Old content: worth it or not?

[Tylovan]

So while this might be better off in the guild areas, I wasn't a hundred percent sure since it's more of a general question to everyone as opposed to something specifically about my guild. However the explanation does involve my guild, so if it needs to be moved, please move it and I apologize for it being in the wrong place.

So, in an effort to understand why we can't seem to bring Hodir down in Uld 10, despite most of us being overgeared for the place, I began thinking about those little things that gear CAN'T help you with. Most notably coordination. Learning to make sure everyone does the same dance at the right time and in the right place.

It...really made sense, you know? someone was off by a second or so, heals were a second late, tank popped a cool down a bit too early/late, etc. I kinda figured maybe we had some coordination problems.

We've done AQ a few times in the past and Twin Emperors rolled our faces in fire. But it was only for fun, so we typically did it one night and that was that.

But recently I remembered the rumblings about how Nefarian was gonna be next to get the shiny new level-80-encounter treatment after Onyxia. So I figured 'well, if we're gonna get the achieve the sooner the better I guess. It is a level 60 instance, so it should be good to build some morale in that we can at least clear some stuff like it's easy-street.'

So I've got the date, this friday, up on the Guild calendar and I started reading up on encounters....

Reading Nef's fight, Razorgore, even Vael...I look at them and realize these fights may actually present a challenge to us. All the better, I kinda figured, given the coordination thing. Anything to help us build a bit more without wiping too horribly much helps.

However that brings me to the question of this topic: Is trekking through older content worth it? or not?

Obviously the gear rewards aren't really going to be, but you do have achievements to get, and there is something to be said for the experience you get from it. But is it really worth it, or am I just wasting my and my guild's time when we could be progressing?

[Bulk]

The problem with old content is that generally tactics can be ignored and you can just nuke the hell out of the boss with out any kind of co-ordination required. Of course you can enforce that people do it "the right way" (and there are obvious exceptions to the nuke also) - but even with that being the case the damage the tanks take will be trivial and wouldn't really teach the tanks or the healers anything about cooldown management.

To be honest if people are constantly wiping on Hodir you need to keep doing Hodir - he's NOT a hard boss if you do it right, but its a great co-ordination check (as you've found out). If you can't kill Hodir then you're going to struggle in other parts of ulduar and ICC I think. The only way I've found people will learn is to do content with some form of jeopardy hanging over them in the form of repair bills and wasted consumables etc.

The bottom line is my advice is stick with trying to kill Hodir, any old content just won't provide the challenge you need.

[Bashal]

It's worth it if you like getting the achieves.

It's worth it if you never did it before and want to see what you missed.

I suppose it's also worth it to practice coordination. But you can do that on Hodir as easily as in old content. Just my opinion.

I think I mentioned this before on one or two other threads a while back, but my guild was stuck at hodir too -- back before we outgeared it. It was definitely a coordination issue, people getting frozen and not remembering to jump/move (or stand next to a toasty fire) to keep the stacking debuff off. Freeing the NPCs was a big issue too; they wanted to just go right back at the boss, and we needed the NPC buffs. Badly.

I made some semi-epic speech about turning off your DPS meters, stop staring at your action bars and start getting your movement/coordination right, start using the buffs, and bingo--got it on the next try...even though several of them claimed they weren't staring at their action bar, and weren't staring at their recount meter.

My suggestion: if you outgear the place (and therefore don't need drops from the eariler bosses), and simply want to get unstuck on hodir, then save the raid ID where you cleared to him and just go back at it until you down him. Call out when to do stuff ("get ready to get on the snow mound...go!" "Free the NPCs!"), take note of who has trouble with what and see what you can do about it, and you'll get it.

[Quinafoi]

The bottom line is my advice is stick with trying to kill Hodir, any old content just won't provide the challenge you need.

In order to become better, you have to challenge yourself. If you're doing something that isn't challenging, you're not becoming any better.

One thing to keep in mind is people who have experienced running the old content when it was new have probably something else as an advantage as well. They have YEARS of experience. You aren't going to turn your fresh 80s who never played any expansion before into a veteran raider who has played since classic overnight. Just because you do the things that they did, doesn't mean you learn from them the same way. They did it when it was a challenge, and grew into stronger players by overcoming those challenges.

If you want your guildies to grow, they need to challenge themselves.

[Reev]

My guild is probably going to go for some Uld 10 Hard Modes tonight. We overgear the place by a significant margin, but it's still fun to go in and do the hard modes, get people some achievements, and practice our coordination.

