Please tell me that Vanilla bosses are not designed like Green Dragons

[Bigcountry11782]

Those are ones of the shittiest boss designs in the game, it's just full stun and fear, full unavoidable AoE damage and full of "take-that-boss-in-the-corner" mechanics.

Yep, Vanilla bosses were terribly designed.For all those that cried for classic, i hope they keep the bosses just as bad as they were back then.The funny thing is half the raid could go afk and you could still down the boss.when people claim they 'miss' this kind of stuff they don't. What they actually miss is the way they felt about the game at the time, that nooby naivety and wonder at the simplest thing.
Totally agree =)

[Akka]

just not cut out to understand you dodging the question.

I'm not dodging, I just think that if you can't even grasp the most basic concepts, then trying to explain higher concepts is going to be wasted time.
If you look at LFR and are asked "don't you see how it impact the entire game" and your answer shows you don't even grasp what game design is... nah, not going to bother.

[Heathy]

I see how it impacts ppls chances of actually getting into raiding, when they other wise 1) don't have the time or 2) haven't raided at all.

but ofc the game only revolves around you i forgot my bad. problem is you did dodge the question, in fact i'm pretty certain you can't think of a reason as to why the LFR negatively effect you. because the truth is it doesn't. no one-persons progress negatively effects anyone elses progress in the game, maybe in pvp, you can stop someone from progressing in pvp i guess if although we're not really on the subject of pvp. even so the gear you get from the LFR is going to be pretty meh for pvp. no doubt it would help but its not like you can run the lfr and then instantly be amazing in pvp.

just tired of the elitist mentality, don't care for it, at all.

[AwkwardSquirtle]

I wouldn't be surprised if they beefed up the bosses with additional mechanics to bring them up to modern standards.

I would. This is being made for the fans of the original game. They have asked to be able to play the same game that they loved back in the day, not a new version that looks a bit like it. I'd be amazed if they do something like that which will turn off their core audience.

[epLe]

Yep, Vanilla bosses were terribly designed.For all those that cried for classic, i hope they keep the bosses just as bad as they were back then.The funny thing is half the raid could go afk and you could still down the boss.when people claim they 'miss' this kind of stuff they don't. What they actually miss is the way they felt about the game at the time, that nooby naivety and wonder at the simplest thing.
Totally agree =)

Well this is at best true for Molten Core, and then you really needed it to be the right people that went afk.

You wouldn't get past first bosses in BWL with your raidgroup as you describe it here.

[MonsieuRoberts]

Hahahahaha someone's never run Vanilla instances. Go ahead and count the mechanics per Molten Core boss. BlackWing Lair. Zul Guru- I mean, Ahn Quiraj. Most bosses have 2-3 simple mechanics (a DoT, a fear, a stun, adds, etc.).

If you're expecting raiding in Vanilla to be a battle against anything other than organizing 40 people and your own ability to hit an enemy and not get one-shot you're going to be disappointed.

[Akka]

I see how it impacts ppls chances of actually getting into raiding, when they other wise 1) don't have the time or 2) haven't raided at all.

but ofc the game only revolves around you i forgot my bad. problem is you did dodge the question, in fact i'm pretty certain you can't think of a reason as to why the LFR negatively effect you. because the truth is it doesn't. no one-persons progress negatively effects anyone elses progress in the game, maybe in pvp, you can stop someone from progressing in pvp i guess if although we're not really on the subject of pvp. even so the gear you get from the LFR is going to be pretty meh for pvp. no doubt it would help but its not like you can run the lfr and then instantly be amazing in pvp.

Whatever helps you sleeping at night, man. You just are confirming you really have no global vision and I was right not to mire myself into what would have been probably pointless.
Speaking of sleeping, time for me to go.

[Heathy]

right so talking in circles again what are you trying to say exactly i feel like i need a code wheel or something because its like half rhetoric half mystic enlightenment. if you actually made sense we might actually get somewhere but if your giving up already then well bye then, thanks for stopping by.

global vision just seems like another buzz word with no context. what global vision. god damn, your only typing half of what you actually need to say to make a coherent sentence that anyone not inside your mind can also follow.

[Koward]

just not cut out to understand you dodging the question.

you didn't tell me how the LFR negatively affects your game play or progress in the game.

now your just beating around the bush throwing out buzz words like game design. ok so the game design, yes what about the game design, again are you going to elaborate or was that rhetorical?.

the game is designed around largely, end game raiding, the lfr, helps complete noobs get into end game raiding. seems to be a pretty functional and positive aspect to this 'game design' that your talking about.

