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

[willemh]

Provide proof. I doubt Wowwiki would lie. Especially as it provides external links:

http://wow.joystiq.com/2008/08/14/la...l-downranking/

Thanks.

Further proof:

Article date: Aug 14th 2008 at 12:20AM
WotLK release date: November 13, 2008

Yes, I'm fairly certain you're wrong.

Heres a wotlk database link to power word shield rank 14, it was the last rank of power word shield we learned at lvl 80.

http://wotlk.openwow.com/spell=48066#see-also-ability

See also shows the lower ranks of power word shield, for example rank 13 was learned at lvl 75.

[Deleted]

As someone who did LK at 10%, our Priests were pretty much forced to use the max rank of PW:S anyway because Infest broke through -any- PW:S until you had the 30% buff as well as BiS gear. But sure, I guess if we're talking about an LK who was nerfed into the ground by the 30% buff then I guess you're correct. Downranking spells in WotLK though, what a joke. "I'll use this spell which heals for less and costs more" - this wasn't even common practice on Anub'arak as you stated, and this is from someone who has 'Tribute to Immortality' on their Feats of Strength.

This is OT though.

On-topic: normal is fine. Allow normal modes of the current tier to be accessible cross-realm and you have your way towards getting lower population realms experience. Normal ToT is not hard. There aren't a lot of mechanics in the fights. I can't think of 1 fight (on normal) in ToT which has more than 3 things occurring at once. If you're truly unable to watch for 3 things at any one time you shouldn't be playing games.

I dunno about that. Our priests had to downrank shields in 10 man with 5% buff, I think they were fine in 25 man however. But I know a lot of guilds used it. Was not really uncommon.

We also used downranks to get realm first tribute to immortality. It really helped in the last phase a lot.

Though yeah, pretty much what you said about ToT. A friend of mine put it very well yesterday.
"Normals requires a basic understanding of game mechanics. Nothing more. That is not much to ask for"

[Osmeric]

I don't think a single guild killed Heroic Lich King without a disc priest on Infest, downranking shields was key to maintain enough mana to keep spamming shields. I woudnt call it minor when it played such a big role in the main encounter of that expansion.

H LK was minor use, since so few people ever got to it.

Another niche use, IIRC, was using two ranks of the mage fire AoE at the same time.

---------- Post added 2013-06-02 at 12:48 PM ----------

Well, you mister Osmeric have realy crooked view on "offer and demand" mechanism. Blizzard offers something and your only right as a customer is to chose if you will pay or will not pay for given offer. Nothing less nothing more. If you do not fit in Blizzard's game, you can carry on.

You say my view is crooked, then the rest of your post there is basically what I'm saying. (Maybe you could point to the specific statement of mine you disagree with, and explain why?) What I add to your restatement there is that IF enough of us do "carry on", Blizzard will have failed. The more of us walk away, the greater their failure. We have no obligation to mitigate their failure at the expense of our own desires.

[Lumineus]

Though yeah, pretty much what you said about ToT. A friend of mine put it very well yesterday.
"Normals requires a basic understanding of game mechanics. Nothing more. That is not much to ask for"

Statistics tend to show otherwise, but I'll bite.

I DO think it's a bit much to ask, for example, for a ten man raid to have the same throughput and room-blanketing heals as a 25-man. Logistics of Tortos 10 are stupid, lets have half the raid take 800k apiece from Quake Stomp and splash damage in four seconds, while the rest of the raid takes 500k. You can "be aware" of Rockfalls all you want, but it doesn't make everyone into Monks, Mages, and Warriors, most classes don't have the mobility to escape when they're trapped between two rows of ten circles each, and taking deadly damage even though you got out of every impact zone is an idiotic design in the first place, especially in Normal mode.

Megaera 10 is outright ridiculous. It shouldn't be a popular strat to go 4 heals for this, but it is, and it's all because of logistics. You can't afford for a healer to be chased by the blue beam, because in a typical setup you lose 33-50% of your healing when this happens, AND you have no one to keep the Cinders target alive to clear out the frost because the tank damage is so high. Raid damage when skipping the blue head is also obscene, so it's Catch-22. 25 doesn't have this problem.

