Raid Difficulty FLOP

[Gaidax]

When you have to make excuses, deep down you know its a lie.

I think you need to tell this to yourself. You bring a bunch of unrelated BS to conversation and when people start to play your game, you suddenly get all flared up.

Cute.

So, what's the matter, the data is not nice to your "argument" - you used the same spin on others when you brought a bunch of unrelated shit to convo as a "proof", what happened?

[arkanon]

I think you need to tell this to yourself. You bring a bunch of unrelated BS to conversation and when people start to play your game, you suddenly get all flared up.

Cute.

So, what's the matter, the data is not nice to your "argument" - you used the same spin on others when you brought a bunch of unrelated shit to convo as a "proof", what happened?

What on earth are you trying to say? Seriously, im not trying to be rude but that is world championship level word salad. I recognise the words, but have absolutely no idea what you are trying to say?

[Gaidax]

What on earth are you trying to say? Seriously, im not trying to be rude but that is world championship level word salad. I recognise the words, but have absolutely no idea what you are trying to say?

I know you don't.

Thus I refer you to what I said previously in this thread - you are trying to compare apples to oranges and somehow make logic leaps to conjure a "proof" out of it then get mad when people disagree with your faulty logic.

Bringing a couple of relatively recent F2P games from whole other genre with a tiny fraction of WoW size that are effectively either flatlined like PoE or barely increasing their tiny numbers. It's quite literally what that Swalload dude said - you worked hard to confirm what he said - games over time flatline and then they start descent replaced by newer games - for PoE this will start soon and for Warframe in about 1-2 years, depending on Anthem and a bunch of other looter shooters worked on.


So yeah, PoE and Warframe numbers rising is effect of game lifetime and for PoE it's already flatlined. Don't try to tie that to some unrelated shit.

[Eucep]

This question has been answered dozens of times by people clearing on fresh 60 private servers, it will die in roughly similar time because they will use the same 1.12 patch so late vanilla talent trees and skills. It will certainly die faster than original wow because;

So far it seems that 1.12 is the eventual goal, but it's so far unsure if they will start at the 1.0 talents trees. Considering they also are going to implement release tiers of content.

[Swalload]

When you have to make excuses, deep down you know its a lie. Some games are more watchable than others, just like some sports are more watchable than others. Spectator numbers help twitch, help the streamers, but they do nothing for the state of the game. The game is in a nosedive, anyone who doesnt have their fanboi head in the sand knows it. To deny it is to deny endless evidence, and only a madman would do that. The stats presented shows strong growth in both games....what makes you think anything about them is declining? You claim to know something the devs and the players and the statistics and facts dont? i would love to hear your reasoning.

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Both games you are making excuses for are multiple expansion in, and continue to show growth in all areas. Are you saying that isnt true? or are you just trying to find reasons to deny the facts? Also, just to make something clear, a game cannot ever shut down at its peak, because a peak is not proven until AFTER the game is shut down. Who knows, it might have improved from the so called peak had they listened to the fans, adapted, grown and improved.

I'm not denying any facts. I told you games have growth. I never made any claims about how long the growth would be. You're the one denying the fact that these games will one day lose people like every other games.

Maybe WoW would have grown more if they listened to the fans yeah. Or maybe it would have stayed too similar, some people would get bored and leave and the game wouldn't get new players because of lack of accessibility, that's also possible, we will never know. The only thing we know is despite any insane growth or good decisions, every game ends up losing players. It doesn't matter if you link me every game in the world that are CURRENTLY GROWING. Later in time I would be able to link this back at you when they start losing player because they all will.

Are you seriously gonna deny this and tell me that these games will FOREVER GAIN PLAYERS? I don't even believe you are that disconnected to reality.

[Ozyorkbourne]

So far it seems that 1.12 is the eventual goal, but it's so far unsure if they will start at the 1.0 talents trees. Considering they also are going to implement release tiers of content.

No, it was already confirmed months ago that they intended to use 1.12 as the release patch as far as I'm aware. They just open the raids/dungeons/BGs in a similar fashion, but everything else is just 1.12. I'm at least 99% certain that I saw that in one interview or another. They can use a later patch and still stagger the release of content, it doesn't impact it.

[TheCookieGod]

I don't consider it a flop, nor should the first boss on a new difficulty be harder than the last boss on the previous. If every boss were a number check, I'd agree that each one should be harder than the last, but that's not the case and it hasn't been for ages.

