Thoughts to make old raids within an expansion relevant.

[Killchain]

Probably a terrible idea. But....shower thoughts....here we go.

Im going to use shadowlands made up raids and made up item levels as an example

Raid 1 releases ( Castle Nathria or whatever )
Tier set for classes are in this raid.
Ilvl 100
Drops helm chest legs and shoulders
Has 2 set and 4 set bonus

Raid 2 releases in patch x.2 ( Bastion crypts or whatever )
Drops tokens to upgrade helm chest legs and shoulders from ilvl 100 to ilvl 125 ( numbers are estimate )
Tier set now has 6 set bonus
Raid also drops ilvl 125 gloves and boots to round out 6 pieces of tier set.

Raid 3 release in patch x.3 ( Ardenweald Thicket or whatever )
Drops tokens to upgrade helm chest legs shoulders gloves and boots from ilvl 125 to ilvl 150
Set now has 8 set bonus
Raid drops ring and wrists to round out 8 pieces of the set.

Tried poking holes in the idea.
How would it work for PvP would set be disabled or do we let PvP'ers be sad
Do m+'ers and PvP'ers get their own sets?
Thoughts?

[Mic_128]

I'd rather not have to still be running the first raid because my classes best trinket comes from it.

I'm all for keeping older raids relevant, but that can be done with daily/weekly quests, or having something like Legendaries/currency drop from those raids, or quest chains that require boss drops.

[Jazzhands]

Probably a terrible idea. But....shower thoughts....here we go.

Im going to use shadowlands made up raids and made up item levels as an example

Raid 1 releases ( Castle Nathria or whatever )
Tier set for classes are in this raid.
Ilvl 100
Drops helm chest legs and shoulders
Has 2 set and 4 set bonus

Raid 2 releases in patch x.2 ( Bastion crypts or whatever )
Drops tokens to upgrade helm chest legs and shoulders from ilvl 100 to ilvl 125 ( numbers are estimate )
Tier set now has 6 set bonus
Raid also drops ilvl 125 gloves and boots to round out 6 pieces of tier set.

Raid 3 release in patch x.3 ( Ardenweald Thicket or whatever )
Drops tokens to upgrade helm chest legs shoulders gloves and boots from ilvl 125 to ilvl 150
Set now has 8 set bonus
Raid drops ring and wrists to round out 8 pieces of the set.

Tried poking holes in the idea.
How would it work for PvP would set be disabled or do we let PvP'ers be sad
Do m+'ers and PvP'ers get their own sets?
Thoughts?

People simply don't want to run old raids to have to gear up, even if it's only a patch behind. Locking current content behind weeks of old content sucks.

[ElsaHosk]

No thanks. I can barely find the motivation to enter old raids and one shot things for transmog.

[Razion]

[...]
Tried poking holes in the idea.
How would it work for PvP would set be disabled or do we let PvP'ers be sad
Do m+'ers and PvP'ers get their own sets?
Thoughts?

Effects like we saw in Azshara tier where every version of the armor had effects relevant to their own raid to make them more powerful in PvE endgame progression, with the upgrades in each tier replacing or adding on new power auras for the new raid. (ie: set bonus gives you % damage/healing/damage-prevention in 1st raid, when upgraded to 2nd tier also gives same for that raid, and so on.) The same could also be extended for M+: M+ dungeons drop their own pieces of gear for their own dungeon sets with their own set bonuses for more power in all of that patch's content. Further upgrades in new tiers/seasons of M+ further that bonus as the low and high end of the dungeon power increases with the new tier release. The same can also be done for PvP: with PvP sets granting set bonuses that make them more powerful in arena/bgs and so on, being upgraded every season and so on. One way to compromise on players who don't want to catch up via old tiers could be this: players who have the old tier may find getting tokens easier. You could still get raw drops of the new upgraded tier version of the old set without setting foot in old content, it may just have a slightly lower acquisition rate or in the case of the end of progression such as mythic raiding, highest lv keys, or really high season ranking, you would get those acquisitions easier to combat that.

[Narwhalosh Whalescream]

It'd cost us a raid tier.

[Nevcairiel]

If you're an active raider, you get 6 months per raid tier. There is zero interest in keeping running the previous tier longer then that.

I feel like all these suggestions are from people that pop in and pop out of the game, instead of playing continuously and progressing properly - because noone that fully progressed a raid wants to keep going there longer then those 5-6 months per tier. Its people that want to come back in the last 4 months of an expansion and then try to experience the full content that want this - noone else.

I suggest to keep that in mind in your suggestions. Active raiders have no interest to keep going to the old raids - and that includes having to go there to gear up a new recruit or whatever. Any suggestions should make people *want* to go there, not force them by making gear exclusive so you have someone to run with.

Upgrading gear throughout the entire expansion, with the base only available from previous raids, is a horrible system for actually active raiding guilds. You'll never be done because you have to recruit, which means you have to keep running those old places. Its not like you can just drag a low-gear player along and they'll eventually get gear, no its impossible without actually running those old raids. Hard NO.

[Twdft]

Probably a terrible idea. But....shower thoughts....here we go.

Yeah, it is.

Quick question: how much time do you have?

