How would you like to handle the "gap" between LFR and Normal raiding?

[Nobleshield]

Again, nobody is talking about average (or scrub, whatever term you want to use) guilds CLEARING T15 in a couple of weeks/months, if at all. What is mostly being argued and continually being ignored is that the DIFFICULTY CURVE of T15 is BULLSHIT. At 5 months into ICC you still had your "scrub" guilds getting 4/12 at the worst case, which while bad to you and me is still something to look forward to ("Hey guys we're going to clear through Saurfang, do some progression on Rotface see where we end up") instead of "Hey guys we're going to spend all night wiping on Marrowgar" or "We're going to down Marrowgar and spend all night wiping on Deathwhisper" which is the equivalent of what we have now and had in T14.

All I personally am saying is throw the "scrub guilds" a bone; make the difficulty curve scale up like ICC did, where you had an easy boss (Marrowgar), a not-as-easy boss (Deathwhisper), a loot pinata (Gunship), a challenging boss (Saurfang), a mediocre DPS check boss (Festergut), a tricky boss (Rotface), a hard boss (Putricide), a hard boss (Blood Princes), an easy boss once you got the gimmick down (BQL), an tricky boss with lots going on (Dreamwalker), a hard boss (Sindy) and a super hard final boss (Arthas). So your scrub guilds were 4/12 and getting blown up by Festergut or slimed by Rotface, your average guilds were getting beaten by Putricide, your good guilds were on Sindy or LK and your high-end guilds were already in heroics.

[Deleted]

Tot is unpuggable for most players on most realms. Agree or diagree?

As I do not live on most realms, I can not answer this question. Answering that would only be my opinion and a wild guess. I have characters on roughly the 10th most populated EU realm. Here ToT is very easily puggable. I also have alts on a realm that is a low populated EU realm. Here pugging is harder, but far from impossible. Considering that realm is very lowly populated (20% lower than Zenedar), and I can pug there.

I guess I would have to say yes, ToT is puggable on most realms. Maybe not the entire instance but atleast a few bosses.

[Deleted]

Ask for numbers and you shall recieve. 5 months into ICC. Gimme a sec.

That would be roughly 14k on LK and about 72k on Marrowgar.[COLOR="red"]

Thats basicly 20% and probably higher if we lower the amount of marrowgar guilds. After 5 months about 7 weeks more to progress on LK same amount of time as lei shen. And more attempts. How many attempts did you have in the begining 10 for putri sindra blood lady and lk wasn't it.

Basicly I want some numbers to have a better estimate of what the clearing ratio would be given that players had the same attempt time and the same time of availability that lei shen has had. Because I think that you have underestimated the things skewing the completion ratios.

cut away lets say around 32k of fat casual guilds and we have 35% which is better clearance than lei shen. So in a sense ICC was probably easier than ToT. Given some extra attempt and weeks to progress.

It gets kinda hard comparing 2 tiers when the first has a lot of artificial roadblocks that the second hasn't.


EDIT: on a sidenote think about it with 72k guilds roughly 720k players probably like 1.5 mio given the amount of 25 man guilds back then.
If they hadn't changed the lockout that amount of normal/heroic raiders might have persisted, would have been interresting if they would have ever launched LFR.

[Deleted]

As I do not live on most realms, I can not answer this question.

But you already have....

Answering that would only be my opinion and a wild guess. I have characters on roughly the 10th most populated EU realm. Here ToT is very easily puggable.

You specifically said that 12/12 tot was doable. Want to stick by that or change your mind?

I also have alts on a realm that is a low populated EU realm. Here pugging is harder, but far from impossible. Considering that realm is very lowly populated (20% lower than Zenedar), and I can pug there.

You can pug 12/12?

I guess I would have to say yes, ToT is puggable on most realms. Maybe not the entire instance but atleast a few bosses.

I'd agree that jinrokh is puggable. You said 12/12 though.......

My next question to you then is this -

If tot is puggable then why in the name of fuck are so many guilds struggling?

Guilds are usually much better than pugs, no?

[Deleted]

But you already have....


You specifically said that 12/12 tot was doable. Want to stick by that or change your mind?


You can pug 12/12?



