Logistical Difficulty is the Challenge of Classic

[Wewlad]

"Amateurs talk about tactics, but professionals study logistics."
- Gen. Robert H. Barrow, USMC (Commandant of the Marine Corps) noted in 1980

Many people misunderstand what exactly comprises the challenge of Classic compared with Retail. Sure, the latter has placed much more emphasis over the years on tactical difficulty, yet Classic has reigned supreme when it comes to logistical considerations.

A summary of logistics, "the detailed coordination of a complex operation involving many people, facilities, or supplies." Classic manages to incorporate all three aspects with its 40 man raids involving heavy preparation. It makes for a satisfying conclusion when all these elements are put to work in executing the run.

So far we have already seen that there are many who appreciate this element even if they do not know the words to describe it. Personally, it helps with my immersion as the raids and the world outside feel far more intertwined.

[Rendark]

40 man raids sucked. Getting 40 people to show up was a pain and the raids them self were boring with boss fights that were hard then but are super easy now. They got it right with the 20 mans.

[TigTone]

Weren’t raids tuned to where you didn’t actually need 40 people?

[Wewlad]

Weren’t raids tuned to where you didn’t actually need 40 people?

They were tuned so that 15 could lean on 25 if need be.

[justandulas]

Weren’t raids tuned to where you didn’t actually need 40 people?

You can sneak by in MC like that, but it get so progressivelg harder.

I agree tho, the logistics is the challenge and a real one.

[crono14]

"Amateurs talk about tactics, but professionals study logistics."
- Gen. Robert H. Barrow, USMC (Commandant of the Marine Corps) noted in 1980

Many people misunderstand what exactly comprises the challenge of Classic compared with Retail. Sure, the latter has placed much more emphasis over the years on tactical difficulty, yet Classic has reigned supreme when it comes to logistical considerations.

A summary of logistics, "the detailed coordination of a complex operation involving many people, facilities, or supplies." Classic manages to incorporate all three aspects with its 40 man raids involving heavy preparation. It makes for a satisfying conclusion when all these elements are put to work in executing the run.

So far we have already seen that there are many who appreciate this element even if they do not know the words to describe it. Personally, it helps with my immersion as the raids and the world outside feel far more intertwined.

Yep, so many people don't understand this with retail is more hardcore or challenging than vanilla/classic. They are two entirely separate games with their own challenges. You can't compare the two at all. Hell even comparing vanilla and classic is almost impossible because we as raiders/gamers are much more mature and better than we were 15 years ago. A lot of your younger or people that didn't play in Vanilla have no idea what it takes to be a successful guild in Classic. Managing attendance/dkp/ roster of 50+ raiders, raid preparation and all that goes into being successful.

[Biomega]

Logistics was also the DEATH of Classic.

A big reason for why they went down to 25-man raiding in the first expansion was that so many people absolutely hated having to organize 50 people for a raid team. Not only is it more work for the few people that take charge, it also makes it easier to slack off - both in terms of preparation/contribution and in terms of raid performance.

Is it harder to organize a 40-man raid than to organize a 20-man raid? Absolutely. But this is a game. Do you want the difficulty to lie with playing the game, or do you want the difficulty to lie with organizing people?

[Maudib]

I think a lot of people do not realize how impactful a few stat points are. 16 stamina or 19? 12 intellect or 16?

These much smaller numbers make all of the buffs, pots, flasks, enchants, small gear upgrades, food buffs so much more "game changing" for you characters. Upgrading your character each week with just a little better pair of gloves or boots, making sure you had the best consumables, enchants, etc... all made a big difference.

This all took time. And the reward for patience was success. Raids aren't going to be any easier or harder than they were back then... maybe made slightly easier by the expertise of the modern player...

It's going to be a lot of fun... and that is all that truly matters.

[Zafire]

I think a lot of people do not realize how impactful a few stat points are. 16 stamina or 19? 12 intellect or 16?

