[Muffin Man]

I'd be careful of that argument Orcstar.

The people who pugged Naxx 4- 6 weeks later probably weren't even lvl 80 until week 4 or later. I know I wasn't.

I also pugged Naxx a few times still wearing some pieces of Kara gear (I just couldn't get a few things replaced even with Polar's list) in early December.

ToC was puggable from day 1, but it was also released in phases. If they had released it all in one go, I very much doubt that a pug would have cleared it in one day. I still see ToC/25 pugs fail now after all.

I don't disagree with your sentiment, but underperformers in raids has always been present in WoW and I feel like you're being nostalgic when you say this is a recent phenomenon.

[Mert]

Source: Aggathon However, I will say, that I don't want the Lich King to be even remotely easy on any difficulty. I mean... he's the f***ing Lich King!!!! Or if you do it on easy roll credits like in Star Fox 64 and he's really actually still alive or something.

I actually think that's exactly what they will do - on Normal you probably defeat him and freeze him back in the Frozen Throne or something whereas on Heroic you actually get to seperate Arthas from the Lich King.

I'm personally hoping for an Algalon-style Heroic-only encounter where, after seperating Arthas from him you get to fight Ner'zhul. That'd be awesome from both a lore and gameplay point of view I reckon

[Dreg]

Source: orcstar To compare TotC 25 with Nax 25 I think PuGs might be an indication. Some really good and dedicated players cleared Nax in T6. Then the somewhat more motivated players came and cleared it somewhere in between 4-8 weeks later. In the 1-2 months after that the other guilds managed a Nax and after that the PuGs came. TotC was PuGged from day 1.

the general wow population was geared(not in quest blues anymore) and 80 the dat ToC was droped, to compare the 2 is impossible.

[Mert]

Source: Muffin Man The people who pugged Naxx 4- 6 weeks later probably weren't even lvl 80 until week 4 or later. I know I wasn't.

They also had a whole lot else to distract them, what with the standard gearing path of rep grinds, Heroics, badge gear etc. It took people some time to feel ready for Naxx simply through the amount of content there was to help prepare, compared to newly-available Conquest emblems and a single 5-man instance.

I do honestly believe that the gulf between TotC and TotGC is too great - because of the fact you can't pick and choose which bosses to do on Heroic (as you could in Ulduar) and because of its very short length, it feels like a huge leap from Anub'arak Normal to Beasts Heroic rather than a smooth progression curve - but I do agree that it can't truly be compared to Naxx in terms of PUGs simply because of the number of other variables to consider.

[Aggathon]

Source: Mert I actually think that's exactly what they will do - on Normal you probably defeat him and freeze him back in the Frozen Throne or something whereas on Heroic you actually get to seperate Arthas from the Lich King. I'm personally hoping for an Algalon-style Heroic-only encounter where, after seperating Arthas from him you get to fight Ner'zhul. That'd be awesome from both a lore and gameplay point of view I reckon

Intriguing, I wonder how one would fight a ner'zhul separated from Arthas... That would be a pretty fascinating thing.

I do have to say I like what they've done with Icecrown, this whole expansion has seemed to lack a certain "umphf" so to speak, unlike the other ones. There have been some pretty cool and intense fights, but nothing quite so epic as some of the stuff in Vanilla and BC, at least imo. But all that they're doing to icecrown seems promising, and a lot of the boss fights like pretty fun.

[Xianth]

Source: Dreg IMO 10 mans in every teir (the same instance as the 25 to boot) is the real problem. god knows i hate running toc 6 times a week. 25, alt 25, ToGC25, 10 man, alt 10, 10 TOGC.

But that's a knock on problem with the 25 man model more than anything, the fact you CAN do both means people at the top will be expected to do both. The only real remedy to that is to allow you to choose one type of lockout for that instance, 10 or 25, rather than both. It's worse with ToC of course because hard modes are also seperate from normal modes, so realistically you have 4 different instance lockouts for you to do each week. Even in our guild, there's still the main ToGC tribute run + 2 normal runs for badges with alts/mains mixed but remember we didn't have any of this when ulduar was around.

