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  1. #521
    Quote Originally Posted by Gondlem View Post
    No I mean, there's other ways to convince people you're competent. It's just that "I cleared LFR" isn't convincing because LFR has no mechanics and you can clear it while afk.
    I'm in the school that if someone wants to raid try to come some what prepared. If you are trying to get into a raid group but all you have done is LFR then go watch the videos and at least have an idea of what will be different in normal mode. I've seen people who want to raid and come in and say "I've never done this but I have cleared LFR." This is not a bad start but what comes next is either they are prepared even as much as being reforged properly or they are one of the LFR heroes who enter and auto attack for 3-4 boss's and call it a day. I even had a guild member ask if he could get a shot at making the team. As we arrived at the door for MSV he literally said he needed to leave the raid group so he could go finish his dailies and get the mount from the serpent dailies. I told him no because we are all at the gate ready to go. So he left anyway and needless to say he isn't a guildie anymore. On top of that he is my raid groups inside joke. The new "AFK, Grandma on Fire!"

  2. #522
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    Because it is getting ungodly boring with all the extra crap blizzard is force feeding people. It used to be you went into a raid, kill things and got loot. Now you do hundreds of dailies... followed by trash like LFR just to get ready for the real raid.

  3. #523
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    They just overtuned the normal modes way too much imo, I for one am about to give up, wiping on tortoss for 2 nights now in 25man, a fight which everyone calls easy but imo is way too unforgiving for a normal boss and a casual 25manguild combo. I just raidlog now, cba to do all the daily shit just to get valor capped anymore.

    Played this game since vanilla MC and for the first time tried out a private classic realm this week, totally loving it but I will keep on raiding, just raidlogging from now on instead of wasting my time on Pandaria. Questing as a holypriest on a vanillarealm has been the hardest challenge I have come across in wow these last years, but I'm totally loving it, I don't even mind running without a mount, the atmosphere is thát good again. (And it helps having an actual realmcommunity).

  4. #524
    Quote Originally Posted by Slant View Post
    So if you're older, you should have the wisdom to not believe everything they tell you. They are challenging, but if you wipe on Horridon 75 times, chances are your raid leader hasn't grasped the strategy or you're not the only one not being able to follow instructions. It's hardly just your own fault. And this is what troubles me a lot of the times. It's rarely the raiders. It's the raid leaders being lazy fucks. One common sentence I hear is "It's their job as raiders to read up on strategy, I shouldn't have to explain every detail to them."

    Well... that attitude works if you're in the top 100 of guilds world wide. But it certainly doesn't work for my level and I think I'm pretty average. Tell your raid leader to learn the strategy and then explain it to your raid so you guys know what the mechanics are about, then you'll have little problem with these normal modes. Apart from individual mistakes, of course. But usually, there is no doubt about those.

    And that is why I see so many guilds fail to do better on my server. And ultimately, that may be why people area put off raiding. It's perhaps not the community as a whole, but rather guild leaders and raid leaders. Huh... we should talk about that, rather than if LFR is responsible for raiders leaving.
    As a raid leader I research all relavant strategies for the next progression boss we will be working on and then post those strategies to our website. At least 3 videos and a clipping from icy-veins. If you as a player are too lazy to go to your own guild website and read/watch for five minutes prior to raid then you are too lazy to be in my raid group. It DOES NOT fall on my shoulders to micro manage to the point of spoon feeding raiders. Once the spoon comes out the trip to the door will soon follow.

    ---------- Post added 2013-03-22 at 11:34 PM ----------

    Quote Originally Posted by Outofmana View Post
    They just overtuned the normal modes way too much imo, I for one am about to give up, wiping on tortoss for 2 nights now in 25man, a fight which everyone calls easy but imo is way too unforgiving for a normal boss and a casual 25manguild combo. I just raidlog now, cba to do all the daily shit just to get valor capped anymore.