The world feels much bigger when there's unbeaten content out there. I think LFR removes that. All content is easily cleared by the player. A difficulty level is not proper content, it's not enough. It's weird but that's how it feels to me.

You claim LFR is important because it is a step to learn to play your character for later raiding modes. Well I agree I think that's true, a lower mode of a raid helps to later play its higher mode. I just find it a bit sad to do the bosses, then redo them with more stats, then redo them again. I like "one place, one difficulty mode" and how when you progress somewhere you discover both the strategies and the environment/assets at the same time. But that's completely personal.

[Heathy]

The world feels much bigger when there's unbeaten content out there. I think LFR removes that. All content is easily cleared by the player. A difficulty level is not proper content, it's not enough. It's weird but that's how it feels to me.

You claim LFR is important because it is a step to learn to play your character for later raiding modes. Well I agree I think that's true, a lower mode of a raid helps to later play its higher mode. I just find it a bit sad to do the bosses, then redo them with more stats, then redo them again. I like "one place, one difficulty mode" and how when you progress somewhere you discover both the strategies and the environment/assets at the same time. But that's completely personal.

the thing is thats happening anyway you just choose to ignore it, imagine how many thousands of ppl are running content, it gets to the point where its moot, there are lots and lots and lots of ppl running the same content as you getting the same gear as you. its not like your some special snowflake, you just can't see all the other ppl because they are on their own servers in their own instances.

i mean we have been collecting epic gear for over a decade the idea of epic gear being somewhat epic ended years ago, by the end of classic even I was full epic and i'm not a pro.

if i was already fully epic 10+ years ago, what the hell does it matter if some joe bloggs is full epic today, i beat joe blogs to full epic by 14 years go me.

if your getting upgrades, if you killing content, you should be focused on your own progress not what other ppl are doing, because what they are doing has no baring on your progress. so the ppl in the lfr are killing the ez mode loot pinyata and your killing the version of the boss where you actually have to move and press buttons in a timely manner, your obviously getting the better challenge.

and if we are bothered by there being multiple difficulties, how does that compare to the fact that we farm bosses and they magically reappear again each week i mean if your willing to suspend your disbelief for that continuity then surely its not exactly much of a push to have multiple version of a boss. if they can magically resurrect again each week not learn anything from the last encounter and fall over to the exact same group over and over again like ground hog day, i mean common now, theres already a heavy amount of looking the other way going on with this game.

[Morbownz]

Those are ones of the shittiest boss designs in the game, it's just full stun and fear, full unavoidable aoe damage and full of "take-that-boss-in-the-corner" mechanics.

What do you expect? When bosses spawn moving circles on the ground that CC players, it's intended to punish players for not moving out of the way. When you add 30 other players with no orgainzition or communication it becomes a complete clusterfuck of chain CC and knockbacks. If you attempt to play like this on classic realms those bosses will no die.
To add to this, World bosses were never really thought of as great boss encounters so I wouldn't expect much from them.

[Heathy]

I don't know if there was a misunderstanding or if you quoted the wrong post, I did not wanted to talk about gear at all. I just wanted to say I feel like "discovering" both new strats along with the environment was better than just discovering the new strats in a raid you already beaten 100 times in LFR/previous difficulty modes.

I think the data mining comes first on that one, the lfr has some carry over to normal but i mean your probably not going to get a feel for the heroic version running the LFR, its obviously closer to normal. but the strats and such you can blame that on the PTR's and data mining. not the LFR.

if you want to develop your own strats then your going to have to organize your own blackouts these days and just not even look at the tactics and then make your own.

[brunnor]

I see how it impacts ppls chances of actually getting into raiding, when they other wise 1) don't have the time or 2) haven't raided at all.

but ofc the game only revolves around you i forgot my bad. problem is you did dodge the question, in fact i'm pretty certain you can't think of a reason as to why the LFR negatively effect you. because the truth is it doesn't. no one-persons progress negatively effects anyone elses progress in the game, maybe in pvp, you can stop someone from progressing in pvp i guess if although we're not really on the subject of pvp. even so the gear you get from the LFR is going to be pretty meh for pvp. no doubt it would help but its not like you can run the lfr and then instantly be amazing in pvp.

just tired of the elitist mentality, don't care for it, at all.

I'll jump in to this one since I've been out of arguing for a while, getting old and such.

LFR negatively effects any single player raiding normal+. The effects are felt by every guild that is there even if they are unaware of it, because most of them are. I ran a guild from Vanilla up until MoP, at which time I moved on to just being an officer, so still in the know as far as recruiting and all that goes. So I'd like to think I at least have enough of an overall understanding of recruitment cycles.

