The culture shock of 5-man heroics.

[Sackman]

Maybe the best players on the server could do it, maybe you're in that group. But I was in plenty of AN runs both guild and Pugs that normally wiped repeatldly at the first boss,I use to joke that AN was the Slayer of pugs. Couple of VH bosses were a challenge, Loken, common to wipe at the Tribunal boss in HoS. And that was folks in 80 blues and crafted epics, maybe a few naxx pieces. I'm confident the majority of players (say 80%) couldn't have "easily" done the Wrath heroics in 70s epics gear. I'm actually pretty sure, most couldn't do it now in 70's epics. even though should be easier, because we all know the fights pretty well, even if we ignore most of the fight mechanics

I guess I obviously was in alot of bad groups, heck, maybe I was part of the problem too. At the start of Wrath I didn't find any of the heroics to be super easy. VH was the easiest of the Heroics and many times the groups I was in would break up, if we got the Blueberry Boss. Sure some of those Dungeons could have been harder, but then again, If all the Dungeons were like Occulus,(which I never found to be all that horrible) then you would only have a small portion of the popultion running them.

Afraid you may have been part of the problem, I found the opposite true, they were very easy. All of them. None of my IRL friends had issues either. I met people online who had issues all the time, but if they wanted to do it they would just push on and I would help them as much as possible.

I always remember getting a group to do a full DPS (amber?) drake run in Oculus (pre nerf ofc) and commanding them with a set macros telling them when to release and when to stack lol and when to run away and begin again, basically playing their characters too. Give them instructions and they can do it, help them out and they can do it. That Oculus run proved it to me.

Some people may be beyond saving, but most - and a large majority, are well within the threshold of learning and getting better and succeeding. Alongside that, the fact that I was able to keep myself and the other party members in sync shows that there is a great room above me to challenge the playerbase even further.

Heroics staying as they are is great, the masses can be taught - and they will appreciate it, and enjoy the satisfaction as much as we do.

[anyaka21]

It honestly won't come down to what the people in beta think. Let's face it, beta is populated mostly by a few select hard core people. They love the old school ways, CC, long heroics, etc... The challenge is that it won't necessarily follow into the real world and full population of Azeroth.

I personally don't care about difficulty, I'll adapt and learn, but will the vast majority of the population be able to do so? But people saying, in essence, 'get better or get out' that is a flawed position and basically assumes that those in beta and posting here have some control over Blizzards decisions.

Bottom line, it will come down to economics. If people don't like long heroics, if they don't like challenging heroics, if they don't like an hour of trash in a heroic to get to a boss, then they'll likely speak with their wallets and quit.

as has been posted in this thread, basically 90% of the population is somewhat casual in nature (and I don't mean that in a bad way either), but will that non hardcore, time constrained people be okay with a 2 hour 5man heroic, will they be okay with a random of a 2 hour heroic? Again, we don't know and won't know until release. If people like it, and I really question whether they will like extremely long heroics, then there will be an issue that Blizzard will have to take care of quickly.

[Tayfow]

Just did a couple of Beta-Heroics. All Heroics are already severely nerfed. We planned to do all of them tonight, but called it after doing 3 or 4. Why? Because actually they felt like Wrath all over again. We even reset 2 of them cause we thought they were buggy and we were doing normal modes. DPS pulling, no CC, no focus fire, brute forcing Bosses without caring about their mechanics. Does that ring a bell?
Did SFK, DM, BRC and TotT. And reading the latest feedback, the other heroics got the same treatment.The most difficult thing is staying online atm during bossfights.
I fear the worst.

Noooooooooo.... please noooooo. I will have a major sad if cata dungeons end up as easy as wrath dungeons at launch.

To you people saying wrath heroics are only easy because of the gear we have now: NO. they were always easy, they were always able to be bruteforced, even in a 50/50 mix of quest greens and 187 or 200 blues.

The big issue is that blizz greatly increased the power and flexibility of all the classes, without giving anyone any use for the neat utility spells. I think I used freezing arrow all of 5 times during wrath, and that was in vezax's room.

Edit: When did Wrath even launch? I have the speed kill on Loken November 30. That was also my very first run of the instance. That seems to be.... a little too close to launch for a gear-based dps achievement.

[Rezhial]

@ OP: Great read man, hopefully Blizzard sticks to their guns.

[Khanjin]

The most true post I've read.

Ever.

[Noah37]

I love the way Cataclysm is headed. Using all kinds of CC and basing most of the fights and raids around mechanics, instead of making it like ICC where over half the stuff in their is just max dps and burn as fast as possible. I love the idea of going back to using all the class mechanics and having to understand your class like the back of your hand to really be able to play the game. Granted I wish there were some better resources for teaching these things, but I digress. I have been playing a healer for the past 6 months, and I swear if I get put in one more Heroic with some idiot tank who is decked out in DPS gear and is not even close to being defense capped, I'm gonna snap. I just have to sit there throwing heal after heal in his direction and hope no one else dies until the fight is over and I can heal them. I had a tank get 2 hit by the last boss in FoS because he didn't interrupt and was not uncrittable. I was actually able to heal the druid in our grab easier than I could heal the crap warrior and we were able to finish the fight with me healing the dps as tanks.

[Deleted]

...
Running an Instances for a year, chasing that elusive drop will eventually be as boring as gearing up fast. I have been there at least and I have not forgotten it.

^^This. A balance must be struck.

I remember it well too, though I was not endgame raiding at the time, just the stories from others. Indeed, I know a couple of people in BC who quit the game simply because they never got their drops after raiding regular as clockwork every week, waiting most of a year.

