Icecrown Gated Progression

[Mr.Winkle]

Limiting the number of normal attempts just seems so unneccessary.

If the boss is easy: People kill it withink the given attempts - nothing is gained

If the boss is hard: People won't kill it within the given attempts and be required to return week after week to prectice strats etc. Of course as those above have stated this will lead to frustrated raid members, stress over failing and associated probelms with recruting and the like, how is this "casual" friendly.

Surely the gated system prevents enough progress on its own? Top end guilds will clearly kill the normal mode bosses within the alotted attempts and the gates will prevent progress, less skilled guilds may face a mixture of limited attempts and gating preventing progress. But does an instance really need to be released over 4-8 weeks to prolong its appeal?

[Satorri]

I've been contemplating this system, and I think I like it. A lot.

I think it has many values on many angles, bear with me.

1.) Let's get this out of the way, for Blizzard it is a valuable development time move. If even the most hardcore of raiding organizations cannot clear ICC within a week of its release, that buys them time and lets the developers feel a sense of indirect gratification. It may not be because of their content, but at least months of their work wasn't overturned in a couple days.

2.) It is a value to the 'world first' competition stage. For the initial wings and bosses it won't limit the speed at which people get bosses down, but it will make it so the stage is re-set with every gate opened. In other words if guilds A-E are competing and A blows through the first wing, and E gets stalled on one of the bosses, they have time to catch up and have a fresh run at it when wing #2 opens. Guild A won't like it very much, but guild E sure will appreciate the opportunity.

Then on the same note, severely limiting attempts on the final bosses of wings creates another sort of competition filter. Some guilds can just shotgun a boss down, swarm it 50 times and eventually they get it, where as now, if they don't make the most of their attempts they can be blocked from succeeding first. The guild that makes the most of each attempt with careful inspection and planning will be the guild that takes that title. I may not be one of those guilds going for this sort of prestige, but I can appreciate this more than the guilds that play 24 hour days and just try to zerg every fight for the title.

3.) Philosophically, I think this is really valuable for players enjoying the game. A lot of people get into the instant gratification mode. If they could just win it over night, they would, then they would lament how terrible the game is because they could do that. In gating, again, like #1, it's not the content that sets the ceiling on pacing. This means that even the most hardcore groups cannot win it all straight away, they have to wait. For content design that also leaves room for content to be accessible to lower levels of play. I know some 'hardcore' players would rather a back-breaking challenge, but if it caters to the top 5% like that, the bottom 60% can't get into it at all.

4.) I like that there is not just a front-end limiter in the method, but a back-end encouragement too. It will be as hard as it is to get into, and the challenge can scale up pretty severely it seems for hard-mode accomplishment, but later in the expansion the instance will become more accessible still to the teams that have the most trouble.

From a design concept, one of the guiding lights in WotLK was to make content available to more people who play the game. What fun is an expansion all about the Lich King if you never get to face him? Some may feel that it diminishes their prestige (now achievement dates are more meaningful than the achievement itself, something I'm am grateful for), but I think it's pretty selfish to want exclusive rights to the conclusion of the chapter of a story-based game.


At any rate, I say good on you, Blizzard. I look forward to battling my way in!

[Lacunata]

See, other can learn so quick do it in one, others need more tries to flesh out especially what works for them, and someone saying you are not alowed to spent your desire amount of time on ALL encounter is just stupid, especially with that low number.

I think, all this together is bad balanced and need to change.

May opionion may be the miniority, we`ll see, but that dosn`t mean the majority is right.

Conclusion, this system for gamers is very unhealthy for the game, it`s time WoW get some seriouse compition

[Satorri]

o.O

Some people take more attempts to learn, yes. Some people just do it over and over again without tact or preparation until they win (I desperately want that to be a minority though).

Limiting the number of attempts means that you have to make more of your attempts, if it takes you more attempts then you just have to wait. Instant gratification should be a requirement of good balance?

[Reev]

I wonder if the limited attempts will stimulate more collaboration between guilds for ideas. I mean, if you only have a very small number of attempts the first week, and if the high end guilds manage not to drop the encounters the first week, I'd think they'd all want to get as much information as they could about the encounter, which means looking at each others parses, and maybe even sharing ideas and strategy.

Or is the competition to great for that?

