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  1. #41
    Why is it that people complain about raids having different difficulty modes, whereas no one complains about games having different difficulty modes?

    It would be interesting to hear thoughts on this.

    My theory is that games have had multiple difficulties for a very long time, whereas it's quite a recent thing for raids to have multiple difficulties. People don't look at it objectively, they look at it as "that's the way it's always been so that's the way it should be".

    ---------- Post added 2013-05-19 at 07:16 AM ----------

    Quote Originally Posted by Redblade View Post
    Easy mode changes peoples motivations though, the gradual nerfs changes peoples motivation as well, the lack of an overall purpose and goal is what's being removed by introducing easy modes and the practice of herding players through content.

    To use DS as an example, a guild who started out doing LFR and progressing through normal and got up to spine before the nerfs kicked in, over the course of the nerfs they keeps progressing to end up at spine yet again with the max level buff. This means they did the same difficulty for the duration of that content, what's the motivation in that? I mean they could just as well unsubscribed and waited for the max level nerf to kick in and then start their progression, the effect would be the same but require much less time.

    Back in BC you knew the goal, few reach the very end but at least the goal was there to work towards, and as long as you're not feeling entitled to "see all content" just because you pay but instead decide to put in the time and effort needed to reach it, the game offered a much more rewarding experience.
    Suppose there's 1 difficulty. Then they're killing the same bosses for 1 year. What's the motivation in that?

    The motivation in both cases is the same: to kill Madness of Deathwing on heroic.

  2. #42
    Quote Originally Posted by Dilbon View Post
    I'd like DAoC-style non-instanced raiding where you just take random ~50 guys and go.
    Fuck yes....

  3. #43
    Quote Originally Posted by paralleluniverse View Post
    Why is it that people complain about raids having different difficulty modes, whereas no one complains about games having different difficulty modes?
    Because your choice in a single player game has no effect on others...

    Quote Originally Posted by paralleluniverse View Post
    Suppose there's 1 difficulty. Then they're killing the same bosses for 1 year. What's the motivation in that?
    That's linear raiding, what we had in BC, and the guild in the example would perhaps be in late T5 to mod T6 towards the end of the expansion with plenty of content to go, hence they never ran out of content.

    Quote Originally Posted by paralleluniverse View Post
    The motivation in both cases is the same: to kill Madness of Deathwing on heroic.
    Actually it's not, the 30% buff in DS renders normal to be of LFR difficulty and heroic to be of normal difficulty, so taking the buff in to account their goal was still to kill normal DW, Blizzard just herded them through heroic to reach the same point once again.

  4. #44
    I think raiding is fine. What I don't like is how Blizzard has handled it. A matter of fact, right around cataclysm I started questioning Blizzard. Here's why:

    Blizzard created LFR because they wanted accessibility. On multiple occasions they have stated that "pugs" don't work with hard content. Hence challenge modes and the new heroic scenarios requiring groups. Blizzard should have made finding people easier, not just making easier content.

    What an MMO needs to be is to bring people together. We need a profile page for characters that describes what open raid does on its website. How reliable you are, how effective you were, etc.... So I can go down a list of people who want to do ToT 10 and scan them all and pick someone. Then I invite them to my raid group and we use IN GAME voice chat (we all know it sucks) to communicate and win because Blizzard helped me find good players.

    What an MMO needs is scalable content. It needs randomized diablo style dungeons. It needs in game voice chat that works.

    Raiding needs to be rewarding but we need to move away from the model where we can only do it on tuesday and thursdays from 6-9 pm (or whenever). Raiding should be easier to set up and rewarding so that all people want to do it.

    What I'm noticing in WoW is that people are viewing LFR as endgame raiding. Many new players that I find are simply not interested in doing normal and heroic raiding. I know this has always been the case to some extent but it seems like its getting worse.

    And yeah, DAoC was awesome.

  5. #45
    Quote Originally Posted by Psilar View Post
    What I'm noticing in WoW is that people are viewing LFR as endgame raiding. Many new players that I find are simply not interested in doing normal and heroic raiding. I know this has always been the case to some extent but it seems like its getting worse.
    Path of least resistance, human nature to walk it, which is why difficulty levels doesn't work well in MMOs.

  6. #46
    So what do you think? Is the classic raid model outdated?
    No gameplay model can ever be come outdated. It's illogical.

    Like asking, "Have black & white films become outdated?" It's a stylistic choice.

    Raiding is a design choice. As long as game rules are not in conflict, devs can do anything in gaming viably financially &/or artistically.

  7. #47
    Raiding has so far proven to be the most successful way of keeping people busy once they reached max level.
    It's not the raid itself that keeps people hooked (let's be honest, after clearing the same instance 3-4 times it becomes boring as f) but the gear treadmill. Will that boss drop my shiny new sword this week? Will it? WILL IT? Rolling the dice! Ohhhh snap, I'll have to come back next week.

    Of course progress raids are also a lot of fun (especially if you're in a high-end guild) because of team play/adrenaline rush/etc, but once the raid is cleared you're just left with the goal to gear up your character based on RNG rolls.

    Gambling, such a novel concept. ;D

  8. #48
    Lots of opinions being treated as facts in "Let's be honest that", "We all know that", "It's clear that", "This change caused this", "It would be perfect if that", "Raiding is boring", "Everyone raids for loot"...