    Played this game since vanilla MC and for the first time tried out a private classic realm this week, totally loving it but I will keep on raiding, just raidlogging from now on instead of wasting my time on Pandaria. Questing as a holypriest on a vanillarealm has been the hardest challenge I have come across in wow these last years, but I'm totally loving it, I don't even mind running without a mount, the atmosphere is thát good again. (And it helps having an actual realmcommunity).
    If you are wiping at 25 man then just think about what the ten man raiders will have to go through. You will get it. Keep at it.

    ---------- Post added 2013-03-22 at 11:36 PM ----------

    Quote Originally Posted by Yseraboy View Post
    Thats probably because guilds like mine, on Ysera, had all the raiders server-transfer [and faction change] to get to where the action is i.e. Illidian.

    GM sold the guild for 60k on his way to the server-transfer queue.
    And when you next hear from those players you will find that they got there, imploded, disbanded because they were an even smaller fish in a much larger pond.
    There is no Bad RNG just Bad LTP

  5. #525
    Quote Originally Posted by Injin View Post
    No mate, no.

    Blizzard are designing an experience for a population.

    If that population fails to be captured by the experience blizzard creates, blizzard has failed, not the population. Very simple, this.

    Normal mode bosses should be doable with LFR levels of output + a bit of organisation. They ain't. Personally I was sure after the utter fuck up of T11/12 and then putting it right that occured in T12 with the nerfs and T13 that was actually completable by mere mortals that blizard had learned a lesson.

    But no. Stuff is overtuned. Again.
    You haven't read what I said, have you. Instead of putting the blame for "overtuned" stuff to Blizzard, how about you start looking at the people that do raid and how they fail? 9 times out of 10 the content is not too hard, but the raid lead is incompetent. It is so frustrating to have people like you throw words like "overtuned" around without any second thought about it. So frustrating and so very tiring. It's pointless to discuss with people like you, because obviously you'd never make a mistake, nor would your raidlead. So the content must be too hard. But of course, if it's tuned to your narrow viewpoint, it'll be too boring. So what's it gonna be? You've got LFR, Normal mode and Hardmode. Choose your difficulty of choice and go ahead. But no, apparently doing "just LFR" isn't enough for you. It has to be normal mode, for the prestige or for what?

    It boggles my mind. The self righteousness that some people present in forums is astonishing.

    ---------- Post added 2013-03-23 at 04:56 AM ----------

    Quote Originally Posted by judgementofantonidas View Post
    As a raid leader I research all relavant strategies for the next progression boss we will be working on and then post those strategies to our website. At least 3 videos and a clipping from icy-veins. If you as a player are too lazy to go to your own guild website and read/watch for five minutes prior to raid then you are too lazy to be in my raid group. It DOES NOT fall on my shoulders to micro manage to the point of spoon feeding raiders. Once the spoon comes out the trip to the door will soon follow.
    I'm with you on that. But I've had raid leaders not doing any of those things and expecting their raiders to magically develop the same strategical knowledge of the entire boss for every role that he does. And when they don't, he flips. Sure, some work can and should be done by raiders. But nowadays we can't afford to be as picky as you claim you are. Yes, that means I'll have to explain to that Warlock why his self-dispell isn't a good idea at Primordius if it also dispells randomly 3 other people in 15 yrd range to him. Yes, he is that stupid. But he does the dps and follows instructions. That works for hardmodes.

  6. #526
    I think the trolls in general are boring for most people. Troll heroics made me quit in Cata because it was just so uninspired to me. I know there is a section of very passionate people involved in troll lore, but I am personally sick of it.

  7. #527
    Quote Originally Posted by Moistmuffins View Post
    Edit: I do agree that Blizzard deals too much in the extremes, in pretty much every aspect of the game too. It's something they do to get an idea of what's too much and what's too little and what not, but the way they take it goes way too far on both ends.
    Just going to point out that I've had the strong suspicion for years now that Blizzard doesn't actually have a gameplan for WoW in any aspect. They just make it up as they go along, there seem to be no greater roadmap than to the next expansion. The back and forth between the extremes is just the most obvious manifestation of that.