By the way, I still think it's a brilliant idea to reward players more for good strategy and execution than the brute force of doing an encounter 50 times. What casual guild does 30 attempts in a night anyway? This is limiting on hardcores, not casuals, who don't generally put that much time into their raids anyway.

[Satorri]

Aye, by the time most "casual" players get there, they'll have more attempts. =)

[Bashal]

By the way, I still think it's a brilliant idea to reward players more for good strategy and execution than the brute force of doing an encounter 50 times.

^ This! OMG THIS!

[Helistar]

Another random comment, since I didn't see it mentioned: it gives time to the designers to fine-tune the subsequent wings based on the results seen in the initial ones. This would mean ramping up the difficulty if too many people are storming through it, or lowering it if noone seems to be getting through.

Overall I like the changes as well, even if it'll be necessary to see how they work out when they are applied. One thing which I really appreciate is that Blizzard seems to be trying new approaches: some turn out to suck, some turn out to be good ideas, but it's good to see that they use their #1 position in the MMO field to see what can be changed to evolve the game.

[Durandro]

Would be nice if there were more attempts at normal compared to heroic. So if you fail doing the heroic version you're forced to just do it normally once you run out of attempts. Which would be a bit of a 'walk of shame' in a way

[mistersix]

By the way, I still think it's a brilliant idea to reward players more for good strategy and execution than the brute force of doing an encounter 50 times. What casual guild does 30 attempts in a night anyway? This is limiting on hardcores, not casuals, who don't generally put that much time into their raids anyway.

That's correct for some casual guilds but not others. In some casual guilds the time constraint casuals face means less time spent on the game outside of the game (i.e. not visiting sites like this one, not reading stratfu or strat site de jour, etc.). They're casual because they expect to be able to sit down to a game and just play it.

[ZaneOSAK]

I could live with the gating if it was every week like ToC, the attempts thing makes no sense for a normal mode and for heroic mode its still a stretch. They are letting things totally out of our hands dictate whether we succeed or not in hard mode content. Tank DCs engaging putricide? Woops 20% of that first weeks attempts gone. How is that fair? There are so many California Blizz-fanboy's around its unbelievable.

If WoW was free it would be less of an arguement. You're paying for a service and they are now giving you limits on how you spend your time using it.

The whole christmas schedule thing is stupid, if you cant get your people on to play, take a week off. Nobody is forcing you to take part in the World 1st chase except YOU.

The whole gating system is cheap and lazy. If you feel you have to slow progress down for some reason it should be done through the difficulty of the encounters, not by some arbitrary gating system.

I want to have the choice to raid 20 hours per week on new content, why cant i be allowed to do that? Is it unreasonable to want to spend my time on WoW however I want?

[Reev]

If WoW was free it would be less of an arguement. You're paying for a service and they are now giving you limits on how you spend your time using it.

I hate when I see this argument. By your logic, Blizzard should give everyone GM powers and eye lasers so that we can all play the game how we want to. It's our $15 per month, right?

We pay Blizzard not to let us do whatever we want in game, but to design the best game possible. There will be differences in opinion of what the best game possible is, but as part of this, we pay Blizzard to code in restrictions. If all players were unrestricted, it would get boring very quickly. Having attempt limits is just a way to engineer in some difficulty restrictions.

[swelt]

I've given this some time to sink in and come to the conclusion that... I don't have enough information to determine the conclusion. There are three crucial bits of information I don't know:

- How hard will the normal mode bosses be, in each section and especially the first?
- When will the patch go live?
- How long between gate openings?

Without knowing this, I can't tell whether I am in favour of this or really really annoyed. If we get 4 TOC normal difficulty bosses in 2-3 weeks time and nothing more for another 2-3 weeks, I will be very disappointed. If there is at least some level of difficulty involved in defeating those 4 then I won't mind.

What I fear is that they have, once again, stuffed up the options for progressing from normal to hard mode. Wouldn't it have been OK to have some of the earlier hard modes accessible a bit early? Maybe tuned to be very stretching to people in full TOC heroic gear (but that will become the entry level hard modes once less hardcore guilds are in full ICC normal gear)? Give the guild that is bored to death with TOC and outgrown Ulduar something more than just another 4 easy bosses? (and that doesn't just mean worlds first guilds here, I think there's plenty of people that are sick of that TOC by now)

[Reev]

I rather imagine the first several bosses will be easy, and it will get more difficult as we move through. Like in Ulduar, the Siege bosses went down fast as you could blink even to PuGs very early on. Not nearly so many people could take on the keepers in the first few weeks.