[Deleted]

I dunno about that. Our priests had to downrank shields in 10 man with 5% buff, I think they were fine in 25 man however. But I know a lot of guilds used it. Was not really uncommon.

We also used downranks to get realm first tribute to immortality. It really helped in the last phase a lot.

Though yeah, pretty much what you said about ToT. A friend of mine put it very well yesterday.
"Normals requires a basic understanding of game mechanics. Nothing more. That is not much to ask for"

Our disc priests had to downrank as well later at 25-30% because they needed the schields to break in order to get their rapture proccs.

[Deleted]

Megaera 10 is outright ridiculous. It shouldn't be a popular strat to go 4 heals for this, but it is, and it's all because of logistics. You can't afford for a healer to be chased by the blue beam, because in a typical setup you lose 33-50% of your healing when this happens, AND you have no one to keep the Cinders target alive to clear out the frost because the tank damage is so high. Raid damage when skipping the blue head is also obscene, so it's Catch-22. 25 doesn't have this problem.

Meg10 was kinda insane before the nerfs (double nerf), but now it is not that bad really.

10s also do not have the same problem as 25s have on some fights. It goes both ways. I raid 10 at the moment and do not feel like "ehrmahgehrd 10's hard! 25's easy!"

I was unaware of Tortos being such a problem, atleast in pure throughput. Sure, I have seen people die instantly but our healers never complained that it was hard to heal. Either people failed and stood in blue or died, or they didnt fail and didnt die. It was nothing about healers. Dont stand in blue circles, try to stay away from turtles. Kick turtles. That is the entire fight. Quake stomp deals about 200-300k damage? But there is nothing else in that encounter that really damages you unless you stand in near a blue circle so do not see the problem of that. Healers got a lot of time to heal people up. The only issue with quake stomps is the bat tank if you do not have the dps to kill bats before stomp.

[Pua]

Though yeah, pretty much what you said about ToT. A friend of mine put it very well yesterday.
"Normals requires a basic understanding of game mechanics. Nothing more. That is not much to ask for"

Welcome back.

I think "basic understanding" isn't quite as obvious to gauge as some of us might like to think it is. If we, for example, were to put two people with an identical spec into identical gear, but have one at the top end of the ability spectrum and one at the bottom, the difference is dramatic.

Your better player will have his UI streamlined, he'll have set up DoT/proc timers or alerts, he'll be on VOIP, he'll have downloaded a boss mod, will have simulated his character, will have used Mr. Robot or a mod for his reforging/gems and he'll be familiar with the encounter before it's ever pulled. This is before we even look at him playing. Taking that on board next, we'll have a guy who prioritises his abilities properly, holds a tight rotation, maximises his globals, stacks his cooldowns, takes advantage of encounter mechanics that boost DPS, will move as little as possible, will manage his resources efficiently and will react to things like trinket procs and act accordingly with all this borne in mind.

Essentially, that's what heroic modes (the latter ones, certainly) are designed and tuned around. Players in THAT category.

How much of this do we think a "normal" player is capable of, and how much of it do we think is reasonable to expect? How does that affect tuning, particularly given the difference between 10 and 25-man encounters?

I would say that an above average player is likely to be raiding on VOIP with a boss mod and has probably run his toon through Mr. Robot and just gone with what it's suggested. He might have watched a FatBoss or TankSpot video before a fight, but I'd say it's 50/50. His prioritisation will be off, he'll probably get between 60 and 65 percent efficiency with his globals, will probably stack his cooldowns and might use a DoT/proc timer. That's where I'd draw the line for above average, and this person will be doing around half of the DPS the player discussed above can manage. Maybe a little more.

All of a sudden, this concept of "basic understanding" starts to paint a very different picture.

