WotLK to MoP: A Trend Analysis of Raiding Difficulty.

[Deleted]

Injia there's a huge difference from denying someone content, and not choosing that player for your raid. Whilst you're training the hypothetical "casual" player, the other players in your team are getting irritated carrying their dps or healing, unless they know specifically it's a gearing issue (we for instance currently have myself and a DK who are undergeared because of rerolls but having raided with the guild since it was formed, they know we don't mess around). The best place for these players to learn is in a social guild doing simpler content (which is why I've started supporting ascending difficulty normal). At a progression level you should be the finished article. Let's be honest, that's how this game has always been. Poaching happens, players applying to a better progressed guild happens.

Last raid we had to bring a social healer because our main healer was absent. Our healing leader is amazingly even tempered and even he got frustrated because this guy would not listen and would not pull anything like his gear says he could do. Imagine that on an unknown quantity who is applying to you with one word answers and half ungemmed gear.

[Osmeric]

Injia there's a huge difference from denying someone content, and not choosing that player for your raid.

I think you are misunderstanding what he was saying. His "denying them content" meant, as I read it, "denying them content because of a game design you are advocating", not "denying them content because you wouldn't invite them to your team."

[Deleted]

Injia there's a huge difference from denying someone content, and not choosing that player for your raid.

Yes, i know this, but for some reason others can't see it.

There is a difference between not taking someone who is "bad" and there being content avilable for that person even though they are "bad". I think that the hardcore crew have mixed these two things up in their minds.

Whilst you're training the hypothetical "casual" player, the other players in your team are getting irritated carrying their dps or healing, unless they know specifically it's a gearing issue (we for instance currently have myself and a DK who are undergeared because of rerolls but having raided with the guild since it was formed, they know we don't mess around). The best place for these players to learn is in a social guild doing simpler content (which is why I've started supporting ascending difficulty normal). At a progression level you should be the finished article. Let's be honest, that's how this game has always been. Poaching happens, players applying to a better progressed guild happens.

ofc it does, though not in my guild. I'm quite happy to even help people write apps to "better" guilds* when they want to move on, for example. I'm quite happy helping other people improve - the thing is right now it isn't an option.

Last raid we had to bring a social healer because our main healer was absent. Our healing leader is amazingly even tempered and even he got frustrated because this guy would not listen and would not pull anything like his gear says he could do. Imagine that on an unknown quantity who is applying to you with one word answers and half ungemmed gear.

Oh i know, I know. The point remains that the game isn't teaching new players, the hardcore players aren't teaching new players and the proposed solution "easier stuff for people to learn how to run as an organised group" is being piddled on for no good reason other than to deny someone something to do.

This is why I was asking why he wants to deny others content, because it's the key to the whole deal, imo. Blizzard listens to the hardcores so if there was a way to change their minds about what is good for the game, stuff might alter. Right now, as others have noted, the trajectory is aiming for method and paragon to be running heroics and everyone else in LFR.....

*Obviously my guild is the best in the world from my pov. I love you guys!

[Deleted]

20 pages again? I thought the last time the conclusion of the +XX pages thread was that the community needed a better tool /info ingame than LFR to learn to raid (whose purpose is not that, and in fact it's has contributed to the general population getting worse at raiding), but that the normal mode is a easy as always for your normal raider. There was a need to a new thousand replies thread?

[Osmeric]

20 pages again? I thought the last time the conclusion of the +XX pages thread was that the community needed a better tool /info ingame than LFR to learn to raid (whose purpose is not that, and in fact it's has contributed to the general population getting worse at raiding), but that the normal mode is a easy as always for your normal raider.

Not clear how you reached that conclusion, which is pretty obviously wrong.

[oblivionx]

Really good thread imo. Overall I would conclude that what it shows is that nerfing of encounters as a mechanic was the reason for tier success and likely a good idea.

The example of heart of fear is a great one, and while it didn't kill my guild... what it did was force us to shed people that cleared Dragon soul (and icc) heroic due to lack of skill.

I think that's the biggest thing I can gather from it all, that to move on to clearing T14 and T15 we had to shed raiders that had cleared Dragon soul heroic with us, and we had to do it mostly out of "lacking skill". Furthermore we also had to abandon our server for a high pop one to find replacements... My guess is that this isn't a unique thing and a lot of raiders out there had to cull their weaker members to move on.

[Osmeric]

As for your signature, Osmeric, you do realize, right, that raiding is the most accessible it has been at any point during WoW's history?

My signature? You mean GL's quote of me in his signature.

LFR is accessible. But for those wanting a guild-oriented social experience, you are most certainly wrong. This thread is about trends in that content.

Moving people into LFR will, I predict, have terrible consequences. Not only does it feel like a ghetto ("here, scrub, have this inferior content, which we grudgingly have provided even though we despise you"), it fails to nurture any kind of social connection that's the bread and butter of long term engagement with the game.