[Boeten]

I really don't see any problem, and thus don't see the need to take any action. Even if they are "poor play" raids - so what?

People who are not trying to improve themselves are not going to be able to beat heroic mode raids. So, there is a reward for the good players afterall.

I'm going to argue that people who can clear 10-ToC right now should at least know how to play the game. Even though they're not in the best 3rd quartile, they're probably average. If you have no idea about the class, you're going to struggle to pull even 2.5k DPS with current badge gear (226), and a clueless tank who have no idea where to stand or where to move will not even get past Northrend Beast. So, are average-skilled people not good enough for you?

This is a game, and I'm going to claim that a bigger part of this game is story-telling, not raiding. Look at the amount of questing and levelling content compared to the raiding content. Why should people who are not interested in raiding be locked up from the story-telling content of the game?

A lot of people started to play WoW because we played Warcraft I all the way until Warcraft III:TFT, and thus we are interested to know what would happen to Deathwing, Burning Legion, Archimonde, Illidan, Kael'thas, Lady Vashj, and Arthas. It took some effort and learning to clear all those 30-40 over scenarios, but they didn't require the amount of commitment and skill like what is needed to kill heroic Anub! We were very dissapointed from Vanilla until TBC because we couldn't find 40/25 people who could commit to find the time to raid and have stable internet connection. On occasions when we actually managed to get enough people, the high bar of difficulty prevented us from seeing the end bosses (like Illidan or Kael'thas), which was what we were looking for when we started playing. We're very excited with 3.3 now, because we know that we WILL be able to see Arthas. Compared to TBC when we treated the BT content patch as "meh", the atmosphere is a lot more positive.

Setting the bar low on "normal" raid makes content more accessible to everyone. Right now, there are also more progression paths for people with very little face time on game with 5 man progression path. Both of them generate interest for the masses to actually log on and play the game. A lot of my friends have renewed their interest in the game as a result - and I believe my inner circles are not the only ones. The whole video game industry is changing - look at the success of Nintendo Wii with their casual gaming attitude. So in the big picture, I believe Blizzard is doing the right thing for the good of the game.

[Mr.Winkle]

Its one thing making content more accessible, but it's another ensuring that it's still fun. You have to draw the line somewhere.

If you took the "accessible" argument to it's logical conclusion then a raid would be little more than a cgi trailer to ensure everyone saw the bosses. But when you lose any semblance of challenge you lose any semblance of fun.

My largest concern is the same as Selyndia, when mechanics exist in raids that no longer punish poor play then how can anyone be expected to improve. Roana says that punishing poor play by wiping the raid doesn't promote competent play. But doesn't that whole notion simply build off the "learn from your mistakes" premise.

If i make a mistake but still get rewarded what does this teach me? And if i can make mistakes but still get rewarded then where is the fun that it intrinsically associated with success.

[protonly]

Source: orcstar I think if you can trivialize recent encounters that aren't so old in a way like this, something is wrong. What to do about it?

I've been noticing this ever since the AOE LEEEROY zergfest that is WOTLK hit. A lot of DPS either has forgotten or never learned proper CC so when CC is required they get all bent out of shape and suck at it. I think some of the core skills that made a player good -- things like CC, understanding positioning, controlling damage output -- have totally gone by the wayside when you can just charge in and /faceroll. (I can't even remember how many mages we had that just failed at sheeping in Thorium...they just couldn't do it or didn't understand it...we ended up just swapping out for another tank for that fight).

What can be done? Hope they bring back CC. That'll force ppl to pay attention.

[Gniew]

I do have to agree that trivial content is a problem. Ofcourse it wont be one for those who benefit from it, and who's playing preferences it meets, but I dare to say that they're not majority of community.