I'd agree that jinrokh is puggable. You said 12/12 though.......

My next question to you then is this -

If tot is puggable then why in the name of fuck are so many guilds struggling?

Guilds are usually much better than pugs, no?

You can pug 12/12. The question is if your realm have enough players to support pugs. I would like to say 12/12 is puggable (as I have pugged it), though afraid of the backlash, so I am going to stretch to say you can atleast pug half the instance very easily.

Obviously there were more guilds struggling before than now. Statistics show that.

Though to be very crude and brute. Guilds are struggling because they are bad. There is just nothing going around that. Raiders are worse than ever. That is why this thread even exists in the first place.

And I have seen pugs a lot better than guilds

[reef]

there should be an option for "leave as is." ive seen many posts in this thread where someone says its fine the way it is and others respond with "no its not." i don't expect anything else from responses to this post. i enjoy both 10 and 25 man normal and heroic settings. both have their pros and cons, but overall they are balanced fairly well and players from both 10s and 25s deserve equivalent loot. i don't agree that there should be a nerf to 10s to help fill the "gap" between lfr and normal raiding. since the change that brought equivalent loot to both 10s and 25s after wotlk, there has been a rise in 10s for various reasons and many people enjoy them over 25s. currently, about 69% of the top 1000 guilds are 10 man. the so-called "gap" between lfr and normal raiding is imaginary. competent players can step from lfr to normal raiding with absolutely no difficulty. there are so many resources for players to take advantage of and learn their class, the fights, etc. there is no reason for this "gap" to even exist. nerfing 10s is not the way to fix things. getting players to use the resources and tools available to them to help them play to the best of their ability is what needs to be fixed. to me, the "gap" represents players who want higher ilvl loot than lfr, but don't want to take the time to earn it.

[Deleted]

Thats basicly 20% and probably higher if we lower the amount of marrowgar guilds. After 5 months about 7 weeks more to progress on LK same amount of time as lei shen. And more attempts. How many attempts did you have in the begining 10 for putri sindra blood lady and lk wasn't it.

cut away lets say around 32k of fat casual guilds and we have 35% which is better clearance than lei shen. So in a sense ICC was probably easier than ToT. Given some extra attempt and weeks to progress.

It gets kinda hard comparing 2 tiers when the first has a lot of artificial roadblocks that the second hasn't.

Wait what? That does not really work.

So hey, lets cut off 16k of the casual guilds on Jin'Rokh. Suddenly we have 80% successrate on Lei-Shen?

Also what you are forgetting is that 5 months in, the ICC buff was up on 15-20%. So it was already 15-20% nerfed.
Not to mention the extra gear you got from ICC25.

Also remember that this is a gracious comparison. ICC10 was known as the "easy mode".

The difference was still 1000% in the first week, so that is comparing the hardcores with the hardcores. The hardcores at 1000% easier time in ToT than ICC. Even with 7 weeks of gear farming. Imagine those guilds starting on Lei-Shen with full 428 thuderforged.

Looking 5 months ICC does not really work due to the buff.

---------- Post added 2013-05-30 at 12:13 AM ----------

If you instead look in ICC25 that was the 'real' raiding mode. ICC25 after 5 months had 4400 LK kills and 43000 Marrowgar kills. Remember that this was with the 20% buff. That is a success rate of a bit more than 10%. Far lower than the current success rate is in ToT after 3 months. Give tot 2 more months and 20% buff and see the successrate then.

[Socialhealer]

lol at all this pugging ICC, ICC was hit so hard with the nerf bat people pugged 25 heroic mode, no wonder anyone could pug back then, i'd glad blizzard don't massively nerf raids anymore, there is the item upgrade which is probably equal to a 10% nerf on the current raid (if you dont upgrade your loss) for everything else there's LFR.

[Deleted]

Wait what? That does not really work.

So hey, lets cut off 16k of the casual guilds on Jin'Rokh. Suddenly we have 80% successrate on Lei-Shen?

Also what you are forgetting is that 5 months in, the ICC buff was up on 15-20%. So it was already 15-20% nerfed.
Not to mention the extra gear you got from ICC25.

