The state of raiding in classic after experiencing the evolution of raids.

[wholol]

Hello there,

So here I was thinking about how Im looking forward to 40 man raids again, but then it occurred to me how much of an imbalance pve content in general in classic is going to be, lemme elaborate a bit more.

In vanilla raids were split into 2 imaginary groups within the 40 people, the group that had the good players who knew what they were doing and pushed to beat the boss whether it be from tanking/dpsing/healing and working around the mechanics and then you had the "fillers".

The fillers were basically people just filling the slots so that the "good players" can beat the encounters, in fact the amount of fillers were so large that in most guilds they formed the majority of the raid.

What would've happened to a guild if they had only good players ( in classic standards at least ) who knew how to position/ do their job and work to avoid the bosses mechanics back then ? you've all heard of guilds like Nihilum etc. that's basically what a raid group of non-fillers looked like, basically top tier.

Now with that in mind, over the years a lot of players were molded with all the raid encounters to be better at dealing with boss mechanics and encounters, albeit with a lot of addon usage but still players ( even bad ones) became somewhat better at dealing with team oriented boss fights.

So what would happen if current day wow players who have raided for years go back to classic and raid ?
If blizzard does not alter the content at all, then the majority of players will clear all raids in a very quick time frame , since bosses back then weren't as mechanically intense but mostly required certain ilvl or stats to complete.

So my thoughts are, raiding will not be as memorable as it once was once classic hits, as most players already know all the mechanics for all boss fights, the proper way to beat them and the way to farm the gear needed to kill said bosses.

[xcoatsyx]

The mechanics of vanilla were not challenging and by today's modern standards really quite easy.

The difficulty like you said comes from 40 player issues. I don't think this will plague the game so much now as the standard of the average player is likely above vanilla mechanics now.

Gearing up will also be really difficult as on vanilla there was no tokens etc. It will take a long time just for that.

The content was largely overtuned too. So whilst the mechanics were simple, it could be very punishing. See: Naxxaramas.

[wholol]

The mechanics of vanilla were not challenging and by today's modern standards really quite easy.

The difficulty like you said comes from 40 player issues. I don't think this will plague the game so much now as the standard of the average player is likely above vanilla mechanics now.

Gearing up will also be really difficult as on vanilla there was no tokens etc. It will take a long time just for that.

The content was largely overtuned too. So whilst the mechanics were simple, it could be very punishing. See: Naxxaramas.

Yes but besides gearing how would people feel about breezing through endgame content so quickly they'd end up having nothing left to do and we all know what happens then.

[Alienshroom]

People are not playing for the raids. When you clear the content you either quit or create an alt to do it over again just like in retail. Nobody said that this game needs to become a lifestyle. Far more people will quit before clearing Naxx then people who clear Naxx and then become bored quit. Its a pointless topic. PvP and alts will keep people around.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

If you are going to classic as if it is the next generation raid tier than you lost already. This stuff has been done, done, and done again. Everyone will know exactly what to do and the mechanics aren't insanely hard. Gearing takes time and that will put some curve in it. Getting the right players and classes in the right spots will add a curve and take time. People realizing its not them against the meter and instead them as a team against a boss will put a curve in it and take some time.

But it is not going to be next level raiding. You should raid in classic because you want to raid in classic. Not because you are some next level bad ass looking for the next score to settle.

[Drefan]

I agree that the content will be cleared fast. The same thing happens on live versions though, everything besides Mythic is cleared the reset its released. Vanilla will most likely be no different and If you want to increase the difficulty ( I kinda want that too) it's not "vanilla" anymore even if it's done in a vanilla spirit.Which is a big reason as to why they shouldnt touch vanilla raid difficulty, people want to re-experience vanilla again and it's important that they are able to.

Sure the PvE might be way too easy but they will still need to keep clearing it for a long time since vanilla still had less loot than current raids.

[wholol]

I'm less worried about the raiding being easy and more about it breaking the immersion, raids in vanilla meant something because they brought people together in order to beat the "big challenges" of the game back then, this took time and a lot of people which helped with the immersion and helped forge bonds within the community.

What I'm trying to say is , I don't want to end up watching legion level community on classic , where people just pug things like live on LFG/LFR without much communication or friendship.

[Nitros14]

I'm less worried about the raiding being easy and more about it breaking the immersion, raids in vanilla meant something because they brought people together in order to beat the "big challenges" of the game back then, this took time and a lot of people which helped with the immersion and helped forge bonds within the community.

What I'm trying to say is , I don't want to end up watching legion level community on classic , where people just pug things like live on LFG/LFR without much communication or friendship.