I havent played for half year, and just coming back now, but what I see makes my eyes hurt.
My guild (and whole game) was always made of good players, average players and bad players (these we tried to shoot off as fast as we figured). Atm its made of resigned players (former good ones, who want to go for achievements, only they're not enough in noumbers, and rest doesnt want to do hard Algalon for no loot while they can do easy ToC for easy loot), and bad players (former bad players who are now "fine", and former average players, who got bad out of lack of incentive to work on their performance and got lazy) - who basicaly refuse to raid anything but ToC.

Average players were obviously majority, yet, while not an elite, they were always capable to pulling out enough for getting hardmodes done, despite lacks. Now, as I hear - they've managed to get bad habits already, and as raiders - are worthless.
It's bit like with 2.4 and later Naxx which combined resulted in insane amounts of drama on my whole server when Ulduar had come.

Another thing is e-peen. To whoever says he doesn't care about it I say - you either lie, or you play different game than majority. It was always fun to shine with epics, even if you weren't cutting edge hardcore raider, but you had your position in raiding community. Now best of the best still have this position, but whole rest are the same. It used to be different - you could say who's raider, who's quite good raider, who's not a raider... who's good, who's bad, who's average.

Now game is made of huge mass of nobodies.

[mavfin]

Source: Gniew Another thing is e-peen. To whoever says he doesn't care about it I say - you either lie, or you play different game than majority.

No, you have blinders on. Maybe the majority of the people you play with care about e-peen a lot. The people I play with laugh at people like you, 'afk-ing' in Dalaran on the well on your special proto-drake mounts. We all know that those, too, can be bought, so they don't mean a whole lot, either. The only way to know if someone is a good raider is to know them, and know how they play. I've seen too many idiots in Heroic gear to believe that epics *ever* mean you're a good player.

I do not care about e-peen. Gear is a tool to kill bosses. Epics didn't mean a damned thing in Vanilla or BC either. I carried far too many lazy, slacking players in 40-mans to think that epics *ever* meant anything but that you had time to raid. They still don't mean anything but that you have time and the inclination to raid at a certain level. There's no way to tell from my standpoint whether a guy in Heroic-labeled gear is one of the good raiders, or just a friend who got carried.

If you care about e-peen, go get your Heroic labeled gear and your titles, and quit worrying about how the rest of the playerbase plays the game. Blizzard has figured out there's a lot more of them paying their monthly fee than there are of you.

[Durandro]

One solution, like I mentioned before, could be that you get one raid lockout per instance, regardless of the setting. So you could do one 10 man normal or one 25 man heroic.

Problem then is people will have a lack of things to do, and then have to choose between wiping on heroic bosses or gearing up in normal. Hense it's an overly harsh solution.

Another solution could be to lock out Heroic mode to guilds only. But again, this is overly harsh on mutli-guild raiders, and would just result in people switching between guilds for raid nights.

A third solution would be some form of 'Rating' system like with Arena. You can tell when someone is skill at PvP when they have a high Arena Rating, since it would be very difficult indeed to carry someone in that situation. I'm unsure how this could be put into the game, however.

Perhaps after each raid a scoring system is given based on the number of player deaths, the speed of kills and the like. Thus raiders are encouraged to push hard to get high raid scores, and thus raise their ratings which may qualify them to be allowed to wear certain items. Carrying people in this situation would cause everyone's ratings to lower, since the boss isn't killed as quickly and more people die due to standing in fire, etc.

There could then also be some competition between top guilds, not on who kills the boss first but who can achieve the quickest and cleanest clears.

[Theotherone]

Source: Roana Careful of accuracy. Blizzard will probably never even see your post, and I don't really care much about what Blizzard thinks. But such cheap shots still don't advance the discourse. If you want to provide criticism of the design of a raid instance, that's perfectly doable without insulting anybody. Criticism that has substance is generally more convincing, too, as opposed to the standard riff on Blizzard/Microsoft/OtherBigEvilCompany as having some undesirable attribute or another, which you can't possibly know unless you're privy to their internal workings and procedures.