Also remember that this is a gracious comparison. ICC10 was known as the "easy mode".

The difference was still 1000% in the first week, so that is comparing the hardcores with the hardcores. The hardcores at 1000% easier time in ToT than ICC. Even with 7 weeks of gear farming. Imagine those guilds starting on Lei-Shen with full 428 thuderforged.

Looking 5 months ICC does not really work due to the buff.

---------- Post added 2013-05-30 at 12:13 AM ----------

If you instead look in ICC25 that was the 'real' raiding mode. ICC25 after 5 months had 4400 LK kills and 43000 Marrowgar kills. Remember that this was with the 20% buff. That is a success rate of a bit more than 10%. Far lower than the current success rate is in ToT after 3 months. Give tot 2 more months and 20% buff and see the successrate then.

no it does work because You allowed me to work out of the premise that bad guilds fuck up the statistic. Basicly what I am assuming to look at are guilds of comparable skilllevel. and if we assume that around 14k of good guilds or about 35% have gone away the same that around 1/3 of the subscribers are gone well it is all an estimate.
Also all in all i want equal amount of progression time.
if you take 3 months of ToT people will have had the ability to go to the bosses the whole 3 months. 3 months ICC firsst it had staggered release and the there where limited attempt. so yes I think i am closer to the truth. 30% clearing ratio for ToT and 35% clearing ratio for ICC.

Also so hardcores killed LK in first week of availability. does that mean that the instance is easy? that there are more hardcore guilds?

On a sidenote the premise number 4 in your calculation is not relevant since unfortunatly 10 man was balance around people havin g25 man gear.
premise 3 also irrelevant multiple 10 mans do not generate multiple 10 man succes hits to either marrowgar or LK.

premise 2 you make a point of item gathering but do not take into account that when you look at the 3 month clearences that the icc 10 crowd had a staggered release and 7 weeks where not all bosses where available to be farmed.

[Deleted]

no it does work because You allowed me to work out of the premise that bad guilds fuck up the statistic. Basicly what I am assuming to look at are guilds of comparable skilllevel. and if we assume that around 14k of good guilds or about 35% have gone away the same that around 1/3 of the subscribers are gone well it is all an estimate.
Also all in all i want equal amount of progression time.
if you take 3 months of ToT people will have had the ability to go to the bosses the whole 3 months. 3 months ICC firsst it had staggered release and the there where limited attempt. so yes I think i am closer to the truth. 30% clearing ratio for ToT and 35% clearing ratio for ICC.

As I mentioned earlier. ICC25had 10% clearing ratio.

How can you come closer to the truth by removing 32k players without removing players from ToT? You removed 32k players out of 72k? You removed 44% of the playerbase for being casual. Shouldnt you then do the same in ToT?

You cant just randomly remove 44% of the players for no reason just to make it fit your stats.

You should remove 44% from Jin'Rokh aswell then giving a successrate of 54% in ToT.

Also, the limited attempts and the gating only had affect on the hardcore guilds. For the semi-casual guilds they are still progressing their own pace, so 3 months into ICC the gating is almost irrelevant, and probably compensated by the increased gear from 25's.

[Deleted]

As I mentioned earlier. ICC25had 10% clearing ratio.

How can you come closer to the truth by removing 32k players without removing players from ToT? You removed 32k players out of 72k? You removed 44% of the playerbase for being casual. Shouldnt you then do the same in ToT?

You cant just randomly remove 44% of the players for no reason just to make it fit your stats.

You should remove 44% from Jin'Rokh aswell then giving a successrate of 54% in ToT.

Why schould I remove people from ToT ? my whole premise is that ICC had a lot of players who where good enough to kill the first boss but by todays standards sucked and belong in LFR now. Players that skew the statistics.

And i didn't remove players i removed guilds. so thats a heck of a lot more people.

And that is what I am trying to compensate for. please check the post on page 57 for other comments on your premises to begin with etc.

And honestly if you think back to ICC and directly compared marrowgar with Jinrokh of today would you not if you where honest say that marrowgar was easier?

---------- Post added 2013-05-30 at 12:43 AM ----------

Also, the limited attempts and the gating only had affect on the hardcore guilds. For the semi-casual guilds they are still progressing their own pace, so 3 months into ICC the gating is almost irrelevant, and probably compensated by the increased gear from 25's.