A freshly dinged level 90 won't have a boss mod, but might be on VOIP because his guild suggested he spend some time chatting. There's no way he'll have optimized his gear and it's extremely unlikely he'll have viewed anything about a raid boss; a cursory glance at the dungeon journal is about it, if that. His priorities won't be that great, we'll be lucky if he's getting through half the globals he should be, we can forget about him stacking cooldowns properly and there's next to no chance he's using timers of any kind. I think this guy doing 20% of the maximum output he could be achieving is very, very optimistic.

So now we come to the question: if we were to say that the first guy was a heroic raider, the second was normal and the third should start in LFR, we have to be thinking about how these modes are tuned if we accept the 100%/50%/20% efficiency argument. Because if we accept that premise, normals are substantially more difficult than they should be, and LFR is far and away too rough for who it's supposedly aimed at.

Clearly, these numbers are just guesses - but they're not going to be miles out. The time and skill commitment required of anyone who wants to raid anything other than LFR has shot up, and that's reflected in the numbers we're seeing at WoW Progress. And while some might argue that "everyone should be looking to get to the top level", the reason those players are such an extreme minority is because that level of commitment, to a fucking video game, is patently absurd.

Are players going to keep paying monthly for a game that shoves its best content out of their hands through the commitment required, or are they going to find other games that they can fill their time with more leisurely? The answer is in the subscription drop since WotLK.

Don't forget:

WoW is an MMORPG, and this criticism is one of the genre rather than WoW specifically. If you're going to ask players to invest time in a game, asking them to also invest significantly more of it, just to be competitive enough to play endgame PvE at its basic level, is going to show most of them the door because the effort to reward ratio is completely out of kilter.

Now I know, the usual arguments will come up.

"Entitled babies".

"Kids that want things handed to them".

"Baddies who don't want to earn anything".

But devoting so much effort to a video game, just to develop your character to a reasonable standard, isn't a show of maturity.

It's a show of masochism.

And the elitism we've seen in this forum rears it's ugly head because we all know it's true.

[Deleted]

Welcome back.

I think "basic understanding" isn't quite as obvious to gauge as some of us might like to think it is. If we, for example, were to put two people with an identical spec into identical gear, but have one at the top end of the ability spectrum and one at the bottom, the difference is dramatic.

Your better player will have his UI streamlined, he'll have set up DoT/proc timers or alerts, he'll be on VOIP, he'll have downloaded a boss mod, will have simulated his character, will have used Mr. Robot or a mod for his reforging/gems and he'll be familiar with the encounter before it's ever pulled. This is before we even look at him playing. Taking that on board next, we'll have a guy who prioritises his abilities properly, holds a tight rotation, maximises his globals, stacks his cooldowns, takes advantage of encounter mechanics that boost DPS, will move as little as possible, will manage his resources efficiently and will react to things like trinket procs and act accordingly with all this borne in mind.

Essentially, that's what heroic modes (the latter ones, certainly) are designed and tuned around. Players in THAT category.

How much of this do we think a "normal" player is capable of, and how much of it do we think is reasonable to expect? How does that affect tuning, particularly given the difference between 10 and 25-man encounters?

I would say that an above average player is likely to be raiding on VOIP with a boss mod and has probably run his toon through Mr. Robot and just gone with what it's suggested. He might have watched a FatBoss or TankSpot video before a fight, but I'd say it's 50/50. His prioritisation will be off, he'll probably get between 60 and 65 percent efficiency with his globals, will probably stack his cooldowns and might use a DoT/proc timer. That's where I'd draw the line for above average, and this person will be doing around half of the DPS the player discussed above can manage. Maybe a little more.

All of a sudden, this concept of "basic understanding" starts to paint a very different picture.

A freshly dinged level 90 won't have a boss mod, but might be on VOIP because his guild suggested he spend some time chatting. There's no way he'll have optimized his gear and it's extremely unlikely he'll have viewed anything about a raid boss; a cursory glance at the dungeon journal is about it, if that. His priorities won't be that great, we'll be lucky if he's getting through half the globals he should be, we can forget about him stacking cooldowns properly and there's next to no chance he's using timers of any kind. I think this guy doing 20% of the maximum output he could be achieving is very, very optimistic.