  8. #528
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Slant View Post
    You haven't read what I said, have you. Instead of putting the blame for "overtuned" stuff to Blizzard, how about you start looking at the people that do raid and how they fail?
    No, i read what you said and dismissed it as rubbish, which is a different thing.
    9 times out of 10 the content is not too hard, but the raid lead is incompetent. It is so frustrating to have people like you throw words like "overtuned" around without any second thought about it.
    Normal mode raids should be around the ICC level - i.e. you can pug them and complete at least the first half of them using a few /r messages to people and a basic outline of tactics.

    That you need a solid raid lead (we are a casual guild btw who will get council tomorrow, we don't have much fear of Tot provide we can bring our best players) vent, prepared tactics, watching videos etc is a failure on blizzards part. Because there just aren't that many solid raid leads around, you know?
    So frustrating and so very tiring. It's pointless to discuss with people like you, because obviously you'd never make a mistake, nor would your raidlead. So the content must be too hard. But of course, if it's tuned to your narrow viewpoint, it'll be too boring. So what's it gonna be? You've got LFR, Normal mode and Hardmode. Choose your difficulty of choice and go ahead. But no, apparently doing "just LFR" isn't enough for you. It has to be normal mode, for the prestige or for what?
    We do normal modes because they are hard and hard is fun. But I wasn't talking about MY experience of the game and what I enjoy, I also run a social guild. Right now 75% of my players are effectively banned from the content because they can't make the output required while moving out of shit etc. You must understand, this isn't a training them up issue, i'm talking people who can actually play, who have successfully raided in the past who simply haven't got gear drops yet
    to be able to go to normal mode tot.
    It boggles my mind. The self righteousness that some people present in forums is astonishing.
    I[m just saying it like it is.

    Normal mode raids are overtuned. To do Tot you'd need to have completed and farmed the whole of normal mode T14 (2nd most bosses, shortest ever tier) and a good few HC modes just to have the gear needed to meet the number requirements DPS and HPS wise.

    Did most guilds clear normal mode T14? No,. they got to garalon, wiped a few dozen times and call it a day.

    Why?

    because shits overtuned.

    Normal means average. In wow average means you go to LFR< look halfway down your DPS and HPS numbers and that';s the value the average can put out, if blizzard wants those average players to complete normal mode, that's where the values needed to complete should be. Not rocket surgery.

    ....and nothig to do with my own playing experience, or yours, or anyone elses. I'm talking the playerbase as a whole versus the content as a whole. Average player can't do basic raiding because it's overtuned for them. It's blizzards job to either design doable content for the playerbase or to train that playerbase properly as they level/gear up. Either way it's blizzards failure, not the playerbases. End of story.

  9. #529
    Normal doesn't mean "average", it's just a name for a middle difficulty between LFR (which is for everyone regardless of skill or organisation) and heroic mode, which is meant to be a challenge for any player.

    Normal mode is not meant to be beaten by everyone regardless of effort. And also, if you're having trouble with ToT normals because you're undergeared, go back and kill T14 bosses. They are nerfed now and drop loot which will help you in ToT. If you don't want to have to organise the group and deal with mechanics, run LFR.

    I'm sympathetic to people's issues but really, simply saying "I should be able to clear it because it's called normal and I'm normal" is absurd. It's tuned to require attention to mechanics but not to have particularly punishing DPS/healing checks which is exactly what Blizzard intended, and it's entirely appropriate given that LFR exists for everyone who isn't interested in learning/handling mechanics. ICC normals were fine at the time but would be dramatically undertuned today given they added LFR to the game to cater to a wider range of players. The problem in ICC was that normals were easy and puggable and heroic modes aside from Lich King were also pretty easy. A fairly large number of heroic guilds cleared to 11/12 in the first weeks of the patch, leaving nothing to do but grind away on a very hard limited attempts boss. The introduction of LFR was meant in part to create something for the middle tier of player to do so that heroics didn't have to be tuned for them. With LFR in place, that can be easy, heroics can be genuinely hard, and normals can be a challenge without being overly punishing.

