are challenge modes a fail?

[Libretto]

I got full gold on my mage a few weeks ago. Our server has a few teams that got full gold done, but interest in doing them beyond that seems to be nil. There's no reward for getting better times than I already have, since nobody seems to care about the leaderboard.

What I -hope- they do is make "seasons" with new rewards each round in the same way PVP seasons work, but I'm relatively doubtful they'll do this as there's so few people doing them right now.

Adding more dungeons to the system would be amazing too. Challenge mode of say, Throne of the Tides or Grim Batol would be great fun. The Cata heroics blow post-nerfs, but were rather fun when running them in mostly level 80 gear. Those dungeons and most of the WOTLK heroics would be perfect for adding a CM difficulty.

For the most part if people can't get gold in them now they won't be capable of doing it a year from now. A lot of people think players who aren't doing them "don't have time", but most of them are simply incapable of achieving good clear times. The servers where there are almost no clears beyond bronze are mostly servers where heroic raid progression is also near zero or where heroic raids are only cleared when guilds have gear from one or two tiers ahead. Since CMs scale you down regardless of gear and tier bonuses are disabled, such guilds and players will -never- be able to complete them, and they should be fine with that.

Also, I'm unsure how anyone can complain about having to spend gold on consumables to do them. I spent probably 10K gold altogether on flasks, pots and feasts when doing them, which is nothing. Deaths in CMs don't cause durability damage so there's no repair bills. QQ more.

[Alvito]

Chances are they're waiting for some nerf, THEN, do them.

Just like with Firelands. Couldn't get folks to do that raid until the day of the nerf, THEN they came out of the woodwork and acting like wannabe raiders. -_-

I am sure that is the case for some also. I have seen plenty of ppl in trade or on forum boards like this crying an ocean of tears over how hard they are. In my immediate small sample pool of people I play with most haven't done it due to lack of time. Right now it is wow triage, figuring out what to do with the finite amount of time that people have to play.

I know I am not going to pass on RBG, raiding and things that I enjoy and have a lasting impact of sorts for some flashy gear. I am also currently working on the last raid alt toon I will be lvling up, when that is done then a nice chunk of time will open up for stuff like this.

[Gandrake]

Waiting for nerfs or ranged to be punished as badly for being ranged as melee are for being melee. Or for, you know, qualifying gold to not be balanced around skipping trash.

CMs are a joke. Damn shame.

[Anjerith]

They were designed for a very specific niche group of players. Those players have been doing them. How can they be considered a "Fail"?

Sure I want to do them but yada yada no time etc. etc.. The fact is that the people that REALLY want to do Challenge modes are doing them. There are those of us (me included) that would LIKE to do them, but our schedules are full of dailies and raids while we work to do something on the other end of progression content. Challenge modes are sort of like the underdog of raids. I absolutely expect them to become the new "world first" race as Blizzard releases more and fine tunes them to be difficult against increasingly simplified raids.

[Zoneseek]

Wouldn't surprise me if challenge modes are a fail. People like to cry about wanting hard content more then they actually WANT hard content. I bet you the majority of the people who cried about heroics being too easy in WOTLK or currently in MOP don't even do challenge modes.

[Granyala]

Don't really care about them. But I'm not competitive by nature. I'm sure I give them a shot later on, but they are as relevant for me as pet battles.

[Ninotchka]

So what I get from this thread is, not a lot of people are running challenge modes, but the ones who do run them or attempt to run them are enjoying the experience.

Sounds like a win in my book.

Honestly, what would a fail look like, what does a win look like?

"Fail", to me, would be that anyone with a full set of dungeon blues could roflstomp to gold at this point. That's clearly not the case.

Some realms have multiple people who have already gone 9/9 gold. Many realms still don't have a single gold or even silver time. Is that a fail or a win?

[Eadoin]

Now that I'm done the Month+ wall of dailies, I can finally start looking at challenge modes seriously.

[Evil Inside]

how many people run them, I don't find the dungeons interesting enough myself to repeatedly run them on a timer.

currently my realm has only 3/9 dungeons done with a gold mode.

I have a feeling those challenge mode armor rewards for getting gold in every dungeon will basically either never be achieved by 99.99% of the wow population, if at all on some realms

if that's working as intended then that is fine, but I have a feeling they will be nerfed in the future possibly.

They arent meant to be completed by 99.9% of the populace, they're for hardcore folks. Not to mention that blizzard has said that they wont be nerfing them.

[Synche]

Being that I think that the challenge mode armor is butt ugly, there is very little reason besides epeen to do them on my server.