[Lanore]

I agree with Bulks points. Vael will not be a challenge to you because your dps will kill the boss before you really even see a tank die (yes, tanks use to die on this fight, it was designed that way) But now the fight will last about 30 seconds and it won't challenge you. Naferian will probably kill some poeple since they won't LoS the shadow damage at the right time (and it still hurts) but you will probably one shot it anyway if 5 people know what they are doing.

However, I do think you can claim that old content is worth it IF.. your guild is burned out and morale is low from endless wiping. Old content can be something FUN that helps cement your guild. A needed diversion with the benefit of seeing old content (vanilla raid dungeons are just cool IMO).

My guild use to do this kind of thing to get out of the monotonous grind of progression. We would take a friday night and see how long we could hold a horde town hostage or jump on the blimp in STV and see how many horde it took to blast us out of there. It had no value to our progression other than friendships and fun.

I imagine BWL will be the same for you. You are the only one that could say if your guild needs that or not.

[Bung]

Old content? Like what toc? lol

[Tylovan]

all very good points, but how does one know when the challenge is too much? and at this point I can say that throwing ourselves at Hodir and the other keepers repeatedly only serves to rack up repair-bills. What can we do to assess what our problem is? Coordination is only my guess.

and it's mostly that we've never done it, and I think it's good for morale just to say that we've cleared some of this stuff. It's not a challenge at 80, sure. But sometimes just the fact that you've facerolled SOMETHING can be good comfort in this day and age where people jeer at ICC 10-mans and ask if it's blizzard's idea of a joke while we have problems with the second boss.

[Bashal]

all very good points, but how does one know when the challenge is too much? and at this point I can say that throwing ourselves at Hodir and the other keepers repeatedly only serves to rack up repair-bills...

You said you outgear it, so gear isn't the issue. That leaves performance.

Are there DPSers who can still only pull 2k despite their gear? Tanks with 1k tps? Healers not healing effectively? gems/spec/enchants/rotation/glyphs is their issue. EJ/Tankspot/Some guide to the rescue.

Are people dying because they get frozen and don't get on the snow mounds? Flying across the room from repeated ice block hits? Not bothering to free NPCs? Not jumping/moving to clear the stacking debuff, or finding a toasty fire? Coordination/situational awareness is their issue.

Situational awareness is usually the most common stumbling block. Failure to notice and adjust to a changing situation gets you dead fast (like standing in fire, for example). IMO people with sit aware issues are spending too much time looking at dps/heal meters, have their nose buried too far in their raid frames (if a healer), or spend too much time staring at their action bars to watch their cooldowns and get their rotation right.

Using a cooldown timer, like ClassTimers, or something like Power Auras, which puts stuff up on your screen, allows players whose noses are buried in their action bars to spend more time looking at their screen instead, where the action is (and the fire they are standing in).

Do they play with game sound turned off? Bad, imo. There's lots of audio queues in the game, like boss emotes and sound effects (and from DBM/Omen, etc) which really, really help with sit awareness.

Nobody really needs a dps meter running, except for maybe the raid leader, to help analyze problems. If staring at recount is the issue, they need to close it and only look at it after a fight if they are that curious.

Is their camera in tight behind their toon, so they are peering over its shoulder at the action? Bad. Their camera should be backed up far enough so they can see the space around them -- and underneath them.

I could probably go on, but this is already a wall of text.

TL;DR: you need to assess your players and talk to the ones that have the most trouble, find out why they are having that trouble by asking the right questions, then help them find a solution.

EDIT: and, it will only be after you make that assessment, see the results from changes made, before you know if it's just too much for your guildies to handle.

[bluezman]

I mean no offense to any of you. Most all points are valid. But can't having SOME fun be part of the game, as well?

(putting on the flame retardant suit now)

[Proletaria]

I mean no offense to any of you. Most all points are valid. But can't having SOME fun be part of the game, as well?

(putting on the flame retardant suit now)

Fun is relative to who you're talking to or about. If you think running molten core at lvl 80 in t9 gear is fun, then more power to you. Most players I am familiar with would rather spend an evening wiping on some difficult encounter they had not yet beaten than smash old content like we had input some kind of cheat codes, but we're all diffirent and ultimately you should do what you (and your guild ofc) like.

There is no mold to conform to here. Figure out what people like and deliver it. That is your job as a GM.

[swelt]

It sounds to me as though you are having some fairly serious issues with Performance Management as a guild. I think you would be better off tackling those directly than doing old content. Sure, it can be a fun 'team bonding' event, but as for a morale boost, it can be a double edged sword. Some of your players will not buy into it, some will still fail at it and it's even possible that you'll wipe... wiping on content that you outgear by entire expansion packs is incredibly demoralising.

