My view of how Blizzard could make starter content better.

[proga]

So, Blizzard had 2 goals:
1) let 90% of players to see all bosses in game
2) don't force hardcore players to leave the game

Imo, they could do it that way much better:
1) Replace some bosses in Naxx:
- Move Patchwerk to the end of Abomination wing
- Move Thaddius to Plague wing
2) Then make change to condition for gate opening to Sapph/KT:
- kill all bosses except last bosses in each wing
3) Include achievements to last bosses in each wing:
- Patchwerk enrages in 3 minutes
- Horsemen enrages in 15 sec after one of them dies
- Thaddius raid-wipe if someone touched another one with opposite charge
- Make some changes to Maexxna to make it harder
- Make big changes to Kel'Thuzad fight so it won't be a joke.

This way all casuals will still be able to SEE bosses, but won't be able to down them. And hardcore players will be able to minmax their raids, because they won't have gear from those 5 bosses at least + Blizz can make T7 tokens drop from those 5 bosses, so they won't even have T7 bonus so easy.

I think most boring thing of SWP and SSC/TK was that M'uru was single boss and wiping on single boss without other possibility is boring, and Kael'Thas was same single hard boss.

[h079]

Casuals don't just want to see bosses. They want to kill bosses and be rewarded...just like everybody who raids.

Also, the idea that bosses at the end of each quarter would be impossible for all but the top tier raiding guilds is just plain terrible. Thankfully, Blizzard has learned their lesson about nearly unkillable raid bosses and is moving away from that philosophy.

You say it's boring to wipe on a single hard boss....so we are to assume that you mean wiping on 4 hard bosses is somehow...fun?

Thank goodness you're not a game designer.

[Ajaxthegreat]

Thank goodness you're not a game designer.

Bears repeating.

[Daeveren]

Thank goodness you're not a game designer.

this

[turkeyspit]

Less Attumen, more Vashj please.

How many bosses in T7 actually require you to 'learn' something and then execute it flawlessly?

Malygos is about the only one, and even he is pretty simple.

Step 1. Root sparks and DPS while standing on them.
Step 2. Move from shield to shield. Fly on Discs
Step 3. 1,1,2,1,1,2,1,1,2 hit 5 when needed.

Everything else is just situational awareness (don't stand on the swirly red circle, and watch out for the cleave/tailswipe), and just playing your freaking class. You can muscle your way through each and every boss fight.

People in full T7 could probably still wipe on Vashj or Archimonde if they didn't know what they were doing.

[proga]

Those achievements are not that hard and a lot of guilds did it already.

7740 guilds on wowprogress.com that cleared Naxx.
936 guilds that killed Patchwerk in 3 minutes. (12%)
909 guilds that killed Horsemen in 15 secs. (12%)
2628 guilds that killed 18 Aboms at Kel'thuzad. (33%)
339 guilds did Shocking. (4%)

Well, Shocking condition can be a bit easier then, but well 16% is a lot imo and 10ppl can be without this condition so people will still kill those bosses.

[Ajaxthegreat]

How many bosses in T7 actually require you to 'learn' something and then execute it flawlessly?

Most of Naxx would, actually, if it wasn't already full explored and strategies detailed from vanilla WoW. It's an entrance dungeon; they specifically stated it wasn't going to be overchallenging, and the widely availability of tactics and players who have seen it before made it easy. I still enjoy the place, to be honest. Always have.

[h079]

ENTRY LEVEL CONTENT.

[h079]

Those achievements are not that hard and a lot of guilds did it already.

7740 guilds on wowprogress.com that cleared Naxx.
936 guilds that killed Patchwerk in 3 minutes. (12%)
909 guilds that killed Horsemen in 15 secs. (12%)
2628 guilds that killed 18 Aboms at Kel'thuzad. (33%)
339 guilds did Shocking. (4%)

Well, Shocking condition can be a bit easier then, but well 16% is a lot imo and 10ppl can be without this condition so people will still kill those bosses.

