Let's be honest about the fun of PvE

[Danur]

It comes from the new experience, the tackling of new challenges and new characters in lore. Right?

There's been lots of arguments back and forth about the role and "fun" of Heroic Raids, gearing your character, and whether or not these things should be accessible to the average player. But all of that aside, I saw this post that really stuck out to me as something I hadn't considered, in terms of rehashing content, whether it be bringing back an old 5man like Deadmines or Scarlet Monastery, or making the jump after clearing Normal, to Heroic raiding.

And before some smartass responds with, "The fights are different!!" Please.
I am an accomplished PvEer and a long time WoW player. At this point, PvE to me is same - all it is a mixture of elements - running your rotation optimally, moving here, moving there, DPSing, not DPSing, taunting, moving out of fire, interrupting, etc.

TLDR: I play for environments, the feel of a second, fantasy world NOT some PvE fights in a vacuum. The fights don't make the experience; the encounters do.

The complaint above was in regards to us going into gear up in a revamped SM, which is going much the way DM, SFK, ZA, ZG, Naxx etc... has gone in terms of refurbishing old content, and serving us "stale cake" as another poster put it.

All I have to ask is, do you find PvE truly enjoyable viewing each boss as a set of mechanics that must be overcome, regardless of models used, environment, or lore; or do you personally feel that the content must be fresh, storywise and mechanic-wise?

[Oneirophobia]

I personally prefer fresh storyline. I am not generally amused if a rehash is virtually the same, like ZA was. ZG had different bosses and an awesome pre-dungeon questline that set it up nicely. ZA on the other hand was literally the same 25m from BC but with a few new trash mobs. What bothers me more is that they didn't conclude the Zandalari storyline. I mean, they were the good intellectual historian trolls that suddenly went crazy. We still don't know why this happened (probably n'zoth), and we may never know. ._.

If Scholomance is the same with minor storyline updates I'm going to be annoyed. Mostly because A) They were wiped out in vanilla, B) the LK is dead and the cult of the damned was virtually obliterated by the Argents, C) in Catacylsm we help Thassarian and Koltira destroy the leader of Scholomance, yet there he is, back again for a third go.

As for Scarlet Monestary, I fear the same thing. All the boss names are the same, even though we lore-wise killed them in Vanilla, and we wrecked the higher-ups of the Scarlets in Wrath of the Lich King in New Hearthglen and again in their port in Icecrown. Storyline-wise, this doesn't bode well.

I would be completely content if there was a plethora of other baddies who made a nest in Monestary, and we go in and see Whitemane's skeleton (or a zombie of her) or something... You know, an update to the timeline.

[Kisho]

I always like to know why I'm killing someone/thing. The story and context are very important to me. After all, you can boil most raid encounters down to very simple rules:

-Kill adds when they spawn
-Move out of the fire
-Kill the boss before it kills you

Aside from specific gimmicks that are sometimes thrown in, this is pretty much raiding in a nutshell. Don't get me wrong, I find it enjoyable, but it's primarily because of the story of the place. I need to feel like what I'm doing is important and that I'm really making a difference in this world. Not just going in for teh lewts (like the original ZA: the storyline actually was that we're going in for treasure. Oh yay.).

[Deleted]

Rehashed content is horrible, should only be done extremely rarely for extremely popular content and as filler-content, and the way it is done in WoW is just pathetic.

[Emane]

At this moment, we don't know much of the bosses in the new SM (Yes it says Herod and such), but what if they are the undead version of them? I like pve mainly due to lore issues, but also the team work in knowing "This boss does this, what do we as a group have to do to down it?"

And before anyone says anything, just look at a video and you will know for sure. Yes you get the general idea of what you need to do, but not how you should do it with the setup that you are running. Be it 3 melee dps instead of 2, or something like that. The general tactic is kinda clear after the first real pull on the boss, and what you get from videos are small hints.

And also killing the boss for the first time with the group you have been discussing the tactics with and finally found out the way your raid group should do it.

Also, seeing DM and SFK as examples to SM and Scholo, I'm quite sure it wont be the same dungeon with just more hp/damage. Specially not since they say that the old version will still be in game for lower level chars, which is totally different from how they handled DM/SFK.

So we take it like this.
DM - New bosses, new storyline, awesome questline leading up to it (whole Westfall is pretty much a pre-quest for DM).
SFK - New bosses, new storyline, not sure if it has a quest line.
ZG - New bosses, new storyline, awesome questline leading up to it.
ZA - 1 new boss, rest the same.

