Lack of dedicated 5 man difficulty + rewards

[Senen]

Challenge modes are pointless if there's no reason to do them. Why would I do a daily CM when I can do two - three heroic scenarios in the same time, for greater reward, at less challenge? When CMs demand that the people in the group pay at least some attention to make it fast and painless, in heroic scenarios we can just retardmode our way through. So why would anyone want to do CMs if they can do HScenarios? For the "prestigious loot" that doesn't exist? It gives no power advantage, and all it proves is that you managed to complete gold modes, which from what I've seen people in full CM:G sets doing, only guarrantees that you get a snappy transmog set, not that you actually have any understanding of what you're doing. It's about as prestigious as full tier 2. Heck, full tier 2 at least shows that you had the dedication and patience to keep farming it with those abyssmal droprates. The CM:G set doesn't even do that.

Which is why nobody does them more than once, unless they're boosting people for outrageous amounts of gold, and even then they usually only do it because they've compeltely run out of other stuff to do.

Gear scaling is, I would've said self-evidently, not the only way to make challenging 5 man dungeons, but apparently it isn't self-evident. They shouldn't be challenging just because the mobs hit so hard that you can't aoe pull more than maybe 3 groups at the same time; they should be challenging because of the mechanics of the encounters. Even when you get to a point where you can just totally ignore those mechanics, it would still make sense not to ignore them if they're designed properly. Maybe if they ramp up the damage to the point where you can't survive in melee with a mob for more than 2 seconds unless you're a tank, and even tanks will get obliterated in seconds if they pull more than one group, then we can talk about challenges related to something other than encounter mechanics, but the game has long since moved away from that.

Of course, with dungeons that don't keep offering challenges and rewards, people will eventually stop doing them, but how is that different from challenge modes? You do them once, then never again, because gathering 4 other people who are willing to do them, when there's so many so much better ways to accomplish whatever objective they're after, is such a pain in the ass that it's not worth the effort involved. At least without gear downscaling, veterans will join the 5 mans do show off, or to help boost friends, or because it's the best way for them to accomplish whatever they're after, or just because they enjoy doing 5 man content, or what have you. Meanwhile, you don't "just join" challenge modes, because of the aforementioned total lack of incentives to do them resulting in large difficulties getting people to come along.

I just hit 90 on my alt mage last week. Then I bought me a full 548 set on the AH for some 500 gold, and did a few heroic 5 mans (maybe 10) - not, mind you, because they offered useful rewards in themselves, but because farming them for JP is the best way to get honor points - and after that I've never done them again. What is their purpose at this point? The most perverse things of all about them, in my opinion, is that they're not even available to the players who would benefit from, and enjoy, them the most - people levelling. Half of them you can't even do before hitting 90, at which point they're already obsolete!

The only reason to even do them is for honor points - which makes no sense at all, by the way, and also goes against the idea that 5 man rewards can't scale, because clearly they currently do, they just don't scale in any way that makes sense.

The 5 man design in MoP is so terrible, I honestly have a hard time grasping it.

Before 5.3 came out, I ran my daily CM several times a week because it was, by far, the fastest way to earn vp.
Now that hc scenarii are there, the only incentives to run CM several times is the daily 516 loot, which is still sad for people who don't need 516 anymore.
Anyway, at least before 5.3 your "nobody run CM several times" was plain wrong.

The "there can be difficult content which remains hard without downscaling" is utopist. There are very very few raid bosses in wow history that remained hard along several patch. None if you only consider 5-man dungeon. It's hard to design and such bosses should be kept (and have been kept) for heroic raiders because that's the people who truly enjoy really hard content and won't ask for a nerf asap.

[Thalur]

Challenge modes are pointless if there's no reason to do them. Why would I do a daily CM when I can do two - three heroic scenarios in the same time, for greater reward, at less challenge?

Personally, I hate scenarios but love 5-player dungeons. Sometimes I even do normal (heroic) dungeons to get VP because I can't stand scenarios. But of course it's much more fun if it's challenging, so I do challenge modes. None of those has any upgrade for me. Also, two heroic scenarios give less reward than one challenge mode.

So why would anyone want to do CMs if they can do HScenarios? For the "prestigious loot" that doesn't exist?

HScenarios are boring, challenge modes are interesting. Both give the same "power" rewards (loot box, VP) only challenge modes are faster for VP.
The challenge mode set currently belongs to the highest regarded items in game (at least on all servers I play), I have no idea how you could miss that. They look great, and is the only gear people ask about where you can get that. It is also the only gear that is not available through solo play (which includes LFD and LFR).

Which is why nobody does them more than once, unless they're boosting people for outrageous amounts of gold, and even then they usually only do it because they've compeltely run out of other stuff to do.

I know many people who run them more than once, because they have a great time doing them. I'm sorry you don't, maybe you should try them again with some friends.

Gear scaling is, I would've said self-evidently, not the only way to make challenging 5 man dungeons, but apparently it isn't self-evident. They shouldn't be challenging just because the mobs hit so hard that you can't aoe pull more than maybe 3 groups at the same time; they should be challenging because of the mechanics of the encounters. Even when you get to a point where you can just totally ignore those mechanics, it would still make sense not to ignore them if they're designed properly.

You have no idea about the power of items. I am now doing more than ten times as much damage as when I did 5 man heroics in MoP. There is no way to make an encounter challenging for someone in ilvl 580 (from SoO) and at the same time doable for someone in 463. It's simply not possible without gear scaling, no matter what you think. (If you think it shouldn't be, read the next paragraph why that would be a bad idea.)
The same problem is rewards, obviously (see below).

