Raid Achievements and Hard Modes, your thoughts.
Agoney — Fri, 03/06/2009 - 09:50
So I was thinking lately on how the game has changed (at least, imo for me) when it comes to raiding and the whole landscape of it. I probably should warn this post may or may not sound elitist, take it however you'd like. It's not my intention for it to sound that way, but I'm sure it'll come across that way at some point.
Basically, I'm going to come out and say my view on it and just run with it from there. I think (some) raid achievements and "hard modes" have ruined the game. Let me get in before "its just starter content" and "everyone deserves to see all content". Let me also get in before the inevitable "PTR content always is exactly how it is when it's moved to live".
For me, my favorite instances were AQ40, original Naxx, and the Sunwell. You could even include ZA bear runs as well (although, then again, its a "hard mode"). The thing about the first 3 however, was they were all challenging. You couldn't just run in and dps shit down and win with knowing just part of the strat. The only fight that rivals any of those original challening fights now is Sarth 3D, and even then it is much easier compared to the others (I would rank 10man sarth3d up with the others though). Max consumables were needed for each boss fight, and there would be countless nights of wiping on the same boss. The process of putting in so much to an encounter, failing over and over, and then finally winning is where I truly got the most out of raiding. There was no, oh if you kill all these drakes, you can down the boss, but you get less loot. There was no easy/hard mode. You either did the fight the right way, or you failed.
Some people liked it, others hated it, some didn't give a shit, but the PvE race was a great aspect of the game. You could make a case that achievements can provide something similiar, but its not the same. Honestly, how many people cared about who killed the eredar twins in reverse order first..??? And then it was realized reverse order was actually easier, and you got more loot, so that became the general strat. So it was no point really to track or care about it. I know we don't "compete" on the world level or anything, but we do generally on a server level, in a sense. We might not get server firsts, but we like to be generally close or within a good time period (although, yes, thats not the #1 goal[which is to have fun :) ]).
So lets look at the current picture and compare it to the past. Naxx, being the starting instance, won't be as tuned as it was previously. Understandable. So lets compare it to a Kara or MC. We'll also figure Malygos = Gruul/ony, Sarth = Magtheridon, in terms of raid starting level. I'm hesitant to include kara, as it wasn't really that difficult compared with the exception of nightbane, which, at the time provided a decent challenge. Not to mention it was a 10 man. But for the most part, the high percentage of raiding guilds were not clearing the full instance within their first raid reset. People were getting stuck on certain bosses, wiping on other stuff, etc. Some may think that its hard, but it shows the game is actually challening. If you compare new naxx to MC, it's not even on the same difficulty level. Forgot the 40 vs 25 aspect. You needed both gear and skill. You had to clear MC numerous times to be prepared for rag, the end boss of that level of raiding. With the new naxx, you can effectively clear it with fresh level 80 gear. There is not one single difficult fight in that instance. You don't need naxx gear to defeat its KT, its end boss. You don't need new gear to defeat malygos, let alone Sarth. If everyone performs their best, at most you will need a week or two worth of naxx clearing to defeat Sarth3D. Looking back to only TBC, you had to have farmed decent gear to survive gruuls, and at the same time to survive Mag. All content was not being defeated within a week of release.
So, is the game(pve) to easy? IMO, yes, it is. Blizzard decided to go with this achievement system as a way to reward raiders who went the extra step, but it's really gone the other way. It's now become lets go for Xxxx achievement otherwise raiding would be boring gear farm until the next content is released. Before, it was more enjoyable. Farm gear to go further in content to defeat more difficult bosses. Now, its become farm gear and do XX achievement until they release new content. The achievements are nice and all, but it proves some of the fights arent nearly as difficult as they should be. Not MCing and casting widows embrace on Faerlina would become instant wipe. Sarth 3D should only of been available in 3d form, and tuned a little bit better.
So, now, the future. From my understanding guilds are ripping through Ulduaar. Of course, these fights may be undertuned and such, as they are only testing them, but they did say that about the new naxx originally as well. Blizz even commented that guilds were not trying them the "hard" way, as thats one reason guilds were seeing sucess. I don't think there should be a choice, it should just be the hard way, or you fail.
I'm really hoping to see raiding return to how it was originally, or, if they must keep "normal/hard modes" in the game, at least make the normal modes difficult and challening.. not something that will be defeated after two or three attempts.
TLDR version: QQ, raiding is easy, Shin's my dawg.