So now we come to the question: if we were to say that the first guy was a heroic raider, the second was normal and the third should start in LFR, we have to be thinking about how these modes are tuned if we accept the 100%/50%/20% efficiency argument. Because if we accept that premise, normals are substantially more difficult than they should be, and LFR is far and away too rough for who it's supposedly aimed at.

Clearly, these numbers are just guesses - but they're not going to be miles out. The time and skill commitment required of anyone who wants to raid anything other than LFR has shot up, and that's reflected in the numbers we're seeing at WoW Progress. And while some might argue that "everyone should be looking to get to the top level", the reason those players are such an extreme minority is because that level of commitment, to a fucking video game, is patently absurd.

Are players going to keep paying monthly for a game that shoves its best content out of their hands through the commitment required, or are they going to find other games that they can fill their time with more leisurely? The answer is in the subscription drop since WotLK.

Don't forget:

WoW is an MMORPG, and this criticism is one of the genre rather than WoW specifically. If you're going to ask players to invest time in a game, asking them to also invest significantly more of it, just to be competitive enough to play endgame PvE at its basic level, is going to show most of them the door because the effort to reward ratio is completely out of kilter.

Now I know, the usual arguments will come up.

"Entitled babies".

"Kids that want things handed to them".

"Baddies who don't want to earn anything".

But devoting so much effort to a video game, just to develop your character to a reasonable standard, isn't a show of maturity.

It's a show of masochism.

And the elitism we've seen in this forum rears it's ugly head because we all know it's true.

Love your post and just want to add: People in given situation will still have to overcome themselves in terms of "I am bad and there is so much to study to actually perform AVERAGE in this video game i pay a monthly fee for because i thought the genre was fun and because i thought the story was interesting".
It's not a given global goal "to become better" in a video game. It's something that makes things easier and that should come naturally - but to become even average in WoW requires much more effort than it naturally does in most other RPGs or games in general what makes it even harder to accept that this high learning curve even exists.

[Deleted]

Yeah thanks. Was kinda silly ban but was to lazy to appeal it.

First off. I think that sitting on VOIP is not much to ask for. CS 1.6 was relased 10 years ago. Back then it was VOIP or gtfo. If VOIP was required 10 years ago in gaming, why not now? You dont go play soccer without your soccer shoes.

And yes, I agree with you, even though I think you exaggerate the "top tier" player. First off, a larger % of the average raiders than top tier raiders use tools for reforging and gemming. Also, those that are tank or healer do not usually sim their characters since they already know what is best. DPSers simming is a bit more common though so I will give you that.

I am going to share one of my completely anecdotal experiences about the "normal" raiders. This is gonna be quite long but feel free to read it if you like.

Recently I leveled an alt. A tank to complement my main tank. The goal of this alt is to have it raid ready pending 5.4 tanking changes in case I need to reroll tank class as my main is also a tank. Basically be prepared if some significant tanking changes happen.
So when I leveled up this alt to 90, I saw this most interesting message in trade. Some people were recruiting to a late night raiding guild, basically raiding two 2.5 hour raids a week, right after my mains raid times. The idea intrigued me and I talked to them and they invited me. It worked out like an alt run for me, a way to gear up my alt at the same time meet some awesome people. So I run with my alt 2 times a week, and help them progress, I share my insight and tips in return for getting gear on my alt and some raiding experience with it. More importantly, progress experience. Getting boosted with alt in main run teaches you nothing.

So, when I joined these guys, 8 days ago now, dinged 90 9 days ago, it was late in the week and they only had one raid left. During the first day I only had time to accumulate 478 ilvl, I had over 480 in bags, so I had run heroic scenarios, all MSV, HoF, ToES and ToT lfrs, just was very unlucky with LFR loot. Still they invited me to join their raid, they were going MSV heroic as they had cleared HoF and ToES.