These much smaller numbers make all of the buffs, pots, flasks, enchants, small gear upgrades, food buffs so much more "game changing" for you characters. Upgrading your character each week with just a little better pair of gloves or boots, making sure you had the best consumables, enchants, etc... all made a big difference.

This all took time. And the reward for patience was success. Raids aren't going to be any easier or harder than they were back then... maybe made slightly easier by the expertise of the modern player...

It's going to be a lot of fun... and that is all that truly matters.

I'm a bit concerned about this. I clearly remember back in the olden days seeing groups raid at more diverse times. Now everyone raids insanely late and never on weekends. I've looked on reddit, on here, on the the WoW forums...Every single raid seems to start at like 8pm est. I go to bed at 8pm est. I have to be up at 4:30am. I think I may not get to raid. I'm actually a bit bummed.

[Ehrenpanzer]

"Amateurs talk about tactics, but professionals study logistics."
- Gen. Robert H. Barrow, USMC (Commandant of the Marine Corps) noted in 1980

Many people misunderstand what exactly comprises the challenge of Classic compared with Retail. Sure, the latter has placed much more emphasis over the years on tactical difficulty, yet Classic has reigned supreme when it comes to logistical considerations.

A summary of logistics, "the detailed coordination of a complex operation involving many people, facilities, or supplies." Classic manages to incorporate all three aspects with its 40 man raids involving heavy preparation. It makes for a satisfying conclusion when all these elements are put to work in executing the run.

So far we have already seen that there are many who appreciate this element even if they do not know the words to describe it. Personally, it helps with my immersion as the raids and the world outside feel far more intertwined.

pfft... successful 40 man raiding in Vanilla= 3 tanks who werent drooling idiots and 1 who you could yell at to press the taunt button when needed. 3 competent healers and another 3-4 that could semi-reliably not be completely useless and 1 guy to stand outside combat until sub 5% to rez. Along with 10-15 semi competent dps who didnt faceroll and the rest of the raid filled with idiots who died to fires, blew themselves up and afk'd through 90% of the raid. This strat will work from MC to Cthuun. 1

[Beace]

pfft... successful 40 man raiding in Vanilla= 3 tanks who werent drooling idiots and 1 who you could yell at to press the taunt button when needed. 3 competent healers and another 3-4 that could semi-reliably not be completely useless and 1 guy to stand outside combat until sub 5% to rez. Along with 10-15 semi competent dps who didnt faceroll and the rest of the raid filled with idiots who died to fires, blew themselves up and afk'd through 90% of the raid. This strat will work from MC to Cthuun. 1

I can't find which patch OOC ressing was removed, but I'm pretty sure it was very early on, before BWL release. Since Classic is working on 1.12 as base, I expect it to be gone from day 1.

[Wewlad]

I can't find which patch OOC ressing was removed, but I'm pretty sure it was very early on, before BWL release. Since Classic is working on 1.12 as base, I expect it to be gone from day 1.

Not that he would have known with such incredible cringe-inducing snark blinding him.

[Leonora]

If your goal is to be the WF to clear all Classic raids, you are probably quite right.

However, there once was an article about the jump in performance that could be made by using full possible buffs (enchants, potions, flasks, etc.). Raids except for Naxxramas appeared to be tuned to manage without such extra's. In addition a lot of people now are a lot more practiced in raids than we used to be. So chances are that these raids are cleared a lot easier than we were used to.

As for me, my aim is to get back the relaxed pace and wonderment of playing I started with, not the race-to-the-end we slowly but surely developed over the expansions.

[Nevcairiel]

So far we have already seen that there are many who appreciate this element even if they do not know the words to describe it. Personally, it helps with my immersion as the raids and the world outside feel far more intertwined.

While this is true, the actual execution of this is often up to a raid leader, or group of leaders.
Similar to logistics, the individual moving boxes with a forklift doesn't care about the large picture - thats someone elses job.