So an opinion is a "cheap shot"; an opinion based on an end product which I pay for? My opinion, and that's all it is, is an opinion, is that ToCr was a throw together and that is does not give the appearance of a lot of effort having been put into it. That appearance of a lack of effort, gives the appearance of creative laziness. If someone contracts to paint my house and does a quick and half/baked job, I would call that lazy; why should a software provider not be subject to the same criticism concerning its end product? The end look, feel and overall cosmetic design of an encounter is just as much open to criticism and critique as the mechanics. Absent the sound and graphics tied together by the creativeness, you might as well just roll some multi-sided dice and compare the result against an event table, because at it's heart that's all this game is, is the rolling of dice, just like a board game. You may have a different opinion and that's fine. But I will take your point under advisement as to what criticism you will permit me to make or not make.

As for OtherBigEvilCompany, I never said anyone was evil, nor premised anything on whether or not the corporate structure (large or small) was good, bad or neutral. There are some good corporate citizens and there are some bad ones; just like people.

Lastly, have you been in the different raid content to compare what comes across as creative effort v. what's kinda, sorta, just thrown together?

[Insahnity]

Source: Muffin Man The people who pugged Naxx 4- 6 weeks later probably weren't even lvl 80 until week 4 or later. I know I wasn't. I also pugged Naxx a few times still wearing some pieces of Kara gear (I just couldn't get a few things replaced even with Polar's list) in early December. ToC was puggable from day 1, but it was also released in phases. If they had released it all in one go, I very much doubt that a pug would have cleared it in one day. I still see ToC/25 pugs fail now after all.

To highlight this, I got my 5th 80 (a resto shaman) into a voa25 (koralon and friends) the day after I dinged. I successfully MT healed using 6/8 T6 + assorted other Sunwell/BT gear. And I wasn't exactly slacking, I pushed out top HPS (which isn't important in itself, it just showed that I was carrying my weight) and nobody died. Even the enraged adds for emalon were downed with top DPS around 4500 DPS and everybody else between 3-4k. Because at the end of the day, top DPS isn't required, moving out of the fire/nova, keeping bosses pointed in the correct orientation, quickyl switching to enraged adds, etc is what did matter.

This basically supports Roana's assertions, getting it done 5 minutes faster by doing double the DPS isn't enough incentive to do so. You are just "doing your chores", in this case, downing voa25 for badges. Probably half the people in my case were gearing up (like me) or were paying half attention watching TV or something.

[Eraser]

Probably a bigger indication of accomadating for "bad" players is the leap from TotC to TotGC. While for guilds clearing all of ulduar the leap wasn't too great, probably getting caught out once or twice, but for those who haven't they will be really struggling.

[Boeten]

Right, so, I would agree that a game that is just a slideshow is not exactly "fun" either, thus in that sense I agree with most of you that a certain degree of competence is required. In my example of old, traditional games like Warcraft III, a certain degree of challenge was there.You're not going to beat the game if you didn't understand your units, how to manage resources (gold and wood), and understanding a little bit about the battle strategies (exception is if you use "whosyourdaddy"...)

However I'm arguing that at this moment, the bar is not set too low for ToC-10. It's probably too low for VoA, or Onyxia for that matter. Ulduar felt higher than ToC-10.

Which means that all along what we can't really agree on is what level of "poor" play that does not warrant the player to get the reward of ilvl 232 gear on 10 man. what about ilvl 245 gear on 25 man then?

If losing one person due to him being a bit slow to move out of fire warrant a punishment for the whole 25 man group, that's really harsh. You're not going to see many people raiding with that high level of difficulty bar, that, in the end, we'll be back to Vanilla Naxx days where only a handful of people are actually raiding.