I can tell you as a medicore guild we had plenty of fuck up pulls limiting the amount of attempts left in 25 so often we might end up up at LK with what 5 attempts to try to get some progress into the fight.

Another thing limiting the amount of progress a little bit might that there weren't that many dedicated 10 man guilds so for 25 man guilds it was more of a side project or in my case a friday evening project raiding 10 man. compared with today where dedicated 10 man guilds raid more days a week well they have more time a week to dedicate to progress in 10 man.


I don't know maybe the best way to compare difficulty of encounter might be to look at how long and complicated the boss guides videos are from back then compared to the videos of today

[Deleted]

And honestly if you think back to ICC and directly compared marrowgar with Jinrokh of today would you not if you where honest say that marrowgar was easier?

What is softer? A cloud or mist?

Very hard to tell.

I can tell you as a medicore guild we had plenty of fuck up pulls limiting the amount of attempts left in 25 so often we might end up up at LK with what 5 attempts to try to get some progress into the fight.

Still, 5 months into ICC, the success rate of 25 man guilds was 10%, this was with plenty of weeks of progression and 20% buff.

---------- Post added 2013-05-30 at 12:51 AM ----------

Why schould I remove people from ToT ? my whole premise is that ICC had a lot of players who where good enough to kill the first boss but by todays standards sucked and belong in LFR now. Players that skew the statistics.

By the same logic, do you see how many killed Jin'Rokh that did not kill Horridon? That is those same people that you just remove. Maybe you should base ToT from Horridon instead then, if you are gonna remove 32k guilds randomly from ICC.

[Ferocity]

So many pages, and outcome is evident. For as long as some people, "who pug 12/12", will insist that everything is fine, and that is the guilds which are bad, situation won't change to the better. I remember SWP and WotLk quite well, when those people were given some attention, but they wanted more and more of it, and instead of keeping those players at niche, they were given everything WoW could offer at max level, and all pre-endgame experience was nerfed to oblivion, so they could produce alts for various purposes like class-stacking or avoiding x-fer bills.

Just think for a little, when some new player will make it to lv90, what kind of perspective does he have? Farm LFR with non-existant loot? Overtuning normal modes is also killing community, as normal players want to play with friends in relaxed atmosphere. Without such possibility - they just quit, and those "ungemmed/unenchanted" recruits which are denied, those are new players, which aren't needed anywhere. There are no guilds who would help/teach them in anyway, as normal modes are now - lose one person and wipe is guarranteed 200%. Guilds who would take them - they died out as doing t14 for a year isn't really appealing neither it is relaxing.

Current situation is extremely bad. Especially with people trying their hardest to prove how easy it is to pug 12/12. You help to murder the game by your own hands, and you only make it worse for yourself, as recruitment pool is not really infinite.

Firefly, you are on Frostmane-EU, one of few largest servers, and complain about difficulties with recruitment. Do you realize that smaller servers are practically doomed to no end? On many of those servers trying to recruit is much harder than impossible. You can argue as much as you can that everything is tuned fine, dances are ok, obscure mechanics reliant on addons are great, enrages are ok, bring up some "success rate" by playing numbers in completely awkward way. But then don't say that recruitment is hard, how so? If there are pugs all around doing 12/12 (ROFLMAO)? Why don't you recruit some from those 12/12 pugs?

[Deleted]

What is softer? A cloud or mist?

Very hard to tell.



Still, 5 months into ICC, the success rate of 25 man guilds was 10%, this was with plenty of weeks of progression and 20% buff.

---------- Post added 2013-05-30 at 12:51 AM ----------



By the same logic, do you see how many killed Jin'Rokh that did not kill Horridon? That is those same people that you just remove. Maybe you should base ToT from Horridon instead then, if you are gonna remove 32k guilds randomly from ICC.

No basicly what I am saying is that the playerbase has evolved from back then encompassing <---------------------> to now a days encompassing only <----------> in normal mode. What I have tried is adjusting the compared playerbases to be comparable playerbases.
I want to look at groups players of the same skilllevel that are not elite and how good they are and where at defeating content. Because if you want to look at if something is harder it is probably best to let the same groups try it and look at the results.