This guild pretty much got the friends and family feel to it. They are not hardcore players, they are lacking gear, average item level was probably 480-490 at the time. Basically a bunch of players that used the raid before picking up raiding again / new raiders in MoP. Exactly the guild that we are talking about in this thread. They had 0/12 in ToT, some people in the guild had killed 1 or 2 bosses in ToT but a majority was 0/12.
I found it awesome that they were running T14 heroics to gear up, instead of rushing into ToT with 7 people that has never done it before and undergeared.

So I joined MSV, had no problem tanking the first 3 on HC in 478 gear, okay, it was stressful as it was a new tank class for me, but healers did not have problem keeping me or the voodoo targets up on Gara'Jal HC. Again, this is not a group in full 520, these players are the "normal" raiders, or even below that, that you describe in this thread, a bunch of guys coming together on late nights to raid for fun, and pretty undergeared.
We ran out of raid time though quite quickly as we started late and only 2.5 hour raid, so we had to clear the rest on normal as raid reset was the next day.

The next week, they decided, lets start in ToT. I managed to get my item level up to 485 by running LFR and heroic scenarios, finishing up that PvP gear and doing barrens quest. Still a lot of the items were shit, like barrens quest items are quite terrible for their item level, same goes with HC scenario items.

So I went in kicking and punching my way into ToT with about 485 gear level. The other tank was an off spec dps that played tank for the night. We reached Jin'Rokh, at this stage only 3 people in the group, not counting me, had actually killed Jin'Rokh before, think it was the first time there for the rest. We started out pulling and had 3-4 wipes around 30-60%. People messing up balls etc.
As the other tank played the tank class I was playing and I saw he was really struggling, I gave him some helpful pointers and tips. He was performing at maybe 20% of his ability class, even though he was very well geared, at 505 ilvl being one of the best geared in the group.
Suddenly his dps skyrocketed by 50k dps (from 30k to 80k) and my dps increased from 100k to 120k as I did not have to hold back on threat anymore. So by a quick simply tip we gained 70k raid dps. With that and people learning the fight the boss died 2 pulls later, think we wasted about 6 pulls or so on Jin'Rokh, being at/below the entry item level for the raid and fresh people to the raid.

We continued on to Horridon, but raid time was growing late. We started the raid late, so we only had 2 hours of raid time that day, and when we reached horridon that was down to maybe 40 minutes as we probably wasted about 50 mintes on trash+jin'rokh and 30 minutes on the trash before Horridon. People had never done the bridge before on normal and were unaware of the ghosts pushing. Was quite fun to watch, it is after all a fun raiding guild, not a hardcore one. We reached Horridon and pushed a couple of pulls into it. I think only 2 people in the raid had been on Horridon before and only 1 actually killed him before, except me ofc.

Now, at 485 ilvl Horridon was pounding my quite hard, but I managed to keep alive. First attempt we reached second door, second attemt we reached third door, third attempt we reached fourth door. Again with people that had never done this fight before, no hardcore raiders, in about 490-495 ilvl.
Then we had a couple of more shit wipes between door 1-4. Probably had about 7 or so wipes total before raid was over.

The next raid (today) we came in wanting blood on Horridon. My item level was now 495 because I had ran MSV/ToES and HoF on a normal/heroic mix with an openraid pug. We started on Horridon with quite a new group, some new faces and most people only had the experience from previous night on horridon. We reached the third/fourth gate every pull for about 4-5 pulls. Then we reached wargod, then the next pull Horridon died. We wasted all in all, less than 2 hours over 2 days on Horridon before it fell.

Next up, Council. We reached council with an hour left of raid time. We tried some different strats, all from solo tanking to 2/3 healing but in the end we settled for 2 tanks 3 healers. Our dps was not really great. For refference, when Sul empowered, he was on 50% health. We just managed to kill sul before the second empowerment. We wiped a couple of times, as only 1 person in the raid had done this fight before, everything was now to people. We spent 1 hour on council and on the last pull of the night, they died. It was a very clean kill.