Most individual raiders will just need to learn to follow simple orders and strategy, since that part is relatively easy to execute. Planning and coordination is up to very few people. Sure, some perparation is up to many individuals, like getting consumables or resistance gear. But ultimately the large logistical problems are left to officers herding 40+ raid members, and raid leaders properly organizing the fights.

I'm not sure if people looking back to 40man raiding are actually those that did organize them, or those that just took part in it. As someone who primarily only raided back then, I have fond memories of the time, but I wouldn't want it back either. I only became an officer in TBC, which was a very different time already.

[Wewlad]

If your goal is to be the WF to clear all Classic raids, you are probably quite right.

However, there once was an article about the jump in performance that could be made by using full possible buffs (enchants, potions, flasks, etc.). Raids except for Naxxramas appeared to be tuned to manage without such extra's. In addition a lot of people now are a lot more practiced in raids than we used to be. So chances are that these raids are cleared a lot easier than we were used to.

As for me, my aim is to get back the relaxed pace and wonderment of playing I started with, not the race-to-the-end we slowly but surely developed over the expansions.

One thing about private servers is that they are able to consistently acquire world buffs. This won't be the case in Classic since the buff will only activate (as intended) when the head is mounted, not whenever someone hands in the quest.

This will be one damper in progression, among other things (like armor reducing debuffs stacking on private servers).

[Sensa1]

I'm a bit concerned about this. I clearly remember back in the olden days seeing groups raid at more diverse times. Now everyone raids insanely late and never on weekends. I've looked on reddit, on here, on the the WoW forums...Every single raid seems to start at like 8pm est. I go to bed at 8pm est. I have to be up at 4:30am. I think I may not get to raid. I'm actually a bit bummed.

try joining an oceanic server...the time difference might work out for you...I played on an oceanic server in Vanilla because was working to 4 am at the time and if I remember correctly we (the co-workers that got me started in WoW) would go home, log onto to the game and go raiding for several hours before we went to bed ...my friend was the MT and I was a healer and we survived the 2005 server architecture and latency with almost no issues so you shouldn't have a problem in 2019...ahh the good old days of night shift work...not

an EU server might work as well because if their raiding starts at 8 or 9 pm their time it will be late afternoon for you

[Maudib]

I'm a bit concerned about this. I clearly remember back in the olden days seeing groups raid at more diverse times. Now everyone raids insanely late and never on weekends. I've looked on reddit, on here, on the the WoW forums...Every single raid seems to start at like 8pm est. I go to bed at 8pm est. I have to be up at 4:30am. I think I may not get to raid. I'm actually a bit bummed.

There will always be guilds filled with people liek yourself whose hours pervent evening raiding and will start earlier... and/or raid weekends

[Alteiry]

Weren’t raids tuned to where you didn’t actually need 40 people?

MC and BWL, maybe. AQ40 and Naxx definitely required a full 40 man raid though.

[Nitros14]

Consumables aren't just "extras".

Getting various world buffs, flasking, using a ton of elixirs and other consumables can more than double your damage.

It's not like retail where a flask increases your damage by 3%. In Molten Core flasking will basically double your damage as a mage. In Ahn'qiraj a flask is still a 50% damage boost.

People who actually make the effort to get consumables and buffs are going to crush these raids.

They just aren't designed for this. There's basically two bosses in the entire game designed around flasking the raid (Loatheb, Kel'Thuzad) and even then if you get world buffs on top of consumables those bosses get crushed.

[Doffen]

pfft... successful 40 man raiding in Vanilla= 3 tanks who werent drooling idiots and 1 who you could yell at to press the taunt button when needed. 3 competent healers and another 3-4 that could semi-reliably not be completely useless and 1 guy to stand outside combat until sub 5% to rez. Along with 10-15 semi competent dps who didnt faceroll and the rest of the raid filled with idiots who died to fires, blew themselves up and afk'd through 90% of the raid. This strat will work from MC to Cthuun. 1

Haha, love it! Colten More will be waaay to easy in Classic.