My basic premise is that those estimated 40k guilds from ICC equat to the 26k guilds from ToT and that those guilds are of equal skill.

[Deleted]

Firefly, you are on Frostmane-EU, one of few largest servers, and complain about difficulties with recruitment. Do you realize that smaller servers are practically doomed to no end? On many of those servers trying to recruit is much harder than impossible. You can argue as much as you can that everything is tuned fine, dances are ok, obscure mechanics reliant on addons are great, enrages are ok, bring up some "success rate" by playing numbers in completely awkward way. But then don't say that recruitment is hard, how so? If there are pugs all around doing 12/12 (ROFLMAO)? Why don't you recruit some from those 12/12 pugs?

Because those pugs often consist of players that can not raid in a guild, alts from my guild / other guilds that obviously do not want to leave their guilds.
The few that are "up for take", are often being completely carried through 12/12 and nothing you would ever even consider using in your own guild progression. They might work for normals but not for much more due to the huge gap between normals and heroic. Just becaues a player can clear 12/12 normal does not mean he is worth anything in a real raiding guild as it is so easy to carry people through normals.

That said, I completely agree that there is an issue. There is a huge issue. I just do not think the issue is T15 normals.
I think LFR, shared lockouts and under populated servers are bigger issues.

---------- Post added 2013-05-30 at 01:04 AM ----------

No basicly what I am saying is that the playerbase has evolved from back then encompassing <---------------------> to now a days encompassing only <----------> in normal mode. What I have tried is adjusting the compared playerbases to be comparable playerbases.
I want to look at groups players of the same skilllevel that are not elite and how good they are and where at defeating content. Because if you want to look at if something is harder it is probably best to let the same groups try it and look at the results.

I mentioned this earlier aswell. We are comparing apples with oranges.

But you cant just remove 44% of the playerbase, you got to understand that. Especially without even touching the current one. So what you are saying that there are no 'casuals' that ever did Jin'rokh normal and 44% of guilds in WotLK was casual. Does that make sense to you?

Sadly we cant make side by side comparison.

[Otimus]

just shut the hell up with your stupid jokes, you are not even remotely funny and only playing smartass, when all you do is repeat same song over and over again.
Firefly got you every time and you by lack of arguments, only trying to make fun of someone Thats very low and rude.

You make fun of, put down, and insult people constantly :x

[HeedmySpeed]

Current situation is extremely bad. Especially with people trying their hardest to prove how easy it is to pug 12/12. You help to murder the game by your own hands, and you only make it worse for yourself, as recruitment pool is not really infinite.

Firefly, you are on Frostmane-EU, one of few largest servers, and complain about difficulties with recruitment. Do you realize that smaller servers are practically doomed to no end? On many of those servers trying to recruit is much harder than impossible. You can argue as much as you can that everything is tuned fine, dances are ok, obscure mechanics reliant on addons are great, enrages are ok, bring up some "success rate" by playing numbers in completely awkward way. But then don't say that recruitment is hard, how so? If there are pugs all around doing 12/12 (ROFLMAO)? Why don't you recruit some from those 12/12 pugs?

Two things.
It still sounds like a server problem. A small realm might have lower success rates with PuGs because there's simply not a healthy pool of players, skilled or otherwise.

Also, PuGs aren't guilds. If people can PuG normals then there isn't much incentive to join a guild is there? So this doesn't support the number of eligible recruits in the way you see it. People operate on incentives.

[Deleted]

Because those pugs often consist of players that can not raid in a guild, alts from my guild / other guilds that obviously do not want to leave their guilds.
The few that are "up for take", are often being completely carried through 12/12 and nothing you would ever even consider using in your own guild progression. They might work for normals but not for much more due to the huge gap between normals and heroic. Just becaues a player can clear 12/12 normal does not mean he is worth anything in a real raiding guild as it is so easy to carry people through normals.

That said, I completely agree that there is an issue. There is a huge issue. I just do not think the issue is T15 normals.
I think LFR, shared lockouts and under populated servers are bigger issues.

