My view of how Blizzard could make starter content better.

[proga]

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.

Even very casual guilds clear Naxx in first 3 weeks after release. Only thing that was not cleared by some casual guilds is Malygos.

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.

More available bosses gives more opportunities, if you can't handle one boss you can go try another, and return back later. Kelthuzad doesn't drop T7 chest/legs/shoulders/hands, so these bosses would be as optional as Kel'thuzad would.

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.

2 full Naxx25+Naxx10 runs + heroics gear in other slots and you are 100% eligible to kill Patchwerk in 3 minutes with almost ANY dps setup (considering 3 tanks, 7 healers, 15 dps), it'll just require skill of those DPS.

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.

It's just tactic, it can be hard if you have ONLY melee dps ofc, if you have at least 6 ranged, 7 healers, 3 tanks then Horseman in 15sec is matter of execution, but in NO matter of gear, it can be done in blues even (only tank need some good gear maybe, ranged tanks can go in any kind of gear, even in Merciless BC PVP gear)

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.

Lag is lag yes, but it seems blizzard solved their Naxx lag problem and now it's only connection lag of some people. I will honestly say I hate people that pay 10$ instead of 12$ for 512/512 kb/s instead of 2mb/2mb kb/s and then cry about lag, or someone has 5 ISP available and don't even bother to change so he won't fuck up other 24 raid members each time he d/c. I don't know about you, but I feel not good if I fuck up my guildies cause I was lazy to switch to another ISP, it's not about hardcorness, it's same like you probably will feel not good if you fuck up your team playing football/hockey etc.

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.

1 (ONE) poison cleanser, 2 tanks. 1 tank make shield wall + last stand (if war/dru) before paralyze (NO hots required), 2nd tank taunt make shield wall + last stand (if war/dru) before 2nd paralyze (NO hots required). If there is not war/dru - any pala do bubble+sacrifice on MT, any hunter do gorilla sacrifice on MT, holy priest do angel on MT, disc priest do PS on MT etc. NO matter what gear you are, again tactic execution.

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.

Tanks can learn in heroics/10ppl naxx, isn't it interesting for new players?
I play arena also and I have job IRL, so I have as max 5 hours @ evening for game, usually 4. I just use my brain while playing, not like if I was watching TV doing nothing.

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.

Most guilds were broken on stage when there was endless wipes on Kael'thas, or on M'uru and there was no other options to go. Most guilds were fine when they could skip Kael'thas and go up to Teron/BB in BT and up to Azgalor/Archimonde in MH. Then they came outgeared and downed Kael'thas and were happy.

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.

There are repair bills if you do arena, maybe if you play 10 games/week for points you don't know it.

[proga]

Casuals are casual.

Very very casual players won't ever go in 10 ppl raid even.
Very casual players won't ever go in 25 ppl raids because of rare/not reliable online. I haven't seen any 25ppl guild with a lot of VERY casual players (I mean players that are not usually online on raiding time, sometimes on, sometimes off, sometimes they are lazy to go etc.).
Casual players can progress good in normal and see ALL content, why not?
Usual guilds of middle players that are not bad on skill, but not excellent can easily clear 10man content + almost full 25man content under circumstances that I described.
Most hardcore guilds will be happy in challenging encounters of 6 bosses (sart 3D and 5 bosses in Naxx) and it's not much out of 29 other encounters (17 easy 10ppl encounter and 11 medium 25ppl encounters).

[Shadowmeld]

In my opinion I think rather than just make the bosses harder, I think they should be more hard to figure out. Maybe even give each boss the option of doing a few different things, so that players have to addapt too it as they play and not just rely on guides. I think some different content like this where players are having to make spur of the moment decisions would be a cool effect in game. Anyhow, I think with 10/25 man raids this was blizzards attempt to give different levels of play, and maybe in the future they will add a 3rd type for super hardcore, or just make 25 harder..

[Michikawa]

I think Blizzard is going to right direction with achievements and including different goals in the same encounter. I had my hardcore raiding period myself, and personally, loot or the fact that my character possibly looked a bit different from that mass of casuals didn't really mean a thing - I was only interested in seeing the next encounter and honing my own personal playing process and ability to react and build synergy with the team. The reason I play/played the game was to have fun moments with friends and experience situations where I need to best my personal level. So I welcome changes that make content available to as big player base as possible, as long as the encounters themselves feel interesting and have optional challenge levels that give something to aim for.