Going by procentages, it's 75% certain that it will be New bosses and a new storyline. 50% chance that they will also have an awesome questline to them. And 25% chance that it will be the same, just scaled abit.

But with Blizzard saying that the old version will still exist for lower level players, I'm kinda keen on removing the 25% from that it will be the same, just scaled abit.

[Danur]

At this moment, we don't know much of the bosses in the new SM (Yes it says Herod and such), but what if they are the undead version of them? I like pve mainly due to lore issues, but also the team work in knowing "This boss does this, what do we as a group have to do to down it?"

And before anyone says anything, just look at a video and you will know for sure. Yes you get the general idea of what you need to do, but not how you should do it with the setup that you are running. Be it 3 melee dps instead of 2, or something like that. The general tactic is kinda clear after the first real pull on the boss, and what you get from videos are small hints.

And also killing the boss for the first time with the group you have been discussing the tactics with and finally found out the way your raid group should do it.

Also, seeing DM and SFK as examples to SM and Scholo, I'm quite sure it wont be the same dungeon with just more hp/damage. Specially not since they say that the old version will still be in game for lower level chars, which is totally different from how they handled DM/SFK.

So we take it like this.
DM - New bosses, new storyline, awesome questline leading up to it (whole Westfall is pretty much a pre-quest for DM).
SFK - New bosses, new storyline, not sure if it has a quest line.
ZG - New bosses, new storyline, awesome questline leading up to it.
ZA - 1 new boss, rest the same.

Going by procentages, it's 75% certain that it will be New bosses and a new storyline. 50% chance that they will also have an awesome questline to them. And 25% chance that it will be the same, just scaled abit.

But with Blizzard saying that the old version will still exist for lower level players, I'm kinda keen on removing the 25% from that it will be the same, just scaled abit.

I love how you're trying to anticipate this mathematically with statistics lmao

[Deleted]

Rehashed content is horrible, should only be done extremely rarely for extremely popular content and as filler-content, and the way it is done in WoW is just pathetic.

You make it sound like 95% of the content is rehashed.

Newsflash, it's not.

[MestHoop]

I love how you're trying to anticipate this mathematically with statistics lmao

He has a point though. People keep complaining about DM, SFK and ZG, but they were completely redone.
If they continue taking popular instances from the past and completely revamping them with new stories, characters, fights, etc. but just let the area be somewhat the same? I have no problem with that at all.

[Deleted]

Rehashed content is horrible, should only be done extremely rarely for extremely popular content and as filler-content, and the way it is done in WoW is just pathetic.

usual troll post over here!

WoW doesn't have that much rehashed content and Blizzard only does it with popular and evergreen content. I LOVED the old/new Zul instances, Shadowfang Keep and Deadmines. They remembered me of earlier days in WoW and had something new and fresh to them. To be honest I am really looking forward to SM new and Sholomance new because I know Blizzard will come up with new and awesome features und mechanics.

[TJ]

Bit of both, for instance i really enjoyed firelands before i attempted any of the bosses just because it was a different environment due to being like an open world, opposed to a gated place. But yeah if the mechanics are crap then it gets old quickly, i like a good mix of both to keep it fun and fresh.

But tbh the biggest factor is your guild, logging on to have a laugh on mumble and people still laughing even when we are wiping makes it a lot better and enjoyable. Being in an anti social guild where everyones mindless drones focusing just on their rotation would be the worst thing ever.

---------- Post added 2011-12-30 at 02:43 PM ----------

usual troll post over here!

WoW doesn't have that much rehashed content and Blizzard only does it with popular and evergreen content. I LOVED the old/new Zul instances, Shadowfang Keep and Deadmines. They remembered me of earlier days in WoW and had something new and fresh to them. To be honest I am really looking forward to SM new and Sholomance new because I know Blizzard will come up with new and awesome features und mechanics.

The new dungeons were pretty cool the way they added new bosses into them (aka DM and SFK), but the new zuls werent bad for a week or so, just got old really fast that it was the only "new" content released and had to do it 7 times each week for the cap if you wanted it.. shit/lazy planning by blizzard.

[MestHoop]

just got old really fast that it was the only "new" content released and had to do it 7 times each week for the cap if you wanted it.. shit/lazy planning by blizzard.

This + these dungeons were added in their own patch, which was shortly followed by a VP change. This caused people to do these dungeons for a large part of t11 and all of t12 content.

Individually all those choices were pretty well justified (not gonna name em all here, each topic has been done to death at the time of relevance), but together they just meant most people were farming the same 2 dungeons for months on end. At that point it doesn't matter much how good a 5 man is, people WILL nitpick every single last flaw of that dungeon.