[Nakkí]

Great post OP, really great.

[McCheese]

I think some people miss the point that people will always go for the best reward vs time spent. In tbc, I would guess at least 40% of the heroics run were mech, simply because it was quick and it gave more badges than the others. The same thing will happen in cata. People will find the easiest of the heroics with the best rewards, and run those exclusively if given the choice. If one heroic is drastically more difficult than the others, people simply will not run it. (occulus for example)

[Twotonsteak]

To the OP...you have expressed every single sentiment I've had with what is wrong and how is being addressed. I agree with you 100% and, really, I can only see the increase in heroic difficulty as a good thing.

Maybe once heroics become the "boot camp for raids" I won't have to deal with any of the following issues. (And, yes, I actually have experienced all of the problems listed below, and then some.)

- Hunters stacking PVP gear or gear with Expertise because it had a higher GS value.

- Kitty Druids randomly jumping to bear form so he can swipe for AoE damage. (He actually did not know cats had swipe too, or that Bear form generates additional threat.)

- "LOL CC is so BC, L2P nub."

- Random DPS ignoring fight mechanics because the healer and/or tank are over geared. (Story is that some boss mechanics WILL KILL YOU, regardless of your gear, if you don't avoid them.)

[Sulf]

If one heroic is drastically more difficult than the others, people simply will not run it. (occulus for example)

Occulus wasn't hard, it was inconvienient.

[Omedon]

I think some people miss the point that people will always go for the best reward vs time spent.

This is very possible. The way around it is what I like to call the "Black heart effect". Blizzard quite ingeniously seems to find a way to put "must have" items in places that would otherwise gather dust. I have a feeling this will continue going forward.

I'm a big believer in what I call "effortconomics", and WOTLK was extremely generous on many fronts of this idea, which is why I went alt-wild, in case that got "fixed" in Cataclysm.

I have a feeling the place for "rapid fire alt gearing", for much of Cataclysm, will be regular instances. I'm totally willing to accept that, myself.

[Tychus]

I think it's funny that people with 277 gear from LK have any opinion on heroics. I mean... it's like whining that curb-stomping a newborn baby is "zomg way too easy" as an adult.

I think that Cata heroics *seem* harder largely due to a) people doing them in blues (which is what they'red targetted at) and b) players behaving like it's Wrath and not paying attention - that said, the Cata heroics do seem to be tuned better. It really is going to be a challenging developing any heroic-level boss that can be legitimately dangerous to Deathwing-geared players, but also downable by a fresh 85 in quest blues.

[Sackman]

I think it's funny that people with 277 gear from LK have any opinion on heroics. I mean... it's like whining that curb-stomping a newborn baby is "zomg way too easy" as an adult.

I think that Cata heroics *seem* harder largely due to a) people doing them in blues (which is what they'red targetted at) and b) players behaving like it's Wrath and not paying attention - that said, the Cata heroics do seem to be tuned better. It really is going to be a challenging developing any heroic-level boss that can be legitimately dangerous to Deathwing-geared players, but also downable by a fresh 85 in quest blues.

That was an awesome visual lmao. Curb stomping a new born baby.

[Oxi]

very well said.

[Omedon]

I hate to say I told you so, but...

Go Go blue quote rez!

"...you might have a tough time upon zoning into a Heroic dungeon with a bunch of strangers as soon as Dungeon Finder permits, especially if your group isn't willing to communicate and work together. We want Heroics to be challenging -- if you want to zerg the content, stick to normal dungeons."

-Ghostcrawler.

aaaand...

"Players were conditioned at the end of Wrath of the Lich King to mow through Heroics at lightning speed. Not only were they too easy to begin with, by the time Dungeon Finder came out players greatly out-geared the majority of these dungeons.

The reality is that it makes sense for Heroics to be a true and necessary stepping stone into raiding. They are more difficult at the beginning of this expansion's lifespan than they were at the beginning of Lich King. We like it that way. We want you thinking and trying new approaches through trial and error in order to succeed, just as groups do while raiding.

As new tiers of gear are released and new raids open up, Heroics will naturally become easier, but that provides little good reason for trivializing them now. This is true even if some groups -- particularly pick-up groups -- lack the patience, will, or teamwork necessary to succeed.

We prefer that skill and character power provide the edge in Heroic dungeons, rather than supplying simple boss fights where mistakes are so easily forgivable.

Will it test you to play at your best and communicate effectively with your group? Certainly. Should Heroic dungeons be tuned down so failure is rarely a real possibility? That doesn't sound like interesting design to me, nor would it act as a good catalyst for compelling, strategic, and social gameplay.

[...] You might have to spend more time in normal dungeons than you did before if you want a very relaxing dungeon experience right now, before you jump into Heroics determined to succeed with ease. The difficulty of this expansion is on a different level right now, but it's still nowhere near the gap between five-player dungeons and raiding which existed in the original release, and to a lesser extent The Burning Crusade.

If you expect a quick, mellow run through Heroic dungeons -- which provide quite powerful gear given we're on the first Cataclysm raid tier -- this early in the entire lifespan of this expansion, you might want to consider collecting items and gear via normal dungeons and other means before regularly hopping into the Heroic queue. They're not super-unfriendly toward casual players, but they do require casual players to exercise skill and proper social/leadership skills."

Welcome to Cataclysm, L2Social.

[Kaeleena]

Once you find a tank that's even marginally heroic geared, you'll be chain pulling and AoEing 90% of stuff down anyway with judicious use of cooldowns. Get a well geared tank buddy to carry you.