The devs seem to really want to provide content for their favored customers, the best players. They probably even have this codified as a design principle, perhaps even driven directly from the top (Morhaime). I am hoping, but not really expecting, that the disastrous performance of MoP will lead them to question this dogma.

[Deleted]

Not clear how you reached that conclusion, which is pretty obviously wrong.

Not clear how you reached that conclusion, which is pretty obviously wrong.

[Osmeric]

Not clear how you reached that conclusion, which is pretty obviously wrong.

Well, except for the statistics, which totally contradict your lie, and the fact you are basically proposing the Blizzard implement the Cure for Stupid.

Yeah, your conclusion is totally reasonable. [/sarcasm]

[oblivionx]

Many guilds had their raiders they carried, not the hardcore progression ones obviously... but most guilds clearing content had their carry on luggage. From what I've seen is that those that were carried had to be left behind.

To some that's good, to some that's bad.

[h4rr0d]

I'd love to see numbers on how many of the guilds that are QQing about how Horridon is difficult, overtuned and whatnot are trying to run T14 raids to get more gear.
Days of instant ilvl boost with new tier release are gone (yay), time for everyone to work for their ilvl at least a bit.

[oblivionx]

I'd love to see numbers on how many of the guilds that are QQing about how Horridon is difficult, overtuned and whatnot are trying to run T14 raids to get more gear.
Days of instant ilvl boost with new tier release are gone (yay), time for everyone to work for their ilvl at least a bit.

It's a fair point, because really... if you don't have the dps, Horridon is going to end you.

[h4rr0d]

It's a fair point, because really... if you don't have the dps, Horridon is going to end you.

I've noticed that when we were running ToT10 with alt (poorly geared for the most part) raid the week it released. During the main raid, he didn't pose much threat, but with alts we just weren't able to get past 3rd gate. We just got overrun by the frost lords and that was it.

[Lukazor]

But honestly, think about ICC normals and ICC heroics, and compare them with ToT normals and HCs. In ICC heroic difficulty meant good execution of the fight, OR dps race OR heavy healing, but not like in ToT: execution + heavy dps + heavy healing + selfcare (healthstones/personal cooldowns as dps etc etc) also in ICC a dead guy would be okay. In ToT? Especially in 10man? Forget it.

This is exactly my issue, ToT is a very unforgiving instance. We have 2 great tanks (blowing my own horn a bit since I'm one of them), amazing healers and 5 very good dps and we find ToT pretty challenging which is fine. Now our problem however is that not all the dps can be on all the time. This means we have to take one of our more backup guys. Now these players execute tactics without any problem but just do not put out the required dps. So if our optimal 10 man group is missing 1 person and one of the backups needs to attend, well we aint gonna get close to even downing anything from Council onwards regardless of how well we execute the tactics.

And as someone mentioned previously about people stepping into ToT without clearing the previous content, well we have cleared all T14, even with our lesser skilled players, so have nothing really to fall back on. Meh I dunno...

[Deleted]

Really good thread imo. Overall I would conclude that what it shows is that nerfing of encounters as a mechanic was the reason for tier success and likely a good idea.

The example of heart of fear is a great one, and while it didn't kill my guild... what it did was force us to shed people that cleared Dragon soul (and icc) heroic due to lack of skill.

I think that's the biggest thing I can gather from it all, that to move on to clearing T14 and T15 we had to shed raiders that had cleared Dragon soul heroic with us, and we had to do it mostly out of "lacking skill". Furthermore we also had to abandon our server for a high pop one to find replacements... My guess is that this isn't a unique thing and a lot of raiders out there had to cull their weaker members to move on.

On my server we had 3-4 guilds that moved to a higher population server simply because they got no applications. So unfortunatly your story is not unique.
But I think it is probably even worse on the dying realms.

[oblivionx]

On my server we had 3-4 guilds that moved to a higher population server simply because they got no applications. So unfortunatly your story is not unique.
But I think it is probably even worse on the dying realms.

No doubt, my guess is if we didn't jump ship we wouldn't be currently sailing.

[Elian]

Or...

1.) Relegate LFR to the previous tier's content. Remove the "Raidfinder" tag and effectively keep loot at previous tier ilvl, giving normal mode raiders the ability to go back and pick up whatever transmog pieces they missed from the tier while it was current. Tiers are released so frequently now that it would hardly be an issue and promote more of a realm community to see current content.

good idea, but...
the second that plan goes into action or if there is a slight mention of it, the official WoW forums will be filled with rage posts from "Baduals"
i don't call them Casuals, I'm a casual. Although i never step my foot inside Sunwell and BT during TBC, i still favor ONE raiding mode.
Those people who call them "Casuals" in WoW forums don't have the TIME to learn to raid or to learn a basic concept, but apparently from the arguments i made and checking his/her recent posts, they sure can hang around WoW forums all day long.