That is the big deal with LFR: Recruiting. Pre-LFR, you had a flow of 5mans > heroics > base level raiding > mid level raiding > high level raiding. The difference in any one of those steps was not overly large from the previous. If you could clear all 5 mans easy enough, you could start on heroic. If you could clear heroics, you could start the early raids. etc etc. This caused players to climb the ladder to the next step due to how easily reachable it was once they took the last step.

By that, I mean the difference between 5 mans and heroics was a little more preparation, ie food/flask/strat, and 10-15 minutes. That is not that big of deal. Sure, some people wouldn't/couldn't do it, but for the most part people did. The difference between heroics and entry raiding was a schedule and only a schedule. Food/flask/strat all stayed the same but you had to add just one thing to move up. Again, some people did, some didn't, but more than not did or at least tried to. Early to mid level was more strats and that's it. Mid to high was more schedule. That was why it worked and funneled players up the ladder.

Post-LFR is a quite different look at the ladder. I will say that this issue is also caused by LFD too. It is not an exclusive LFR problem, but LFR is what made the problem not fixable easily. Current ladder looks like this: LFD > LFR > High end raiding. For LFD you need nothing. You can do it at any time, any skill level and no need for preparation. LFR is exactly the same as LFD. There is no need for anything at all minus hitting the minimum item level. No preparation at all again. Now the final step adds EVERYTHING. To jump in to high end raiding, you need a schedule, full willingness to farm pots/food/flasks, understanding of strats and mechanics.

So... guess what happens? Almost no one takes the step up. The ladder breaks after the LFR step because it's jump in to raiding is much too extreme for someone to realistically get in to without the predetermined mindset to do so. Thus they don't.

Now, you might be asking yourself, "Hey Brunnor, that doesn't explain why it's a bad thing!". You are correct, that doesn't on the surface. But ask yourself, what happens when a normal mode guild only had 8 players? Or a mythic guild only has 18? They'll struggle for a bit, but eventually die off. Why are these normal guilds not getting players? Because the space between LFR and raiding is much too big. So, they can't recruit due to limited players. When they can't recruit, that means the heroic guilds who used to get players from more advanced normal guilds can't recruit. That in turn means the mythic guilds who got players from those heroic guilds cant recruit. And then guilds die.

TL;DR - LFR stops the flow of players up the ladder causing recruiting issues and guild deaths of all players above them.

[Netherbrood]

Nowadays M raiders would just roflstomp through those raids and go /fart full of epics in front of those purists. That is the only reason I want to play vanilla to ninjaloot all the items on bosses and swap from guild to guild and piss on their "omg I farmed that item for 4 months I'll make a ticket to ban you lmao"

the thing is in vanilla, that kind of behavior would get you blacklisted on what ever server you were on and make it out right impossible to get into guilds or pug anything. that is the kind of community that vanilla had, you made a name for yourself by what you did.

[Heathy]

i dunno we were doing normal > heroic this expansion i was only raiding with like 10-15 ppl usually like 12 or 13. we had trouble with some of the mechanics like guldan was shit for 10 mans he was fucking us with the bonds, they just weren't balanced around a smaller raid at all.

but yeah i jumped in, i geared up in the LFR because i came in like 2 months late, but we did en normal>heroic, then we did nighthold normal then heroic, we cleared normal before moving into heroic, because gearing up in normal these day is worth doing, free tier pieces, its a good help for pushing heroic.

if ppl aren't moving up then they aren't exactly your targets for recruitment, you need to find the ppl who do move up not those who want to stay in the lfr, because they, well they obviously aren't interested in a challenge anyway.

its like the piracy argument, weren't going to buy it anyway, weren't going to raid full time anyway. pretty sure on average more players are in fact moving from the lfr into proper raiding. the lfr should instill that skinner box vibe and urge most ppl up to better rewards. i mean we did have trouble this expansion growing from our small group, either no one was looking for sub 25 man or we just weren't attractive enough as a guild just doing heroic. or my guild leader wasn't putting that much effort i dunno really, we we're killing bosses with the numbers we had so i wasn't too bothered about the lack of new blood. perhaps the LFR should be voided from WF/TF gear to enforce the idea that you have to move up in difficulty. that might go a long way toward making ppl leave and stop relying on rngesus for decent loot rolls.

i see your point though, a lot of ppl are happy just facerolling the LFR because its easy. serious players are going to want to make use of their lockouts though right so, if your even moderately enthusiastic about gearing up your going to want to get saved to normal/heroic each week if you can. i can't believe there just aren't ppl trickling through the lfr, like it gives them a taste and then they either want better loot or a better challenge, that is the conclusion i would have expected most ppl to come to. again if they were even remotely interested in getting anywhere.