Now, if we allow one person dying in an encounter, that means a 24 man group can clear a 25-man content. I just cleared 10-man ToC with 9 people yesterday, just to illustrate the point. Of course this means the difficulty bar for that one additional person is very low. This extra person can zone in, AFK, and still beat the boss and roll for loot. But once again, if you set the difficulty bar so high that no-one can die in a boss encounter, not many people are going to raid. How many people outside established guilds actually have The Undying title? That's how many people who will raid if the difficulty level is so high that it doesn't allow one person dying.

Now, those two are extremes (dying and not dying). What about the middle ground? For example, how much DPS is required that we consider a player is "not poor"? 2500 DPS? 3500 DPS? on stationary fight? on mobile fight? on fight that gives caster advantage (like Vezax)? on fight that gives melee advantage (like, I don't know, whatever else)? It's different from player to player, server to server, fight to fight, even buff to buffs. That's too much of factors to consider that I don't think we can come up with a magic number that everyone agrees.

What is the solution here? In my opinion the best solution here is community policing, not by Blizzard to spend their effort to design and implement more rigid rules in the game that is already too complex for newcomers (OT: the preview of in-game tutorial system in MMO-C is awesome). Since the level of "poor" play is pretty much a community definition (for example, it may be different from server to server), then the community should be responsible to enforce it. Fair enough?

Setting the bar too high is not fun as is setting the bar too low. I think we all can agree on this point.

If your group consists of relatively "average" or "poor" players, you're not going to beat heroic ToGC. I feel that this is just about right difficulty bar - opening content for "average" and "poor" players (which, in my argument, is more important than having a very challenging raid content) whereas at the same time giving some challenge to the better players. If you feel otherwise, then we can agree to disagree here.

[jaydee]

Discussions about this topic has been going on and off everywhere -- blizzard making it easy to get gear, encounters being too easy, elite players having less to distinguish themselves from average players, etc. Personally I think it's all bull and not really something that you can't do anything about.

Bad player in the raid? Replace them. Everyone wears your glorious T9? Work on getting the next tier. Encounter being too easy or boss being cleared by almost everyone? Go for hard modes and prove your worth.

Everyone has as much right to experience all content of the game as the "elites" do. They do pay the same monthly subscription fee after all. What separates them is capacity and skill.

[Gniew]

Source: jaydee Everyone has as much right to experience all content of the game as the "elites" do. They do pay the same monthly subscription fee after all.

That is true when you pay for watching a movie. But this is game, and better play is usually rewarded there. Only you see not in WoW nowadays. And its not Elite-Noobs topic - even if game looks like that now, when you cant say whether player is decent or not, without huge research on him (which is a pain when you want to recruit for guild). Even in time of early-mid Naxx you could separate decent (but not elite) guild from bad guild. That is no longer the case. System is 2-leveled, and its either best guilds, or guilds of nobodies.

Call me conservative, but in my times things were better ^^. Some people say they play to have fun from raiding, but what fun can you have after killing same boss 10 times (or 3-4 times/week as I hear it is now)? I dont know single person who'd find it fun - so its only prestige from achieving boss kill that is left. Only well - its not achievement if everyone and their cat killed that boss as well.

Mind you - I am absolutely not talking about best elite players. I am talking about average-poor players comparison.

[jaydee]

Like what I said in the rest of my post, go for Hard Modes/Achievements.

[Xianth]

Source: Durandro A third solution would be some form of 'Rating' system like with Arena. You can tell when someone is skill at PvP when they have a high Arena Rating, since it would be very difficult indeed to carry someone in that situation. I'm unsure how this could be put into the game, however. .

A lot of this is down to the fact you have very small groups though. In a 5 man arena if you have one shit person that's 20% of your group being shit, which you would struggle to overocmpensate for. In a 25 man raid if you have one shit player that's 4% of the raid an much easier to make up for.