Raiding needs to be less hardcore

[psyquest]

I get your point, maybe there would be 5 alts instead of 2. But the "grind AP or warm the bench" mentality is happening in average mythic guilds as well.

You are inflating the problem.

I play in a 3 night raid guild. Cleaning mythic.
The expectation is to play regurarly to keep your neck up to speed. Meaning? No farming. Just do your shit and you ll be ok. Basically it boilds down to doing 4 quests for emissary intelligently > do 4 quests that gives AP. No quest with AP available > wait next day > repeat.

We expect people to do 1 mythic+ 10 every week.
We expect like other guilds, that you play well your class (one, no alts required), dont die to dumb shit.

All this might be hardcore to some, but I feel it is rather light.

[Gatto]

You are inflating the problem.

I play in a 3 night raid guild. Cleaning mythic.
The expectation is to play regurarly to keep your neck up to speed. Meaning? No farming. Just do your shit and you ll be ok. Basically it boilds down to doing 4 quests for emissary intelligently > do 4 quests that gives AP. No quest with AP available > wait next day > repeat.

We expect people to do 1 mythic+ 10 every week.
We expect like other guilds, that you play well your class (one, no alts required), dont die to dumb shit.

All this might be hardcore to some, but I feel it is rather light.

That's a fine alternative.

1x character
1x mythic 10+ ( 30min x week )
1x Attendance ( Y hours per X days per week ), so maybe from 3/4 to 9/12 hours per week.

The problems could just be that Rushing Azerite when the new season starts ( or if you plan to just increase it by doing raids and weekly m+, it could be slower than intended ) could need you more time, or eventually, if you don't plan to bend to azerite farm, put yourself in a bad spot for your raid ( in terms of performances ). Eventually you could/should help with catch up by doing wf daily quests ( or at least part of em ).

[Blackmist]

We do need that gradual ramping up of power that they added for ICC (and it does make a comeback from time to time). This tier it's not here.

The problem is that most of us aren't really good enough for Mythic raiding, but getting 20 people together is enough of a challenge that they give you a boss or two as an intro. And then you hit a wall a few bosses in. Gear is such that most of us aren't really going to get better after a few weeks. M+ and titanforging means that you run out quickly or options to get better gear. We've been playing for 14 years. Many of us are as good as we're going to get. Getting worse if anything.

With nothing to nudge us over a wall every few weeks, we've been sat on Oppulence for months. 150+ pulls, all of the fact that it takes too long to get to the boss and if we do, most of us are dead. Eventually we can't get a raid together at all (because nobody really wants to spend another 3 hours making the same mistakes we've been making for 20 hours already), people stop playing. Enough stop, and it's hard for the rest to start again, even when new content comes out. There's only so many fucks it's possible to give. Retail is on borrowed time with raiders right now.

[Ozyorkbourne]

It's not fun when you're forced to do it.



It doesn't matter what you think, it's what matters to the raid/guild lead

His guild could be rank 450,000 in the world, if his lead says 5 alts max necks, then it's 5 alts max necks.

1) No one's forcing anyone. No one has a gun to anyone's head. He can literally refuse and/or leave any time he wants.

2) It does matter what the guild thinks, because if a leader says something and 19 people refuse, good luck. Even top 100 guilds often only need 1 alt if that, many of the top 300s don't bother with any of that nonsense except for some alt raid fun and they certainly aren't going to be forcing people to get max neck on 1+ character.

It feels like everyone who makes these posts or chimes in has either never raided at a high level or only been in 1 high level guild, never seen the expectations of other guilds at this level.

There are already less hardcore options, they're called LFR, normal and heroic. Mythic raiding doesn't need to change, people need to accept their limitations and if they can't commit the time to mythic raiding or cba with the effort, simply don't raid it.