[hablix]

It makes alot of sense, but there's always going to be a group that will feel somewhat left out. Say you do lower normals to invite more people in, wich would most likely be the case. The gap between normals and heroic will now be even larger, and fit more people.

It's hard thing to balance, as outside of LFR, wich honestly isn't what anyone who might be interested in raiding should be looking for, you only have two options. One is always going to be very difficult, and the other has to be both welcoming to people who want 'proper' raiding but at the same time difficult enough to warrant a challenge for the majority of people who wants to raid.

In my opinion this a playerbase problem. I'll play the vanilla card here, I'm sorry, there is no reason why you can't do normals or even heroics of the previous tier as your source of raiding content if normal current tier is above your comfort zone. This was the norm back in the day, you had guilds just starting MC whilst other more experience guilds were breezing through AQ. I just don't see why the second a patch is out, even if you didn't step into the previous this, it's already deemd "outdated".
I had a friend of mine back in TBC whom I got into the game, he found himself a guild and started working on karazhan and up while my guild were working on Illidan. And he was very content with that, he felt no need to go straight to the top and struggle to get into BT from the getgo.
Obviously the way gearing works now you can't really compare it side by side, but I'm just curious why so many people whom haven't evne finished normals of the last tier want to get a foothold in ToT already.

This is one area where LFR throws a real monkey wrench into the mix. A new raid is out, so let's go clear MSV normal for the first time - which, by the way, we've been clearing in LFR for the past 5 months. Not very exciting is it?

It's true guilds were farming and starting anew in MC, Kara and Naxx for the entire life cycles of their respective expansions but new and upstart guilds had no other choice.

Also, Naxx was essentially LFR difficulty, Kara a bit harder but still manageable, and many players in many guilds had the most fun in their entire WoW careers in those instances, despite the devs current apparent insistence that "progression" (which by their definition means wiping a few weeks on boss A, then wiping a few weeks on boss B, then wiping a few more weeks on boss C heroic) is what makes or breaks raiding.

---------- Post added 2013-05-31 at 03:34 PM ----------

Personally, I think they need an extra difficulty mode. Normal modes are too hard for organised, competent, but casual guilds, and heroics are brutal even for leading progression raiders (which is fine for them but horrible for the middle-ground guilds who get stuck at the start). (snip)

I think competent is the key word. I was in a guild that fit that definition last fall: we had a group of 10 players ready to raid, and they were all competent players if not all-stars. One of the less stellar players was a tank who we nevertheless had invested a lot of guild effort into gearing up. We went into MSV Normal and got completely cock blocked by Stone Guard - it's one thing to get progressively better over the course of many attempts but 3 hours of throwing ourselves against a mechanical brick wall with no visible progress at all was enough to curb the enthusiasm of pretty much everyone in the group. So we were stovepiped into LFR and PvP, because Normal raids were simply content that Blizz decided was not for us.

And guess what? Of those players, at least 3 have quit the game. The rest I'm not sure because the guild fell apart. There is absolutely no reason that this guild should have been excluded from raiding Normals, we would have been a perfect 10 man group in the WotLK era. It's a god damn shame, if I'm being honest. Having experienced this, it makes me really angry when I see the devs dismissive attitude toward this very real problem.

[Aphrel]

@ op:
Have you ever asked yourself if maybe, just maybe, the decline in numbers of players doing normal raiding isnt beacuse of the difficulty?
With lfr being so easy allowing any1 to see all content, what incentive is there really for new players to devote any considerable amount of time on nomral mode? They have seen everything anyway..
Back in icc, there was no lfr, so if you wanted to raid, normal mode is what you had to do. And ppl whould spend hours and hours doing it.
But today, do you really think a new player or a very casual player might think it worth their time to raid 10hours a week in normal mode just to experience content they already beated but this time with higher numbers? i think not.

LFR killed the incentive for casual players to raid normal mode!
LFR is also a subsitute to 10man normal for alot of casual players!

oh and thirdly, if you whould implement a 30%hp/dmg nerf to the last two teirs now, and then wait 2 years, i think you will find that more ppl will have downed sha of fear normal 10and lei shen normal 10. and first then can you make a truly fair comparission. what you got up there in your graphs is biased.

[Osmeric]

@ op:
Have you ever asked yourself if maybe, just maybe, the decline in numbers of players doing normal raiding isnt beacuse of the difficulty?
With lfr being so easy allowing any1 to see all content, what incentive is there really for new players to devote any considerable amount of time on nomral mode?

So, you're saying LFR is easier than normal, but that the problem isn't difficulty?

What?