When a raid is new most guilds probably raid 2 days until they have it on farm and reduce to 1 day. Now you want to run the first raid when the second raid is there. OK, 2 days for the new raid and 1 day farming the old (which everyone has seen already and got all the excitement out of it the first time). Third raid is out, 2 + 1 + 1 day with half the time running outdated content. How many people do you think are still in your guild when the fourth raid releases and you spend 2 + 1 + 1 + 1 three days in old content?

[Hinastorm]

Yeah, it is.

Quick question: how much time do you have?

When a raid is new most guilds probably raid 2 days until they have it on farm and reduce to 1 day. Now you want to run the first raid when the second raid is there. OK, 2 days for the new raid and 1 day farming the old (which everyone has seen already and got all the excitement out of it the first time). Third raid is out, 2 + 1 + 1 day with half the time running outdated content. How many people do you think are still in your guild when the fourth raid releases and you spend 2 + 1 + 1 + 1 three days in old content?

A ton of people will be doing this in classic once AQ is available on all servers, for what it's worth.

Older content being relevant gives people more to do. Weather that is bad or not is up for discussion.

[MrLachyG]

A ton of people will be doing this in classic once AQ is available on all servers, for what it's worth.

Older content being relevant gives people more to do. Weather that is bad or not is up for discussion.

Except you can probably clear all 3 old raids in Classic in a single night

[Dead Moose Fandango]

Ew. And then we'd also have one less set of transmog to collect. Not counting the different difficulty recolors.

[shise]

People simply don't want to run old raids to have to gear up, even if it's only a patch behind. Locking current content behind weeks of old content sucks.

No.. In BC you had guilds competing in progress though PAST raid patches. When some of us were on BT progression, SSC was still progress for many other guilds. It was fun, and I (and MANY others) loved having to go back into SSC to get that ring which would help you out with BT.
Come the weekend, so many of us where pugging with other guilds to go to past raids, cause most people still could use some stuff from there.

It made it awesome. You always had at least a couple of raids you needed, even if from a past tier... Mainly thanks to tier sets being spread, as it should be. And no personal loot stupidity Loot master should be the way to go. Maybe allow the option of personal loot for pugs to stop drama. In a guild run, loot should be distributed by the members, with DKP or priority rules, performance based, whatever they decide.

The problem is that now when a patch comes, there is literally no meaning on going back. Current gear is ridiculously stronger than a bit older one.

[ReVnX]

TBC got it right.

[dcc626]

people absolutely hate borrowed power.

people abslutely love tier sets.

/smh

[ReVnX]

Well..this is where opinions come in. I raided progressively back then and sure we jumped through all the hoops. I hated to have to go back through all raids with new recruits and there were no PUG raids that helped you attune. Raids stayed mainly relevant because you needed to go through the attunement process with new players.

Also pretty much killed the chance of ever getting an alt to raid. At least on my server. Maybe people here were on some super-duper awesome server where you constantly had PuG raids that helped each other out.

Also TBC had catch up gear with Isle of QD - so...I guess since we still have catch up gear...if TBC did that right...it still is right.

I was raiding in two guilds back in TBC. In one I was progressing through BT and the other Gruul, Lurker, Void Reaver, just starting with Tier5. The release of BT didn't invalidate all previous raids. People had to progress through them.

Btw, Quel'danas catch up gear came at the end of the Expansion with Sunwell

[kranur]

I'd rather not have to still be running the first raid because my classes best trinket comes from it.

I'm all for keeping older raids relevant, but that can be done with daily/weekly quests, or having something like Legendaries/currency drop from those raids, or quest chains that require boss drops.

This. It's fine if they find a way to keep old raids relevant for new players or alts instead of skipping straight to current raid. But having to farm a raid that you've already been in and out a lot for those 1-2 items is not.

[Twdft]

TBC got it right.

If you were in front of everyone else it was OK.

But if you were behind the curve you constantly lost players to replace quitters infront of you, you poached players behind you. Everyone had to equip/attune new players. As soon as a couple people quit for whatever reason you have a shitshow cascade through the guilds.

[ReVnX]

If you were in front of everyone else it was OK.

But if you were behind the curve you constantly lost players to replace quitters infront of you, you poached players behind you. Everyone had to equip/attune new players. As soon as a couple people quit for whatever reason you have a shitshow cascade through the guilds.

I played both ends; Server first guild and a newer guild 1.5 tiers behind.

I admit I did not play the middle, so I do not know how that was.

[Dakhath]

I remember having to run Kara all xpac during BC for easy badges and catch up for new raid members. It was awful, no thank you.

[exochaft]

It's quite okay to let old content die. Originally, WoW was not about finding reasons to go back to old content once you got what you needed, as content was designed to be great experiences you can move on from. It is mentally draining for players for content to not have a definitive end, which is probably why systems like WF/TFing turned off many players over time. Number one complaint I've had from friends and guildmates when they leave WoW is that they're tried of having treadmill content and infinite grinds, and they usually recall fondly of early expansions when you could be legitimately done with content. I honestly think WoW would have way more long-term retention if content was designed to be less about busy work and keeping you in the game and more about creating great moments that you can experience and move on from.