Ag
starstalker — Fri, 03/06/2009 - 20:02Run with a pug. =)
Wiping is hardly ever fun.
Derchlon — Fri, 03/06/2009 - 21:52Wiping is hardly ever fun. Just ask someone who spent at least a month, maybe a little more, wiping to Archimonde every night. People get tired of it, and it pushes them away from their previous desire to raid. With the way Blizzard is moving, Wipe fests are not required in order to see the full extent of content/story. That aspect is something I like, since it doesn't punish you for failing the hard mode (you still get some gear for doing it normally). Weren't people tired of losing a bid on X item off of the end boss because you've only killed the boss once or twice? Sure the rarity of the item goes down with more of them floating around, but your raiders get rewarded more often. That is good in my view.
On the other hand, while Achievements are going to be the new measure of difficulty, and the rewards for such are going to be the new "Trophies Du'jour," I can't help but feel like I'm missing something. It feels like the rewards aren't enough for doing fights the hard way. If your goal is to gear up, you don't need hard modes at all (or very limited) to get there. Let me list the current rewards:
Sarth 3D: You get a pretty cool mount rolled off to a random raid member, and the title "Twilight Vanquisher" or "of the Nightfall."
Naxx run with out dying: "the Immortal" or "the Undying" title.
(Heroic or non-Heroic) Glory of the Raider: A compilation of achievements that grant you a 310% speed mount.
So in the end we get two versions of two different titles, chance on a Sarth mount, and a 310% speed mount if you are hardcore enough to do all the rest of the achievements. Sarth 1D and 2D give extra loot, but I think we can all agree that 2D is not anywhere near as difficult as 3D.
What I would like to see in the hard mode achievements are, more stat increasing rewards for doing those achievements, or some other reward that is practical to a raid.
TLDR: I like where Achievements are taking us, but they need to give better rewards.
Derch, there are better
Shihli — Fri, 03/06/2009 - 22:08Derch, there are better rewards from achievements in ulduar:
http://www.wowinsider.com/2009/01/03/more-on-ulduar-and-hard-modes/
On the topic of hard modes
Derchlon — Sat, 03/07/2009 - 00:16-------------------------------------------
"On the topic of hard modes:
I think a lot of players do enjoy the challenges, especially when some kind of badge of honor is involved. We do realize that vanity items like titles and mounts can only motivate people so far and we do have plans to offer better loot for such accomplishments. We aren't likely to spend several months of development time on content that less than 5% of players will ever see. We do understand that groups like a challenge though. Ulduar will be more difficult."
-Ghostcrawler
(Source: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=13287570986&pageNo...)
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I have to say, I am quite encouraged by this statement.
One of the things I really
Agoney — Fri, 03/06/2009 - 13:51One of the things I really enjoyed about TBC was how the content was setup. With the exception of the BT->Sunwell period (although for the better it didn't really affect us at all), there was pretty much a smooth transition between each instance. Each instance had its really easy bosses, but at the end you were always confronted with bitch of a boss that took awhile to learn. Although you could definetly make the case that beginning BT and Hyjal were a lot easier then beginning TK and SSC.
Blizzard has a big challenge on their hand balancing hardcore vs casual. It won't even be completely fair, but now the balance has changed to the way over to the casual side. Maybe that will change as more content comes out, I'm hoping it will. I think an easy and better fix would be to have 10 mans the casual friendly, with 25 mans being geared more for the 'hardcore" raiders. But even now, it seems like I play less then most. With all of the changes to consumables/professions/raiding, I log in before raid, make my flasks, raid a few hrs, and sign off. Do it again day 2, and thats it for all the content. Usually I don't log in til next raid unless its to shoot the shit in guild or to run around dalaran doing nothing. While it was a chore, getting mats for consumables and such was something productive to do.
I'm hoping Ulduaar will be challenging. I'm expecting the first few bosses to be easy, but hopefully it really picks up the farther you go in. I like achievements like, the immortal that don't change the fights or anything. IMO achievements were you take away from the fight (less then 25 people, dont dispel enrages etc) just means the fight is really that tuned to begin with.
There was a "smooth
Shihli — Fri, 03/06/2009 - 16:25There was a "smooth transition" from Kara, to SSC/TK, to MH/BT *not* because they were designed well.
