Were attunements necessary from a Dev standpoint.

[AestostheInsane]

So I was thinking about it, and the difference in how fast content is blown through today in comparison with say Vanilla TBC times... and my question is, were attunements kind of a necessary evil from a dev standpoint?

now hear me out... I think if you look back through vanilla/tbc the content releases were more on par timewise BY A LOT than they are now... and while I agree they could definately make attunement more interesting than they previously did (and I think they should have just changed it instead of wiping it out) I think it was a more viable option of slowing down content than just gating and saying hey you can't do this content until next week. Nobody liked the dungeon rep grind, but if they could make it more epic questline WITHOUT A REP GRIND, then perhaps they could slow down progression enough, in a fun way, that their content would last a bit longer than it is and we wouldn't be stuck with things like DS and SoO being hung onto for a year before anything else comes out as is currently happening.

Thoughts?

[AestostheInsane]

In TBC they required one at least, else people would've been killing bosses in Mount Hyjal before ever setting foot in SSC or TK.

Keep in mind there was also a lack of other ways to get gear, that in itself was an attunement, no Valor Epics, or Timeless Isle... you kind of had to take progression steps. I've no complaints about the way things are now, or then, though I preferred then because hey, taking a little longer to get to the content made it feel less like longing on and doing dailies (which is what I feel current raiding is towards the end of x-pacs)

[Deleted]

In TBC they required one at least, else people would've been killing bosses in Mount Hyjal before ever setting foot in SSC or TK.

The dungeon attunement process to get into Karazhan and SSC or TK was quite nice to me too, it prevented people from skipping content too fast (5man dungeons) and just throwing themselves unto raiding without paying attention to anything else. It must be pointed out that WoW had a different design philosophy back then though, it still was a game in which you were expected to spend a few hours every week just on farming mats for raiding consumables.

i.e not a facebook game

[ItachiZaku]

I preferred it back then, but it was a progressive thing as others have mentioned.

[Pull My Finger]

The pros and cons of attunements have been talked to death at this point, really. And I don't know why people keep bringing this up especially since Blizzard explained their reasons for removing them long ago, in a perfectly comprehensible manner. The big downside of attunements was the fact that they made catching up extremely difficult, which in turn led to a lot of guild hopping and poaching.

[Lothaeryn]

The pros and cons of attunements have been talked to death at this point, really. And I don't know why people keep bringing this up especially since Blizzard explained their reasons for removing them long ago, in a perfectly comprehensible manner. The big downside of attunements was the fact that they made catching up extremely difficult, which in turn led to a lot of guild hopping and poaching.

As much as I agree, the same argument has an easy solution: Account Bound Attunements.

You should at least complete an attunement once, not skip half of the content at level cap and start raiding and blow through them later out of sequence.

[Pull My Finger]

As much as I agree, the same argument has an easy solution: Account Bound Attunements.

How so? We're not talking about alts.

[blackblade]

The pros and cons of attunements have been talked to death at this point, really. And I don't know why people keep bringing this up especially since Blizzard explained their reasons for removing them long ago, in a perfectly comprehensible manner. The big downside of attunements was the fact that they made catching up extremely difficult, which in turn led to a lot of guild hopping and poaching.

Conceptually, they were a tool to gauge player progress (specifically in thier "prime" during TBC.) and less about gating in terms of time.

For example, Most attunements could be completed in a day's work (compared to games like Wildstar which have actual time-based locks)

You could easily do everything you needed to do to get into MC in a single BRD run. You could easily do everything you needed to do in a single UBRS run to get into BWL. You could (less easily) do everything you needed to do to get into Onyxia's lair in a day or so.

It was less about spending lockouts-upon-lockouts somehow "proving" that you're worthy, and more to serve as a hurdle to entry.

Getting attuned in TBC wasn't much different. It wasn't so much a time constraint but more just a matter of hurdles.