I personally tend to skip any messages that have phrases like

a) casuals shouldn't get same gear as hc players
b) casuals shouldn't encounter same bosses as hc players

Either one of those things shouldn't take any pleasure away from any gamer. If they do, one should think really carefully what are the important things in life and what definitely are not.

[b37x]

[Gron]

I think the definition of easy is different for everyone.
Our guild, that has cleared Sunwell, did have a huge shock seeing how "uninspired" Naxx is.

Most achievements are really easy without any thought needed for anyone - I bet 50% of achievements are already done by casual guilds.

Game is not good if it does not require you to think, understand your class, explore the depth of the game, but stay at surface (current WOTLK). Lets hope Blizzard does encounters which will be good. I've seen some really good raiders go, due to boredom.

I also hope achievements will be fixed - its just plain fail for someone to have more points who randomly runs around like a naked chicken exploring the world, than compared to those who kill raid bossess which requires you to focus.

As a hardcore player I have no issue with casuals getting epic items without any effort involved, just keep some challenges for hardcore. Sartharion with drakes up is the only one, even undying is hard - but only due to ISP lag or disconnects, nothing about the achievement or game design.

I think many hardcore guilds are taking the "wait and see" approach for next content to see how much game will be added into raids.

[Orodben]

I think Blizzard is going to right direction with achievements and including different goals in the same encounter. I had my hardcore raiding period myself, and personally, loot or the fact that my character possibly looked a bit different from that mass of casuals didn't really mean a thing - I was only interested in seeing the next encounter and honing my own personal playing process and ability to react and build synergy with the team. The reason I play/played the game was to have fun moments with friends and experience situations where I need to best my personal level. So I welcome changes that make content available to as big player base as possible, as long as the encounters themselves feel interesting and have optional challenge levels that give something to aim for.

wohooo that's it!!!

The problem why every player says Naxx is easy is because every noob can easily down bosses without even knowing the stategy. I know only two things in current endgame who lets a player pay consequence for his stupidness, not watching out, brain afk'ing eg: Kel'Thuzads shadow circle and Satharions Fire Tsunami and shadow circle.

That is what Blizzard got wrong. MOST Players are not glad if they can onehit everything and loot purple gear. They want a challenge, they are just don't have the time or can't be bothered to join a 25man (or earlier 40man) raid group three to five times a week.

So what i like is that even "Casuals in blues" who join the "/2 lfm Naxx 25"-Raid can clear it. But i miss bosses who really are a challenge, which has nothing to do with "unbeatable", just with knowlede of tactics and skill. Casual does not mean unskilled.

Topic was about how Blizz couldmake starter content better.

My comment: Delete all the possibilities of avoiding Boss stategies.

- Let Anub'rekhans insect swarm two hit the tank if he does not run away.
- Let Fearlinas enrage two oder three hit the tank
- Let Maexxna do more damage or reduce the cooldown of her web spray
- Let Patchwerks soft enrage start at 20% not at 15%
- Let Grobbulus' Injektion debuff laste shorter and get bigger faster
- Gluth is fine
- Let Thaddius do the double damage from the "wrong charge on wrong side of the boss"
- Add more Adds in both phases of Noth fight
- Delete the savespots in Heigans room
- Let Loathebs shadow explosion do the double damage
- Let Razuvious' aoe and Impale do slightly more damage
- Let the Adds at Gothik do more damage, especially on the caster side
- Let the four horsemen do generally do more damage
- Saphiron is fine. It's all about movement, dispelling and a healcheck.
- I'm not sure how to make Kel'Thuzad a little more challenging. Maybe reduce the casttime of his frostbold and let the adds join a little earlier.

[proga]

- Let Patchwerks soft enrage start at 20% not at 15%
- I'm not sure how to make Kel'Thuzad a little more challenging. Maybe reduce the casttime of his frostbold and let the adds join a little earlier.

Patchwerk enrages @ 5% right now and it's not a part of encounter, it's just an option to maybe laugh @ your tanks who were not healed
Kel'Thuzad will be harder if he'll cast void zone/mana bomb/ice block more often. Now it's fight against falling asleep while waiting your turn to do something instead of DPS usually once in 10 minutes fight.

