The devs recognize that BRF came out too quickly ???????

[Forsedar]

I think HFC is the one that came out too quickly, only 4 months after BRF. The reason BRF came out so quick was because it's the same tier as Highmaul so there was just a short stagger time between them. It's just that the ilvls weren't well-balanced to compliment the the sort of weird half-tier that Highmaul was which tragically made it obsolete.

I'm with you there, but I also think that both still came out too quickly. I wish I had access to the post, but my old GM made an amazing diagram. It compared ALL raid content from the start of WoW until now. It showed the average time for Heroic (now Mythic) guilds to get through a boss. It compared top world guilds and bottom-of-the-barrel guilds in terms of clear times.

It explained how HFC definitely came out too early, and that all the raid content should have been spread out more. When BRF was announced, forums blew up telling Blizzard that its too soon (TM). We weren't incredibly crazy progressed, but we still were a Mythic guild that cleared content. We were working on Mythic Imperator when BRF was announced, and of course, then it came out. We never stepped foot back into Mythic HM after that because why would we? BRF content and gear was better.

Then HFC was announced when we were working on Mythic Blackhand. At the time of the announcement, it was something like .80% of the raiding populace (as measured on WoWProgress) had cleared Mythic BRF. .80%. That is such a ridiculously low amount. By the time HFC came out, I think it got to around 1.6% but I can't really remember. Still -- such a small amount of Mythic clears.

I do understand that Mythic isn't ALL the content, and is only just a small frame of reference - but it still can help show that content was a lot shorter than it should have been. All of this led up to why HFC has been out for a very, very long time. Less time on initial raid tiers means more time spent being stuck with the final raid tier.

[ro9ue]

What I don't understand is why it came out too quickly if it was considered part of the same raid tier as Highmaul.

Basically they are admitting they should've milked that tier longer than usual to artificially pace content...

[Puri]

BRF came out way too late. I would have prefered if they brought out BRF first with tier sets, and later HM with higher ilevel loot (but no tier). So you would have incentive to run both.

[Deleted]

It's because they're beginning to treat launch raids as multiple tiers based on every instance, making one obsolete the other, as opposed to giving players reasons to run all of them simultaneously as they did in the past. I'm not fond of this myself, since it compartmentalises raiding into only ever focusing on a single instance at a time, obsoletes a part of launch content faster, and plays into the worst kind of time gated, drip feeding MMO design that attempts to stretch out the lifespan of content in the most artificial way possible.

I would much rather all raids be available on launch, drop equally relevant loot, and give players a nice long time to experience them all before tier #2 comes out, as opposed to withholding some of them for an arbitrary span of time to create the illusion of more content being released.

One of the problems they have now that they didnt have in the past is that because of the 4 difficulties, we cant have the same progression system as in BC launch, where all raids are there at launch but u need to clear the first in order to be able to clear the second one.
So how do they solve this? My ideas:
1. Make all launch raids have the same ilvl so both raids have bis items for all classes
2. Make a small ilvl gap beween the raids like hfc lower and upper, but give both raids a part of the tier, like hfc lower and upper
3. Make an attunement to get in the second launch raid which requires u to kill the first raids end boss on the difficulty in which u want to raid the second raid (u need to kill Heroic emperator to get into heroic brf, same for mythic), but this doesnt really solve the problem, however, I see them doing this.
4. Make them release with a Large gap inbetween, but make the first raid have its own 2-set tier so it feels like a tier by itself. Also instead of 7 boss into 10 boss raids, make 8 boss into 9 boss launch raids

(First 3 options make the raids come out at the same time)
(I dont think their current system is super bad if they give us a bit more time to clear it, but i feel like the ideas i listed are better)

[Gorsameth]

One of the problems they have now that they didnt have in the past is that because of the 4 difficulties, we cant have the same progression system as in BC launch, where all raids are there at launch but u need to clear the first in order to be able to clear the second one.
So how do they solve this? My ideas:
1. Make all launch raids have the same ilvl so both raids have bis items for all classes
2. Make a small ilvl gap beween the raids like hfc lower and upper, but give both raids a part of the tier, like hfc lower and upper
3. Make an attunement to get in the second launch raid which requires u to kill the first raids end boss on the difficulty in which u want to raid the second raid (u need to kill Heroic emperator to get into heroic brf, same for mythic), but this doesnt really solve the problem, however, I see them doing this.
4. Make them release with a Large gap inbetween, but make the first raid have its own 2-set tier so it feels like a tier by itself. Also instead of 7 boss into 10 boss raids, make 8 boss into 9 boss launch raids

(First 3 options make the raids come out at the same time)
(I dont think their current system is super bad if they give us a bit more time to clear it, but i feel like the ideas i listed are better)

The person you quoted wasn't talking about the TBC system of starting with tier 4 and 5 already in the game (we will never go back to that) but the WotLK/Cata system of having 2/3 raids in the first tier that all had the same ilvl where players could chose which raids they did first as well as providing a little diversification of scenery.

