When did WoW convince itself Raiding is the only thing that's important?

[Tyris Flare]

The devs shouldn't be happy that they made a fight that you can't just overpower with itemlevel and had to get good to pass? idk about that chief

Most raids had a cockblock boss. SLG. Council in AEP. Rastakhan onward in daz. Fetid devourer into Zul in Uldir. Maiden and onwards in tomb.

I don't think the devs should be happy that people are extending constantly instead of feeling like farming the content is worthwhile. It makes mythic an even more niche activity.

[Sucralose]

I don't think the devs should be happy that people are extending constantly instead of feeling like farming the content is worthwhile. It makes mythic an even more niche activity.

A lot of it comes down to fate rather then painsmith. Painsmith is annoying but he is actually one of the easiest bosses to farm as every member has to get his mechanics right and they never really change. Fate is a long series of controlled dps and rng bullshitty that needs constant coms.

[exochaft]

I don't think the devs should be happy that people are extending constantly instead of feeling like farming the content is worthwhile. It makes mythic an even more niche activity.

Since Legion, I've been trying to think of how mythic raiding could become more mainstream, because the biggest issue is retention/recruitment, followed by the amount of time it takes to get raid-ready from a gearing perspective. Even when I was raiding top 30-50 US, these issues were always the biggest.

I'm still of the mind that the best iteration of implementing extra difficulty into a raid was Ulduar, where you could activate the difficulties on a per-boss basis. If you got stuck on a HM boss, you could always skip it or kill it the normal way and move on. Over time, I've been thinking that power rewards from the hard modes could have been done differently, where you'd either get extra loot w/o the ilvl increase over non-HM, or cosmetics/bragging rights. However, beyond just how the difficulty was implemented, there was only normal and heroic version of 10/25man, and I don't think Blizz is going to go back in that direction after flex raids.

Ideally, I think the the best solution to raiding would be getting rid of power gains from mythic raiding difficulty, i.e. you aren't getting higher ilvl gear from mythic versus heroic (difference between normal and heroic is fine). Whether this means mythic raid is still its own separate lockout or Blizz has HM options in heroic raids that are "mythic" difficulty, they wouldn't reward higher ilvl stuff than you would on regular heroic... they could drop more loot and/or cosmetics, as to allow bragging rights and faster gearing up potential compared to doing regular heroic.

This method solves a couple other problems, such as rampant ilvl inflation and tangentially the difficulty curves of mythic difficulty. Knocking out mythic-only ilvls could keep the power creep in check to some degree, as you're literally removing a tier of ilvl that normally exists. However, this also allows the developers to tune mythic difficulty under the assumption that you have full heroic gear at a maximum. Whether all encounters would be tuned off of max heroic gear or not would depend upon how mythic is implemented, however this allows MUCH easier access for players to step into mythic raiding. At the end of the day, clearing a mythic raid would be less about gear progression and more about skill with the maximum gear that can be easily obtained.

In essence, it's like making mythic raiding sort of like the Mage Tower right now: you basically design everything based upon a template (max heroic ilvl gear), and your groups' ability to clear the mythic content is all about ability and skill. This also allows, under the restrictions listed above, that you can retain the bragging rights and faster gearing aspects of current mythic raiding, but it helps alleviate other issues plaguing mythic raiding and the game as a whole (it can also open up other avenues of end-game content).

[Kehego]

I don't think the devs should be happy that people are extending constantly instead of feeling like farming the content is worthwhile. It makes mythic an even more niche activity.

farming the content *is* worthwhile.
you just have to decide whether or not your guild can kill the boss <1 hr or will be railroaded for 30 hours for a rekill.

- - - Updated - - -

Since Legion, I've been trying to think of how mythic raiding could become more mainstream, because the biggest issue is retention/recruitment, followed by the amount of time it takes to get raid-ready from a gearing perspective. Even when I was raiding top 30-50 US, these issues were always the biggest.

I'm still of the mind that the best iteration of implementing extra difficulty into a raid was Ulduar, where you could activate the difficulties on a per-boss basis. If you got stuck on a HM boss, you could always skip it or kill it the normal way and move on. Over time, I've been thinking that power rewards from the hard modes could have been done differently, where you'd either get extra loot w/o the ilvl increase over non-HM, or cosmetics/bragging rights. However, beyond just how the difficulty was implemented, there was only normal and heroic version of 10/25man, and I don't think Blizz is going to go back in that direction after flex raids.

Ideally, I think the the best solution to raiding would be getting rid of power gains from mythic raiding difficulty, i.e. you aren't getting higher ilvl gear from mythic versus heroic (difference between normal and heroic is fine). Whether this means mythic raid is still its own separate lockout or Blizz has HM options in heroic raids that are "mythic" difficulty, they wouldn't reward higher ilvl stuff than you would on regular heroic... they could drop more loot and/or cosmetics, as to allow bragging rights and faster gearing up potential compared to doing regular heroic.

This method solves a couple other problems, such as rampant ilvl inflation and tangentially the difficulty curves of mythic difficulty. Knocking out mythic-only ilvls could keep the power creep in check to some degree, as you're literally removing a tier of ilvl that normally exists. However, this also allows the developers to tune mythic difficulty under the assumption that you have full heroic gear at a maximum. Whether all encounters would be tuned off of max heroic gear or not would depend upon how mythic is implemented, however this allows MUCH easier access for players to step into mythic raiding. At the end of the day, clearing a mythic raid would be less about gear progression and more about skill with the maximum gear that can be easily obtained.