[Hire]

I think you'll find that you're in the minority around here with that opinion. A system like this rewards planning and skilled play. It doesn't artificially reward those who can simply throw 6 hours a night at it with the hopes that the RNG will favor them on one of those attempts and they'll get it.

I think this is a much better limiting system than the timer they used for Algalon, too.

Don't worry, though. If you're looking for the orgasmic flurry of sleepless raiding progression from the past, just wait until all of heroic mode is unlocked at once.

No, I think you have that backwards. It means RNG can end your planned and skilled attempts far too easily. You make it sound like all hardcore raiders have nothing but time on their hands. Most hardcore players have better skill and planning than 95% of people playing the game. "Casuals" are the ones who throw their faces at a raid and pray RNG let's them clear it.

[ZaneOSAK]

I hate when I see this argument. By your logic, Blizzard should give everyone GM powers and eye lasers so that we can all play the game how we want to. It's our $15 per month, right?

We pay Blizzard not to let us do whatever we want in game, but to design the best game possible. There will be differences in opinion of what the best game possible is, but as part of this, we pay Blizzard to code in restrictions. If all players were unrestricted, it would get boring very quickly. Having attempt limits is just a way to engineer in some difficulty restrictions.

Where did I say that I wanted to have GM powers and level to 80 in 1 day? I said it's wrong that they are telling us how we can spend our time on the game. If I want to waste my life and raid Icecrown for 60 hrs a week, thats my choice, not Blizzards. Of course this is a gross exaggeration but you see the point. If they want to limit our time they should just do what Aion did in Korea and make you pay by the hour. Some of us enjoy raiding and thats what we play for primarily (granted probably only 5-10% of the population) we shouldnt be penalized because they want to prolong the instance because they are behind schedule on Cataclysm.

[ZaneOSAK]

No, I think you have that backwards. It means RNG can end your planned and skilled attempts far too easily. You make it sound like all hardcore raiders have nothing but time on their hands. Most hardcore players have better skill and planning than 95% of people playing the game. "Casuals" are the ones who throw their faces at a raid and pray RNG let's them clear it.

100% correct. People spend hours of strategizing and planning out things like Firefighter. Changing glyphs, talent trees, gear, gems etc etc. Those people are gonna get screwed by the unstable instance servers and things out of their control.

Most people that love this new system are not the casuals but the lazy raiders who want to be thrown a bone. Unfortunately for them them they have not realized the the new system is going to hurt them just as much as the hardcores. Do you really think casuals are gonna see normal arthas with a limit on the 4 hardest bosses? What happened to the Blizzcon comment to "let all players see all content, play hard modes if you want a challenge"

[Reev]

Casuals will absolutely see Arthas. The attempt limits will be eased over time, and people going into the instance will receive a buff over time as well. By that time, hardcore guilds will have moved on to hard modes, and everything will be rainbows and unicorns.

[ZaneOSAK]

Casuals will absolutely see Arthas. The attempt limits will be eased over time, and people going into the instance will receive a buff over time as well. By that time, hardcore guilds will have moved on to hard modes, and everything will be rainbows and unicorns.

The bolded part is the thing that is ridiculous and insulting to players that have been waiting for this content for a year. Its been time, stop making us wait, stop telling me what part of WoW I should play. It's like if you're 300 lbs and Burger King just released a new burger but they made you get on a scale before you could order it. Oh you're too fat, you cant have this, its unhealthy. (i.e. you play too much, hardcores clear too fast, go outiside and wait because the next part of the zone will be ready in a month)

[Bashal]

The bolded part is the thing that is ridiculous and insulting to players that have been waiting for this content for a year. Its been time, stop making us wait, stop telling me what part of WoW I should play. It's like if you're 300 lbs and Burger King just released a new burger but they made you get on a scale before you could order it. Oh you're too fat, you cant have this, its unhealthy. (i.e. you play too much, hardcores clear too fast, go outiside and wait because the next part of the zone will be ready in a month)

Changing the number of attempts is a fairly easy thing for blizzard to do. If they set the number too low, they'll get an earful and hotfix it.