After this, I asked myself. Does this feel right? And I got to say to myself, yes it does. We are a group that was running T14 last week. I am there on my alt, peoples item level is ranging from 480 to 505~. In 2 short raids, we killed 3 bosses. Including clearing Horridon trash twice *shiver*
It is not a hardcore guild, it is a friendly fun guild. We spent less than an hour on jin'rokh, about 2 hours on Horridon an 1 hour on Council.

Now, it stands to see tomorrow how Tortos and Megaera will go, but so far, I fail the see this brickwall, since this guild if any should have hit it.
Also gotta say that I really enjoy raiding with them on my alt. It is fun wiping and actually having to work for the kills on the early bosses again.
Much more fun to raid with a guild than pugging with your alt.

Now I know, this experience is not the one of a lot of people, but this is the experience I had raiding with a very casual friends and family guild on my alt.

[NeverStop]

Now, it stands to see tomorrow how Tortos and Megaera will go, but so far, I fail the see this brickwall, since this guild if any should have hit it.
Also gotta say that I really enjoy raiding with them on my alt. It is fun wiping and actually having to work for the kills on the early bosses again.
Much more fun to raid with a guild than pugging with your alt.

Now I know, this experience is not the one of a lot of people, but this is the experience I had raiding with a very casual friends and family guild on my alt.

If only more players in this game did what your group does, aka learn and improve after each wipe, we wouldn't have so many "ToT is overtuned pls nerf" threads. Sadly the entitlement in this generation of players is so high that actually improving your play to beat challenging bosses is a foreign concept to them.

[Floopa]

Requiring effort to perform optimally shouldn't be seen as a negative thing. Effort = reward. Let's remember this. ToT requires effort, thus gives a reward. LFR requires next to 0 effort, thus gives very little reward. HC modes require a lot of effort, thus give the best gear.

[Deleted]

If only more players in this game did what your group does, aka learn and improve after each wipe, we wouldn't have so many "ToT is overtuned pls nerf" threads. Sadly the entitlement in this generation of players is so high that actually improving your play to beat challenging bosses is a foreign concept to them.

Would not really call it my group though. Only raid with my alt 2 times a week in it. It is a great ton of fun though.

And just like you said, I was stunned in a positive way when they told me they were gearing up through T14 before going T15 the next week. Brought a tear in my eye.

Btw, just put together some data from T8 to T15 checking each tier 1 month after release to see successrate in normal mode. The (crude) results was as follows.

from easy to hardest.

(T9 10) < (T9 25) < T13 < T12 < T14 < T15 < (T8 25) < T10 10 < T11 < T10 25

I put T9 and T8 in () due to the extreme gating in T9 (1 boss per week) and T8 lacks kill statistics on first 3 bosses so the results are based on 4/12 being the 'first boss', so T8 and T9 should be ranked far harder.

So the early raw data puts T14 and T15 as 'average' raid tiers. Right in the middle of the pack. It should be noted though that of all tiers wiht more than 8 bosses, T14 and T15 are ranked the easiest.

Gonna try to put together some more extensive data also covering 2 months aswell as considering the amount of bosses in raids.

[isadorr]

If only more players in this game did what your group does, aka learn and improve after each wipe, we wouldn't have so many "ToT is overtuned pls nerf" threads. Sadly the entitlement in this generation of players is so high that actually improving your play to beat challenging bosses is a foreign concept to them.

How can Blizzard tune around whining? I agree with what you said, the idea of a challenge is to change and get better to down a boss. Instead people want to be able to be really bad and play with people who have no business raiding progression, and still down bosses with others who put out the effort.

I am glad that in the interview on Twitch last week, GC said he has no plans to change raid difficulty and said Tot was tuned properly. It was a live video stream with him and the Pvp dev., there is nothing to read as it was his words. The interviewer asked numerous times and he said he never felt that Tot was overtuned and that the reason there was less guilds downing bosses was because of LFR.

