Down scaling stats might soon be a feature - will you do the old raids?

[Regalbeast]

This question is for those who raid, or did raid, fairly hardcore. Blizz just came out and officially said that scaling down players stats will most likely be an option in the future, which will allow players to do old raids at the real raid difficulty level. Now, I know that all the baddies and their dog will be trying to do these old raids (because that's how it works, right?), but I'm wondering if you hardcore to semi-hardcore raiders will actually organize and do these old raids?
Especially with all of the current content raiding that will be going on.

I for one am super excited about this, just because I think it will be fun to go back and raid black temple, sunwell, or uld again.

[Deleted]

I'd like to try them: I started playing at the end of TBC so I've never seen them. Down scaling it's really a good tech to improve new features.

I think people would run them mainly with pugs (25man guilds are pretty rares nowadays) and mainly on non-raid days (if a pug it's too pug basically won't work).

[Deleted]

They will probably have to add special rewards for this to work properly. No one would run an old instance with a fixed difficulty just for the sake of it. Perhaps special mounts, or titles, or even the ability to upgrade the legendary weapon tied to the specific raid. Especially the last part would get people thrilled.

[k8e]

maybe. it sounds like a cool feature as long as it's optional, i like soloing old content :|

[Bluesftw]

i did them when they were hard, now i just want to blaze thru for xmog gear / gold whatever

[Lucetia]

This question is for those who raid, or did raid, fairly hardcore. Blizz just came out and officially said that scaling down players stats will most likely be an option in the future, which will allow players to do old raids at the real raid difficulty level. Now, I know that all the baddies and their dog will be trying to do these old raids (because that's how it works, right?), but I'm wondering if you hardcore to semi-hardcore raiders will actually organize and do these old raids?
Especially with all of the current content raiding that will be going on.

I for one am super excited about this, just because I think it will be fun to go back and raid black temple, sunwell, or uld again.

The issue with this is that even with gear being scaled down you won't be raiding at the real difficulty level. The only level you'll be raiding at is the "intended player level", so you won't get the feel of how it was intended. The reason I say this is because of things like this:

1) In Vanilla 50% of the specs were completely useless/not used. Warriors were the go to tanks while Paladins/Druids healed. Mages had to go frost or go home in Molten Core, etc.
2) Death Knights didn't exist till Wrath content
3) Player stats even scaled down would be at least 10+x more powerful than they were when originally released (even with a debuff it wouldn't negate how much more powerful things are)
4) In Vanilla secondary stats didn't really exist except on odds and ends items so having secondary stats for that content grossly outweighs it.
5) Mastery wasn't created till level 80, so you would have to negate mastery for the most part on all content to make it relevant. If not, then it's just another added power.

Those are just some examples off the top of my head. Now, I'm not against any of this at all. I don't see old content being a "big success" in this aspect unless they added rewards. Several of us ran it while it was relevant and if we want to revisit it we just want to go in at 90 and be done. So if rewards are added then sure it'll be something I consider, otherwise I just want in and out and be done.

[Regalbeast]

The issue with this is that even with gear being scaled down you won't be raiding at the real difficulty level. The only level you'll be raiding at is the "intended player level", so you won't get the feel of how it was intended. The reason I say this is because of things like this:

1) In Vanilla 50% of the specs were completely useless/not used. Warriors were the go to tanks while Paladins/Druids healed. Mages had to go frost or go home in Molten Core, etc.
2) Death Knights didn't exist till Wrath content
3) Player stats even scaled down would be at least 10+x more powerful than they were when originally released (even with a debuff it wouldn't negate how much more powerful things are)
4) In Vanilla secondary stats didn't really exist except on odds and ends items so having secondary stats for that content grossly outweighs it.
5) Mastery wasn't created till level 80, so you would have to negate mastery for the most part on all content to make it relevant. If not, then it's just another added power.

Those are just some examples off the top of my head. Now, I'm not against any of this at all. I don't see old content being a "big success" in this aspect unless they added rewards. Several of us ran it while it was relevant and if we want to revisit it we just want to go in at 90 and be done. So if rewards are added then sure it'll be something I consider, otherwise I just want in and out and be done.

I see where you are coming from....and I agree, mostly. The old raids will still be difficult for most, as they didn't actually raid them at the time. I don't really think DK's will make a difference though, tank class is a tank class. I also don't think that being able to spec differently than you had to back then would make a big difference. A dps spec is a dps spec, doesn't change the mechanics of the fight.

I do agree about the rewards though, they would need to add an incentive to do this other than x-mog gear which is easily obtained through soloing.

[Lucetia]

I see where you are coming from....and I agree, mostly. The old raids will still be difficult for most, as they didn't actually raid them at the time. I don't really think DK's will make a difference though, tank class is a tank class. I also don't think that being able to spec differently than you had to back then would make a big difference. A dps spec is a dps spec, doesn't change the mechanics of the fight.

