Raiding: A love-hate relationship

Seems to be the in vogue topic these days, so here we go. As with Caulle, I ended up thinking this would make a better blog post. I love raiding...and I hate it.

I love raiding because I hate TV. I'll watch the hockey game and House (or record them and watch later) and that's all that's worth my time that is being broadcast right now. WoW gives me something marginally more productive to do in the time I would spend communing with the tube. At least here I am interacting with people. Being currently without a SO means I can play and write addons all I like and as long as work doesn't fire me it's all good!

But more than that, I like beating the game. Going in and executing your part of the the strategy perfectly while corraling 24 other people into doing the same thing and seeing the bad guy fall at your feet is just plain fun. I mean, who doesn't like winning?

But at the same time, I hate raiding. As others have noted, the content lends itself to throwing yourself at it over and over again until you win - whether it was a fluke or not. There's no price of failure besides a few gold in repairs and consumables. There's nothing stopping you from repeatedly trying except the oh so arbitrary "pacing mechanic" of trash that, at best, makes you stop for the night because it'll be too late by the time you re-clear the trash.

Mount Hyjal is the exemplar of both success and failure here.
- Talk to Jaina and 8 waves of trash obediently throw themselves at you, followed by Rage Winterchill, all at your command. (failure)
- Normally I'd roll my eyes at the always consistent makeup in number and type of critters in the trash waves, but the Caverns of Time mechanic making it a "historical recreation" makes it work (success)
- You can beat Rage Winterchill with more than half your raid dead to Death and Decay if you're on your toes, unlike many encounters where more than a couple dead means you have no chance unless you vastly outgear the encounter (success)
- If you do die to Rage Winterchill, well, you do deserve the ridicule you may earn. But more than that, even though he goes and kills Jaina - you get to try again, as often as you want (Definite failure)
- When you are trying again, the trash miraculously is available again. At least normal instance trash has the good grace to stay dead for two hours (failure)
- If you win, Anatheron is similarly at your beck and call, then Kaz'Rogal and Azgalor - all at your leisure, whenever you're ready guv'nor.

Mount Hyjal could have been the greatest raid instance to date. So much potential in encounter mechanics, strategy, and even lore! Replace the triggers with 3 minute timers, and make the later the boss encounters somewhat more forgiving - because if you fail, you are done for the week. End of story. This sort of thing has been tried in WoW before and has inevitably had the restriction removed for a simple reason: what else are we supposed to do?

That brings me to what I consider the biggest failure of WoW - in terms of everything including raids, heroics, pvp, and even the random mob walking around Hellfire - and the thing I hate the most: It is static. Nothing ever changes. The fact that sites like Bosskillers can exist should be a huge warning signal that something is wrong!

I blame this on the fact that the combat system is not internally consistent. "Elite" mobs indicate a problem, and the problem is that your system cannot stand on its own without being mucked about in. People killed Illidan 9+ months ago and are starving for something to do. (But hey, here's some badge loot you can get after running heroics that you vastly outgear a few hundred times - have fun!) Sunwell is coming, but for some it's too little, too late. Why does it take 9 months to get new content out? Because it needs to be tuned. I hit Teron for 280, Teron hits me for 6800. I have 21000 health, the boss has 4 million. Makes sense, yes? No. No internal consistency, so you need to make these uber-badguys that you wouldn't last 5 seconds against alone. This is the wrong model!

How about this: Rage Winterchill, level 100 Lich (hero class!) He's got maybe 20,000 health because he's a cloth caster but is 30 levels higher than we are. Sounds grim for poor old Rage, until his 30-40 friends (who are level 70) come over the hill before he does. You don't win till everyone dies, and you can bet his minions will be working to keep you from getting to him while he wreaks havoc from behind the line (player-NPC collision? no way!).

But the basic thing here is this: Rage is generated using the template for his class. Give him some loot (that he, gasp, uses against you!) and generate a random number and type of undead to go with him. Took maybe a second to set up the encounter, and for encounters that are not "historic recreation", every instance of that encounter would be different - bye bye Bosskillers.

I know, I know - Impossible to balance such a system! Not really, no. Pen and paper RPGs have been doing it and refining the art for years. It's not easy, but it is definitely doable.

(And while we're on it, what is up with gigantic mobs? Realism is a stretch in any fantasy game, sure, but damned if Supremus shouldn't just step on me and laugh as he adds whatever bits of my loot that weren't crushed to uselessness to his hoard. Come on!)

So yeah, there are a lot of things I hate about WoW's raiding model. The arbitrariness and static-ness of PVP bores me to tears, and I've run the same heroics 138902 times already so no thanks to that. That leaves raiding, which, for all its problems is the thing I enjoy the most in the game. I just hope that a deep examination of the system will be made and some sort of relief may come. I'm not optimistic because the most significant flaws are fundamental. At least writing addons is fun =)