[stenbumling89]

I don't mind playing a lot but frankly doing WQ's to stay on curve with AP is awful design and it only impacts high level raiders so I can't understand why Blizzard implements such a system

[Atraxxa]

Like the title says, raiding nowadays is too hardcore and time consuming. Many my old guildmates have quit raiding because the effort it needs every single tier.
Last two expansions the insane farming required for artifact power grinding is outrageous AND consumable farming in top of that.
I'm fine with gearing 2 raid ready alts if there would be no AP.

The raiding scene must go back to its root where you didn't have this insane mandatory AP grinding to stay competitive. I have raided hardcore every single expansion excluding vanilla and this expansion is the first one where I seriously think going casual, and I'm not the only one.

e: my suggestion would be making actual raid bosses harder at launch of tier, don't make first 80% of bosses loot pinatas. Force guilds to smash their heads on first bosses as well, but maybe make it so bosses drop more loot so it doesn't hurt average guilds in overall progress. I'm fine with longer tiers if there would be no AP grinding every single tier.

Isn't this what LFG raiding was designed for?

[Swnem]

That title is getting you flamed, no doubt.

Yes, AP should die in a horrible fire.

But, i don't think that is all. I think the way raids are delivered needs to change aswell. We need smaller raids, but with more releases.

So, for example instead of have a 9 boss raid drop and that being it for 6 months, i argue we shoud have a 5 boss raid and 3 months later a 4 boss raid.

This would mean that every 3 months you'd have 4 more bosses to kill and interest would stay eaked. Cause people just get bored of farming and real life makes it very difficult to commit so many hours a week to raid.

Also, it would be great if the number of difficulties were slashed alongside mythic, wich should become challenge mode.achievement. Bump the difficulty of normal and heroic and remove lfr. Yes, this does mean that a bigger commitment to guilds would be necessary to see raids, wich is what is necessary cause guilds are dying cause raiding is dying.

Well, it's one sugestion afterall, cause if it were up to me, it would be just one difficulty level with challenge modes on top ala Ulduar.

[Lyaira]

Actually, raiding needs to be more hardcore to solve the issues you are complaining about.

It is all the casual catch-up mechanics that are ruining your experience and the experience for everyone who likes to compete.
Neck level, weekly m+ chest, weekly pvp chest, residuum farm, random titanforge procs etc. are all catch-up mechanics intended to give casual players gradual power spikes by doing trivial, easy, but time consuming content, until they can eventually complete the content that only the most hardcore players are able to do.

However, these catch-up mechanics backfire, as it just adds more activities that hardcore players have to do, in order to compete. Instead of reducing the gap between hardcore and casual player, the catch-up mechanics just widen the gap, as hardcore guilds - in order to gain ever decreasing advantages - set ridiculously high aims for residuum and AP farming as an example. This in return forces Blizzard to increase the difficulty of the raids to match the character strength in high end guilds. You can't blame guilds for setting these high aims, it is just natural in competitions to gain whatever advantage you can get. The issue is that these mechanics are there in the first place.

Imagine a game with no warforge/titanforging, no sockets, no free welfare loot from weekly chests, all azerite traits automatically unlocked. There would be a lot less ways to optimize your character before and during a raid tier, so the prerequisites for being a hardcore player would be lower. More guilds would be able to enter the race at more fair terms. Let the raid be about skills and strategical decisions, not about who spent the most time farming residuum and AP (looking at you Method ). That's how mythic raiding becomes obtainable for more players.

Lyaira <Pieces>

[Popastique]

Like the title says, raiding nowadays is too hardcore and time consuming. Many my old guildmates have quit raiding because the effort it needs every single tier.
Last two expansions the insane farming required for artifact power grinding is outrageous AND consumable farming in top of that.
I'm fine with gearing 2 raid ready alts if there would be no AP.

The raiding scene must go back to its root where you didn't have this insane mandatory AP grinding to stay competitive. I have raided hardcore every single expansion excluding vanilla and this expansion is the first one where I seriously think going casual, and I'm not the only one.

e: my suggestion would be making actual raid bosses harder at launch of tier, don't make first 80% of bosses loot pinatas. Force guilds to smash their heads on first bosses as well, but maybe make it so bosses drop more loot so it doesn't hurt average guilds in overall progress. I'm fine with longer tiers if there would be no AP grinding every single tier.