I only like the LFR for its basic educational aspects, the game has been going on for a lot of years now and it must be pretty daunting for someone starting like today. I think we learned a lot in classic what its like to come into the game late and then miss all the content because you were 1/4th of the way through the mandatory time sink. the game today is just more inclusive of all play styles, all time commitments.

I'm not disagreeing its definitely food for thought. something to mull over.

[brunnor]

The question and difference between us isn't is LFR good/bad for the game. It should be based around "How do we want the game to be?". Both sides are correct in their own right because they each see the "goal" of the game differently. Which is why this is a never ending battle of arguments because people just fight over a single aspect and not the game as a whole. That is also why it never ends because there is no closure for either side since they are both right in the argument they are having over LFR.

[Heathy]

I was just trying to think of reasons as to why you could just be having bad luck getting new dudes, could it be your raid days or times perhaps. thats the problem when is comes to recruitment your basically hoping that:

1) someone is looking for a guild
2) that person sees your msg
3) they are happy with your raid days

its a pretty fine filter when you get down to it. i've always been super lucky with my guilds, my first guild just snapped me up soon after i dinged 60, my tbc guild recruited me after a black morass run, this expansion half the ppl in the guild i was in where also in playing during classic so it was a bit tight knit, i've basically never had to jump through hoops for a guild in wow so i'm a bit lucky in that sense.

I really cannot decide if i preferred the game with or without a LFR, i just remember that classic was pretty dead on the pugging scene and the game is more fun when ppl are actively running content. everyone was a bit stingy in classic i remember the mentality being along the lines of 'i'm not getting saved to fail raids'. so hardly anyone did.

[MMKing]

@Heathy
The ''saved to failed raids'' issue is a double edged sword.

On one hand, you have those weeks where you are actually saved to a dead raid which sucks. On the other, the fact that a failed run means you are out of the chance to gather loot that week, means that you care more about the people you run with. Maintaining your reputation in the community is important, and raid leaders with a good reputation has every reason to maintain that reputation.

While i'm not against the idea of flexible raid locks, in that you can only loot a boss once every week. I am against the LFR system, as it violently removes player agency by having the server simply pick from a pool of healers, damage dealers and tanks.

Because player agency was removed from the process, maintaining a reputation by skilled play was no longer required as removing people from an LFR raid is difficult and time consuming. Hence no one was removed, except in some extremely rare cases where someone was deliberately attempting to be removed to test the system.

Server reputation was no longer required, so skilled play was no longer required. Resulting in LFR difficulty taking a serious blow in difficulty, just as the heroic dungeons had taken a serious blow in difficulty prior. In the Burning Crusade, you would keep skilled players in your friend list and go to them first thing when you fancied going a particularly difficult heroic or pug a raid. You would on occasion chat with a few of them, and get a rough idea which dungeons they needed gear from and which dungeons you needed gear from. So when you ran a dungeon you normally would not, to help a guild mate or something, you would call on them to join you.

Then introduce the LFG system. At first it was not a huge issue, because heroic dungeons in WOTLK was not particularly difficult to begin with. WOTLK launched with Heroic Dungeons which could be blitzed through in 30-40 minutes with fresh lvl 80 characters. So the community surrounding heroic dungeons was already broken into pieces with the WOTLK launch patch. The LFG system didn't really break much at that point. I only remember minor issues completing the later WOTLK heroic dungeons, the one introduced with the trial of the crusader patch (LFG system release patch) and the later ICC dungeons.

Introducing Cataclysm, with it's once again, very hard HEROIC dungeons. The vocal players had been complaining that WOTLK HEROIC dungeons had been a zergfest from day one, with only the ICC heroic dungeons providing even slight challenge. So Blizzard listened to the players that actually asked for harder content. However, as the players attempted to beat these HEROIC dungeons with a bunch of random players, who had not been expected to maintain any semblance of reputation within the community. It became immediately apparent that difficult content and a match making finder does not go hand in hand at all.



That is why i hate the LFG and LFR function, and matchmaking functions in general. By removing the players ability to pick and choose players in a MASS ONLINE MULTIPLAYER game, you are effectively ruining the community. Skilled play, social skills and good behavior is no longer rewarded, nor are you punished for being a taint on the community... because there is no community. It has nothing to do with the notion that ''classic purists'' are hating on ''retailers'' for whining that they have to run to the dungeon.