The problem was that it was required to attune and gear and attune and gear and attune to get a new player "up to speed" with the rest of his/her guild. Often, "Attunement" quests weren't labeled differently from regular quests whatsoever, players who didn't quest didn't know where to start, and they forced running instances in uncommon ways that generally didn't really work in benefit for the other 4 players of a given group.

[fixx]

Thoughts?

Attunements are the most idiotic way of slowing down content consumption since they didn't actually slow down the world first guilds at all. What attunements hurt the worst was mediocre and bad guilds.

That is why attunements were removed, and that is why attunements are never coming back.


Raids were cleared slower in vanilla and TBC because players were worse, played less hours and the game was incredibly buggy. Half of TBC raid bosses at launch were either unkillable, totally mistuned or otherwise bugged unplayable. In vanilla C'thun was bugged and unkillable for months before Blizzard fixed it (and died within 2 hours of the patch) meanwhile in MoP Blizzard is hotfixing bosses on spot when world first guilds are fighting those (Thok). That is why raid completion is getting faster, attunements has got nothing to do with it.

[AestostheInsane]

Attunements are the most idiotic way of slowing down content consumption since they didn't actually slow down the world first guilds at all. What attunements hurt the worst was mediocre and bad guilds.

That is why attunements were removed, and that is why attunements are never coming back.


Raids were cleared slower in vanilla and TBC because players were worse, played less hours and the game was incredibly buggy. Half of TBC raid bosses at launch were either unkillable, totally mistuned or otherwise bugged unplayable. In vanilla C'thun was bugged and unkillable for months before Blizzard fixed it (and died within 2 hours of the patch) meanwhile in MoP Blizzard is hotfixing bosses on spot when world first guilds are fighting those (Thok). That is why raid completion is getting faster, attunements has got nothing to do with it.

Lol? seriously? The rosters on guilds like Paragon, Ensidia and the likes never changed? are you calling them junk TBC guilds? They were worse? and when in TBC was all raid content downed within 24hours of release. Progression guilds all made note of this when Ensidia downed everything in LK within 24 hours of release.

Also I think youd notice the difference with attunements nowadays, with places like Timeless Isle, and Valor Epics being added than you did back then. I'm pretty sure it slowed down content more than you think it did. I remember following top guild for weeks as opposed to hours.

[fixx]

The rosters on guilds like Paragon, Ensidia and the likes never changed?

How's that relevant?

are you calling them junk TBC guilds? They were worse?

Check out Buzzkill's blogs in manaflask. He says pretty clearly that a lot of players in Ensidia were bad.

and when in TBC was all raid content downed within 24hours of release.

It took less than two hours to kill first three bosses in Sunwell. The three before first gate. In Black Temple it was 5 bosses first raid day. Most of TBC raids were bugged or overtuned, so you didn't see that many 24h clears.

Progression guilds all made note of this when Ensidia downed everything in LK within 24 hours of release.

Naxx 2.0 is famous for being undertuned.

with places like Timeless Isle, and Valor Epics being added than you did back then.

How's that relevant? World first guilds don't need or use any of those.

I'm pretty sure it slowed down content more than you think it did.

Nope.
-Molten Core attunement was doable in 20 minutes.
-BWL attunement doable in 3 hours.
-Onyxia attunement doable in one day if you're crazy.
-Most raiders had Naxx attunement done on the launch day already by getting to exalted AD from Stratholme/Scholomance
-Kara attunement doable in about 2-3 hours
-SSC/TK attunements doable in day or two if you're crazy... After getting Magtheridon and Gruul on farm.
-MH/BT attunement doable in 1-3 days, depending on how fast you farm clear SSC/TK

None of those put serious dent in slowing down the clear times, it was bugs. Like Vashj and Kael bugged unkillable for a month.

I remember following top guild for weeks as opposed to hours.

You're remembering wrong. Median duration for world first race has remained the same two weeks from TBC to today. T6 for Nihilum was same two weeks as T16 for Method.