    If you're undergeared, go get gear, there's 16 bosses last tier to farm it from.
    Last edited by Gondlem; 2013-03-23 at 12:40 PM.

  10. #530
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Gondlem View Post
    Normal doesn't mean "average", it's just a name for a middle difficulty between LFR (which is for everyone regardless of skill or organisation) and heroic mode, which is meant to be a challenge for any player.
    Erm normal does mean average - which means that "normal mode" is badly named. Right nowwe have these modes of raiding - super easy, hard and insane. Theres nowhere for normal people to go after LFR. it's bad design. Normal mode isn't a "middle difficulty" at all.
    Normal mode is not meant to be beaten by everyone regardless of effort. And also, if you're having trouble with ToT normals because you're undergeared, go back and kill T14 bosses. They are nerfed now and drop loot which will help you in ToT. If you don't want to have to organise the group and deal with mechanics, run LFR.
    Well yeah, I said that. I also said it was a shit design which explains where all the raiders went, because it is a shit design which means the majority can't raid after LFR>
    I'm sympathetic to people's issues but really, simply saying "I should be able to clear it because it's called normal and I'm normal" is absurd. It's tuned to require attention to mechanics but not to have particularly punishing DPS/healing checks which is exactly what Blizzard intended, and it's entirely appropriate given that LFR exists for everyone who isn't interested in learning/handling mechanics. ICC normals were fine at the time but would be dramatically undertuned today given they added LFR to the game to cater to a wider range of players. The problem in ICC was that normals were easy and puggable and heroic modes aside from Lich King were also pretty easy. A fairly large number of heroic guilds cleared to 11/12 in the first weeks of the patch, leaving nothing to do but grind away on a very hard limited attempts boss. The introduction of LFR was meant in part to create something for the middle tier of player to do so that heroics didn't have to be tuned for them. With LFR in place, that can be easy, heroics can be genuinely hard, and normals can be a challenge without being overly punishing.

    If you're undergeared, go get gear, there's 16 bosses last tier to farm it from.
    I'm explaining where the raiders went, not my own preferences or current standing in the game. Which ain't great, but it's way above average. (Cos the average can't even raid atm!)

    If blizzard and the raiding players want more raids, raids need to be easier to do. It's that simple.

    Most normal average people don't last longer than 6 -12 wipes on any content before doing something which is actualyl entertaining instead. It's the freaks who will wipe over and over again on stuff until they learn it. They ain;t normal, they are weird and a decent design for raids should reflect that they are oddballs.

  11. #531
    Quote Originally Posted by Eschaton View Post
    I'll try this one more time. I'm not saying that Blizzard should make normal raiding more difficult or anything of the kind. I'm saying that when they sit down to design a raid the general difficulty of the raid level should be vaguely predictable. Too easy in one tier is just as bad as too difficult in another. Going back and forth between the two extremes is very likely more harmful than settling on one or the other. Too easy? You'll piss off one group of raiders. Too hard? You'll piss off a different group. Going constantly back and forth? You piss off everyone.

    That's my point. Perhaps it's too difficult to do with a changing game populace. I don't know. But having raids generally be totally unpredictable and wildly variable from tier to tier in terms of difficulty is the worst of both worlds. It may well be that Horridon is too difficult as is but as sure as the sun rises in the east tomorrow morning if they nerf the fight they will get a storm of complaints about it.
    And the number of people happy with and the number of people complaining combined will still be less than 5% of their customers. So the real issue is not up and down difficulty in normal mode raiding but why they make it all.