Now, the LFR/LFG system is factually horrible game design. Especially for an MMO. But is the individual raid lockout horrible game design? On this matter, it's a bit more nuanced in my opinion. As stated earlier, both sides have a perfectly valid argument. But seeing that Classic wow is much more community driven than current wow, i would say keeping the system as it was during classic wow is the better option. Even if Blizzard advance it to TBC, i believe keeping the system as it was during TBC is the better option.

[Heathy]

I've always found that the community in this game, even since classic was the guild community, my server has always had a very strong alliance side pve game. but i would always say that the 'community' that mattered was always my guild first and everyone else second.

I'm one of those ppl who actually thinks the game does need a basic lfg, I do like the idea around no instant teleports and travelling the whole distance along with no instant match making. but in the same breath, i do think that trying to form groups by just watching a chat was rather antiquated and not very efficient at all. that was one of the main problems with classic the ability to form groups was inept and slow for pretty much no real reason.

i don't disagree with your points either but i do feel like its just one extreme, not all of the ppl who just LFR are undesirables who just troll up the game.

community requires interaction, ppl just don't interact anymore, a community doesn't just pop into existence without ppl making it happen. i've always thought of the community as a wow community, like its all the same community. everyone is playing the same game, its almost like not being able to see the trees for the forest. the game has never removed the ability to manually form groups. so i don't understand how you've lost your choice when the choice to manually make a group is still there.

whole point of m+ was that you had to make your own groups so the choice is actually entirely up to you. the only thing ruining the community is the lack of anyone trying to create one.


back in the day during classic before battlegrounds existed there were player created events, ppl spamming in the chat for everyone to go to the barrens for a big pvp fight. that shit just doesn't happen any more, its just an entirely different game, we had flash backs of that when they brought in the 'for the horde' and 'for the alliance' achievements because again ppl would form up raids to go kill a city leader. again this was the sort of community wide events that I remember. but they only happen if ppl want them to happen, someone has to be an instigator.

if no one tries to be a community leader there can't really be a community. at least not one that doesn't transcend the guild barrier. your always going to have a closer relationship with the ppl in your guild than anyone else on the server who isn't in your guild.


perhaps its just one big side effect, the side effect of increased difficulty in the game has also made it so there is less down time, having no down time means no time to chat, no chat means no interaction. perhaps what we need is to go back to longer dungeons with gaps between trash packs so ppl can fire up conversations in dungeons again. I do think they are blown through very quickly today, the mentality is more about how much progress can i make before I need to log rather than just playing the game to have fun and not caring about anything else.

[MMKing]

You are correct. Not everyone running LFR is a complete idiot and a stain on the community. My argument goes both ways however. The system does not reward good behavior and skilled play, nor does it punish rude behavior and unskilled play. Because the system is neutral, there is no reason to change the way you act or play at all to take part in the game, which is supposed to be an MMO. Where community interaction is very much important for long term sustainability.

This is what happened when Blizzard introduced the instant lvl 90 function in MOP
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pcFGGsqTeA

While it's not directly related to the discussion we are currently having. It's nonetheless a good watch, regarding what occurs when anyone can join your group. What happened in the video is not uncommon at all, extremely bad players keep joining LFR raids for months on end never improving because there is no need to improve. The only thing that video showed is what happens when you get 15+ bad players in a raid.

I'm not even blaming the bad players themselves. The gamer is likely to keep doing what works, regardless of the existence of a better way. Spamming a single ability from lvl 1 to lvl 110 is a viable way to level. It's not at all optimal, but it is viable. In classic wow, even the most simple class to level and play demanded that the player use several abilities. Hunter, which has a reputation for being easy to play greatly benefits from player skill, and you are taught very early on that excellent pet control can allow you to overcome challenges other classes could not possibly accomplish on their own.

In retail wow there is no difficulty curve. Even not playing is a perfectly viable way to play through LFR raids and LFG dungeons. And i argue that, due to the way the system that is wow is set up. There can't exist a difficulty curve for LFR raids or LFG dungeons. We saw how it worked out when Blizzard attempted a difficulty curve on LFG heroics in Cataclysm. Endless whining until Blizzard relented.

The player base also need to learn that items and gear is not at all an integral part of world of Warcraft. Gear and items is a means to reach an end, not the end in itself. The endgame in wow is the journey, and the journey is challenging content with your guild mates, friends and other members of your server community. It's not signing up for LFR every week with people you have never met before, and will likely ever meet again because you need gear.