---------- Post added 2013-05-30 at 01:04 AM ----------



I mentioned this earlier aswell. We are comparing apples with oranges.

But you cant just remove 44% of the playerbase, you got to understand that. Especially without even touching the current one. So what you are saying that there are no 'casuals' that ever did Jin'rokh normal and 44% of guilds in WotLK was casual. Does that make sense to you?

Sadly we cant make side by side comparison.

No basicly I am saying that you are coparing apples and oranges.
and yea 44% guilds casual sounds ok with me.

As said before I am looking for comparable playerbases to look at whether the current tier is easier for them or ICC was easier for them. The only thing I can do is estimate.

On a sidenote the premise number 4 in your calculation is not relevant since unfortunatly 10 man was balance around people havin g25 man gear.
premise 3 also irrelevant multiple 10 mans do not generate multiple 10 man succes hits to either marrowgar or LK.

premise 2 you make a point of item gathering but do not take into account that when you look at the 3 month clearences that the icc 10 crowd had a staggered release and 7 weeks where not all bosses where available to be farmed.

please remember that you arre working on some ratio. And honestly if I estimate 35% for ICC and say ok to your 30% for ToT well ain't that much difference. My numbers are shaky off course, but I just have to say that you haven't taken all factor in account. Making the use of your clearance ratios very problematic.

[Deleted]

No basicly I am saying that you are coparing apples and oranges.
and yea 44% guilds casual sounds ok with me.

As said before I am looking for comparable playerbases to look at whether the current tier is easier for them or ICC was easier for them. The only thing I can do is estimate.

On a sidenote the premise number 4 in your calculation is not relevant since unfortunatly 10 man was balance around people havin g25 man gear.
premise 3 also irrelevant multiple 10 mans do not generate multiple 10 man succes hits to either marrowgar or LK.

premise 2 you make a point of item gathering but do not take into account that when you look at the 3 month clearences that the icc 10 crowd had a staggered release and 7 weeks where not all bosses where available to be farmed.

Even though 10s may have been done with 25 gear is consideration, it was still tuned softer than 25 mans.

You totally missed the third point. 1 guild, three 10 man groups, one 10 man 12/12, one 9/12, one 5/12. They still register as 1 guild with 12/12 while in reality only 1 of the 3 groups had killed 12/12. This was the case in many guilds when the 10 man group was usually the "good core" with another 10 man group or even 2 that was worse.

And still, again, 5 months in, 20% buff, 10% clearance rate in 25 man, 25 man is = to current normal mode.

Just a question for you then? What progress that a guild that in your eyes is worth counting have 5 months in? 6/12? Rotface down? Or what? So I can make a new basis to 'count' out the casual guilds.

[Deleted]

Even though 10s may have been done with 25 gear is consideration, it was still tuned softer than 25 mans.

You totally missed the third point. 1 guild, three 10 man groups, one 10 man 12/12, one 9/12, one 5/12. They still register as 1 guild with 12/12 while in reality only 1 of the 3 groups had killed 12/12. This was the case in many guilds when the 10 man group was usually the "good core" with another 10 man group or even 2 that was worse.

And still, again, 5 months in, 20% buff, 10% clearance rate in 25 man, 25 man is = to current normal mode.

Just a question for you then? What progress that a guild that in your eyes is worth counting have 5 months in? 6/12? Rotface down? Or what?

5 months in I need numbers for 3 months of availability of lk thats all. + it is reasonable number because unlike you I think that the limited attempt mechanic had a harder impact on progress than you estimate. I remember a lot of times getting up there with only 5 tries left. And we where a medicore 25 man guild ending the expansion 11/12 hc 25 and 12/12 hc 10.

premise 3 but the 2 bad groups do not statisticly matter at all. so they might have 2 groups more but it didn't matter. you had multiple grups as skewing it toward more successes but the other groups do not matter because they are not counted.

A guild worth counting 5 months in now that is an interresting question.
a good average guild would be at 10-12/12. + lootship and some heroics.

The main reason you might ask me this is probably to look at my estimate for how many players I slashed of as casual/new LFR players.

But I am answering the question with some reservations. Its been a long time and its hard to make an educated guess.