I do agree about the rewards though, they would need to add an incentive to do this other than x-mog gear which is easily obtained through soloing.

Yea, like I said I wasn't complaining. Granted a dps spec is a dps spec depends on the place. It's like Molten Core you couldn't do a thing if you were fire and Arcane was just a scribbled up mess some 3 year old wrote up it looked like. The other thing was certain classes had certain debuffs that were needed. DK's make kind of a difference as you can have a healer dps more than actually heal (if they are tanking). Overall though it's just semantics and stuff and would provide something to do for most.

Rewards I have no idea what they could even offer, because as most mentioned if we've experienced the content then we just want the gold / transmog gear and rush through it than to go through the experience again.

[Siight]

I definitely would...sounds fun.

[Lilbruz]

Mind posting a source to that ?

[PetersenIII]

I have no problem with it being an option, so long as they don't force a down-scaling or item squish or some other stupid nonsense that will prevent me from going and soloing old raids for luls/transmog gear (because I sure as hell wouldn't do it for cash; they've seen to that).

[Thelxi]

Ye, good luck getting 40 people together to do challenging and trivial content.

[BurningSkies2018]

I have done MC and BWL to death in its time and the same can be said about everything to and including ICC. There also is not much to be gained in Classic to TBC instances for a DK.

Naxx 40 is taken out, so all tha remains to be interesting is AQ 40 as I didn't see much of that. However - it needs a re-design, else we are farming ST und stuff again for Resistance gear? Same with Hydross and Mother Shaz or possible the original Raggy. What with BWL? Redesign or downscaling won't work because three fights revolve around everyone having an Onyxia cloak.

Well if I'm not mistaken, didn't they remove how hard shadowflame hits now? I believe they nerfed it pretty hard a while back.

[Akka]

This question is for those who raid, or did raid, fairly hardcore. Blizz just came out and officially said that scaling down players stats will most likely be an option in the future, which will allow players to do old raids at the real raid difficulty level.

Wrong.
To truly do old raid at their real difficulty level, you would need to not only do this stat scaling down, but you would also need to revert to what the abilities and talent trees were at the time, as they are today MUCH more powerful (and I'm talking about something like "five time stronger", not "10 % stronger") than they were at the time, and offers lots of possibilities that didn't even EXIST at the time.

In other words : it's completely impossible to do the old raids at their real difficulty level save by going back on the WoW version running at the time. The rest is just to make people feel goods by rolfstomping the content and patting themselve on the back about how they are just so much more skilled than at the time, while it's in fact their toons that are ten times more powerful.

[LilSaihah]

Provided it's an option and not mandatory. Being able to scale down to get cool rewards just like in Challenge Mode? Great. Mandatory downscaling when you just want to farm transmog gear? Blerr.

[MoanaLisa]

Whether or not the experience would be totally authentic people might be interested in doing these just for fun. It would be a fun addition to the game and extend the usefulness of those old raids by making them than something to solo or duo.

[Akka]

Whether or not the experience would be totally authentic people might be interested in doing these just for fun. It would be a fun addition to the game and extend the usefulness of those old raids by making them than something to solo or duo.

It's not even about it being "TOTALLY authentic", it's about it being a complete joke compared to what it was.

[MoanaLisa]

It's not even about it being "TOTALLY authentic", it's about it being a complete joke compared to what it was.

Well, it's extremely unlikely that this, if it were ever done to start with, would be anything but optional so you could easily pretend it doesn't exist.

More things to do are more things to do.

[Deleted]

for mc & bwl this is completly pointless as people who startet in tbc or later are not even attuned...

[kleinlax21]

I don't get how people say that old raids can't be balanced around us. I say to you:

Bring raids up to us, not us down to them. If Blizz decided to bring back BWL, they should balance the instance to work around us at level 90.

IMO this will never happen. I would like them to, because I didnt start playing till late Wrath, but lets be real guys. Blizz has gotten enough hate over the years for recycling content. I just don't see them bringing back BWL for no particular reason. It would really have to flow with the lore. I am of the opinion that, as far as raid content is concerned, Blizzard has decided from now on not to recycle content like Naxx and Onyxia.

If Blizzard wanted to bring back BWL, why didn't they do that during 4.0 when they released BWD? I'm sure if they were dying to bring back BWL, they would have done it then instead of releasing BWD. I know I'm picking on BWL. But the same could be said for lots of raids. Why release Firelands instead of a re-done MC? Why release ZA and ZG as dungeons instead of raids?

I believe that Blizzard wishes to move the story of the game forward without using previously implemented raid instances that could disrupt the forward progression of the lore and story. All of the above is, of course, IMO.