Cataclysm Raid Progression Refinements

[Ollakka]

Made me laugh, but also:

"if this doesnt work they can just change it again" well, it will work.. but not for everyone, lets say if they lost 10.000 hardcore players over this, but then instead gained 11.000 more "casual" players that dont really care at all, and just play for like 1-2hours/day, it would still be a win-win for them, as long they get more $$.

True Story.

They lose 10,000 elitists... gain 500,000 casuals.

[Deleted]

Blizzard also claimed hard modes were tuned for the progression guilds. All but one of them turned out to be severely undertuned. I doubt they'll get any better at balancing come Cataclysm.

This and they added a buff to the hardmodes -.-

[Ksmota]

They lose 10,000 elitists... gain 500,000 casuals.

I really doubt they're going to gain that many people at this stage in the game's evolution. It's not like a million casuals quit the game because they don't have access to 277 loot right now. They still pug their 10 man normal run every week. Casuals have no problem raiding right now. How will cataclysm make it any different?

[Rootofalleli]

I'm still trying to figure out when putting together a 25man raid in a guild got tough.

This will not kill established guilds...it will kill wannabe guilds who for some reason or another can't get 25 like-minded people together. So now they have a fall-back plan and get to do 10mans with little to no penalty short of less badges a week.

LORDY LORDY PLEASE SAVE US FROM DEM EVIL BLIZZARDS THEYS TRYIN TO TAKE AWAY MY SUPERIORITY COMPLEX!

Eh, I don't know about that. I play Alliance on a Horde-dominated server. People faction/server transfer all the time. Keeping a guild in raiding shape is tough. I don't want to pay for a bunch of transfers or ditch the friends I've played with for years. I know there are plenty of good servers/guilds, but this one is mine =P Getting 25 people together is certainly harder for some of us. Keeping them all online is too ='[

[Utenlok]

thank god. scheduling ten mans in off time is a nightmare for 25 man guilds. and of course 25 doesnt divide up into ten mans very well either. i welcome not "having to" run ten every week.

[Andlát]

i read it and was kinda ticked at the idea of the raid locks, but then i read it a couple more times just closer and really liked the idea since there will be more than one "current" raid.

[Deleted]

10 man version is much harder in 10 man gear than 25 man is in 25 man gear.

No. Just no.

You clearly haven't done anything past Saurfang.

But I'll give it a shot at reasoning with you, just to see what happens.

Same gear, same skill. Same encounter, say Sindragosa. Which one is harder? 10 men where you need to actually RUN on purpose into people to cause trouble? Or 25 men where you might freeze 10 people if you don't do exactly what you're supposed to?

[Deleted]

They lose 10,000 elitists... gain 500,000 casuals.

Well, actually the subscriptions constantly went up until WotLK was released - after the catering towards "casuals" (the average player plays 24 hours a week btw...) the game plateaued or is even losing subscriptions. Go figure, boy.

[Thundercougr]

This and they added a buff to the hardmodes -.-

An entirely optional buff, at that. I still don't understand why people piss and moan about hardmodes "not being hard", yet they're running with a 10% buff. The hardmodes weren't designed to need the buff; Otherwise they would have balanced it as needing the 30% buff and no one would have killed H-Marrowgar yet. Turn off the buff and quit crying about hardmodes already.

[rkma]

I'm just waiting until Blizzard drops raiding altogether and just reverts to 5-mans. It's just not fair that people who actually organize 25-man raids (which is apparently easy, despite being simultaneously impossible) get anything extra, even achievements, for that accomplishment. It should be reduced to a simple choice, like choosing a slide rule or a calculator.

Hey everyone, I solved this algebra problem using a slide rule! Look at me I'm so cool!

Oh wait, no one uses slide rules anymore? Just like no one will run 25-mans anymore, because there's absolutely no advantage to it?

Darn

[Donald Hellscream]

They lose 10,000 elitists... gain 500,000 casuals.

thats great right? i mean the loss of elitists?

[Mdi]

Made me laugh, but also:

"if this doesnt work they can just change it again" well, it will work.. but not for everyone, lets say if they lost 10.000 hardcore players over this, but then instead gained 11.000 players that dont really care at all, and just play for like 1-2hours/day, it would still be a win-win for them, as long they get more $$.

True Story.

Exactly like raiding accessibility in wotlk would bring more players to this game, oh wait thats right. Numbers show the exact same amount of subscribers as in tbc.

[Rootofalleli]

Blizzard also claimed hard modes were tuned for the progression guilds. All but one of them turned out to be severely undertuned. I doubt they'll get any better at balancing come Cataclysm.

Hardmode bosses might go unbeaten longer with less emblem farming and fewer ways to practice. I agree that Blizzard has a hard time tuning perfectly. At this point though, I think we should be discussing the good and bad in the design rather than the ways it could go wrong. Anything is bad with bad implementation...

[Ollakka]

Well, actually the subscriptions constantly went up until WotLK was released - after the catering towards "casuals" (the average player plays 24 hours a week btw...) the game plateaued or is even losing subscriptions. Go figure, boy.

WoW will die in Catalysm, kid.

Oh wait new player record inc...

[Cruisette]

Am I the only person who finds this to be a terrible idea? Sharing the same lock out, loot and roughly hardness. They already put in hardmodes as an option for non-casual raiders. But, now they're pretty much combining everything they can.

I would like to know why? Why do this?

[Ksmota]

WoW will die in Catalysm, kid.

Oh wait new player record inc...

Hey man, I can pass my opinion off as fact, too! :

[Psychic]

very smart changes

[bingolotta]

Me liek

[charette]

This implementation will kill my guild (at the 25man level), but for the same reason my previous 25man guild died. Because there was too much variance in skill levels between the top 10 and the other 15. My last guild died because the top 10 weren't officers and left the guild for bigger and better. This one has 10 players who are carrying the guild, but in this case we're the ones running it.

[Cyberzombie]

Personally, I'm amiable to these changes. I got really burnt out on raiding when we'd do 25m Tue/Fri/Sat, and 10m on Wed/Thur/Sun.

I'll say one thing that bothers me the more I think about it is this supposed line between "hardcore" and "casuals"...how do you really define that? I raided 6 days a week and I wouldn't consider myself a "hardcore" player...just someone who was enjoying the current raiding content (did the same in vanilla and BC, come to think of it)...but I got really burned out only raiding for so long. I'd come home from work, grab a bite to eat, log on, and that'd be my evening 6 out of 7 days. Didn't even really get any chances to do dailies or level alts (pvp = no thanks).

So if "hardcore" is raiding a lot, that may not be something to be proud of considering you can't have much of a life outside of that one task...

But with the changes, someone like myself can only raid three days a week (ideally, I suppose) and not feel like I'm missing half of the raiding content (in doing 10s for example but not 25s), and if you're really wanting more than just go for the heroic version. How is this bad?