This video clearly conveys the problem with raiding

[Aerai]

http://blue.mmo-champion.com/topic/2...tent-too-fast/

It is layed out for you all here. If you have a problem with that, be aware Blizzard will not go back to catering to a handful of people.

Like I said. Those are 140 guilds apparently. The guilds that can clear pre-nerf content. 2000 people. Go ahead, seize them...

Why is this thread still going after post?

[Deleted]

Propably I'm making a huge mistake skipping reading all those pages that were posted in this topic, also I haven't watched the video, but I thought that some things just need to be added.
The general idea of having 2 tiers of difficulty at the same time is quite a nice option. I have myself enjoyed the content in late TBC and what I witnessed and have never forgotten:
A) Difficulty of raids was very close to each other. What I mean, that when you acquired some gear via heroics, badges, perhaps a Zul'Aman (which was EPIC by then) you could kill karazhan (knowing tactics previously) relatively fast getting perhaps some wipes on some bosses, kill some bosses in SSC, perhaps in TK. But you would wipe quite some time on MH bosses, perhaps kill something in BT. Difficulty rose by each tier, but they were (at least the beggining bosses) I would say 20% more difficult between each other.
Nowadays we're in situation where between one patchwerk style boss is 50% more hp to do, while the enrage timer is even lower.
Conclusion: Difficulty gap between tiers was smaller, the only difference were unique mechanics and perhaps unique gear that you had to wear (I WILL NOT ALLOW YOU TO INTERFERE. AHHHH THE POISON).
Solution: Make the gear between tiers less powerfull for gods sake!

B) In TBC we usually had 2 instances per tier (or moar - t4 with 3 instances). In case you have met a brick of wall (gear not sufficient), you could turn around and do other raid instance. Let's say you're in SSC, killed poison boss, morogrim, kaelthas2 and stumbled upon Kalitresh. You could not only visit TK for a phoenix ride and relatively easy void reaver, you could visit karazhan, which could provide you with some gear upgrades (eg. 2set or some extraordinary offset part, or even mighty trinketzor).
Nowadays when we meet a wall impersonated with Ultraxion you can't do anything else that would make you better. You have to kill him or die of boredom. Or you can switch to normal (in case you were progressing in heroic) and smash your iWin macro, while dying of boredom. Fuck yeah.
Conclusion: Much appreciated advertisement by Blizzard regarding Cataclysm, that they would make more raids per tier was a complete false statement.
Solution: MAKE THAT HAPPEN.

C) Following the argument in point A, where difficulty wasn't so much different between tiers, gear also wasn't so much a factor. When you're fresh 70 you could grab some rep farming, get some gear from that, possibly do some heroics, get badges, buy some gear, and after very lots of days of some kind of farming you could step into Karazhan (where you would get boosted by your friends, no other way), get amazing gear that you could propably use until late BT unless you wouldn't stumble on heavy dps reliant battle. While getting that Karazhan gear might have been hard, there weren't that big differences between tiers of gear. Difficulty was measured by brain, not gear.
Nowadays if you aren't geared up with superior gear you have nothing to do in best difficulty raid. What made asian players so succesful in DS? HEAVY GEAR FARM, especially with bazilions of alts and backup players. And for some bugs helped them, but let's not count that.
I'll propably differ a bit from WoW, but on my short story with LOTRO I stumbled upon one disturbing thing. Did you know that even between different levels of gear (raiding gear on level 60 and 65), you could wear the one from level 60 and be succesfull in 65 raids? But to be comletely honest, you couldn't raid in 65 content without level 60 gear? That was because of Radiance mechanic, but that doesn't matter, what was important, that even between so far tiers like between expansions gear gap isn't that big.
Conclusion: Getting gear for raiding should be difficult. Subsequent gear should not be as much powerful as it may seem (however some set bonuses were amazing, that's why it was still worth the effort)
Solution: Let's make initial raiding gear less accessible, but next tiers to be not much more powerfull.

I hope I made some points in my post. I would hope that you could repost it if you find that necessary, I don't mind. I quit the game propably because of the false promises of amazing raids, if my post changes that I would be glad to come back.

EDIT: A small clarification. I started playing in late TBC, therefore most of the content was already nerfed to the ground, that why I could possibly do this with entry level gear. Without it, I could... Perhaps die at 20% of atunmen the huntsman.

[porterhouse]

I agree 100% I remember back in vanilla, I played an Arms warrior and I never saw past MC but seeing all the players in BWL, AQ40 and Naxx gear made me want to somehow find a way to see it. I think that they could bring that feeling back if they kept the tiered raiding formula in tact. Make it so you can't just gear for the hardest raid from heroic 5 mans. heroic 5 mans could get you gear to do BWD and BoT, do those to get gear for Firelands and finally master Firelands to get your shot at Deathwing. It just doesn't make sense that Blizzard should free ride people to the front of the line. This is coming from someone who is NOT a dedicated raider. I just understand that the feeling of working towards something is what really made this game shine in it's heyday. It's not difficult or interesting to hit 1 over and over in LFR a few times and have your new 85 ready for DS in a few days. I also think that it takes away the sense of having a "Main". One toon that you've taken that journey with that has good gear... and your alts that are still in heroic 5 man gear and trying to gear up in bwd still. It just adds more variety and longevity to the game imo.