Each encounter tests different things, and people struggle with different things. Some people can pump out raw numbers but can't do a relatively complex mechanic to save their lives (literally), while others excel at dealing with mechanics and fight demands but may struggle to put out numbers. Speaking from a dps perspective, Champion and Grong are pushovers, Jadefire Masters are an okay numbers check, Opulence is a weird odd man out experiment with the jewels that I appreciate nonetheless, Conclave is a test of awareness, Mekkatorque about effectively communicating both with the bots and not getting stepped on, Stormwall a test of managing space effectively and priority damage, and Jaina is a culmination of all of that, as a final boss should be.

You can't effectively ramp up the difficulty of fights that aren't even about the same types of thing. If a guild excels at all aspects a raid is testing, then they'll breeze through it and I think that's how it should be. I think raids with a higher number of bosses have more opportunities to retest previous aspects with a bit more complexity or difficulty and/or have more raw number wall bosses. That might be what you're looking for ultimately, but I don't think there's anything wrong with smaller-sized raids like Uldir and BOD.

[rohoz]

I am done with your pathetic attempts at trolling. You really need to grow up if this is how you think conversations go. I have given you three chances to actually join in the conversation, but you have absolutely nothing of value to offer. So i am done with your childish garbage until you grow up and offer something of substance to talk about. Have a great day kiddo.

I see you're going with the *i cant hear you lalalalalala method*

[Ehrenpanzer]

All other things aside, when guilds can go 8/9M in the first night of mythic release... theres an issue....

[tangers58]

All other things aside, when guilds can go 8/9M in the first night of mythic release... theres an issue....

Not at all, these are people that are already insanely geared, live on the game, and I'm sure already did the bosses on the PTR

[rohoz]

All other things aside, when guilds can go 8/9M in the first night of mythic release... theres an issue....

guilds that spend months preparing usually destroy the content when it's hit, mythic or no. The last mid-tier cockblock was mistress sassz'ine.

[Bhanzai]

Its what the people wanted so I don't see an issue. I stopped raiding hardcore when Blizzard introduced hardmodes to raids then started different raid sizes and difficulties.

While I think its lame it has definitely made more people able to access raids to their skillset. And if you're a MMO you want as many people playing the content as possible.

[arkanon]

Not at all, these are people that are already insanely geared, live on the game, and I'm sure already did the bosses on the PTR

So why didnt they run over the last boss in the same night? Oh right, because blizzard dont want that, they want to drag it out as best they can for the top 2-3 guilds, while still allowing the other few hundred to progress through the other 8 bosses, so they just make the final boss near on unkillable, even for the best players in the world. This is the issue being discussed, but people like yourself dont acknowledge it as an issue, even when the exact players we are talking about say it is an issue.

So my question is this - if these players are "insanely geared" for the content, already expereienced with it, and "live" on the game, why did it take over well over 300 attempts over multiple days to get a kill, and what does that mean for the average players? 1000+ pulls before a kill? Or Blizzard just nerf the boss after the "race" is over?

If they simply nerf the boss, that shows there absolutely is an issue, because we have two distinct groups completing the same content = the content is "tuned" for the world first race, and then nerfed for everyone else.

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I know you don't.

Thus I refer you to what I said previously in this thread - you are trying to compare apples to oranges and somehow make logic leaps to conjure a "proof" out of it then get mad when people disagree with your faulty logic.

Bringing a couple of relatively recent F2P games from whole other genre with a tiny fraction of WoW size that are effectively either flatlined like PoE or barely increasing their tiny numbers. It's quite literally what that Swalload dude said - you worked hard to confirm what he said - games over time flatline and then they start descent replaced by newer games - for PoE this will start soon and for Warframe in about 1-2 years, depending on Anthem and a bunch of other looter shooters worked on.


So yeah, PoE and Warframe numbers rising is effect of game lifetime and for PoE it's already flatlined. Don't try to tie that to some unrelated shit.

Jesus. You really are not reading the numbers are you?> you accuse me of making logical leaps, and yet pretend to have ANY idea of wows current playerbase? PoE flatlining? it has more players than ever and is experiencing yet another boom. Recent? they are 6+ years old......

This flatline thing is just so dishonest. The data says the EXACT OPPOSITE of what you claim....it continues to rise. Actually, everything you are saying is coming from an extremely dishonest place - You are flat out ignoring the data, and making absolutely basless claims like "PoE is flatlining and about to crash" but dont provide ANY reason or logic as to how you know this.