Some suggestions for performance management:
- Get the tools you need as a leader to unpick performance. I swear by a combination of Skada Damage Meter (recount if you prefer), Acheron for autopsies (player X died because they stood in fire/didn't get healed/didn't get dispelled) and World of Logs (+Loggerhead) for out of game performance analysis.
- Get people talking about performance. Post links to your World of Logs on your guild forum (you got one of these, right?). Start threads on your forum about class specs, raid buffs/synergies, UI tips & tricks, links to good websites like Tankspot or EJ. Keep things positive and open, don't single people out in public discussions but try to get them to help themselves.
- Talk directly to people that really suck and try to encourage them. Armory them, then compare their specs to those you find on EJ, and if they are significantly different find out why. You don't have to FORCE specs, but you can encourage people to find out that there are better specs. If all else fails, replace them (perhaps redirecting them to another role that they might be better suited at).

[Kazeyonoma]

I do em just cuz i never got to do em at 60, I love seeing th eold zones =] Curse you C'Thun!

[Eisen]

Personally I love a guild that wants to do Old World raid content. Why? Because those raids were tough. MC and BWL and such required serious coordination to pass through, and often still do despite the fact the end bosses has as much HP as some level 80 heroic ones do now.

It's a great way to teach teamwork and communication to a raid team that's just getting itself started.

[Bashal]

I mean no offense to any of you. Most all points are valid. But can't having SOME fun be part of the game, as well?

As was said earlier, what's fun is subjective to the individual. Everyone should be having fun, and if not, they should be doing something else, whatever that may be.

Some people play this game with little or no knowledge of how to play "properly", don't join a guild (or join one just for camaraderie), and don't raid. They are happy though, and have fun; their money has been well spent.

That's actually how I started out in this game, and I was happy then too; I just became intrigued with end-game raiding ("what's that??") and decided to learn about it.

Being a raid leader, or a GM (just my opinion, here) is a responsibility you take on, which can at times detract from enjoyment of the game. Ideally, you do it because you derive some satisfaction from performing that role, even though at times it is a thankless job. If you are a RL or a GM and things go wrong, or at least, not quite right, those are the times that can be un-fun until you untangle the knots and get it sorted out. But it can also be fun, satisfying, and very rewarding when you succeed at that. But it's work, and it's sometimes very hard, and wasn't this supposed to be just a game?

Again, it all goes back to why you took on that role in the first place.

[orcstar]

Get EnsidiaFails - Addons - Curse and set it up to spam raidchat. People might object to it at first, but some addon telling them what they are doing wrong is sometimes better then a person.

(we once had a tank that forgot to move on hodir, and while he was questioning why he didn't get healed I was searching the combat log and found out he had an insane number of stacks of the debuff to a point where 1 tick 1-shot him.)

[Quinafoi]

I do em just cuz i never got to do em at 60, I love seeing th eold zones =] Curse you C'Thun!

Just admit it, you want the trinket. Like everyone else.

[Proletaria]

MC and BWL and such required serious coordination to pass through.

Not really. (Other than keeping 40 people from being afk, and forcing most of them to download decursive)

[Maverickroll]

I've skipped the vast majority of old content..

As soon as I hit 58 on my first toon I got TBC and hit Outlands, soon as I hit 68 I got Wotlk and hit Northrend.

1-58 I basically did mostly questing/grinding with the occasional dungeon (pre LFG random tool on my server it was impossible to find groups).

I only know of most bosses/dungeons by name only cause I've never seen them or been in them.

I always wanted to try a 40 main raid, even as a pvper, just to experience it once..

[Fledern]

BWL is my favorite place, up there with Ulduar.

However, BWL is not a challange. The other day, we 5-manned (probably could've done it with 3) the place with a prot pala in pvp dps gear as tank, my 3rd alt as healer & 3 others who just wanted to finish off their AQ opening questline. There really really is no challange in there.

Ulduar hardmodes can still present a challange, despite vastly overgearing the place. If you want to learn stuff, learn it in ulduar. Hodir is a minor step, you'll find Mimiron hardmode, yogg-saron hardmode and Algalon way better teachers but from your descriptions you've got a long way to go there.

So the answer to your question depends on what you're actually asking.

Do you want to see the old content for the fun of it? sure, it's definitely worth it
Do you want to do old content so your guildmates can become better players? no, it's not worth it