Ra-den Limited Attempts, Isle of Thunder Stage 3, LFR Testing, PTR Class Balance, DLC

[Deleted]

Stop complaining.

30 attempts per lockout is huge. Essentially all its doing is encouraging guilds to not extend lockouts for the same boss week after week.

Considering the size of Throne of Thunder, it'll take most cutting edge guilds most of the week to clear it anyway. Leaving the last day or two to carefully plan out the last battle and then make 30 attempts on it.

I can't imagine the nerd tears if Blizzard decided to go back to old school methods of raiding. They are so leniant now and all people can do is bitch and whine and cry over the smallest thing. STOP IT!

It's not that huge. Remember how many attempts it took for Paragon to down Ragnaros HC, about 500. So even if Ra-Den is easier and you'll "only" need 300 attempts, that means 10 Weeks, or about 2 month, where real cutting-edge guilds do 500 attempts in a single week. Thus, it will lengthen then content by far. And it's false to think most guilds extended lockouts. If you have got so far into progression, that you can attempt on Ra-Den, you will not waste much time on defeating the previous bosses. Once killed, these guild have those bosses on farm and to farm 13 bosses in a single raid instance will not take so much time. Farming T14 nowadays takes about 2 evenings with a normal schedule (meaning about 4 hours a day). So even if you need let's say 20 hours to down all bosses on you way to Ra-Den cutting-edge guilds will take their time to do it in two days, so they have five more days for only 30 attempts.

The whole attempt-model is just dumb, especially with a not tested encounter like Ra-Den. I remember For the Horde facing Sinestra for the first time (as the first guild) and wasted many attempts, just to see, who bugged (since not tested) this encounter was. If you have only 30 attempts, would you like to see, that you first need to waste 10 or 15 just to work out what the boss do and then to see, it will be altered on the fly, because of the bugs, noone knew about? Sounds funny.

The only thing, this will do, is to make the world-first-race closer, as guilds not WILLING to invest as much as the current top-guilds can catch up and will only be a few attempts behind. And although I'm a member of one of those guild and I'm really not WILLING(!) to invest so much time (and also just can't), I think, more investment should yield more profit. But so the cutting-edge guilds invest much more time than anyone else for the first bosses, and are than stopped by a artificial barrier called "limited attempts", so players like me, who invested so much less time and effort, have a much more realistic chance to kill this boss first (okay, not me personally, but top 10-20 guilds).

[Deleted]

i hope they do biring back more cast times for cc abilities cos cc is just way out of hand atm

[Resentful]

Welcome to the first stages of Heroic LK again :P

[Metta World Peace]

In our entire history of using limited attempts, there was only one boss where I'd say they actually worked out fairly well: Heroic Lich King. The main reason for this was that you couldn't access Heroic Lich King at all unless you defeated Putricide, Sindragosa, and Lana'thel on Heroic difficulty as well. And during the first few weeks of Heroic progression, that was beyond the means of essentially all the alt raids out there. After all, the point of running split main/alt raids is to funnel gear to the mains to maximize their effectiveness for Heroic progression, right? So by definition the alts are less geared than the mains, and if the mains can just barely, barely beat something, the alt group is going to be in for a rough time.

As a result, I don't believe we ever saw a single true alt Heroic Lich King progression raid. Similarly, I don't think we're going to see alt raids on Ra-den. The number 30 is also large enough that while one accidental pull or disconnect is of course still going to sting, it isn't crippling.

Really surprised about this statement. This did encourage alts with same class and almost identical gear. What they didn't mention was the griefing and sabotaging attempts which was quite rampant especially among high end guilds. It's not that guilds can't trust each other but, say if rivals unexpectedly were in the same raid "Hi Galleon/Sha/World Bosses!" then there goes all those attempts.

I don't remember the vast majority FOR this idea. Heck some back then, guilds ended up quitting if Blizzard continued this model of limited attempts.

Last Resort a fine example - http://www.lrguild.org/forum/viewtopic.php?id=6347

[Shampro]

Welcome to the first stages of Heroic LK again :P

Incorrect. In fact the LK limited attempts didnt work because it also was for normal mode. Which is terrible because it ecourages you to go in with several alts to get more more practice, which im sure many top guilds didnt really like. Now with Ra-den is the better model. The embodiment of a ''bonus boss'' in order to reach him you need to clear the entire raid on heroic (including Lei Shen wish looks scary). So this means, encourageing alts is a no go . Which was the annoying part of limiting attempts back then. This model works perfectly or atleast much better. It doesn't encorage serveral runs. You eaither are good enough to kill him on said week, or you aren't. Simple.

Many top guilds will moan about this, but many are also the kind of guilds that just expect everything to be cleared on week one. Which they have also been moaning for several tiers. You eaither pick one or the other.

[Conscious]

Blizzard just loves to contradict and back-peddle these days eh, subscribers are king.