Many games crash and burn within 12 months of launch, and yet i provide multiple games still increasing their playerbase 6+ years after release, and your argument is "nope, doesnt count, not long enough. also, those games are about to die. i wont say why, or how i know this, but just trust me bro, they are doomed!"

Still funny that you completely ignore FF14? Nothing to say about its still increasing playerbase?

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I'm not denying any facts. I told you games have growth. I never made any claims about how long the growth would be. You're the one denying the fact that these games will one day lose people like every other games.

Maybe WoW would have grown more if they listened to the fans yeah. Or maybe it would have stayed too similar, some people would get bored and leave and the game wouldn't get new players because of lack of accessibility, that's also possible, we will never know. The only thing we know is despite any insane growth or good decisions, every game ends up losing players. It doesn't matter if you link me every game in the world that are CURRENTLY GROWING. Later in time I would be able to link this back at you when they start losing player because they all will.

Are you seriously gonna deny this and tell me that these games will FOREVER GAIN PLAYERS? I don't even believe you are that disconnected to reality.

When your argument is falling apart - just make the goalposts literally unreachable. "find me a game that increased in subs for infinity and never stopped and i will accept you win" dont be silly. You cant make the goal unreachable, and then say "ha! i knew it! you cant reach it!"

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I don't consider it a flop, nor should the first boss on a new difficulty be harder than the last boss on the previous. If every boss were a number check, I'd agree that each one should be harder than the last, but that's not the case and it hasn't been for ages.

Each encounter tests different things, and people struggle with different things. Some people can pump out raw numbers but can't do a relatively complex mechanic to save their lives (literally), while others excel at dealing with mechanics and fight demands but may struggle to put out numbers. Speaking from a dps perspective, Champion and Grong are pushovers, Jadefire Masters are an okay numbers check, Opulence is a weird odd man out experiment with the jewels that I appreciate nonetheless, Conclave is a test of awareness, Mekkatorque about effectively communicating both with the bots and not getting stepped on, Stormwall a test of managing space effectively and priority damage, and Jaina is a culmination of all of that, as a final boss should be.

You can't effectively ramp up the difficulty of fights that aren't even about the same types of thing. If a guild excels at all aspects a raid is testing, then they'll breeze through it and I think that's how it should be. I think raids with a higher number of bosses have more opportunities to retest previous aspects with a bit more complexity or difficulty and/or have more raw number wall bosses. That might be what you're looking for ultimately, but I don't think there's anything wrong with smaller-sized raids like Uldir and BOD.

Top be fair, thats EXACTLY what they do between heroic and mythic.....ramp up the difficulty of fights that test different types of things. Agree that the experiment with Opulence is a great thing, and wish they would do more odd bosses, even if they are optional.

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Its what the people wanted so I don't see an issue. .

What do you mean its what people wanted? Just not sure what you are meaning.

[Lillemus]

Jesus. You really are not reading the numbers are you?> you accuse me of making logical leaps, and yet pretend to have ANY idea of wows current playerbase? PoE flatlining? it has more players than ever and is experiencing yet another boom. Recent? they are 6+ years old......

This flatline thing is just so dishonest. The data says the EXACT OPPOSITE of what you claim....it continues to rise. Actually, everything you are saying is coming from an extremely dishonest place - You are flat out ignoring the data, and making absolutely basless claims like "PoE is flatlining and about to crash" but dont provide ANY reason or logic as to how you know this.

Many games crash and burn within 12 months of launch, and yet i provide multiple games still increasing their playerbase 6+ years after release, and your argument is "nope, doesnt count, not long enough. also, those games are about to die. i wont say why, or how i know this, but just trust me bro, they are doomed!"

Still funny that you completely ignore FF14? Nothing to say about its still increasing playerbase?

PoE and Warframe are both F2P games that are on Steam, a platform where you have access to a very large playerpool and as your playerpool gets larger (I think) you are more likely to get advertised to people, funnily enough I had both PoE and Warframe ignored on my steam account because I got so many ads for them but wasn't really interested in playing them, so they are being pushed by Steam as well.
I would argue that even though PoE is on upward trend it does look like it's plateauing, Warframe seems to be doing better in terms of a more consistent growth. However all of this is a bit moot when considering that both of these games are F2P and doesn't require any initial monetary investment to start. You also state they are 6+ years old when Warframe was released in January 2013 (so that one barely meets that criteria) and PoE is 5+ years old as it was released in October of 13. WoW was still experiencing growth at this point, despite having much less room for growth and not only being a paid game but also a subscription service.
A more fair comparison would indeed be FF14, this is where it gets interesting. From what I could gather FF14 counts it's total accounts (Both free, active and inactive) so it's literally impossible for them not to show growth since when somebody leaves the game behind it still counted in their statistics. I found a website called FFXIVcensus.com, this website tracks achievements in order to gauge how many people are actively playing. In January of 2018 they had 525k active characters (I'm not entirely sure if this means accounts or just characters), the more interesting bit of information is that in january of 2019 had 39k active characters.