It was smooth for us because we weren't on the bleeding edge of content, when Kael'thas was nearly impossible without raid-stacking locks and mages; when Vashj was a massive threat; when, by and large, the entirety of T5 content was OVER tuned. By the time we got to Kael/Vashj they had already been significantly nerfed (well, by the time we were capable of killing them anyway).
Let's face it, honestly - the majority of BC content was DRASTICALLY overtuned when it was released. Heroic instances required better gear than that which you could get from them, in order to clear them - Shadow Labyrinth felguards hitting MS for 18k non-crit was a BIT overpowered. The content got progressively nerfed over time.
Now, look at the content. We're nearly five months in to WotLK and *NO* content has been nerfed, save a few minor bug fixes on Malygos (which arguably made it HARDER) and Sarth. You could argue the content is too easy, but you could just as easily argue that it is properly tuned for where the content is meant to be - and that's as INTRODUCTORY raiding content.
Ulduar will be harder. And yes, while numerous bosses will have "hard" modes, who cares if "bad" guilds are clearing the content? They're not going to be doing it on the hardest mode, at least not at first.
Gone are the days that standing in IF with your T2 gear meant you were a god. Now are the days of standing in Dalaran, proudly displaying your legendary mace (which can ONLY be acquired via the hardmode Ulduar content) while riding your 310% speed mount (which can only be obtained via hardmode achievements in raid instances), proudly wearing your "Twilight Vanquisher" title (which can only be obtained from hardmode achievements).
See where I'm going with this? Yes, achievements may suck because you have to do something out-of-step with the rest of the instance to accomplish them. But then again, you had to do the SAME FUCKING THING in Sunwell -
Remember bringing 4 mages for Kalecgos?
Remember bringing 4 shamans for Brutallus?
Remember bringing 4 priests for Felmyst?
Remember bringing all priest/shaman healers for Twins?
Remember doing the same for M'uru?
Remember ditching your main tank for a *warlock* in stam gear to tank Kil'jaeden?
You're restaffing your raids on the fly to accomplish the hardest content in the game. How is doing an achievement different?
EDIT and NOTE: dropped an E on you're. lol. ALSO, this message may or may not have been written after Shihli got only three hours of sleep after watching Watchmen, so if he seems antagonistic, he doesn't mean to be - he's just cranky.
I like this: <cite>Gone are
garreth — Fri, 03/06/2009 - 17:16I like this:
Gone are the days that standing in IF with your T2 gear meant you were a god. Now are the days of standing in Dalaran, proudly displaying your legendary mace (which can ONLY be acquired via the hardmode Ulduar content) while riding your 310% speed mount (which can only be obtained via hardmode achievements in raid instances), proudly wearing your "Twilight Vanquisher" title (which can only be obtained from hardmode achievements).
From a question at WoWInsider
garreth — Fri, 03/06/2009 - 13:18From a question at WoWInsider about Ulduar difficulty:
So far, I think Downfall will crush the first half of Ulduar in a few nights. No, we won't be logging in an hour early just to get a "first". But we'll definitely be pushing hard.
If we log in at 12am server
Agoney — Fri, 03/06/2009 - 13:52If we log in at 12am server time I think we'll def get it!
Don't patches/restarts start
Desteran — Fri, 03/06/2009 - 14:01Don't patches/restarts start at like 2am server? :-P
I always fear server
saedo — Fri, 03/06/2009 - 13:25I always fear server stability on patch days. I know, we'll get server firsts by starting 2 hours later after the rest quit trying from all the crashes!
Well if it were to compare to
saedo — Fri, 03/06/2009 - 12:51Well if Naxx were to compare to MC and Kara here's how I saw it.
Back when MC was "hard" when you needed gear to clear it, people didn't know shit about their own classes. Hell, Blizzard probably didn't know shit either. Theorycrafting was in the very infancy. Cookie cutter spec's barely existed. Shitty ass talents in every tree that didn't make any sense. Probably was the same for every class, rogues had stuff like Imp Distract, Throwing Specialization, etc.
Blizzard was still learning. They went through the cycles and reviewed each class 1 (or 2) at a time. People got better. The class themselves (generally) got better (though some would bitch about relative standings). By contrast, fights got easier. If you began raiding MC at the start of Vanilla WoW vs the end of Vanilla WoW, you got a vastly different experience.
For TBC and Kara. It was yet another learning stage. Blizzard did want an epic 10 man. It was their experiment. Players had to adapt to 10 mans from afking in 40 mans. Also with the change in stam itemization, players took time to adapt to that. They would run in their old gear passing on "sidegrade blues" even though it'd double their health.