[skoho]

Quote
- 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.

Quote
- 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.

I totally agree with everything else you have pointed out.
But, Pre tbc it was whipe if someone ran wrong, is the boss wasent at atleast 5% and you where far away from the enrage timer (which you usally wasent), people died and you did not have enough dps to down the boss. Pre tbc the boss was fully doable with lagg aslong as the lagg wasent *ucking with your dps to much, which usually was the biggest problem not the running and not touch eachother.

And maexxna is actually really easy if you have a timer or can count, guardian spirit, pain supression, shield wall before the enrage + web spray = easy then. Also if you run with no druid or priests then switching tanks isalso fully doable.

other then that I totally agree with you *<:O)

Also, yes wtb more tacs and lets skipp the free kills, sure they dont have to be HARD, but they can atleast be challenging for most people.. not free kills for the most retarded wow player aswell.

[Deleted]

You people should finally realise that casual means not "bad player". It means "need for time-management".
With a full-time job of 50 hours a week and some free time with friends or sports there is not so much time left and it should be well-organised. That's all. Some casuals are here for years and have seen many bosses and encounters, often the hard way before they were nerfed down again and again.

"lack of content" is a myth. There are plenty of things to do in WoW - and if there should be nothing, then go outside, there is something which is called "real life".

[talrob]

Lag is lag yes, but it seems blizzard solved their Naxx lag problem and now it's only connection lag of some people. I will honestly say I hate people that pay 10$ instead of 12$ for 512/512 kb/s instead of 2mb/2mb kb/s and then cry about lag, or someone has 5 ISP available and don't even bother to change so he won't fuck up other 24 raid members each time he d/c. I don't know about you, but I feel not good if I fuck up my guildies cause I was lazy to switch to another ISP, it's not about hardcorness, it's same like you probably will feel not good if you fuck up your team playing football/hockey etc.

I stopped reading here and sorted you into the 'idiot or troll' box. So all 25 of us in the raid and 5-6 other guilds in general ALL have 'connection lag' due to 'being too lazy to switch to another ISP'? I think not, blizzard have not sorted their servers out. Also thanks for showing that you are either young to know how ISP contracts work or don't realise in other countries you sign up for 6-12 months and you legally can't change till that time is up. Maybe one out of hundred will offer you get out at any time contract but they tend to suck.

[Calaba]

This made me laugh. This is entry level stuff. Vashj was not entry level for TBC. Vashj was bloody hard. I'd expect T8 content to have stuff that hard. Having entry level bosses Vashj hard would only please a tiny proportion of WoW players. Sure some will say it would be good, to make out like they are awesome, then not tell anyone about their constant wipe nights. But that would be too hard.

No, Vashj was boss number 12 or so in TBC 25-man content, not counting Kael'Thas. This puts it where Sapphiron and KT are now. What's gone hideously wrong is the difficulty level of almost every boss in Naxx. The only bosses requiring any specific numbers out of the raid are Patchwerk and Thaddius, and that's only on 25-man. And even they are a joke, especially Patchwerk's enrage.

Kel'Thuzard should be Vashj / Kael'Thas level of difficulty. It fails in a VERY big way.
Sapphiron should REQUIRE frost resistance on EVERYONE in the raid, or at least a frost-res-cloak-or-you-die, ala Nefarion. Again, the fact that this boss is trivial even with 0 Frost res means that they SERIOUSLY messed up.
While i'm willing to accept that spider wing was easy enough back at lvl60 anyway, the small adds in there now hit for almost nothing, which is seriously bad, having adds up attacking healers on bosses should be a BAD THING, not something you should just expect to happen.
And I wonder what happened to the mana burn at Razouvious? Where did that go? Again, this was never a hard fight, but they trivialized it?!

[mickj]

No, Vashj was boss number 12 or so in TBC 25-man content, not counting Kael'Thas. This puts it where Sapphiron and KT are now. What's gone hideously wrong is the difficulty level of almost every boss in Naxx. The only bosses requiring any specific numbers out of the raid are Patchwerk and Thaddius, and that's only on 25-man. And even they are a joke, especially Patchwerk's enrage.

