more raids in cat.

It is undeniable that they did. There is a certain type of player here who will deny that LFR mode is actually raiding, but it is.

Even were it not, it is the same encounter, that uses the same graphics and art and mechanics to tell the same story.

as a result of much higher raid participation rates in wotlk - while blizzard may consider 10/20/h/normal/and later lfr to be multiple raids due to difficulties and time invovled in tuning, players usually don't.

Millions took advantage of LFR to see the story and raid. Before that, those millions didn't do so. LFR is a huge success and raids can likely only benefit. Raids, now, can be seen as end game content for everyone and not only a select few.

it remains to be seen if the emergence of LFR can be correlated to an increase in total actual raid bosses/events (not difficulties x raids) in the current expansion.

Yes...that does remain to be seen. That fact that more investment in raids CAN be justified now does not mean it will be. Personally, my opinion - like that of many others - is that the overall raiding experience in TBC was (overall) more fun. Not always - Ulduar is the best raid in my opinion - but best overall. I was a bit disappointed with DS....maybe its simple fatigue with the game, but I found the DS fights fairly repetitive and Lks TotC series was just about the worst raid ever. I think this is due to several factors such as having a certain degree more freedom when designing for one raid size but I also suspect that Blizzard was simply unwilling to pour as much money, as many resources into raid development. We saw the same thing with PvP and arenas...both aspects with a strong following, but both fairly unpopular with large parts of the player base and both getting less and less focus over the past few years.

I hope the new emphasis on PvP leads to a rennaissance, but the CRZ fiasco may put paid to that. I have higher hopes for raids. I have had a good experience with the current raid model and don't see any need at this time for major changes. LFR is a success so 25s will likely always be around....25s will only ever need to worry if they start doing a 10 man LFR. I don't worry too much about prestige or being a "special snowflake"....content can not be kept rare simply to ensure some have a sense of uniqueness. Having run Kara and others several times simply to gear up replacement players for my guild, I find I am glad the new short cuts are in the the game; even the best raid loses its lustre after a few runs. As I keep saying, the one issue that can be seen as truly problematic is the idea that there are players who like 25s but cannot take part. However, as things stand, I cannot see any viable solution unless Blizzard changes its policies and what appears to be a very successful raid model.

EJL

[Noah37]

I agree whole-heartedly about wanting to have the same system as BC of having to tier up through the lower versions and work your way to the end. It was a pretty neat system, how late in the expansion people were still doing CoT things to get to Kara and moving on from there.

However, it is just stupid to say we need to remove to remove the Heroic and LFR versions, just because some people don't want to raid if other people get the same shinies. Sure, there are other things for casual to do, however hardcore raiders can do those things too. You claim fewer people are raiding, however Dragon Soul had the highest clearance percent of any raid they have ever released. In Vanilla I believe it was less than 10% of the population cleared Naxx, then about 16% cleared Sunwell in BC, and it was somewhere around 40% cleared ICC in WotLK. (These are stats I am trying to remember from past articles I can't find through google, so I'm sorry if they are off). However, with DS LFR I am not sure of the exact number but it is probably well up in the 70-90% range, as anyone that wanted to clear it could. It wasn't some elitist union, where if you haven't got the ACH or don't know the secret handshake you couldn't get in. If you want to do the harder version good for you, but I love how LFR works around my College Classes, and it is here to stay.