[Azrile]

it wont lengthen it by that much since most top guild will go in with alts first to learn the fight and only go in with mains when they think they can kill it

You really think guilds are going to have alts that are able to clear the entire tier on heroic mode in order to get to the bonus boss? All I have to say is if a guild can have every player get 2 characters to fully clear heroic mode and have the ált´characters waste 30 attempts before trying the boss on their mains AND STILL get world first on the bonus boss.. well they deserver it.

[moveth]

You really think guilds are going to have alts that are able to clear the entire tier on heroic mode in order to get to the bonus boss?

You obviously havent watched Paragon, Blood Legion, or Exodus' streams if you think this way. Their alts (all 3-5 of them EACH) are already at LEAST 510 ilvl. The alts are going in with NO gear disadvantage this time, so the first clear on Mains will take 30-50 attempts per boss, and once they go in on Alts, it will take maybe 10. They WILL have the alts to do it, its that simple. The sheer roster that guilds have in the top 10 is stupid. The limited attempts are stupid because it doesnt do anything beneficial for the game whatsoever.

[Azrile]

Blizzard just loves to contradict and back-peddle these days eh, subscribers are king.

Did you even bother to read the blue post? or did you just start crying as soon as you saw the title?

This is completely different than LK because it is only the final boss that has limited attempts.

Also, to the people citing one guilds 500 attempts at certain bosses and extrapolating that to mean this will take 13 weeks to clear.. Just LOL... you really think those 500 attempts were all serious? If even the slightest thing goes wrong, they wipe to start over quicker. They also attempt a ton of very crazy strategies to see if stuff works and sometime discover them (ie blowing up platforms with eng bombs?). I think the devs were correct when they said that this boss will cause quality over quantity.. you won´t have progressive guilds wasting wipes to try and find exploits and oversights. Most attempts will be at using the intended mechansims of the fight.

---------- Post added 2013-02-16 at 05:05 PM ----------

You obviously havent watched Paragon, Blood Legion, or Exodus' streams if you think this way. Their alts (all 3-5 of them EACH) are already at LEAST 510 ilvl. The alts are going in with NO gear disadvantage this time, so the first clear on Mains will take 30-50 attempts per boss, and once they go in on Alts, it will take maybe 10. They WILL have the alts to do it, its that simple. The sheer roster that guilds have in the top 10 is stupid. The limited attempts are stupid because it doesnt do anything beneficial for the game whatsoever.

Ok, Maybe I don´t understand.. But it is ONLY the final boss on HEROIC mode that will have limited attempts. So in order for those álts´ to be used, those alts will all have to progress completely through heroic mode AND have decent enough gear to give valuable feedback for their mains.

So let´s take two guilds

1. Guild 1 will do as you say, they will take weeks and weeks gearing up 3-4 alts per player... getting all 3 alts to the point where all of the alts can clear the entire heroic dungeon in one week. Then on their ´money´week, they will use 30 attempts on 3 alts, before using using their mains?

2. Guild 2 will clear heroic mode on their mains, and then spend an hour between attempts on the bonus boss to plan as much strategy as possible.

I think people are confusing this with WOTLK, because in WOTLK those alts were getting limited attempts on every boss along the way. So at every stage the alts were providing help and feedback (and getting geared up). In this case, all that time spent with the alts will be wasted until ´money´week and they will be providing no real information to help the mains while they other bosses are being killed.

I think those guilds that try to have 3-4 alts geared up enough to put viable attempts on the last boss will lose out to guilds that do a lot of theory crafting and strategizing between attempts on their main. We are talking about a very long tier and those alts will all have to be clearing every boss before they can even attempt the bonus boss each week.

We will see how it plays out.. but people need to stop using WOTLK as an example because in that model, alt raids were signficantely more useful than they will be when it is only the final boss that has limited attempts.

[Noxina]

Perhaps it was better, since everyone was clueless and completely reliant on others.
Yay, forced smiles!

And the fact that if you where rude against other players you wouldnt get in any groups for dungeons, premade BGs or raids. As no one wanted rude people, ninjas or other scum of the WoW community. That thing dissapeared with LFD, LFR, LFBG and all the auto queue shit.

That change to ret 4set pvp bonus sounds good though!

[Nathiest]

Ret. OMFG! Thats it, I'm out.

[Mrisacc]

Please explain how lowering the CD on Avenging Wrath in PvP is supposed to help ret paladins... the only people that will help will be mages.

Want to explain yourself? Avenging wrath hasn't been dispellable since 5.0. So lowering the CD on it will help a bit I would assume.

[Azrile]

And the fact that if you where rude against other players you wouldnt get in any groups for dungeons, premade BGs or raids. As no one wanted rude people, ninjas or other scum of the WoW community. That thing dissapeared with LFD, LFR, LFBG and all the auto queue shit.

That change to ret 4set pvp bonus sounds good though!