    If only it was that simple to point out the truth.

  9. #49
    The Lightbringer barackopala's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by nevermore View Post
    Raiding has so far proven to be the most successful way of keeping people busy once they reached max level.
    It's not the raid itself that keeps people hooked (let's be honest, after clearing the same instance 3-4 times it becomes boring as f) but the gear treadmill. Will that boss drop my shiny new sword this week? Will it? WILL IT? Rolling the dice! Ohhhh snap, I'll have to come back next week.

    Of course progress raids are also a lot of fun (especially if you're in a high-end guild) because of team play/adrenaline rush/etc, but once the raid is cleared you're just left with the goal to gear up your character based on RNG rolls.

    Gambling, such a novel concept. ;D
    I feel the same way, I went back to WoW for a while, got received on my ex guild, had 0 DKP aaaand shafted for all the guild progression, never comming back !~

  10. #50
    Quote Originally Posted by Milkwolfgang View Post
    Lots of opinions being treated as facts in "Let's be honest that", "We all know that", "It's clear that", "This change caused this", "It would be perfect if that", "Raiding is boring", "Everyone raids for loot"...

    If only it was that simple to point out the truth.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion


    Glad I could help.

  11. #51
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dilbon View Post
    I'd like DAoC-style non-instanced raiding where you just take random ~50 guys and go.
    I would love that... 1-2 raids a month just for the sake of fun with people from your server. no matter how much, not instanced because the dungeons are a part of the world and maybe here and there a little item upgrade thats not absolutly needed to play the game.


    thats the raiding i miss

  12. #52
    The Lightbringer
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    If WoW, WoW 2, Titan or whatever the hell else just makes a D2-style dungeon system (definite main boss and style but random special events, layout, rares, mob types etc) then it shall be the king of games for years to come. Those things are VERY easy to scale up or down so the difficulty/pug barrier won't mean a whole lot. You still have the same basic gameplay, polish, skill system, gear grind and whatever the hell else but you have endlessly fresh dungeons and possibly even raids. Yeah things might get boring after doing them 50+ times but that's a LOT better than them being boring after 5 times. I'd absolutely love that system and I think it's key why Diablo 2 lasted so very long as a top dungeon crawler.
    Paladin Bash has spoken.

  13. #53
    Quote Originally Posted by paralleluniverse View Post
    You seem to imply that if only Blizzard stop making these easy modes for raids, then you'll have a new raid. It doesn't work that way. Making a different raid is hard. Adding modes to existing raids not so much.

    In either case, now or TBC, you raid until the next raid comes out. The amount of time that it takes until the next raid has very little to do with the fact raids have 2 modes, and a lot to do with the number staff working on WoW.
    If, I'm reading this right...you're saying Blizzard doesn't have the resources to make the linear raid content?

    Quote Originally Posted by paralleluniverse View Post
    Why is it that people complain about raids having different difficulty modes, whereas no one complains about games having different difficulty modes?
    This argument quickly turned faulty. You shouldn't compare one genre to share features with other video game genres. They are different for a reason.

  14. #54
    Quote Originally Posted by Redblade View Post
    Easy mode changes peoples motivations though, the gradual nerfs changes peoples motivation as well, the lack of an overall purpose and goal is what's being removed by introducing easy modes and the practice of herding players through content.

    To use DS as an example, a guild who started out doing LFR and progressing through normal and got up to spine before the nerfs kicked in, over the course of the nerfs they keeps progressing to end up at HC spine with the max level buff. This means they did about the same difficulty for the duration of that content, what's the motivation in that? I mean they could just as well unsubscribed and waited for the max level nerf to kick in and then start their progression, the effect would be the same but require much less time.

    Back in BC you knew the goal, few reach the very end but at least the goal was there to work towards, and as long as you're not feeling entitled to "see all content" just because you pay but instead decide to put in the time and effort needed to reach it, the game offered a much more rewarding experience.
    I must admit, I have to agree with this overall now. At the time, it didn't seem like a major issue, until I started to notice the overall effects:

    Guilds fragmented from 25man down to 10man, because, despite all arguments ever, it was easier, due to having 10 excellent players, rather than 10 excellent and 15 average.
    The overall skill level of raiders dropped. Sure, more people knew the basics of fights, but they could never actually progress well in normal difficulty, because LFR had taught them some really poor methods of dealing with things.
    Motivation definitely took a hit with the release of MoP. It just didn't seem to matter if you were really good or well geared any more, anyone could do anything within reason. I believe the scientific term for this is "when a game becomes casual as fuck".

    Now, don't get me wrong, I consider myself a semi-hardcore, mostly casual player. But I don't like taking on challenges that only appear to be a challenge, with no actual difficulty to them. Not only do people quickly realise the challenge is non-existent, but it also follows on down the ranks. People in smaller, casual guilds lose the desire to progress past what they've done, because what they've done is good enough and rewarded equally. The divide is no longer apparent and purpose ceases to exist.

  15. #55

  16. #56
    Deleted
    Competitive raiding in a 10 man situation is not rewarding, while heavily time consuming and boring. I think ToT is the last raiding tier before I switch over to a lighter schedule and raid LFR (as rewarding as 10 mans, item drop wise, while you need 1/10 of the time) or even quit WoW alltogether...

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