  12. #532
    Quote Originally Posted by Injin View Post
    Most normal average people don't last longer than 6 -12 wipes on any content before doing something which is actualyl entertaining instead. It's the freaks who will wipe over and over again on stuff until they learn it. They ain;t normal, they are weird and a decent design for raids should reflect that they are oddballs.
    I disagree that "normal people" only last 6-12 wipes. The raiding experience is and always has been based on trial and error and learning. I started raiding in Karazhan in a guild of mostly real life friends who raided one night every couple of weeks and we wiped on stuff like Moroes a lot more than 12 times and nobody left to do something "actually entertaining". Experiencing challenging content and working at downing it is fun, that's why people raid. If you want to stomp something and get loot, that's what LFR is for. Normal raiders have always wiped and always will.

    Now I will agree that your average raider out there isn't interested in sinking 300 attempts into learning a super hard boss and that's fine. Nothing in normal mode is super hard. Normal mode is and should be much harder than LFR though, particularly in the area of mechanics checks. If you don't do amazing dps while handling mechanics then fine, that's for heroic modes, but you should absolutely be able to interrupt stuff, stay out of fire, kill the right target, cc if needed and that sort of thing in normal modes.

    LFR is a mechanics-free zergfest for strangers without voice communication or organised leadership. Normal mode is for organised guilds who want a moderate challenge with improved rewards as an alternative to LFR. It should require effort, a clear strategy and trial and error. Heroics are for guilds that want a hard boss they have to work on for an extended period, it should require intense coordination and have DPS and healing checks as well as challenging mechanics. The ICC model you are selling here doesn't work because both normals and heroics were too easy in that situation, which is why they added LFR. Now they can tune normal modes for organised groups instead of pugs, and heroics can actually be difficult. This covers a wider range of players and everyone wins.

    Also, keep in mind that ToT has only been out for three weeks. In a couple of months when the average player has more gear and strats are more widely publicised it will be puggable with a decent group, just like T14 was.

  13. #533
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Gondlem View Post
    I disagree that "normal people" only last 6-12 wipes.
    You don't get to disagree, with facts, sorry.
    The raiding experience is and always has been based on trial and error and learning. I started raiding in Karazhan in a guild of mostly real life friends who raided one night every couple of weeks and we wiped on stuff like Moroes a lot more than 12 times and nobody left to do something "actually entertaining". Experiencing challenging content and working at downing it is fun, that's why people raid. If you want to stomp something and get loot, that's what LFR is for. Normal raiders have always wiped and always will.
    Erm and I said that's why the raiding population is so low. The average wow player doesn't raid. They never have. if you want more raiders, you have to include the normal players in the system - and this means detuning stuff until it's easy enough to do without lots of wiping. i.e. no more than 6-12 wipes bang to bullets.

    The tighter the tuning, the fewer people can play it. Yes all the raiders seem to want more raiders AND tighter tuning. Can't happen.
    Now I will agree that your average raider out there isn't interested in sinking 300 attempts into learning a super hard boss and that's fine. Nothing in normal mode is super hard. Normal mode is and should be much harder than LFR though, particularly in the area of mechanics checks. If you don't do amazing dps while handling mechanics then fine, that's for heroic modes, but you should absolutely be able to interrupt stuff, stay out of fire, kill the right target, cc if needed and that sort of thing in normal modes.
    I wasn't talking about average raiders, I was talking about average players in general. To be a raider already assumes you are up for wiping - one reason why the raiders are such a small %age of the population to begin with.
    LFR is a mechanics-free zergfest for strangers without voice communication or organised leadership. Normal mode is for organised guilds who want a moderate challenge with improved rewards as an alternative to LFR. It should require effort, a clear strategy and trial and error. Heroics are for guilds that want a hard boss they have to work on for an extended period, it should require intense coordination and have DPS and healing checks as well as challenging mechanics. The ICC model you are selling here doesn't work because both normals and heroics were too easy in that situation, which is why they added LFR. Now they can tune normal modes for organised groups instead of pugs, and heroics can actually be difficult. This covers a wider range of players and everyone wins.
    They weren't "too easy" they were about right. Now, some people who love a challenge feel put out of place by this, but really, all 5000 of them can suck a fat one.
    Also, keep in mind that ToT has only been out for three weeks. In a couple of months when the average player has more gear and strats are more widely publicised it will be puggable with a decent group, just like T14 was.
    keep in mind garalon is still undoable by most would be raiding guilds.