Fights were also at first tuned to assume you have 50 different consumables on you. If you had it all, you can clear stuff. If not, farm gear til you can.
In Wrath, there was no experiment, Blizz feels they've done the beginning well. They wanted to show off the instance they were most proud of. The players were fully used to the 10/25 man content. The ilevel of items were stable and consistent.
For Ulduar, I don't expect things to get too hard either. For us at least. I don't expect things to get really hard (normal mode) til Icecrown. Here's how I think difficulty wise will go.
I would like to see Ulduar
garreth — Fri, 03/06/2009 - 11:48I would like to see Ulduar introduce a scenario that is sort of an amalgamation of both your posts:
The first 8 of the bosses should follow in standard Wrath mode: easy to down, but with hard modes. The last 8 bosses should be Magtheridon v2 hard or harder, right out of the box.
Basically, it comes down to whether or not we want to do stuff "first" (progression) or do it "better" (achievements). I think Ulduar should do both.
Holy Wall of Text Crit Batman!
Fjork — Fri, 03/06/2009 - 11:06Well, that was certainly a very heartfelt and thought-out statement. I would like to make an observation or two on roughly the same topic and see what you think. Pre-Burning Crusade and Pre-Battlegrounds I was in a guild named Exousia. We had alligned with about six other guilds to get our full Molten Core raid going. We went four times a week for almost three weeks. We finally downed the first mob and moved into the zone. THE FIRST MOB. Whereas yes, all of the raids are considerably easier, I feel in my honest opinion it is actually an improvement but that is also because of my change in status. Pre-BC / BGs I was online usually six to eight hours a day, sixteen when I didn't have work, and I did nothing but gather mats for the raid.
I spent ALL of my time getting ready for our hard-ass raids. I enjoyed it, it was fun.
Now, moving forward to post-BC. I finally have my high-speed internet back after a two year hiatus and it's time to level a pally. After many months of going solo I finally achieved level 70! whew. Now to gear up. Three months of gearing up later I had the confidence to say I was a KZ ready tank. No-one wanted me because I didn't have a single epic. Why not? Because I solo'd EVERYTHING to get where I was. (check the toon: Narcomon, Thunderlord server). Finally I got fed up. ALL of the people I started w0w to play with on the Thunderlord server had /wowquit and /join ageofconan. So I get some whispers from Carno. "You miss your spriest......." "You can level a paladin here......"
So I go ahead and reroll in March of '08 back on to Gorrgy. Level up my guys and max them out. Spent weeks and weeks and months and months raiding and gearing up, raiding and gearing up. When I had the time that is. I have a pregnant wife and two children you see. My average playtime is less than ten, MAYBE fifteen hours a week.
I've never been inside Black Temple.
I've never been inside Sunwell.
I've never killed Illidan.
I've never killed Kael'thas.
The problem is not that these encounters are "to hard" for me, but because I couldn't get geared up quickly enough to experience the kill. There just aren't enough hours in the week for "casual" players to have really gotten anywhere in BC. I tried to PUG numerous raids, but no-one ever wanted a semi-geared tankadin, even when I did get T4/T5 geared. That wasn't T6 geared. Still to far behind. However, with WotLK's new progression, I haven't fallen behind in the least! I might not be able to help on a Sarth 3d kill, but I CAN do a Sarth kill.
I have had a BLAST in WotLK!!!!! I've killed Sappiron! I've killed Anub'Rekkan! I've killed The Four Horsemen!!!! I've killed Malygos!!!! Sarth is my last stop!
So for the normal mode / hard mode arguement, it in my opinion was a WELL needed balance. FINALLY us casuals have something to aim for in PVE.
However, I will agree with you on the Hardmode aspects being to easy. For guilds to have beaten the game less than a handful of days after release? Lame. For guilds to already have people quiting until 3.1 comes? Lame.
Hopefully Blizzard will continue to try and perfect the balance, but at least everyone has a chance to SEE all content now which in my opinion was a MUCH needed change.
I still can't wait until I've got a Monday free so I can tag along with Shihli just to see what the inside of the Sunwell looks like.
TLDR version: I <3 WotLK, raiding is perfect, but hardmode could actually stand to be hard, Shin is a dog? Wow. Call the gov't! Experiments gallore!