[Bigbazz]

This depends on perspective.. On one hand BRF was being tested alongside Highmaul at the same time on the beta realms, there was loads of coverage surrounding it and even boss guides more than 6 months before it released.. It was by all accounts launch content that at that time we didn't know was going to be released so much later than Highmaul, so from that perspective it was just launch content that was locked away.

On the other hand most guilds were nowhere near done with Highmaul, and they could have left that current content for longer. When BRF launched it only dropped ilvl680 gear on heroic, so many pieces were still a downgrade if you had been raiding Highmaul Mythic, but then Blizzard decided to increase the ilvl both to make it feel more of a step from Highmaul and also to reduce difficulty.


I think the big mistake was not releasing any content in WOD, and also with retiring previous tiers when new content comes out..

[RedGamer030]

In the words of Ragnaros, "TOO SOON!"

[yamix]

If the item level wasn't completely different it would have been fine, but BRF completely invalidated going to HM. It really should have been either later, and implemented how it was, or released around the same time as HM with the same ilvl. Of course, if they would have released it at the same time, the content drought would have been even worse, but they did call it the same tier, as I recall. They really just needed another patch or two of content.

[Cknight]

Don't remember folks having an issue with Heart of Fear and terrace of endless spring being released very quickly after msv. Blackrock was not a separate raid tier from Highmaul. xpacs have been releasing with multiple raids at the beginning for a while now with one usually being lower ilvl gear, kind of starter raid before hitting the tier.

[Andyrooo28]

I don't see why people have an issue with when BRF came out, if you couldn't clear Highmaul in the time you were given you just wasn't good enough. Not everyone has to be able to complete the hardest raid difficulty.

[plantation]

brf was the first fucking raid tier. highmaul did not have tier sets, it was just something to keep us busy while we waited for content to be reelased that was already tested in beta as part of the original release that got pushed back.

Seems the left hand doesnt know what the right hand is doing here. One says 3 raid tiers, other wont confirm how many raid tiers. one says they wont confirm or deny new dungeons after launch, one says they plan attunement fior the 7.1 dungeon. Good info but dam poor job on having their ducks in a row.

lol @ everyone ignoring this post of the year. Blizzard is trying to cover their fuck ups and everyone is buying it. BRF was supposed to launch with HM (and Tanaan Jungle *cough*), it got pushed back for God knows what reason and now suddenly it was "released too early" ???

Spine of Deathwing is a "unqiue boss fight that makes the player feel like they're actually riding on the back of Deathwing" anyone?

[Osmeric]

I don't see why people have an issue with when BRF came out, if you couldn't clear Highmaul in the time you were given you just wasn't good enough. Not everyone has to be able to complete the hardest raid difficulty.

You are highlighting a design conundrum. The reward the game gives is telling people they ARE good enough. People don't play the game to be given low (even if that is accurate) assessments of their worth.

[Deleted]

BRF was supposed to launch with HM

Nah. Blizzard said multiple times that they were unhappy with how raids released at the start of Cataclysm and Mop. We all knew there would be a more significant gap between HM and BRM.


Regarding the subject, at this point they should add 2 or 3 bosses to the Nightmare, and put Suramar Palace in a different tier. Wouldn't it be artificially overextending content? Sure, but I personally don't care. I'm happy as long as I'm not bored of the current raid.

[Deleted]

With only 3 raids over 2 years, releasing the second raid 3 months after the first is simply a desastrous choice.

[Durbi]

Came out way too early. I've said it in guild multiple times. Highmaul should've been out for at least another 4 weeks. Not only HM was out for only ~8 resets, but it was also out during Christmas /new year period, so for most of the guilds it was actually out for two weeks less.

I as well would've kept Blackrock Foundry out for another month. So that would be two months less of this shithousery. At least it would've been something, but I'm glad they realized their mistake.

[Deleted]

Just thank the lucky stars 6.1 kept us busy for so long....... -.-

[Hyrja]

Just thank the lucky stars 6.1 kept us busy for so long....... -.-

best patch everrr .... ._.

[Triggered Fridgekin]

Wasn't this also a hind sight issue they had with the first two tiers of MoP when they were being interviewed about Warlords? They weren't happy with how quick MSV/HoF/ToES finished before ToT released which ultimately lead to the content drought during SoO or something along those lines.

...but then they said they want to return to the content cycle of MoP.

Infinite loop achieved.

[ChakanDH]

I'm not sure why they don't just release them both at the same time, have same ilevel/difficulty and spread the tier through both instances. Having a 6th tier item(cloak) would help the distribution of tokens, and perhaps have guaranteed warforged items for gul'dan and Xavius but no tier to add to the gear incentive of them being harder than previous bosses. With 16(or is it 17) total bosses, they could take 7.0/7.1 out to at least april/May before needing to bring in tier 20.

[Every Pwny]

It was way too late, it should have been released when HM was out. It was like 3 months before the first tier was out or something, much too long of a wait.