  14. #534
    I don't think raiding should be designed to interest people who have no interest in raiding just by baiting them with loot. That, again, is what LFR is for. Raiding should be designed for people who like to raid, much like pet battles should be designed for people who like pet battles. That's how you make a good game that caters to the needs of its players, not by saying "hey, you're going to hate this, but do it anyway because it's all we've got".

    Quote Originally Posted by Injin View Post
    keep in mind garalon is still undoable by most would be raiding guilds.
    I don't know where this absurd myth comes from, but it's simply not true. More than 50% of guilds who have killed a single boss in T14 have killed Garalon, even though he's 9 bosses deep into the tier, and kill rates of course drop off the further in you go. By a percentage of guilds that have reached a boss in T14 vs those who have passed it, Garalon hardly stands out at all. In fact, more people fail to kill Elegon after killing the previous boss than Garalon, and Garalon is killed in larger numbers than any boss in Terrace, despite the fact there's no gating there due to Shek'zeer being killed in LFR.

    And this isn't taking into account the fact that Garalon, along with every other T14 boss, was nerfed in 5.2 by a significant amount. Even if it was true before it certainly isn't now.


    Quote Originally Posted by Injin View Post
    You don't get to disagree, with facts, sorry.
    How is it a "fact" that normal mode raiders only want to do 6-12 wipes? I provided you an anecdote of my experience in a mega-casual guild in TBC that didn't even raid every week. On my server there are 138 guilds that killed Sha of Fear last tier. I was in pugs and GDKPs that killed it, and some of the easier heroic bosses like Feng, Gara'jal, Elegon and Blade Lord were also regularly pugged. Did all these things happen with under 6-12 wipes? Are these people not normal by some arbitrary standard you decide?

    In ICC there were two difficulty settings. Blizzard needed to tune content to cover all bases. If they wanted to cover a difficulty scale from 1-10, with normal mode Marrowgar at 1 and heroic Lich King at 10, then normal modes would logically span approximately 1 to 5 or 6 and heroics from say 4-5 up to 10. Normal modes needed to be puggable, both in good pugs and bad ones, or players not in a guild would never raid at all, and the process of gearing up for and starting normal modes had to be easy.

    Now there are three modes. LFR comfortably covers the lower end of the difficulty spectrum, covers the people who aren't in an organised guild or can't commit to raiding on a schedule, people who don't want to use voice chat and people who don't want to wipe. Normal mode covers the players in the middle, those who can raid in an organised guild and want some sort of challenge with an appropriate reward but have limits on how far they want to go, either because they are limited by skill or because they are limited by motivation. Heroics are hard. LFR is 1-3, normals 4-7 and heroics 8-10. That's how it should be.

    There's a reason why this tier is getting such high praise from all corners of the raiding community, which is that it's the best they've done in terms of balancing the needs of various types of players since Ulduar.

  15. #535
    Quote Originally Posted by Herecius View Post
    Anecdotes be anecdotal! Kil'Jaeden-US is positively exploding with raiders. The number of 25man raiding guilds is actually going up here.
    It starts to be less anecdotal when the evidence provided by wowprogress suggests that there are, indeed, less overall raiding guilds. While there are likely to be several servers that are likely to be exceptions, the overall numbers tell a different overall story.