[ganush]

Because there are no character gains to be had from time spent in Challenge modes most players won't really work on them until they have some 'free' game time to do it in. I think it's to early to say they are a failure, but I think it's definitely looking that way. I always thought (and nothing has changed my mind) that without character progression incentive, people wouldn't put a lot of time into these.

[Shockzilla]

No they are right where they need to be, hard for now. If you want easy go farm somthing.

[Ivalen]

They are a fail in that they have not drawn the huge 'race to the top' crowds that blizzard was expecting. That's because there is no progression there.

Progression lies in dungeons/heroics/dailies and raids. Blizzard didn't realize that bragging rights is not something that people care about since people only care about who is #1. So why bother?

In 12-18 months or so when this expansion is dead, that's when you'll see people in the challenge modes.

[Kevyne-Shandris]

I got full gold on my mage a few weeks ago. Our server has a few teams that got full gold done, but interest in doing them beyond that seems to be nil. There's no reward for getting better times than I already have, since nobody seems to care about the leaderboard.

If it was LFG style there would be more interest. Just LFG causes too much grief too many times (if somehow we could have LFG without the griefers...). Any activity at this stage that requires making your own group interest falls flat (RBGs are a good example of this).

I know I would love doing them...if I could get a team together (good luck finding one on Shandris that can attempt it for even bronze. They like to goof off too much).

[dryankem]

Likely never going to run one (my guild is rather small) but I think it's good for the game. Its a nugget for the hardcore crowd and hopefully stays that way IMO. So it's been cheesed by certain comps but the content has regular modes for anyone so I hope blizzard keeps the challenge there.

[Jackelyn]

Personally the only people I have encountered not enjoying them or thinking they are useless are the people who struggle to clear them at all..

Once me and my guild have finished our raids for the week or even whilst waiting for them to start we will enjoy doing the timed 5 mans.. Working to beat your time every new attempt is a nice way to kill time and catch up with friends since progression requires abit more concentration.

[Aredyl]

They are a fail in that they have not drawn the huge 'race to the top' crowds that blizzard was expecting. That's because there is no progression there.

Progression lies in dungeons/heroics/dailies and raids. Blizzard didn't realize that bragging rights is not something that people care about since people only care about who is #1. So why bother?

In 12-18 months or so when this expansion is dead, that's when you'll see people in the challenge modes.

Its difficult to compare one type of end-game play to another, and yes, I think time will make them more attractive to do.

Everybody is "trained" to see which guilds are the best at PvE by looking at their progression. Its been that way since vanilla. Also, on my server, its been roughly the same guilds or core groups that have been doing it since then. The top horde guild comprises of the same core players as they did in vanilla. The top alli guild right now has been in the mix for many expansions.

You can't expect a brand-new system thats barely a month old to take roots so quickly. Most of the top players are focusing in on raiding and very little else that doesn't help them meet those goals. Once guilds start clearing most of the heroic raiding content, more will join in on challenge modes - for the "best times" or just simply knock out guild achieves. Unitl then, I don't expect to see any massive changes on my server.

[Deleted]

Why are threads like this always? In my opinion when the content 6 weeks after release still isn't tackled on many realms it's a good design for challenging and hard experience. They would be a fail if people would stomp 9/9 gold within first week after release, and percentage of 9/9 gold people would be like 50% by now. When only the very best have full gold completed, they are nicely tuned. Meant for hardcore in first place. Slow progress on them now is also due to raiding progression still being gated, wait until raids are more on-farm and/or nerfed, you'll see much more medals in CM acquired. Raiders simply refuse to devote progression time into challenge mode with virtually no reward per se (vanity stuff like mounts don't help progression, gear from raid bosses does) during actual raid progression race.

As for "seeing the content" argument - good design on blizz part too. They're just time trials.
Casual player - sees the content, completes with bronze or no medal and he's happy
Hardcore player - sees the same content as casual player, practices run time for gold medal, gets it eventually.

Both players see the content. Hardcore player just has couple achieve points more and a transmog set.

[Granyala]

Being that I think that the challenge mode armor is butt ugly

Agreed. Maybe that's why I haven't bothered.

[Ssateneth]

I'd love to attempt them. But I don't feel like spending gold over and over for that.

I'd keep trying to get gold if they did:

Add a NPC at the entrance that gives you free potions, flask, elixir and all these stuffs. So you don't feel afraid of using a potion in a wipe (to try to avoid the wipe). Make all these things (and their buffs) disappear once you zone out (so it can't be abused).

Add a npc that gives you free gear (or make your gear automatically change to it) and a reforger/gem vendor (for free) so if you are hit capped for raid bosses you won't have "extra hit".

Do it all and I'll do challange modes over and over and over.

Blues said gear taking damage in challenge mode dungeons is disabled. If you are spending repairs for challenge modes, you're doing it wrong.