If you are feeling that forced to grind AP in your guild - find a guild that does not have such harsh requirements, end of story.

[Battlebeard]

I think they need to balance out the raid bosses difficulty. The first boss(es) are too easy and the last ones are too hard. If the first boss has a difficulty of 1 and the last 5, instead, make all difficulty 3. It truly sucks trying to pug lets say HC BoD, and clear 3-4 bosses, MAYBE 5 and GODLIKE pugs clear King rastakan, but NO PUG clear the last 3.

Make the tactics equal (equally difficult) but different.

Also overall, Normal and Heroics difficulty could be tuned down. Normal was suppose to be the new name for Flex mode we had in MoP, but it's much harder. And Heroic was the new name for old Normal, which is now also MUCH harder than old normal.

[Hey There Guys its Metro]

You are choosing to make this hardcore.
You don't get to complain about how hardcore being hardcore is.
You don't need multiple alts and your main grinding AP before the raid comes up.
This type of thing gets done over time much easier so there should be no rush for this.

Furthermore, the reason the AP grind was so "bad" this time around is being removed.
I suppose try hard guilds will still start going nuts for it as soon as the patch launches, but there is really no reason for it.

Unless you are raiding around the clock those opening weeks, just do the grinding after the raid opens in the new content.
If at any point you are burning yourself out over a tier that isn't out yet and you aren't enjoying doing it, that's your fault, not Blizzards.

[RaZz0r]

I would not say less hardcore high end raiding needs to be more rewarding and more worth the time and effort you put in.
The only "real" reward you get for pushing mythic raiding is one mount to one out of 20 raiders each time you kill the end boss.
Sometimes not even that which was the case with uldir along with a really mediocre at best title which almost no one will see cause most players has friendly names turned off.

The gear rewards are basically pointless with the forge system along with "catch up" which essentially gives free HC and above level raid loot.
For basically doing fuck all making spending thousands of gold on consumables along with weeks or months of working on a boss.
That will end up giving you nothing worth while nothing to work towards as there is no such thing as BiS gear.

And even if bis gear existed there would be no insensitive to farm the gear and grow your character as each new content patch.
Brings pretty much a brand new expansion level of gear reset giving you better gear from content you can easily smash threw.
And replace all that gear within a week or two of minimum effort content making all that time and gold wasted.

And yes while its been like that for quite some time its much worse in BFA that its even been because there is so much loot from so many sources.
the game practically showers you in high end gear for low end effort the moment the patch hits.

I personally preferred linear raid progression that we had in TBC as you worked your character up the raiding ranks becoming slowly stronger over time but always with a clear goal that you could work towards and reach if you put in the time and effort to do so.
Sure there was a problem with guild hoppers but they would quickly gain a reputation of being a guild hopper along with the fact is possible to look up the past guild history of a player making it pretty easy to avoid them during guild recruitment.

As for players hating having to " gear up " new members in "old" content was not really a thing most guilds would ether just " boost " new members threw the content they where currently doing to gear them up.
Or they would do trail runs with alts in one tier below that they where currently working on making it beneficial for both members and the recruit.
Hell sometimes the "old" content still had some bis items in it or which was sometimes the case the increase in stats from the higher items would potentially open up new bis potential when combined with gear from the past tier making past content never really irrelevant in a real sense.
Not because old content now has a bigger price pool of the slot machine and you might get lucky and get a forge with a socket.
Or because it gives another arbitrary resource that might give you a slight chance to do more random damage or healing.

[bullseyed]

Like the title says, raiding nowadays is too hardcore and time consuming. Many my old guildmates have quit raiding because the effort it needs every single tier.
Last two expansions the insane farming required for artifact power grinding is outrageous AND consumable farming in top of that.
I'm fine with gearing 2 raid ready alts if there would be no AP.