All it did was created a lot of petty ´he said - she said´ type squabbles. Yeah, if you were in a guild group of 4 and needed a 5th, someone may have been excluded if you said they were a ninja or something like that. But if you were in a random group of 4 and invited a 5th and they ninja´d you in the past, more than likely the 3 people with you wouldn´t care.

And then there was the trade-chat accusations.. wow, those were great too. A person losses a roll, then takes to the airwaves to call another player a ninja for 30 mins.. ´ don´t group with JoeG´.... blah blah blah.. come to find out it wasn´t a ninja at all, just someone who thought everyone was going to pass because it was a ´huge upgrade for me´..

People act like other players had this huge list of ´players with bad repuations´ type database, where your morality was instantly updated based on your performance in a given dungeon. There was nothing like that, and most of the time the screaming in trade chat was just a person who lost a legitimate roll. And if someone did ninja from you and you broadcast in trade, then people will say ´dude, it is lvl 20 gear, no big dea´.. etc etc.

But really the bigger point is there is not any more ninjaing now then there was then. Ninjaing is not rampent now (without server reputations) and it certainly wasn´t non-existent back then. The only time I have really seen a LOT of ninjaing was in the previous LFR, but that was mostly players trying to help guildmates (and thus rolling on things they did not need).

[Ferrouswheel]

It's adorable that they're trying to say Lei will be the final boss. World first will be Ra, no matter how "epic" they say Lei is. Also about the day/night thing, pitch black or nothing. So what if it's hard to see mobs at night? That's the way it's supposed to be and adds danger.

[Deleted]

So tired of the "optional" argument. Ra-den is about as optional as Megaera, which is to say, completely optional.

really ? and have you a source ? didnt read it anywhere

[Shaley]

It's adorable that they're trying to say Lei will be the final boss. World first will be Ra, no matter how "epic" they say Lei is. Also about the day/night thing, pitch black or nothing. So what if it's hard to see mobs at night? That's the way it's supposed to be and adds danger.

Eh. Malchezaar was the final boss of Kara, not Nightbane. Yogg was the final boss, not Algalon. No matter the public perception, these bosses were "optional". Put your hands back on your keyboard, don't rage. Any raider worth anything will attempt to kill all available bosses, thus making every boss mandatory. BUT in those two instances, they were optional bosses that were unlocked after completing the raid. Each was located half way through.

The difference here is Ra-Den is located after Thunderking. Just as Sinestra was included after Cho'gall. In these two cases, these "optional" bosses feel more like a true end-boss. If they wanted to get this "bonus boss" mindset across, they would've thrown him in halfway through the raid like Algalon. But due to Lore purposes, they couldn't do that.

There isn't really a point to this post, I just wanted to type. Cheers.

---------- Post added 2013-02-16 at 07:00 PM ----------

really ? and have you a source ? didnt read it anywhere

He means the entire instance is optional, as in, you don't have to play. Put your trollin' shoes away.

[Natureseer]

i have a feeling he doesnt actually have 45+ items on his loot table

[Captaincrab]

Really surprised about this statement. This did encourage alts with same class and almost identical gear. What they didn't mention was the griefing and sabotaging attempts which was quite rampant especially among high end guilds. It's not that guilds can't trust each other but, say if rivals unexpectedly were in the same raid "Hi Galleon/Sha/World Bosses!" then there goes all those attempts.

I don't remember the vast majority FOR this idea. Heck some back then, guilds ended up quitting if Blizzard continued this model of limited attempts.

Last Resort a fine example - http://www.lrguild.org/forum/viewtopic.php?id=6347

If you manage to pull 30 attempts with someone in your raid sabotaging and you can't catch it. You probably don't deserve world first.

There are extreme examples of some players being DDOSed during attempts. That's about as far as sabotaging could go... and anyone who is that serious about the game, can figure out ways to protect themselves.

As for alt runs... The time it would take to gear up and tune two identical raids past 12/13 heroic just to get to the bonus boss. Is so long, that the time is likely better invested just theorycrafting. Some people DID initially do just that to get more practice on things like normal putricide. The commitment to do that, vs killing an entire tier on heroic with alts isn't even in the same ballpark.

The limited attempts won't even affect 99.9% of players, and I'm not just talking about players not seeing the fight, I'm talking about the number of players that will actually see the fight and actually want more than 30 attempts on it in a given raid lockout.

At that point I think putting in 30 or more wipes on a single boss in a week, isn't even quite progression anymore. It's a weird mix of bruteforcing and hoping the RNG on a probably flawed strategy turns out perfect. For example, by cutting the amount of healers and hoping the RNG on an attempt is so good it won't really matter. It's not entirely even skill, it's who can maintain a full running raid the longest.

[lunethzero]

To be honest, this is not going to solve the ret problem :/

[ElfinHilon10]

God I'm so sick and tired of these people who are complaining about class homogenization... The classes are the most unique they have ever been in years..