Raid design / layout [self drawn map incl.]

[Seriss]

The map you drew looks kind of like Molten Core's map.

I thought that too!

Anyway, I prefer your good old teleporter.

I don't mind a short walk in dungeons, they're not too big of a bother. Long walks suck. They take away sooo much time when you're progressing. Sometimes your attempts on a boss would be shorter than the walk back. I want to play the game, not be forced to run through a dungeon 30 times an evening, looking at something that I thought was pretty the first few times I ran past it but just gets ignored after 4 weeks of doing a raid anyway.

Gimmicky activation devices are fun the first few times but get old pretty fast.

[Ninotchka]

One of the things that I don't like about modern raid teleports is that if you want to go back outside in MSV or HoF to pop a mammoth (in case your engineer has a date that night and you need to repair), you have to run aaaaaallllll the way back through an empty instance. There should be a spot you can mount up in any instance. That can also help with the sense of scale.

[bohapjut]

One of the things that I don't like about modern raid teleports is that if you want to go back outside in MSV or HoF to pop a mammoth (in case your engineer has a date that night and you need to repair), you have to run aaaaaallllll the way back through an empty instance. There should be a spot you can mount up in any instance. That can also help with the sense of scale.

Yeah that was nice in Ulduar's first wing and Firelands.

[LeginNoslen]

Im going to put this raid riiiiiiight up on the refrigerator. And give it three smiley faces and two gold stars.

[Seriss]

One of the things that I don't like about modern raid teleports is that if you want to go back outside in MSV or HoF to pop a mammoth (in case your engineer has a date that night and you need to repair), you have to run aaaaaallllll the way back through an empty instance. There should be a spot you can mount up in any instance. That can also help with the sense of scale.

Yeah, teleporters activated by a player are better than that automatic stuff they've been doing recently - and they also don't bug out as much on beta/PTR when you're supposed to end up in certain places. I prefer the clicky-selecty-teleporter things.

In any case, I like raids in which you can mount up for repairs and buy tomes and stuff. Doesn't even have to be the entire raid. Just certain areas. Like you went to Freya in Ulduar if you needed to repair while progressing on the inner bosses (well, unless you didn't go the NPC at the entrance or mounted up quickly there already, whatever).

I'd also like it if Scrapbots were usable by non-engineers. That would rock too.

There are so many ways to improve quality of raiding and allow for more playing as opposed to just being in the game waiting to start playing again while running to places. Travel time, regardless of whether it's inside or outside of a dungeon is not quality game time. It wasn't fun some 6 years ago for me, it still isn't fun today, though today, the amount has been lessened by a great deal (I still mourn the loss of HGWT though *cry*).

I'm rambling incoherently again, I realize, and will just be quiet again now

[Ninotchka]

I like occasional unlockable vendors in raids, also, that was a nice touch. I prefer them about halfway through the raid or more - the guys at the entrance in Firelands or ICC meant that engineers never got to feel special by putting out their Jeeveses.

I can see the arguments on both sides for optional bosses, but what I do not like is absolutely linear instances. Naxx was great for giving us 4 choices for a direction to go on any given night. Firelands needed a couple more encounters, but I really liked the freedom of choosing between 4 different encounters when you first zoned in, which you could do in any order. One of the nice things about having multiple raid instances for this tier is that when we hit the Elegon wall last fall, we could go to Heart of Fear and take a look at those encounters; when we hit the Garalon wall we could look at doing the easier MSV heroics.

It does make for the occasional raid arguments (whining can't we go do the eeeeeeasy stuff first?) but I think a greater degree of freedom is a good thing.

The three 5.0 raids are essentially a string of beads - round rooms tied together with corridors of trash. Throne of Thunder looks like more of the same. The art design looks lovely, granted, the terrain is interesting and the inhabitants are beautifully designed. But it's destined to become boring, doing the same 10/11/12/13 encounters in the same order every single week (depending on what the showstopper boss turns out to be).

[Akraen]

Personally I'm just tired of every boss fight being in a circular room.

Concentric circles, that's all there is anymore.