The raiding scene must go back to its root where you didn't have this insane mandatory AP grinding to stay competitive. I have raided hardcore every single expansion excluding vanilla and this expansion is the first one where I seriously think going casual, and I'm not the only one.

e: my suggestion would be making actual raid bosses harder at launch of tier, don't make first 80% of bosses loot pinatas. Force guilds to smash their heads on first bosses as well, but maybe make it so bosses drop more loot so it doesn't hurt average guilds in overall progress. I'm fine with longer tiers if there would be no AP grinding every single tier.

There is no hardcore AP grind. Anyone who claims there is is trash. LFR is already the game mode for you.

[Huzzaa]

It's not the perception of difficulty.

In my opinion, it's the fucked up reward system on every level. Plus the gearing system as a whole on top of that. The abundance of loot and the RNG nature of obtaining traits. (The casino slot machine gets extremely annoying for everyone after a little while. The constant nature of it, never ending)

The greatest example I can take out of recent memory is the lack of desire to kill Mythic whatever the 2 boss raid was for us. There's another reason why we're not going but primarily it's the lack of any meaningful rewards. +5 ilvls on some random trash you know you will replace in a week of M+ in the new patch is serious turnoff.

And we are Hall of Fame Jaina, top 40 Alliance.

[bullseyed]

What AP grind? Im playing casually, clearing m+10 every week for a chest, 3 mythic IE every week + daily emissary ( 4 WQ) and spontaneous activities of other kind when I have time/feel like it (bgs, weekly quests, invasions etc.). I dont raid at all (did LFR once for story and campaign quests).

I'VE BEEN SITTING ON LVL 50 NECK FOR A MONTH NOW

Where is that hardcore ap grind you are talking about??? Playibg the game is "too hardcore" now??

Not to mention that last couple of neck ilvl give you nothing more than a bit of neglible stats. Wont fucking make or break you on the meters, or affect your raiding progress, I guarantee you that.

He's just LFR trash that wandered from Fortnite into the wrong game.

- - - Updated - - -

It's not fun when you're forced to do it.

Perhaps the mods here could help you out by banning your mmo-c account, so you don't "feel" so "forced" to do stuff anymore.

[Video Games]

I would only say for them to stop making end bosses take 300+ pulls

[Zantera]

To me the difference in the early days of WoW vs now is that the hours you spent weekly back then grinding gold (whether you farmed for mats to sell or daily quests) just to cover repair/consumables for raids/enchants/gems is now being spent on game features. Whether it's the 3 mythic islands you need to cap in a week or doing an emissary, or whatever else. Funding consumables and repairs isn't really an issue anymore (other than at expansion launches because mats are at their highest value) so all that time you spent on grinding just so you could raid is now time you get to spend on actual game activities. It's not like you have to invest more time now than back in the day.

[ID811717]

It truly sucks trying to pug lets say HC BoD, and clear 3-4 bosses, MAYBE 5 and GODLIKE pugs clear King rastakan, but NO PUG clear the last 3.

There were 9/9HC pugs on the release week, clearing it with average raid ilvl below 390. Some pug groups clear 7/9M and 8/9M these days.

[Oftenwrongsoong]

Like the title says, raiding nowadays is too hardcore and time consuming.

Are you serious?

Is he serious?

[agentsi]

I get your point, maybe there would be 5 alts instead of 2. But the "grind AP or warm the bench" mentality is happening in average mythic guilds as well.

No its not.

My guild is 5/9, and very close to getting Rastakhan, and we have some people with necks still in their lower to mid 40s. We raid one night a week, most of us are 30+ with kids, etc so we can't raid 3-4 nights and are for the most part, extremely casual. No one has alts to fill spots or anything like that. You just need to find a guild that doesn't require that shit. If you're barely 3/9 this tier, its because your friends are bad at this game, not because raiding is too hardcore.