If they implement authentic classic systems I don't think you need to be afraid of that.

[wholol]

If they implement authentic classic systems I don't think you need to be afraid of that.

Who knows with all the proactive movements on these forums, some people want different patch notes of classic , some people want more tanks to be viable, some want class balances, others want "new content" , some even want new graphics and animations, so you never know what blizzard might end up doing at this point.

Although of all the things stated above, the idea of having more viable tank specs did seem appealing, but in the end the point of classic is to bring us back to the point where it all started and not to invent the wheel again with a twist, a lot of people are under the impression classic servers are "timewalking expansions" where we go back and change how it was ( basically mess up everything) as we always do in timewalking cases.

Only debate in my head is which patch they'll implement, I'm personally hoping it's 1.12 but without the bugs ( a lot of those were patched out later )+ time gated content even if we start at 1.12.

[Nitros14]

If they start with 1.12 they have to buff dungeons, Molten Core, Zul'Gurub, Blackwing Lair and Ahn'qiraj a ton. Those talent reworks and itemisation changes vastly increased player power.

And raids before Ahn'qiraj were designed with an eight debuff cap in mind, not sixteen.

[wholol]

If they start with 1.12 they have to buff dungeons, Molten Core, Zul'Gurub, Blackwing Lair and Ahn'qiraj a ton. Those talent reworks and itemisation changes vastly increased player power.

And raids before Ahn'qiraj were designed with an eight debuff cap in mind, not sixteen.

Yeah but all the private vanilla servers have been using patch 1.12 with tweaks to manage those and it's been great, basically starting from 1.0 is a pain for most people since there were too many bugs , most specs were undertuned and a lot of things felt off.

I mean they could just use later patches but with the dungeons /raids timegated from 1.0 , this would make everything smoother gameplay wise whilst keeping the whole dungeon/raids progression thing we had back then.

[Wondercrab]

It won't apply to the majority of raiders, but assuming classic realms don't spread their population too thin then I imagine the dedicated hardcore population will form high-end guilds that clear the content relatively quickly. The only thing holding them back will be the pace of gearing. A lot of raiding guilds will probably fall into the more casual end of the spectrum, however, with more "fillers" similar to oldschool Vanilla.

Players might have gotten better overall, and generally speaking people will clear the content a lot quicker than they did in the past, but the less skilled/dedicated population is still going to exist.

[Kanariya]

It'll be challenging once today's players get this mindset of "it'll play just like retail with less mechanics" out of their head and realize how weak their classes are. Low HP, zero defensive CDs, and virtually no aoe heals or shields to save your ass. A large part of the difficulty is trying to stay alive.

[corebit]

Most guilds will one-shot the pre-Naxx raids. The only thing that will take time is acquiring the different resist gear and the consumables, and even then those will be a lot faster with a mostly experienced playerbase who know exactly what and where to farm.

It'll be challenging once today's players get this mindset of "it'll play just like retail with less mechanics" out of their head and realize how weak their classes are. Low HP, zero defensive CDs, and virtually no aoe heals or shields to save your ass. A large part of the difficulty is trying to stay alive.

As opposed to retail where a single mistake will not only one-shot you but will also wipe your raid? Are you insinuating that defensive CDs, AOE heals and larger HP pools somehow make the raids (talking mythic here) easier? What good is a 5 million HP pool if the boss hits you for 13 million? I'd argue that staying alive is much more important now in retail than it ever was in vanilla, as losing a single DPS means you will not meet the tight enrage timers.

[Kanariya]

Most guilds will one-shot the pre-Naxx raids. The only thing that will take time is acquiring the different resist gear and the consumables, and even then those will be a lot faster with a mostly experienced playerbase who know exactly what and where to farm.



As opposed to retail where a single mistake will not only one-shot you but will also wipe your raid? Are you insinuating that defensive CDs, AOE heals and larger HP pools somehow make the raids (talking mythic here) easier? What good is a 5 million HP pool if the boss hits you for 13 million? I'd argue that staying alive is much more important now in retail than it ever was in vanilla, as losing a single DPS means you will not meet the tight enrage timers.

I didn't say it would be more challenging than retail. My point is that classes today are stronger than ever, and have endless ways to stay alive, and posters that are making "All Vanilla raids were ezpz because bosses had no mechanics" comments don't seem to understand that it's not just raid mechanics, it's also class mechanics that are a part of Vanilla difficulty. Staying alive in Retail is important, no one mentioned otherwise, but it's much easier (yes, even on mythic) to stay alive because we have all the tools available to, it's not balanced around chugging Greater Fire Protection Potions and Bandaging on CD.