I hope 5.4 is harder actually as progression guilds wait for content and some normal mode guilds wait for nerfs instead of learning.

[Rielthas]

As always, you know that my idea is my Bad Player's Lore Raid model - starting with how to handle 10 man regular, and working on from there. Here's the Vlog:

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list...tv4U6H1KIBDBPY

However, lately I have accepted a second favorite choice, to fill the gap with a 15-man beer league content. I have some good arguments as to the benefits of this. Here's my vlog on this topic:

http://youtu.be/c018UXjvsOc

[Pua]

First off. I think that sitting on VOIP is not much to ask for. CS 1.6 was relased 10 years ago. Back then it was VOIP or gtfo. If VOIP was required 10 years ago in gaming, why not now? You dont go play soccer without your soccer shoes.

I’m not really arguing that VOIP shouldn’t be too much to ask, I’m merely commenting that new players (particularly if they’ve come from single player games) are unlikely to be using it right off the bat and it can, depending on encounter, make a significant difference to your performance.

And yes, I agree with you, even though I think you exaggerate the "top tier" player. First off, a larger % of the average raiders than top tier raiders use tools for reforging and gemming. Also, those that are tank or healer do not usually sim their characters since they already know what is best. DPSers simming is a bit more common though so I will give you that.

I can get onboard with that. Again, I wasn’t really arguing that “this is how it is”, more that some of the general trends described will end up being observed throughout the majority of top end raiders. Without doing the vast majority of my list, to a greater or lesser degree, you just wouldn’t be able to perform like a top raider.

I am going to share one of my completely anecdotal experiences about the "normal" raiders. This is gonna be quite long but feel free to read it if you like.

Snippety-snip.

Now, it stands to see tomorrow how Tortos and Megaera will go, but so far, I fail the see this brickwall, since this guild if any should have hit it.

Anecdotal, but a good read. That said, I’m not sure of the history of the guys you were raiding with. How long had they been playing World of Warcraft? Had they raided in the past? If so, to what level? You’ve already hinted that the paladin in the group improved dramatically with your help, how much influence did you (a hardcore raider) have otherwise?

And again, unfortunately, you’re just going to have to accept that this was your experience. Though I’m sure it’s also happened in other guilds on other servers, we’re going to have to accept that this is obscenely uncommon compared to the horror stories of PuG raids forming and disbanding once someone body-pulls a troll pack and wipes before even opening Jin’rokh’s door.

Sadly the entitlement in this generation of players is so high that actually improving your play to beat challenging bosses is a foreign concept to them.

There we go. I knew it wouldn't be long before this 'entitlement' nonsense started to get spouted again.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again:

Banging your head against a wall for hours on end and spending hours outside of the game, while relying on other people to do likewise, means the problem is with you. Nose-in-the-air arrogance about ‘entitlement’ is solely designed to mask the fact that those you’re sneering at simply have better things to do with their time, and you don’t.

Learn to live with it.

Instead people want to be able to be really bad and play with people who have no business raiding progression, and still down bosses with others who put out the effort.

I think the expectation level in group content should be roughly equivalent. That’s fair, because players putting in more effort will likely always resent those who they view as freeloading. It’s a pretty natural reaction, I’d say.

But listen to yourself.

“No business raiding progression”.

What?

I am glad that in the interview on Twitch last week, GC said he has no plans to change raid difficulty and said Tot was tuned properly. It was a live video stream with him and the Pvp dev., there is nothing to read as it was his words. The interviewer asked numerous times and he said he never felt that Tot was overtuned and that the reason there was less guilds downing bosses was because of LFR.

I mentioned this earlier in the thread, and it’s true; the developers clearly don’t think the content is necessarily too hard. In Ghostcrawler’s most recent discussions on Twitter, he implies that guilds not on Jin’rokh yet are still in the gearing pipeline, and he’s quoted as saying that Blizzard doesn’t see a problem.