  16. #536
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Gondlem View Post
    I don't think raiding should be designed to interest people who have no interest in raiding just by baiting them with loot. That, again, is what LFR is for. Raiding should be designed for people who like to raid, much like pet battles should be designed for people who like pet battles. That's how you make a good game that caters to the needs of its players, not by saying "hey, you're going to hate this, but do it anyway because it's all we've got".
    So so you realise where the raiders have gone and don't mind that they are gone and don't want to attract more people to raiding. No worries. It's not what the thread is about though.


    I don't know where this absurd myth comes from, but it's simply not true. More than 50% of guilds who have killed a single boss in T14 have killed Garalon, even though he's 9 bosses deep into the tier, and kill rates of course drop off the further in you go. By a percentage of guilds that have reached a boss in T14 vs those who have passed it, Garalon hardly stands out at all. In fact, more people fail to kill Elegon after killing the previous boss than Garalon, and Garalon is killed in larger numbers than any boss in Terrace, despite the fact there's no gating there due to Shek'zeer being killed in LFR.
    When garalon was current, 75% or something of guilds got stuck on him. Now he's been nerfed, 50% or so of guilds still can't get past him - and i'd like to point out I said "would be raiders" in my previous post. If people who are already willing to wipe a lot can't beat normal mode stuff what hope for the rest of wows population ( the guys who leave after 2 wipes in a HC, LFR or scenario) is there?

    Shits overtuned for the playerbase. (If the aim is to get more people raiding. If the aim is to make raiding an even more niche activity than it already was, then blizzard are achieving their aim.)
    And this isn't taking into account the fact that Garalon, along with every other T14 boss, was nerfed in 5.2 by a significant amount. Even if it was true before it certainly isn't now.
    Not really. The mechanics are still far too complicated to let any newcomers to him down him in a few tries. i.e. it's overtuned.



    How is it a "fact" that normal mode raiders only want to do 6-12 wipes? I provided you an anecdote of my experience in a mega-casual guild in TBC that didn't even raid every week. On my server there are 138 guilds that killed Sha of Fear last tier. I was in pugs and GDKPs that killed it, and some of the easier heroic bosses like Feng, Gara'jal, Elegon and Blade Lord were also regularly pugged. Did all these things happen with under 6-12 wipes? Are these people not normal by some arbitrary standard you decide?
    I didn't say raider, I said players. please actually read my posts properly.
    In ICC there were two difficulty settings. Blizzard needed to tune content to cover all bases. If they wanted to cover a difficulty scale from 1-10, with normal mode Marrowgar at 1 and heroic Lich King at 10, then normal modes would logically span approximately 1 to 5 or 6 and heroics from say 4-5 up to 10. Normal modes needed to be puggable, both in good pugs and bad ones, or players not in a guild would never raid at all, and the process of gearing up for and starting normal modes had to be easy.
    And if you want more raiders to choose from it has to be that way.
    Now there are three modes. LFR comfortably covers the lower end of the difficulty spectrum, covers the people who aren't in an organised guild or can't commit to raiding on a schedule, people who don't want to use voice chat and people who don't want to wipe. Normal mode covers the players in the middle, those who can raid in an organised guild and want some sort of challenge with an appropriate reward but have limits on how far they want to go, either because they are limited by skill or because they are limited by motivation. Heroics are hard. LFR is 1-3, normals 4-7 and heroics 8-10. That's how it should be.
    normal mode raid doesn't cpover those players at all. Normal mode is actually very difficult, as I already said.
    There's a reason why this tier is getting such high praise from all corners of the raiding community, which is that it's the best they've done in terms of balancing the needs of various types of players since Ulduar.
    And the raiding community is getting smaller all the time. Which is why the question in the opening post exists.

    Serving the needs of raiders generaly just pushes out the rest of wows population. Fair enough, but when there is only LFR left because bobby kotick wants everything justified on a dollar for dollar basis I shall think of this thread and smile ruefully.