In your original post, you suggested raid-wipes and enrages if you COULDN'T complete those achievements. I think that's overboard. Ok great, about 12% of guilds can do Patcherk in 3 mins. So all the guilds out there that do him in between 3:01 and 3:20 should wipe? Um...no.

[proga]

In your original post, you suggested raid-wipes and enrages if you COULDN'T complete those achievements. I think that's overboard. Ok great, about 12% of guilds can do Patcherk in 3 mins. So all the guilds out there that do him in between 3:01 and 3:20 should wipe? Um...no.

Well, but I know a lot of people still didn't see all heroics that Blizzard made for them just cause blues from quests is enough to clear Naxx. Is it ok?

[proga]

And also I think 12% of guild did it and 20-30% more guild CAN do it, they just don't bother to make any efforts. So content cleared by 40% of people and seen by 100% of people is that bad?

[slider]

this is why blizzard did some of the achievements that they did. downing bosses w/i certain time limits, with less than the max number of raid members etc. that way the leet raiders would be able to get those achievements, but the casual raider would not be able to.

[Knightsun]

Thank goodness you're not a game designer.

Well, but I know a lot of people still didn't see all heroics that Blizzard made for them just cause blues from quests is enough to clear Naxx. Is it ok?

...

Thank goodness you're not a game designer.

[Inept]

I think how Blizzard went about tuning Naxx, they basically used naxx to gear people up for future raid content. When talking about naxx, I consider it just a big heroic dungeon to gear up for ulduar.

How many times do they have to say its supposed to be easy until people understand. They have said yes, it is very easy, but before you complain how easy the content is have you done Sartherion with 3 drakes up? If you have not, then the content is obviously not easy enough for you. Wait until ulduar before complaining, just max out every slot before the next content patch.

Theres plenty to offer for hardcore and casuals.

[PBitt]

Casual raiders does not mean they can't play. In fact alot of these people are better than your so called hardcore raiders who only log in to raid and do their level 70 quality dps to receive their epic loots. Naxx is fine as it is, it is supposed to be easy, as Blizzard said a million times. Achievments are there as something for stronger guilds to do. Ulduar will indeed be more difficult, but you can definetely expect guilds like Ensidia to have them cleared w/out the hard modes within 24 hours and having done all the hard modes by the next week or two. For the normal people, I'm hoping its more like Karazhan was at first in terms of difficulty where my guild at least only added a boss or two to the bosses we were able to down each week. It's more fun when you progress each week rather than being able to clear the entire thing week one, even if its only a little each week. All guilds that want to see the content bad enough will eventually as they work for it (like in Kara) but they won't be able to even do much in Ulduar until everyone is in full 200+ level gear.

[Cobra78520]

Its Naxx guys no big deal.

lets wait what blizzard has in stored for us on next patch raid instance and find out how challenging it is.

[Daez]

So, Blizzard had 2 goals:
1) let 90% of players to see all bosses in game
2) don't force hardcore players to leave the game

How do you see these as Blizzard's goals? Honestly, they need to allow 90% of the players to have easy access to all content or they aren't going to keep a high player base for much longer. People were tired of only the top guilds making it to end game content in both classic and TBC. They weren't about to put up with it in Wrath. As far as hardcore players, I don't think Blizzard actually cares. They give them acknowledgment for their server firsts now through the achievements system, but for the most part I think they just see hardcore players as 10% of the population will never be happy. If you want to beat all of the end game content in a week then do it, but don't bitch 6 months down the road when you still have no new content to beat.

1) Replace some bosses in Naxx:
- Move Patchwerk to the end of Abomination wing
- Move Thaddius to Plague wing
2) Then make change to condition for gate opening to Sapph/KT:
- kill all bosses except last bosses in each wing

So, make the last bosses in all of the wings optional? That doesn't make any sense. If they need to do anything at all then it is to match the gear dropped to the actual encounter difficulty. Patchwerk is a major example of a poorly itemized boss. He is arguably one of the most annoying bosses in Naxx, but his drops are either worse or on the same level of items that drop from easier bosses in every single wing.