[Deleted]

Tiers lasted just as long then as they do now; they didn't have the content void at the end of the first two versions simply because there were four tiers to fill that time instead of three.

On the issue of attunments, I myself was very sorry to see them go as you end up missing out a huge chunk of storyline and the raid then means nothing beyond a series of challenges with loot at the end. However, I can also see that they are a problem for people taking up (or returning to) raiding partway through and expansion. I'd say a good compromise would be to have more raid quests (with epic items as rewards) which take you through the storyline.

[Radish Spirit]

The dungeon attunement process to get into Karazhan and SSC or TK was quite nice to me too, it prevented people from skipping content too fast (5man dungeons) and just throwing themselves unto raiding without paying attention to anything else.

In other words, completely unnecessary. We already have something to prevent people from raiding when they're not ready - it's called raid leaders who don't invite bads to runs.

Attunements were nothing but time sinks. Doing them didn't make people better players. Shitty raiders before attunements were still just as shitty after.

[nekobaka]

Attunements were nothing but time sinks. Doing them didn't make people better players. Shitty raiders before attunements were still just as shitty after.

With at times more story than the raid itself with a number of them being apart of tasks you should already be doing short of getting a carry. The whole game is nothing but a time sink. Not like you are getting asked to clear a daily hub for a month.

...says who?

Seriously, the social element and simply letting people play should always take precendence over ideas like this that promote segregation and timesinks just "because reasons".

Meanwhile we have multiple difficulties that segregate the population, modes which toss aside previous social elements, and there are still timesinks.

If you really want players to just play and kill time sinks then you remove stat based rewards, but that isnt going to happen in this game which uses gear as a means to get players to do content they dont enjoy.

[BurnetRhoades]

Also, who gives a flying flip about "world first guilds" or their retarded race to boredom?

Attunements were never hard. Anyone seriously set back by them shouldn't inflict themselves on more than four other people, if that. Lesser players will be challenged and get a sense of accomplishment and better players get to muscle through at their own pace without the ridiculously frustrating walls and arbitrary, artificial stoppers and silly caps Blizz designs in now.

Slowing the process down is very different than stopping it. Blizzard's current design is such there are plenty of players who basically only have motivation to play one or two days a week because they're hard capped for no other reason than "because reasons".

[Detheavn]

Attunements were pointless gating. Most of the quests were awesome, but it was still pointless.

[BurnetRhoades]

If attunements are pointless then so is leveling. Absolutely pointless. It's the very definition of "gating".

What's pointless is capping and hard gating and not allowing people to progress at their own pace. Attunements don't stop you. They're the highest level of chain quest that was ultimately more rewarding than almost any chain quest encountered while leveling (Wrathgate being a notable exception).

[fixx]

If attunements are pointless then so is leveling. Absolutely pointless. It's the very definition of "gating".

Nope. Leveling is content, attunement is blocking people from content. Back in vanilla and TBC when there were attunements most of the players didnt even reach level cap because they had more than enough content before it.

They're the highest level of chain quest that was ultimately more rewarding than almost any chain quest encountered while leveling (Wrathgate being a notable exception).

-Molten Core attunement rewarding? Touch a stone close to the end of BRD.
-BWL attunement rewarding? Loot item from endboss of UBRS (only one drop per kill, so you need to run it multiple times for whole group).
-Original Naxx attunement rewarding? Pay gold and mats to get in.
-SSC attunement rewarding? Kill two raid bosses that has got zero relevance to SSC (one of which isnt even on the same planet)
-TK attunement rewarding? Do what would be called achievement or challenge mode in four 5-man heroic instances and kill unrelated raid boss.

Most of the attunements were shit with very little relevance to the instance you're getting attuned to, and very little lore either. Onyxia quest (for alliance) was notable exception of good quest chain (and the horde version complete turd like all other attunements).