  17. #537
    I know a lot have quit because it's been 6+ years for A LOT of the people I know, and that long week after week raiding can eventually get old...even with new content.

    I came back and continue to raid with my RL friends because they make it enjoyable. While my group is basically gearing up for ToT(we started with our consistent group 3 weeks ago), we're having a blast doing T14 because of those around us.
    D3 - Aggs 60 Barbarian | Paladin | Warlock | Shaman | Death Knight | Warrior |

  18. #538
    Quote Originally Posted by Injin View Post
    Serving the needs of raiders generaly just pushes out the rest of wows population. Fair enough, but when there is only LFR left because bobby kotick wants everything justified on a dollar for dollar basis I shall think of this thread and smile ruefully.
    My point is that the "rest" of the population of the game isn't being "pushed out", they've been provided with an option that gives them what they want - LFR. Minimal chance of wipes, no need for communication, scheduling, voice communication, guild relationships etc, and it provides the same bosses visually if not mechanically and epic loot roughly on the same tier as normal and heroic modes. Raiders haven't "gone" anywhere, aside from the fact that the population who plays the game is smaller of course. People are just divided more based on their field of interest now.

    Accordingly, normal modes are harder than they were prior to the introduction of LFR, and heroic modes are harder than they were when normal modes were designed for pugs. As someone who has raided heroic content since Blizzard developed the concept in WotLK, ICC was a low point of tuning because there was one challenging boss in the tier, give or take first week Deathwhisper. For a player who wants low-commitment, low-challenge raiding, no doubt something like T11 was a low point because it was hard to pug any raiding content at all, while it was quite a good tier for someone who likes challenging content. Both I and that player have our needs met by present day tuning better than we did in the past, because LFR came into play and pushed everything up a notch.

  19. #539
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Gondlem View Post
    My point is that the "rest" of the population of the game isn't being "pushed out", they've been provided with an option that gives them what they want - LFR. Minimal chance of wipes, no need for communication, scheduling, voice communication, guild relationships etc, and it provides the same bosses visually if not mechanically and epic loot roughly on the same tier as normal and heroic modes. Raiders haven't "gone" anywhere, aside from the fact that the population who plays the game is smaller of course. People are just divided more based on their field of interest now.
    Right, ok. So the raiders have gone to LFR. We said this already.


    Accordingly, normal modes are harder than they were prior to the introduction of LFR, and heroic modes are harder than they were when normal modes were designed for pugs. As someone who has raided heroic content since Blizzard developed the concept in WotLK, ICC was a low point of tuning because there was one challenging boss in the tier, give or take first week Deathwhisper. For a player who wants low-commitment, low-challenge raiding, no doubt something like T11 was a low point because it was hard to pug any raiding content at all, while it was quite a good tier for someone who likes challenging content. Both I and that player have our needs met by present day tuning better than we did in the past, because LFR came into play and pushed everything up a notch.
    Except that there are no longer any raids for people who can't do cutting edge dps/hps but still want some organised content to go at. i.e. wow now lacks what in other games would be called a "normal mode." it;s either piss easy (lfr) or hard ("normal") or insanely difficult (HC mode)

    And that is where the raiders have gone. Whether you think this is a good thing or not depends on your POV I guess. But, mystery solved.

  20. #540
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    Quote Originally Posted by hyphnos View Post
    And the number of people happy with and the number of people complaining combined will still be less than 5% of their customers. So the real issue is not up and down difficulty in normal mode raiding but why they make it all.
    That's a perspective I understand. I think that somewhere in this thread I wrote about whether or not the game would be more or less well-received if there were no raids at all in MoP with the bosses and rooms distributed through two dozen five-mans. It wouldn't be anywhere near the same difficulty of course except for the challenge modes. It's an interesting thought experiment although I'm not saying Blizzard should do this. You have to wonder though whether it would make a lot of players less or more happy overall.
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