[arkanon]

PoE and Warframe are both F2P games that are on Steam, a platform where you have access to a very large playerpool and as your playerpool gets larger (I think) you are more likely to get advertised to people, funnily enough I had both PoE and Warframe ignored on my steam account because I got so many ads for them but wasn't really interested in playing them, so they are being pushed by Steam as well.
I would argue that even though PoE is on upward trend it does look like it's plateauing, Warframe seems to be doing better in terms of a more consistent growth. However all of this is a bit moot when considering that both of these games are F2P and doesn't require any initial monetary investment to start. You also state they are 6+ years old when Warframe was released in January 2013 (so that one barely meets that criteria) and PoE is 5+ years old as it was released in October of 13. WoW was still experiencing growth at this point, despite having much less room for growth and not only being a paid game but also a subscription service.
A more fair comparison would indeed be FF14, this is where it gets interesting. From what I could gather FF14 counts it's total accounts (Both free, active and inactive) so it's literally impossible for them not to show growth since when somebody leaves the game behind it still counted in their statistics. I found a website called FFXIVcensus.com, this website tracks achievements in order to gauge how many people are actively playing. In January of 2018 they had 525k active characters (I'm not entirely sure if this means accounts or just characters), the more interesting bit of information is that in january of 2019 had 39k active characters.

Thats a REALLY long winded way of saying "yes, you are right, they are growing in numbers and popularity".

[Lillemus]

Thats a REALLY long winded way of saying "yes, you are right, they are growing in numbers and popularity".

Well, yes, for PoE and Warframe, but I would say that I provided more context ? It was my understanding that you used these as examples of "old" games that still experience growth in contrast to WoW of today not seeing growth, but that comparison doesn't really apply as they are still within an age range of where WoW was still experiencing growth, this not taking into account the completely different business models and room for growth.
It seems that you are now the one ignoring FF14, as I said I believe this one is the best comparison as it is a subscription based service as well. I'm gonna take a quote from VG247 (31 Aug, 2018)

Over the past year, Final Fantasy has had an influx of 4 million players, bringing the total registered play count to over 14 million, just in time to celebrate the title’s fifth anniversary.

So, they had an influx of 4 million accounts just in time to celebrate the 5th anniversary of the game (Huh, less than 6 years), it is important to note that in these 14 million they also count free trial accounts. Now compare that to the numbers of FFXIVCensus, in January 2019 There was 39k active players out of 14 million accounts.... I mean, those aren't exactly good numbers.
I'm not saying WoW is flawless, far from it, but it is an anomaly in the video game industry and saying that other developers are doing things better (at least when looking at numbers and success) is just factually wrong.

[arkanon]

Well, yes, for PoE and Warframe, but I would say that I provided more context ? It was my understanding that you used these as examples of "old" games that still experience growth in contrast to WoW of today not seeing growth, but that comparison doesn't really apply as they are still within an age range of where WoW was still experiencing growth, this not taking into account the completely different business models and room for growth.
It seems that you are now the one ignoring FF14, as I said I believe this one is the best comparison as it is a subscription based service as well. I'm gonna take a quote from VG247 (31 Aug, 2018)

So, they had an influx of 4 million accounts just in time to celebrate the 5th anniversary of the game (Huh, less than 6 years), it is important to note that in these 14 million they also count free trial accounts. Now compare that to the numbers of FFXIVCensus, in January 2019 There was 39k active players out of 14 million accounts.... I mean, those aren't exactly good numbers.
I'm not saying WoW is flawless, far from it, but it is an anomaly in the video game industry and saying that other developers are doing things better (at least when looking at numbers and success) is just factually wrong.

So you havnt provided any data for wows player count to check this against? Seems like you have made a conclusion, and are now trying to get to that destination. But you are ignoring the key fact - you have not provided wows active player count? do you not think this is important? You can scroll on back and see what the discussion was actually about, since you jumped in pretty late and missed a fair bit. I was told there are absolutely no games that continue to grow a player base outside of their initial launch.

All of these secondary conditions were added on after i provided exactly that.