He never seems to explain why Heart of Fear killed so many guilds, however, or why the raiding numbers have crashed so dramatically in general.

I hope 5.4 is harder actually as progression guilds wait for content and some normal mode guilds wait for nerfs instead of learning.

Aww, you want more special content just for you. That’s sweet.

What were we just saying about entitlement?

[Deleted]

Aww, you want more special content just for you. That’s sweet.

What were we just saying about entitlement?

Isnt that what this thread is about? Everyone want special content just for them?

[Pua]

Isnt that what this thread is about? Everyone want special content just for them?

For some posters, yes. As you're hinting, even those arguing for a "beer league 10-man" are exhibiting snowflake behaviour.

In my personal case, no. I don't want another difficulty mode added and, in truth, would much rather see a single raid with activated heroic modes where it makes sense. My favourite single encounter in this game was Sartharion because it was an encounter designed for everyone; the ultra-casual, the intermediate to good players, and the hardcore. Now we have to be realistic of course, and accept that Blizzard aren't going to have a big-red-button for every encounter. But if a raid tier has 12 bosses, then I think we can easily make sure there are four or five of them that can be made into heroic modes, particularly the gatekeeper bosses or optional encounters.

Honestly, I just don't see what adding in another difficulty level achieves when what we have (mode wise) is already too bloated. We can get casual, normal and heroic into a single instance if a tier is big enough. In MoP, they have been big enough.

Take Throne of Thunder as a quick and dirty example:

The first boss is Jin'rokh, while the second is the Council of Elders; Horridon is optional. Tortos and Megaera are then optional, making Ji-Kun the next mandatory boss followed by Durumu and Primordius. Dark Animus and Iron Qon can be tackled in any order, but both must be killed, leaving the final two bosses (the Twin Consorts and Lei Shen) as the conclusion of the instance. Horridon then gets activated hard modes in the form of YOU choosing which door to open first, Ji-Kun gets one as a gatekeeper boss, as do the Twin Consorts and Lei Shen. Completing all of the hard mode bosses unlocks Ra-Den as the "gift" for managing the rest of the instance on its more difficult setting.

You'll probably have your own opinions on how to split the place up and what bosses should get hard modes, but you see the point. You can do it in a single instance with just a little bit of imagination.

If the ultimate goals are to rebuild the game's community and get people back into raiding, I just don't see how more and more specialized content that segregates players solves that problem.

It's not integration, it's ostracism.

[Serj Tankian]

I'd remove LFR completely and go back to Ulduar style difficulty.

10p and 25p with different ilvl loot. If you kill a boss a certain it activates its hardmode and drops additional loot.

None of this "Heroic mode" stuff. I don't really like the idea of just flipping a switch to activate hardmodes, kind of boring IMO. Killing bosses a certain makes the game more interesting.

[Pua]

I'd remove LFR completely and go back to Ulduar style difficulty.

10p and 25p with different ilvl loot. If you kill a boss a certain it activates its hardmode and drops additional loot.

None of this "Heroic mode" stuff. I don't really like the idea of just flipping a switch to activate hardmodes, kind of boring IMO. Killing bosses a certain makes the game more interesting.

People have got to stop saying "remove LFR". It's not going to happen, and it shouldn't because it's a great addition to the game for those it was aimed at.

The problem isn't the queue, the problem is the people in there who don't want to be and who (too often) make life miserable for everyone else. If we could get them out of the queue, it would be a perfectly fine part of the game and potentially Blizzard could do more with it.

[Deleted]

I'd remove LFR completely and go back to Ulduar style difficulty.

10p and 25p with different ilvl loot. If you kill a boss a certain it activates its hardmode and drops additional loot.

None of this "Heroic mode" stuff. I don't really like the idea of just flipping a switch to activate hardmodes, kind of boring IMO. Killing bosses a certain makes the game more interesting.

I wont say Remove lfr but.
10p 25p different difficulties would make more people enter the raiding scene.
Right now 10-man are way 2 hard for the majority of people. And the biggest problem is the less and less guilds.