[Manataurus]

Honestly, why are so many people complaining about Blizz nerfing raids? If you're in a good group, you down it pre-nerf and WoW even gives you a nifty little achieve with a date on it, so you can prove when you did it. Or you can just turn the nerf off, so you can experience that e-peen growth you so desperately need. If someone is in a pug or a group with average players, it just may take them longer to down the content and a little crutch will make them feel good about WoW and not quit because they get tired of running into a wall face first, with no progress.

[Deleted]

I think that they could bring that feeling back if they kept the tiered raiding formula in tact.

That's an illusion.

Back then everything was new, and competing MMO's were much more grindy than they are now.

WoW is like a car: No matter what you do, you'll never get back that feeling you had when it was new.

[connectz]

I played in vanilla. Even raided naxx60. Ulduar was far more interesting. This video just abuses lack of players who actually was in naxx60.

Ulduar was amazing no doubt, but in vanilla and BC Naxx was still king...it just had this amazing aura about it back then. I raided it up to TFH, and it was way way more interesting than anything out at the time.

[Servasus]

Raid finder's presence completely nullifies tier progression. Everyone will always be able to see the end bosses on the first week they're out.

I remember Deathwing was described as the most epic fight or whatever by Blizzard, yet the moment he was released on the raid finder you had groups of 25 people picking their nose with one hand, masturbating with the other, and mashing the spacebar with their foot to prevent them from looking like they're afk downing him an hour later. :\

This is 100% correct. Being a player since end of TBC, I agree that Deathwing was the single largest letdown I've ever experienced in my time playing this game. They talked it up so much and made him seem like such a big deal, when in reality, the fight was dull and left players feeling unsatisfied. The fact that a group of 25 strangers, many of which are still in questing greens and blues, can go in and easily kill the main antagonist of an entire expansion with ease is concerning. The sense of accomplishment keeps growing dimmer and dimmer with each expansion, and even though I think the new zones and models and music for MoP are grogeous, the gameplay already on Beta feels too easy with too much reward, and almost zero sense of accomplishment. Blizzard is creating a system where people basically manufacture whatever epics they want, when they want them, and their excuse is "everyone pays 15 dollars a month, they should get to see and defeat what you see and defeat, even when they put almost zero effort into doing so."

Sad thing is, they are catering to a majority now. As long as things get easier, newer, younger players will come in and cough up 15 bucks a month to play something they find fun and easy. If you consider yourself an actual gamer, eventually WoW isn't going to cut it for you and you're going to search for something else. Problem is, WoW has nostalgia behind it that keeps drawing you in, and to be blunt, there aren't many challenging mmo's out there that have the same depth of lore that WoW does. The gameplay is pushing people away, but it's everything else that brings them back in.

Sadly, the only way this is ever going to change is if Blizzard sees a decrease in their wallets, and since it's been made pretty clear that a larger portion of players want mindless, easy content, that's never going to happen.

[Xargoth6634]

As someone who has raided substantially at high levels since mid Vanilla, I find this video long on QQ and short on any kind of substantive argument. Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't have a problem with attunements being added back in for all non-LFR content, but only if it was done on an account-wide level. Being forced to run through a long arduous attunement process for alts didn't add anything to the game. The cool thing about attunements were that they involved you in the game and tied you into the game world and story...they felt more than just a side quest, you actually felt like you were contributing to the story. The downside was that some were better implemented than others. (BT and Ony ones were cool, the UBRS one just felt stupid to me even though it was a much less lengthy process.)

The trick is, you have to actually make the attunement process FEEL epic, and make it feel like someone going through it is doing more than performing a necessary evil on the way to the next tier of content. It has to feel like an achievement, and not like a bullshit artificial time sink keeping you from downing bosses. (Also see: resist gear farming.) I didn't care for the guy's take that the fact that only 1% of people saw Naxx made that somehow way cooler. I was in Naxx in vanilla (although nowhere near the end) and while that was a really cool thing having some amazing content being accessible by practically no one doesn't make good business or game sense, and it really doesn't lead to anything but anger and elitism.

That's one reason that I'm OK with LFR, I think it's cool that everyone gets to see the content on some level. The downside is that there's no good way to implement that system without effectively de-valuating the experience of coming back at the higher tier of difficulty, because all you're giving them is an achievement and some slightly better loot. And that's been my problem since Ulduar, which I personally think was the most epic all around raiding experience in WoW's history. Ulduar had hard modes that felt like different fights in many cases, not just flipping a switch and seeing the boss hit harder and spam abilities more. I mean, there are a couple of fights in Cata that were somewhat different on hard mode besides just harder hitting abilities, but not very many exciting ones. I dunno

[zerocoolhack]

If you go to wow-progress right now only 11% of guilds have cleared heroic deathwing, and thats with a 25% nerf. I would take from that that raids are about as hard as they should be. Making the raids harder now is not going to make a difference to the top 100 guilds they are still going to plow through them. Sure it might prolong the raid a little for them but it will definitely hurt the none hardcore.

[Softbottom]

best video ever.

[Chloral]

The only thing I miss from vanilla is the animation final bosses had when they appeared. We need more of these.

[Ruffles]

It's funny how this video comes from someone who haven't seen any Cataclysm raid before he joined Method. Even Dragon Soul.