Day1 of raid - "know the fights" required

[Fayenoor]

Blizzard started using the PTR (and semi-public beta) for raid testing. This killed any sense of discovery from the raids. The fights are already a known entity for lots of people who smashed their heads on it in the beta. These people made the guides. So the general consensus is - learn the fights before the fights to get every bit of extra advantage that you can.

Blizzard is mostly to blame for this. They are so bad at raid testing that if they kept these raids internal under NDA till patch release, then the first few weeks we would be mostly fixing their bugs. This was a regular occurrence back in the day. Remember the Dark Simulcrum bug on Sinestra or the Saronite Bomb bug on Lich King.

There are other MMO companies which do better job at raid testing. Square Enix keeps all FFXIV boss fights secret till release. E.g. Twintania fight - people had no idea how many phases it had till they actually started progressing through it and going through one phase at a time.

Data-mining sites like MMOC, wowhead are also partly to blame. They just data mine the patch files and figure out abilities and loot before hand kinda forcing Blizzard's hands. So, Blizzard uses top raiding guilds to test these encounters and fine tune them before releasing to the general mass. So WoW has become a different type of MMO - more the race and gear grind kind than the serendipitous kind.

It is a win-win situation for Blizzard really. They dont have to pay to hire quality testers to test out the unfinished beta product. They just open access to the raid bosses to top raiders. The chosen few feel blessed and do Blizzard's testing for them without realizing how much money Blizzard is saving out of not having to hire real testers. It is a beautifully designed business model. Only thing worse is the Star Citizen model - have the consumer pay the company get beta access to actually test out their product.

[Alomega]

Are you really that fucking lazy that you cannot go and even look at a basic rundown of abilities?

It has nothing to do with being lazy :/ What the OP is trying to get at is that having DBM and Youtube videos detailing EVERYTHING on day 1 kinda takes the mystery / thrill out of raiding. Pretty sure that is what is being said.

I honestly get both sides of the coin. There are benefits to going in blind and there are benefits knowing all the tacts. So before people attack me and call me lazy or stupid.

Imagine that there is a new a roller coaster at your nearest amusement park. Your friends expect you to look up exactly where the cart dips, where it has sharp corners so you can put your hands in the air for maximum fun and lastly you see the roller coaster ends, by stopping in a scary tunnel. Doesn't that kinda ruin the fun of experiencing it blindly? (Random example is random and ofc it is not exactly the same as raiding, but I am sure you get the point.)

And the "problem" can easily be fixed. Have closed raid testing with an NDA in place. But it is Blizzard we are talking about here...

[Fallen Angel]

I'm not saying that it's wrong per say, yet I can't help but feel that figuring things out is half the fun. Nothing beats that feeling you get when you finally find the answer to your problem.

But I have to ask: What's the reward to clear a raid repeatedly if all you really get is loot? What's the incentive? Why do you log every other night to kill the same things over and over?

Understand that I ask this out of curiosity, not judgement.

Get more gear, alts, beat old times, enjoy some casual farm nights hanging out with friends are a few of the reasons I raid as often as I do.

I ask you the same, what do you get out of the raid after you know the fight and have it on farm? Sense of discovery is long gone. No?

[Grym]

I'm not saying that it's wrong per say, yet I can't help but feel that figuring things out is half the fun. Nothing beats that feeling you get when you finally find the answer to your problem.

But I have to ask: What's the reward to clear a raid repeatedly if all you really get is loot? What's the incentive? Why do you log every other night to kill the same things over and over?

Understand that I ask this out of curiosity, not judgement.

But to most people, whether they like to admit it or not, loot IS everything.

If it isn't for the loot, the moment you killed the last boss on Mythic, there is no reason to go back inside.

LFR with shitty loot we all know how well receive that was.

Be prepare mean you have chance to get loot faster (and potentially more loot as you down more boss in the same lock out), so people would like to do things as efficiently as possible.

[Woop Woop]

I prefer to learn encounters by actually doing them.
Its a lot more fun and interesting to me, to not know what exactly is happening during a boss and try ro react accordingly. So what if we wipe a few times the first week? Before we know it we will be farming this raid and then it gets boring. So to me, the first few kills of a new boss is much more fun. Each to his own, i suppose.

[Queen of Hamsters]

Raids used to be learning an encounter and forming your own strategy. Remember when raid leaders actually lead instead of being kick masters? The majority who raid today are nothing but cheaters in my eyes. You need addons and strategy guides.

So if you need to watch a youtube video on how to do the fight, you're the real lazy players.

There's another very big difference between raids today and those that were back in the days. Key word: Mechanics. There are still different ways to beat fights today, but the trailblazers in the raiding community tend to figure out and share their findings and others tend to go with them.

Even with those preparations and addons, the very best raiders of today clocked over 900 wipes in ONE raid. Yeah, the "good old days" where people could figure out their own ways to beat a boss because bosses had abilities of world quest mobs today (if that), are thankfully a thing of the past. Or Private servers.

However, there are plenty of guilds I'd dare wager that accept the "go in blind for funs!"-approach. You might not get very FAR into raids with those guilds, but still...

