Multiple raids are awesome

[Magemaer]

Some people have been attacking the existence of multiple raids. Let me say straight out: multiple raids are awesome. The real reason behind multiple raids is one that is inherent to the nature of gaming and gamers, that is, that there are multiple skill levels.

In particular, some would argue that the skill disparity has increased, as throughout WoW years good players have gotten better and better, and new players are just as clueless as ever. Population wise, and this is significant too, a large bulk of the WoW populaton has increased in skill level, and the general graph tends to move more and more towards high skill level, as long as these vetarans keep playing and improving.
But regardless of the population situation, there will also always be the new guy to be adressed.
Well, here comes multiple difficulties: they allow players in many different skill levels to experience actual raiding, that is, being challenged and working as a group to overcome. More importantly, they allow players in many skill levels to improve their skills and they create a clear path and measure. They build a large and well tiered stairway of skill that players can climb as they become better pve players. With a single difficult you could also have a in-tier difficulty, but it would either start too high in difficulty, or stop too low, or be too drastic, with huge skill jumps between bosses. That is, any solution would hurt some section of the playerbase, and any solution would hurt the skill stairway itself.


Now, let me say again: multiple raids are awesome. But, as many other good things, they need to be well applied. World exploration, solo playing and dungeoning are all important aspects of the game. They should all be integrated with raids in a system that estimulates and rewards both character progression and player skill improvement. Players should be encouraged. as they hit max level, to do harder and harder dungeons, practice their class a bit, before setting foot in a raid, which should, let's agree here, be a place of epic and challenge. There should be a smooth difficult transition between the last dungeon boss and the first raid boss. But raids should feel hard and challenging from the very start.
It's needless to say ofc that lfr is an atrocity that shouldn't exist at all. It hurts the game in many ways, it's not really a raiding experience and it's totally off the skill stairway. The first raid difficulty should be a challenge to a group of new players that honed their game running dungeons. It shouldn't be an insult to the player intelligence, or a downgrading of the enviroment and bosses.
Players in a higher skill level shouldn't be forced or even estimulated to run lower difficulties by any means (such as valor farming etc). It's a boring experience that speeds burn up, let they only do it if they want to.
Raids themselves should be tiered throughout the expansion, it shouldn't happen that a raid instantly becomes irrelevant as soon as a new patch hits. You just got to max level in the mid/end of the expansion? You'll first have to beat the first raids before setting foot in the last. Forcing everyone to just do the freaking current raid is a way to quickly burn out people and waste your raid creations.
You should always deliver content to the veteran playerbase, which is large, so even the first raid should have tough mythic encounters. So multiple raid difficulties and multiple raids form the stairway of pve skill.

[purebalance]

Sorry, pandering to bad players shouldn't happen. You're not good enough for the game? Find another.

[Magemaer]

Sorry, pandering to bad players shouldn't happen. You're not good enough for the game? Find another.

Sorry but it's not feasible going from bad to good if there is no middle ground for you to practice and improve. That is a shit game deisgn, often adviced by players (with self esteem issues) who seem to forget that they, like everyone else, were bad players one day.

People also seem to forget how easy many raid encounters were when there weren't multiple difficulties. These are the normal modes you did to learn the game, mister elitist derp.

[ZweiHandler]

Sorry, pandering to bad players shouldn't happen. You're not good enough for the game? Find another.

Can you tell me how you deem players "good" or "bad"? It is just who clears Mythic?

Just curious, have you been able to complete Mythic?

[Deleted]

Can you tell me how you deem plays "good" or "bad"? It is just who clears Mythic?

Player is good enough when he can AFK in LFR and say that he's carrying all the baddies.

[Faroth]

Sorry but it's not feasible going from bad to good if there is no middle ground for you to practice and improve. That is a shit game deisgn, often adviced by players (with self esteem issues) who seem to forget that they, like everyone else, were bad players one day.

People also seem to forget how easy many raid encounters were when there weren't multiple difficulties. These are the normal modes you did to learn the game, mister elitist derp.

How did Zul'Gurub, AQ20, and Karazhan get so popular then? There was nothing to guide you, nothing to train you on easy mode, yet a lot of players did these and cut their teeth on raiding with them.

[Sansnom]

Sorry, pandering to bad players shouldn't happen. You're not good enough for the game? Find another.

And if they do? And the subs plummets? And Blizzard cuts their development budget accordingly?

Will you stay or move on?

[DeadmanWalking]

Sorry, pandering to bad players shouldn't happen. You're not good enough for the game? Find another.

Counts on what you call a bad player, if you mean people who lash out at their fellow players because they feel their ability to draw attention to themselves is threatened? Then yeah, people like you should not be pandered to.

Me? I don't care what difficulty you play on, it doesn't effect me and my friends having a good time in our raids, then again we are not video game narcissists.

[Lochton]

Player is good enough when he can AFK in LFR and say that he's carrying all the baddies.

Sad moment where I've seen mythic players do this, and I call them bad then.