In essence, it's like making mythic raiding sort of like the Mage Tower right now: you basically design everything based upon a template (max heroic ilvl gear), and your groups' ability to clear the mythic content is all about ability and skill. This also allows, under the restrictions listed above, that you can retain the bragging rights and faster gearing aspects of current mythic raiding, but it helps alleviate other issues plaguing mythic raiding and the game as a whole (it can also open up other avenues of end-game content).

look at average itemlevels from wf kills and world 300th kills.
Itemlevel is the only real way to nerf content and since you can get itemlevel outside raid now, that's how people gear up and eventually kill bosses.

If raiding worked on templates with no avenue to outgear the content, you'd have a lot more people stuck.

[Tyris Flare]

In essence, it's like making mythic raiding sort of like the Mage Tower right now: you basically design everything based upon a template (max heroic ilvl gear), and your groups' ability to clear the mythic content is all about ability and skill. This also allows, under the restrictions listed above, that you can retain the bragging rights and faster gearing aspects of current mythic raiding, but it helps alleviate other issues plaguing mythic raiding and the game as a whole (it can also open up other avenues of end-game content).

Yeah I think that would make it less accessible, as mentioned above.

Off the bat, a lot of potential changes are going to be rough or non-negotiable unless you want to jettison the RWF and get rid of the top players by eliminating mythic or making it trivial, which probably isn't a good idea. But a few random things might help:

-tying raid nerfs to tedious borrowed power grinds pretty much eliminates that nerfing method from a bunch of players who will never do it (aka people who never touched Korthia or the Maw, which includes a lot of casual hardcore raid loggerswww). That seems like bad design just outright. The nerfs need to be more direct. I know they got away from teh nerfs they had in WoD (x% nerfs per week) but honestly those worked pretty well.

-design more bosses that are about raw throughput rather than mechanics. A lot of people will balk at this, but frankly doing a boss with 17 weak auras and a million one-shot mechanics is a big reason so few people do the content. Patchwerk fights, tuned correctly, are awesome for people at the bleeding edge and good for lower guilds because they can eventually overpower them.

-Much better visual mechanics. WoW has been really stubborn about huge THIS IS BAD graphics like every other MMO, but they really need to adopt it. Make weak auras and mods less important. Figure out other ways to make stuff challenging.

-Enable crossrealm mythic all the time and change the lockout structure to be more like heroic. There are some kinks to work out for this, but it is insanely restrictive.

[Kehego]

Yeah I think that would make it less accessible, as mentioned above.

Off the bat, a lot of potential changes are going to be rough or non-negotiable unless you want to jettison the RWF and get rid of the top players by eliminating mythic or making it trivial, which probably isn't a good idea. But a few random things might help:

-tying raid nerfs to tedious borrowed power grinds pretty much eliminates that nerfing method from a bunch of players who will never do it (aka people who never touched Korthia or the Maw, which includes a lot of casual hardcore raid loggerswww). That seems like bad design just outright. The nerfs need to be more direct. I know they got away from teh nerfs they had in WoD (x% nerfs per week) but honestly those worked pretty well.

-design more bosses that are about raw throughput rather than mechanics. A lot of people will balk at this, but frankly doing a boss with 17 weak auras and a million one-shot mechanics is a big reason so few people do the content. Patchwerk fights, tuned correctly, are awesome for people at the bleeding edge and good for lower guilds because they can eventually overpower them.

-Much better visual mechanics. WoW has been really stubborn about huge THIS IS BAD graphics like every other MMO, but they really need to adopt it. Make weak auras and mods less important. Figure out other ways to make stuff challenging.

-Enable crossrealm mythic all the time and change the lockout structure to be more like heroic. There are some kinks to work out for this, but it is insanely restrictive.

just go play FF14 at this point, tbh

[Logwyn]

When we started listening to the droning on from influencers and their mobs.

[ReesePieces]

Ideally, I think the the best solution to raiding would be getting rid of power gains from mythic raiding difficulty, i.e. you aren't getting higher ilvl gear from mythic versus heroic (difference between normal and heroic is fine). Whether this means mythic raid is still its own separate lockout or Blizz has HM options in heroic raids that are "mythic" difficulty, they wouldn't reward higher ilvl stuff than you would on regular heroic... they could drop more loot and/or cosmetics, as to allow bragging rights and faster gearing up potential compared to doing regular heroic.

Isn't this how FFXIV does it where Ulitmates(FFXIV's Mythic equivalent) only provide cosmetics, mounts and achievements while Savage(FFXIV's Heroic equivalent) provides the the gear upgrades?

[Sucralose]

-Enable crossrealm mythic all the time and change the lockout structure to be more like heroic. There are some kinks to work out for this, but it is insanely restrictive.

I really don't see them doing this as mythic players make up pretty much all realm transfer sales and blizz doesn't kill cash cows.

[Glorious Leader]

The common sense point was the latter not the former... you can't keep a player who plays a game for a self fulfillment simulator while keeping it a video game for the rest of the playerbase. It isn't 15 years ago people who want time consuming easy content will go to games without a sub to get it.

This is incredible amusing. Particularly the part about "self fulfillment simulator". As if the mythic raiding community wasn't riddled with man children seeking validation.

[Sucralose]

This is incredible amusing. Particularly the part about "self fulfillment simulator". As if the mythic raiding community wasn't riddled with man children seeking validation.

Not really... o I am sure there are a few no one passes a purity test but most actually go out of their way to learn how the game works then attempt to beat it. Think about it how often do you even see mythic players outside of their own circles?

They work around what drops they can get not what drops they wish they could.