- Patchwerk enrages in 3 minutes

You do understand that they are balancing dps classes still and this is supposed to be STARTER raiding content. You can't base starter raiding content around uberly geared dps or you just throw a major roadblock into raiding. The problem isn't that the raids can't clear the other content to gear their dps. The problem is that Naxx is on a 1 week reset timer, and you have to clear it to gear your members. If you want to make an insane requirement for certain bosses then you need to put Naxx on a 3 day timer so guilds can gear their members at an accelerated rate.

- Horsemen enrages in 15 sec after one of them dies

That is the stupidest idea ever. It has no real bearing on anything else other than rather you have the perfect class balance and overly geared dps. Requiring perfectly geared perfectly balanced raids is ALWAYS a bad idea.

- Thaddius raid-wipe if someone touched another one with opposite charge

Here I was thinking that Blizzard didn't realize how much lag can affect MMOs when they design some of the content, but you would make it so that if only one person lags on an encounter the whole raid pays. You can't be serious about that.

- Make some changes to Maexxna to make it harder

Maexxna is difficult enough if you don't have the perfect class balance. It is almost impossible to keep the tank alive now unless you have one druid healer. If you find the encounter to simple then you have probably always played with one or more druid healers that were on top of their stuff and really well geared in the raid. Not every raid gets that same privilege.

- Make big changes to Kel'Thuzad fight so it won't be a joke.

It is ENTRY level content. Some tanks haven't figured out how to stay out of circles yet. Its not designed to be hard content. If you want a game with content that is designed only for hardcore players then go play something else. Although, the majority of games are shaping up to accommodate all players instead of the top 10% so I have no idea what game that is. As an alternative, if you want to be in the top 10% of the players and get bigger rewards for it then arena is for you.

This way all casuals will still be able to SEE bosses, but won't be able to down them. And hardcore players will be able to minmax their raids, because they won't have gear from those 5 bosses at least + Blizz can make T7 tokens drop from those 5 bosses, so they won't even have T7 bonus so easy.

Unfortunately for you, casuals have gotten tired of seeing bosses that they have no option of downing. Casuals make up 90% of the player base. Blizzard is smart enough to market to 90% of the player base instead of just 10% of it, so the days when casuals couldn't easily down bosses if they knew how to play their classes effectively are OVER.

I think most boring thing of SWP and SSC/TK was that M'uru was single boss and wiping on single boss without other possibility is boring, and Kael'Thas was same single hard boss.

If your desire for raiding is more wipes then good luck with that. I personally don't like running at a rate where I spend more gold on raiding than I make in the game while a pvp player can gear equally well and never have to pay a single repair bill.

[Daez]

Well, but I know a lot of people still didn't see all heroics that Blizzard made for them just cause blues from quests is enough to clear Naxx. Is it ok?

For Naxx 10 that is acceptable. For Naxx 25 that is borderline acceptable. I don't think that the majority of players never bothered to gear in heroics though. A few players get away with it, but a few players went into t5 content without ever stepping foot in Karazhan or any t4 as well. It is up to guilds to chose rather they want to carry a player or make everyone earn their own way. That decision should not be made by Blizzard and that decision should not be made by you.

[Daez]

And also I think 12% of guild did it and 20-30% more guild CAN do it, they just don't bother to make any efforts. So content cleared by 40% of people and seen by 100% of people is that bad?

Think about it logically. Do you honestly think 60% of the player base should have to pay for content that they will never actually experience so that 40% of the player base can keep from getting "bored". That is absolute crap. At least 90% of the player base should be able to access the content they pay for. The other 10% should have the same opportunity available to them if they improve their skills in the game.

[Marvdatboi]

Bears repeating.

What he said.