The only reason to even do them is for honor points - which makes no sense at all, by the way, and also goes against the idea that 5 man rewards can't scale, because clearly they currently do, they just don't scale in any way that makes sense.

Blizzard realized some time ago that it's a very bad idea to make 5 man rewards not scale. I have no idea if you already played then, but let me tell you that players were extremely frustrated by this design back in Cata when Zul'Again hit (as well as the next stages).
If you think about how it was in Cata during the later tiers, you will quickly realize that it doesn't work. Making all heroic dungeons stay relevant during an expansion is a lesson Blizzard learned and it is something the players wanted. Maybe not you, but almost everyone else.

The problem in the current design is that heroic instances are basically the old normal instances (there are no normal lvl 90 dungeons), and thus tuned too easy. However, again, the Cata design (85 normal -> 85 heroic) was not better, because queuing for normals took ages and mostly gave aweful groups. Blizzard learns from the past, there is a reason the dungeons are as they are now.

[Sting]

Blizzard realized some time ago that it's a very bad idea to make 5 man rewards not scale. I have no idea if you already played then, but let me tell you that players were extremely frustrated by this design back in Cata when Zul'Again hit (as well as the next stages).
If you think about how it was in Cata during the later tiers, you will quickly realize that it doesn't work. Making all heroic dungeons stay relevant during an expansion is a lesson Blizzard learned and it is something the players wanted. Maybe not you, but almost everyone else.

Most people I've spoken tend to agree that the addition of the catch-up heroics (353/378 gear) was a great catch-up mechanic in Cataclysm (and in WotLK to a lesser extent). That's why I am so annoyed that instead of making two or three new ones each raid patch they have chosen instead to add heroic scenarios, which you can't farm for gear because the reward is daily instead of farming as much as you wish. The new catch up mechanics destroy the immersion, for me atleast. There isn't even loot you can roll on, you just get these magical bags that almost never contain loot.

As you can see, players experience these old dungeons different, me and a load of people I know liked them (anecdotal), while your example of "almost everybody else hated them" is also anecdotal. You nor I can decide the greater consencus amongst the playerbase.

[Senen]

Catch-up mechanism was a good thing.
Being forced to run ZA-ZG ad nauseam for several month wasn't.
If they want to add new dungeons, they want to add more than one or two, and that would take a very long time, much more than making new scenario.

Also, the catch-up mechanism is convenient but lead to "the former raid is no longer relevant since I can catch-up without it" which is a discutable design. Many people like it but many people also say they liked BC design where you had to run each raid to get gear for the next one.
There's no easy solution.

[Deleted]

Catch up wise - I much rather than new 5mans or perhaps in addition to some of those - would like the LFR treatment to last tier added to normals/heroics of the last tier so that it stays relevant - much higher chance of loot on coin and perhaps even add a drop or two to each boss ?

[Deleted]

i would even try 7mans out, just for the sake - more people more fun.

i agree there should be more 5 mans, but the rewards are good, the problem with them they are easy to obtain. if the 5mans would only be 10-15% harder playing them would consume more time and the rewards would have more value.

however, check out the scenarios, specialy the heroic ones. The heroic ones are not that easy and require some brain usage. I have found myself often being the only one alive killing the last boss with kiting, using some buffs i never used before etc...

edit - i dont know alot about coding but i think ive read somehwere that 5mans take alot of time and focus to make

[LeperHerring]

If they gave you 5 mans with good rewards you'd be more likely to skip raids

So make a 5-man mode to the raids. That used to be a joke, but now the reality is that the game is squarely headed in that direction. They want to slash development budget again, and this time it's the 5-mans on the chopping block. When they didn't want to build dedicated 10 man raids in WotLK they just made a 10 man mode to the 25 man raids. Now they don't want to build dedicated 5-man content anymore, so just put in a 5-man raid mode.

[Senen]

edit - i dont know alot about coding but i think ive read somehwere that 5mans take alot of time and focus to make

It's not a coding matter but a design-one. They design 5-man dungeons like they design raid. It's not true for scenario, which require much less time (and is handled by a different team, iirc.)

[IIamaKing]

I would agree with this. I did 5 mans all through tbc, wrath and cata, I cannot remember the last time I did a 5m in MoP. Just no good reason to. At the start sure I did a couple a week for valor capping but other than than and the initial gear up phase they are pointless.

[Deleted]

I miss hard 5 mans, some of my best times in dungs of late are when levelling alts. I'd happily take a selection of the old ones and scale them up. Not to the silly remake hc level, but like you are going in 5 levels below packs and in greens. The blackrock dungeons in particular are fun like this, you can get some great experienced groups who will queue all day with you (last two have been tanks).

For me, the problem which blizzard faces on a number of counts is situational scaling, whether it's a talent gimped for pve because it provides too much burst in pvp, or a lack of challenging 5 man dungeons because of gear scaling. They should have coded in a level of parallelism (?) for talents and stats by now. It would be simple to gate as you are only dealing with three or four conditions and it would make encounter and talent design so much easier.

[Sting]

So make a 5-man mode to the raids. That used to be a joke, but now the reality is that the game is squarely headed in that direction. They want to slash development budget again, and this time it's the 5-mans on the chopping block. When they didn't want to build dedicated 10 man raids in WotLK they just made a 10 man mode to the 25 man raids. Now they don't want to build dedicated 5-man content anymore, so just put in a 5-man raid mode.

I don't think you can adapt the raids to a 5 man mode though, I believe GC already posted that most mechanics they do nowadays don't really work for groups under 10 people.