It's kind of a faulty analogy. Naxx is the first real instance of LK raiding, SSC and TK were not. OS is kind of an odd case because it houses both the easiest and the hardest encounter in the game, so really, Naxx should appropriately be compared to Karazhan/Gruul in BC terms.

Sapphiron should REQUIRE frost resistance on EVERYONE in the raid, or at least a frost-res-cloak-or-you-die, ala Nefarion.

No, no 1 thousand times no. Resist fights are retarded. They don't "prove" anything about skill, it's just a pointless timesink. There shouldn't be any fight in the entire game that requires any more resistance than what classes can provide by their abilities.

And I wonder what happened to the mana burn at Razouvious? Where did that go? Again, this was never a hard fight, but they trivialized it?!

It would have made the fight really ludicrous for ret and prot paladins, as well as enhance shamans. They were virtually non-existent pre-tbc raiding, so only ranged really dealt with it back then.

[b37x]

Gear check != difficulty. Bosses are impossible below a certain gear level and later become trivial as the raid gears up. Why not just put an aura on a boss to reduce the raids stats by 20% instead of requiring people to carry multiple gear sets?

[heerobya]

Naxx = Kara

OS = Gruul's

Maly = Mag

It's just people are confused because of the new WotLK feature- 10 or 25 person options.

As in TBC, the raids will continue to get harder. However I don't think we'll see the giant leaps in difficulty we saw in TBC, but instead it'll be more gradual.

They've already said they don't want to do another Sunwell (i.e. wiping on the same boss for months) so I expect Arthas/Icecrown will = Illidan/BT

Achievements = new hardcore/elite mode.

Now the top guilds compete for server/world firsts, the high-end guilds compete for the more challenging achievements (OS+3, the Immortal etc.) and everyone else is just looking to clear the content.

Sounds like a win strategy to me.

and then another expansion and we'll start ALL over.

[darkwarrior42]

They already found the right path. Ulduar will have more "hard mode" encounters similar to attempting Sartharion with drakes still alive. This allows everyone to see and fight the boss, but only the best will complete it at the hardest difficulty, and only they will receive the commensurate rewards.


And DPS can get by in Naxx without getting heroic gear. I'd be doubtful if the same applied to your tanks and healers.

[heerobya]

They already found the right path. Ulduar will have more "hard mode" encounters similar to attempting Sartharion with drakes still alive. This allows everyone to see and fight the boss, but only the best will complete it at the hardest difficulty, and only they will receive the commensurate rewards.


And DPS can get by in Naxx without getting heroic gear. I'd be doubtful if the same applied to your tanks and healers.

This ^^^

Oh and I'd LOVE to see a tank try and MT Patchwerk in quest/reg. dungeon gear.

Just because DPS can scrub by with 2-3k dps in iLevel 187 blues and greens doesn't mean the tanks/healers can.

[Ogemaniac]

They already found the right path. Ulduar will have more "hard mode" encounters similar to attempting Sartharion with drakes still alive. This allows everyone to see and fight the boss, but only the best will complete it at the hardest difficulty, and only they will receive the commensurate rewards.


And DPS can get by in Naxx without getting heroic gear. I'd be doubtful if the same applied to your tanks and healers.

Sarth+drakes doesn't provide commensurate rewards. All 10 man versions are not only harder than the 25 mans, but provide gear that no one would want by the time they could do it. Same is true with 25-Sarth+1, which provides an extra piece of vanilla Naxx25-level gear. And this is for beating an encounter which as at least as hard as any non-Sarth encounter in the game. 25-Sarth+2 is far, far harder than Malygos and Kel'Thuzud, who provide similar ilevel items.

There is no reason to do Sarth+drakes except for achievements and pride.

[Gron]

Lets get this straight:

Naxx < Kara

OS < Gruul's

Maly < Mag

Maly = Gruul's

Its really bad how many bossess we see in this expansion, and most don't leave a lasting impression. Where are encounters like Chess event or Opera or... we could continue all day long!

[Odmanex]

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.

Ok, mostly of you whine about the easy content , when almost nobody have down 10man sarth 3drake, few are geting 25man but its still few ppl

is it easy? done in one day? no. you need pratice pratice pratice, tards dying in Fissure, someone overagroing etc etc

Always looking for the bad things