[DeadmanWalking]

Frankly this thread will be closed, not due to bias but rather it is just a continuation of a narcissist shit storm from another thread.

[Darsithis]

Sorry, pandering to bad players shouldn't happen. You're not good enough for the game? Find another.

Pandering?

With multiple raid difficulties, players of all skill levels can enjoy gear commensurate with their effort with no effect on anyone else. If someone plays at a lower level than you, who cares? Why are you so concerned with it?

[Palemaster]

Pandering?

With multiple raid difficulties, players of all skill levels can enjoy gear commensurate with their effort with no effect on anyone else. If someone plays at a lower level than you, who cares? Why are you so concerned with it?

There are other aspect of the games outside of raids.

Heroic dungeons are a complete joke (they're only fun to play during the beta, when they're not ridiculously under-tuned), the open world is about as dangerous as sitting on the couch in your living room, most specs' rotations are pretty dull and require no decision making for optimal execution, and gear is just falling from the sky.

[jackofwind]

Sorry but it's not feasible going from bad to good if there is no middle ground for you to practice and improve. That is a shit game deisgn, often adviced by players (with self esteem issues) who seem to forget that they, like everyone else, were bad players one day.

People also seem to forget how easy many raid encounters were when there weren't multiple difficulties. These are the normal modes you did to learn the game, mister elitist derp.

Why not have easier raids and harder raids. Not difficulty settings. Actual raids.

That would make progression feel a shitload better than it does.

[xChurch]

Most games have multiple difficulties, why should an MMO be any different if it wants to cast as wide a net has possible?

[SL1200]

The multiple raid difficultys are a necessary evil. It works better than anything else they've tried. That B.C model didn't work for most players it's not ever coming back.

[jackofwind]

Most games have multiple difficulties, why should an MMO be any different if it wants to cast as wide a net has possible?

Well, the argument is that mmorpgs are supposed to be a world that you exist within, with all the diversity of enemy power levels that goes along with that.

[DeadmanWalking]

Well, the argument is that mmorpgs are supposed to be a world that you exist within, with all the diversity of enemy power levels that goes along with that.

Mmos are supposed to be an environment where players can have fun regardless of what difficulty setting you call fun without having to pander to people who base their personal self-worth on everyone else not being able to do something.

[solarfallz]

Weird choice of wording from OP. "Multiple raids" means a completely different thing than "Multiple difficulties per raid". Classic and BC had multiple raids. Far more than the later expansions. They also had more "relevant" raids at any given time as Wrath began the pattern of making only the most recent raid relevant. They did not have multiple difficulties per raid. That's beside the point, though:

I generally think that the people defending multiple difficulties just lack an understanding of what makes a game fun, adventurous, and rewarding, in other words what makes the world feel alive. On the other hand, the people who attack multiple difficulties on the grounds that "bad players don't matter" (or whatever) are just dickheads trying to act tough. There is nothing wrong with designing things that are fun for low-skill players, it just doesn't necessarily have to be the same exact thing as what is designed for more devoted players.

The real criticism of multiple difficulties should be done through the lens of how it develops the game world and how the raids make players feel. "Immersion" is a word that gets thrown around a lot and everyone seems to have a different idea of what it actually means, so I'm going to try to avoid it. Anyway, my biggest issue with multiple difficulties is that it takes away the feeling that you are actually defeating a villain, by giving the player control (via a UI menu, of all things), of the stats of the enemy. On the other hand, a boss with only one setting really gives the impression that he is THE boss. There is no way around it, you can't click on your UI to nerf his HP, you can't affect him in any way other than good old fashioned battle. This gives the player the excitement of really defeating the bad guy.

Giving players too much control of something (and this is not exclusive to raids, it also applies, to a lesser degree, to phasing, gear-scaling, etc) reduces the continuity and cohesiveness of the game world, making the player feel less like they are part of this one world full of other players, instead, more like they can change the world to fit their own needs (or what they believe their needs to be, at least). I strongly believe that MMOs should always aim to create one cohesive world that players can be a part of.

[Flutterguy]

Yeah I was confused and thought this was about splitting raid sizes up into multiple raids(which I actually really like. A change of scenery can be a boost to a struggling raid group).

[Ambulatory Cube]

The only problem I have with multiple difficulties is that in promotes burnout in people that feel like they have to get every leg up they possibly can.

For example, I remember during WoD beta they placed some emphasis on being able to jump into Highmaul in Heroic dungeon gear, that LFR wasn't "a necessary step" for raiders. But how many of those raiders dove into LFR anyway to get the better gear? People still feel like its necessary, because more gear means a higher chance of success in the "real" raid. So you have people running multiple difficulties to get as much of an edge as they can, and then they get so sick of raiding that it's no longer fun.

I'll contend that that's not bad design per se, since its the players making that decision, but at the same time Blizzard knows their audience, they know people are gonna do that. The problem is there's not much they can do to stop it without taking things away from others who don't have all that time to raid as much.