[Torgent]

What went wrong with this games community? How can we fix it?

Lol you act like this is new. The same thing happened in Vanilla. Raiders are expected to know the raids. Either by being in a group that is first to hit them (before public testing of raids) or by reading posts published by those that were.

[Grym]

There are other MMO companies which do better job at raid testing. Square Enix keeps all FFXIV boss fights secret till release. E.g. Twintania fight - people had no idea how many phases it had till they actually started progressing through it and going through one phase at a time.

That only worked until the first kill video was made.

After that I wouldn't say I know many (or any) group go into Twintania fight without reading the guides and watching the video.

[Zamfix]

Yeah I do stuff with cool people but I'm not sure why gaming changed to be like this. It's so ass backwards.

Because some of us grew up and don't have hours to waste hand-holding people through the raids. Learning the fight is hardly rewarding, you only do it once anyway. Successfully executing the strategy with your raid is more rewarding.

[Animalhouse]

Soooo I take it all of you that like "mystery and discovery" hide your eyes when you hit the first page of MMO-Champion?

So help me, you dual-minded people better only have a link to the forums or you are ridiculous hypocritical trolls. I know it is the latter.
Most of you merely argue for arguments sake.

[d0cHolland]

Surely there are guilds out there that raid 'blind', and I can totally see the fun in doing that.

I always just enjoyed hanging out with some people I liked for a while, and the sense of accomplishment from progressing through content. Loot was just a means to assist in the latter, as was doing some research to 'pull my weight' when we were attempting a new boss.

[Ton00]

just people want it fast easy and now these days just like irl and if they aint got time then why are they doing it, like some said learning the encounter blind makes it feel more epic, plus how can you prove to them you know the fight even if you watched vid etc give it til next week it be link achi or no inv .....

[Nnyco]

What went wrong with this games community? How can we fix it?

just watch a video not that hard

[Fayenoor]

Soooo I take it all of you that like "mystery and discovery" hide your eyes when you hit the first page of MMO-Champion?

So help me, you dual-minded people better only have a link to the forums are you are ridiculous hypocritical trolls. I know it is the latter.
Most of you merely argue for arguments sake.

Yes, MMOC is partly to blame as well. They data mine everything. Nothing hypocritical about wanting to get a preview without a detailed walkthrough. What the dungeon journal discloses should be enough.

We all watched Sixth Sense trailer; but the trailer didn't tell us that Bruce Willis is a ghost.

[Jazzhands]

Just researching the fight isn't the same as knowing it in and out an experiencing it, it still takes time to learn how to learn how to actually perform each step. That's why mythic raiders, despite knowing the fights in and out, still takes 100s of attempts to kill bosses sometimes.

Knowing is half the battle.

[Zandalarian Paladin]

Get more gear, alts, beat old times, enjoy some casual farm nights hanging out with friends are a few of the reasons I raid as often as I do.

I ask you the same, what do you get out of the raid after you know the fight and have it on farm? Sense of discovery is long gone. No?

Not really. There's always achievements to get, which in turn gives interesting rewards like mounts and titles. Those achievements usually require an adaptation in term of strategy - some take weeks to achieves and some last the whole expansion as they require you to overpower the content.

Unless the content is on farm, there's always a reason to raid/mythic.

But to most people, whether they like to admit it or not, loot IS everything.

If it isn't for the loot, the moment you killed the last boss on Mythic, there is no reason to go back inside.

LFR with shitty loot we all know how well receive that was.

Be prepare mean you have chance to get loot faster (and potentially more loot as you down more boss in the same lock out), so people would like to do things as efficiently as possible.

No doubt about that. I can understand in PUGs, which is also why Blizzard made them easier. Mythic guilds too, I guess, as it's really all about efficiency and mastery.

Guilds doing Normal and Heroic though... I don't know. I guess to each his own.

[RobertMugabe]

What went wrong with this games community? How can we fix it?

It's been like that since TBC...

Don't expect from pugs, that they will waste their time on teaching you how to do the boss. As long as they don't require multi kill xp, it's fine. I really hate People who join raids just to be carried and have absolutely no idea what to do.

[Sin Cara]

What went wrong with this games community? How can we fix it?

Join a guild. Educate yourself with the dungeon journal.
It's honestly not that hard.

[babyback]

Yes, MMOC is partly to blame as well. They data mine everything. Nothing hypocritical about wanting to get a preview without a detailed walkthrough. What the dungeon journal discloses should be enough.

We all watched Sixth Sense trailer; but the trailer didn't tell us that Bruce Willis is a ghost.

Finally someone who understands this whole subject. These are normal raids and reading the dungeon journal is all you need to do to get a basic understanding about how the fights work. That's all you really need to do. Is it preferred to read a more detailed guide or watch a video? Of course. But it's not needed to beat the raid.

If you want people to have been reading up on encounters, join a guild. Don't pug it.

[Animalhouse]

“He who fails to plan is planning to fail" Winston Churchill

and NOT to be taken out of context.

"In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable." Dwight D. Eisenhower


Anyway, best of luck to you all. Those who plan and those who do not.
Hope everyone is enjoying Legion so far.