[Lillemus]

So you havnt provided any data for wows player count to check this against? Seems like you have made a conclusion, and are now trying to get to that destination. But you are ignoring the key fact - you have not provided wows active player count? do you not think this is important? You can scroll on back and see what the discussion was actually about, since you jumped in pretty late and missed a fair bit. I was told there are absolutely no games that continue to grow a player base outside of their initial launch.

All of these secondary conditions were added on after i provided exactly that.

Talk about moving the goal posts - I never made any claims to WoW player counts for comparison, the best piece of data we have there is Battle for Azeroth launch which shipped 3.4m units on day one, that makes it the best selling expansion since Cataclysm. That's the data we have, what data do you have to suggest that World of Warcraft is taking a "nosedive"?
It terms of the original discussion I dug up the quote that sparked the comparison to these games:

Every single game in the history of gaming has lost players. That's how things go. Did Blizzard do stupid shit that hurt the and made people quit? Yes. Would the game still have 12m+ subs today if they did everything right? Absolutely not. People naturally get bored, discover new things, have less time to play, etc. It's perfectly normal to have less and less players. Aiming to keep the same amount of players forever is unrealistic and has NEVER BEEN DONE, will most likely never happen either.

This was the post that made you list those games, he said forever, you then decided that forever meant "Growth after launch" - and yeah, those games did have growth after launch, I think you can essentially list every single F2P game in existence and you'd most likely see growth after launch as success breeds success with that particular kind of game.

[Prime92]

Obviously Blizzard consider this bad for business. The problem is players are SO good, so committed, so dedicated that blizzard struggle to make encounters "hard" without adding endless RNG and randomness, 1 shot mechanics, and require almost perfect precision and timing. This also leads to class stacking.

Everything that could possibly distinguish good players from mediocre and bad players is bad for business in Blizztards eyes. They'd love if everyone had exactly the same gear, exactly the same amount of ingame wealth, etc. And they miss the goal by a freaking mile with that.

I also dislike the way they design raids. Both latest raids revealed end bosses which were on completely different level of "hard" compared to every other bosses. Also they put amazingly undertuned bosses at the beggining. Taloc - joke, MOTHER - joke, Champion - HUGE JOKE, Grong and jadefire are pretty simple as well. The issue with that is one tier higher bosses are way, waaaay easier than half the boss fights in lower difficulty which leads to even quicker gear inflation. It's yet another fucked up "people can't progress further so we'll give them something to help out" solution.

Also they try to tune bosses to an unknown item level due to retardforging, split runs, BoE fuckedupforged items and such and they fail all the time. Their incompetence is astouding. Everchanging released boss mechanics, stupid bugs which appear 2nd, 3rd or 10th time, just retarded basically nonexistant class tuning, just stupid itemisation (GG fathoms trinket for example), all of it sucks. No wonder people move to other games when all the "equality of outcome" and RNG creeps in from all sides instead of "equality of opportunity" and solid design.

[kamuimac]

Everything that could possibly distinguish good players from mediocre and bad players is bad for business in Blizztards eyes. They'd love if everyone had exactly the same gear, exactly the same amount of ingame wealth, etc. And they miss the goal by a freaking mile with that.

I also dislike the way they design raids. Both latest raids revealed end bosses which were on completely different level of "hard" compared to every other bosses. Also they put amazingly undertuned bosses at the beggining. Taloc - joke, MOTHER - joke, Champion - HUGE JOKE, Grong and jadefire are pretty simple as well. The issue with that is one tier higher bosses are way, waaaay easier than half the boss fights in lower difficulty which leads to even quicker gear inflation. It's yet another fucked up "people can't progress further so we'll give them something to help out" solution.

Also they try to tune bosses to an unknown item level due to retardforging, split runs, BoE fuckedupforged items and such and they fail all the time. Their incompetence is astouding. Everchanging released boss mechanics, stupid bugs which appear 2nd, 3rd or 10th time, just retarded basically nonexistant class tuning, just stupid itemisation (GG fathoms trinket for example), all of it sucks. No wonder people move to other games when all the "equality of outcome" and RNG creeps in from all sides instead of "equality of opportunity" and solid design.

ithink you are mistaking effect with cause.

if people werent jealous toxic idiots and whining about over time nerfs which were coming to lat tiers (WoLK-MoP) in some for or another we wouldnt end up with titanforging.

what was so bad about 30 % nerf ? nothing - but jealous toxic midcore whined long enough so blizzard had to think up different solution which woudl give the same effect in the end - aka nerf instance over time.