This is only true if there was no actual boss/content based prerequisite for each tier of raid. If someone started playing in the same time period as you, it doesn't mean they will be invited into a pug or guild that is going to drop the bosses necessary to move onto the next level of content. Just like in Diablo, You can't travel to hell until you've beaten all the levels up to that point. It's just there to make sure you're prepared.Unfortunately, attunements don't really prevent this player from being in your raid. If they started around the same time you did, they will most likely be in the same raiding pool, reguardless of actual skill. The only ones who aren't, are the ones who didn't get in a guild and probably didn't want to raid anyways.
Trog,
Then what is the player who doesn't start until Ulduar or ToC supposed to do in order to raid current content? When I dinged 80, Ulduar was at the point the good guilds were trying for the last hard mode bosses and the bad guilds were complaining about the normal mode last bosses. Nobody, let me say again, nobody, was running Naxx.
How do I get to raid anything now?
Unless I miss your point, I cover that.Originally Posted by Trogdorrior
The only way those players get weeded out is if the content is too hard to carry them. That just takes us back to the way Blizzard is trying hard to avoid where only 2% saw the later raid tiers.
I can see a good arguement for quests to summon optional bosses, and attuning to heroic modes. (which are generally only used for progression content)
There have already been good points made above as to why it makes sense to allow partially-attuned raids to enter content, so that the highest level of progression in a guild is the marker.
Removal of attunements are part of the equation as to why raiding exploded in Wrath, and I'd like to think Blizzard are smart enough to realise that they can't go back to the legacy or BC models, even if they'd like to institute some more attunement requirements in cataclysm. Having to check over all of your recruits until they finally decide to lift their roadblock was not really compelling gameplay, it just served to cloister off people from the raiding population.
I think most people don't actually want attunements. What they want is for prior content to be relevant so progression actually matters.
In order to do that, the answer isn't attunement. That's the worst possible way to make people do older raids and dungeons; it's a drag. Want to make people do older content? Make the content relevant.
Make it so that you can't get the majority of your gear via badges. Certainly make it so you can't get a raid-quality set. Then set up a large number of gear-check fights in every instance - at least two, one at the start (that's tuned for the prior level of gear), and one at the end that's tuned assuming most people have the current normal level of gear. This will force that guilds starting out will have to do progression of older content, though it'll likely go faster given access to better pieces of gear here and there (just like TBC). But if you're just joining a guild that's downed those bosses already, you can get carried quickly and go through the fights without bringing everyone down, and they won't have to attune you.
In answer to Sifu, I speak only from the experience of my server. On any given day, I could get into a pug of any raid. From MC to Kara to Naxx. People just run them all the time for the fun of it and to collect pieces of gear that were cool back in the day.
And, to be honest, do you think someone that started playing when Ulduar was released would be sitting on a well enough geared character to get into a ICC guild or pug anyways? I highly doubt it. Furthermore, if EVERY player was required to drop x bosses before they progress, then people would be constantly running to meet those requirements.
and blizzard, as the smart people that they are, are well aware that they have little to no control over who sees top end content. That's up to the faction community on your server. The only way blizzard could ensure that everyone sees ICC is to make a "silly easy mode" or to give anyone that walks into the raid area a full set of gear. Otherwise, any players progress is completely in the hands of the other players on the server, and no amount of lockouts or welfare epics is going to change that.
I don't think this is an accurate statement at all. Yes, some of the attunements which have been implemented in the past have had a negative affect upon the pool of raiders/alts available for a specific tier of content. But I believe attunments, if done correctly and in conjunction with ever-improving badge loot, can better contribute to a healthy and vibrant raiding community and create an incentive to zone into a lower tier raid instance.
Then you are on a MUCH different realm than I am. Nobody on my realm really even PuGs ToC unless it's the weekly. I did go from that to raiding ICC. I was stuck with BiS heroic/Triumph gear as a prot pally and got lucky. A druid healer that I had ran heroics with from time to time turned out to be an alt. His main prot pally was being "retired" and he recommended me. This was after months of being stuck and almost quiting.
Well, my system might actually be more beneficial for your server, as all characters, alts or not, would be required to drop the same number of bosses to unlock the next tier. There will always be alts, guild carries, and so on that could offer you an oppurtunity to get those kills.
This presents an interesting oppurtunity Felhoof. Remember back in the day when part of getting a piece of gear was already owning a lower version of that piece of gear? Why not have the absolute best gear per tier require the previous tier piece? So you need tier 9 chest in order to get the very, very best t10 chest. You can still collect a t10 chest that's a small improvement over t9 if you never earned t9, but to really get that boost, you need to do the older content. neat idea.Make the content relevant.
The tier 0.5 quest line was similar to this, and was easily one of my favorite quest lines during vanilla. They'd certainly need to remove the RNG nightmare of getting your tier pieces to drop and being fortunate enough to win the roll however (sup UBRS). This also creates a great baseline gear expectation to balance normal and heroics. Normal = previous tier, Heroic = previous tier + current tier power-ups.
Actually, it would create a system where a limited pool of raiders is now divided into three even more limited pools. This would not be better at all for the realm
Upgradable loot is something I'd definitely like to see more of in the game. Earning quality pieces of gear from long, involving quest chains feels much more rewarding than farming a boss for weeks until the RNG works out in your favor.
That's simply not gonna happen. Blizzard is clearly of the opinion that players should be able to catch up. Maybe they'll decide they took it too far and make it harder to collect previous-tier gear. Or maybe they'll slap on some attunements. But I doubt we'll see people having to run every previous tier in succession to catch up- that just makes things really annoying for guilds.
Except that people stop running raids once new raids come out. Finding a competent group to run a raid with in order to get the necessary achievements is time constricting on people who don't have a lot of time to begin with. Plenty of skilled players won't have the time to keep up with attunements and will simply fall out of the pool in spite of how "simple" you might think it is. You have to remember that not everyone has the same time availability as you and your friends. What you might think is a good idea could be a very poor idea to another person simply because their world is much different than yours. These are mutual differences in opinion that won't be agreed upon unless one side can see the issue of another. In this case, it requires people who have time seeing the issue of possibly not having time and the impact it can have on people raiding.
Simply stepping out for one tier of progression could easily set you back multiple tiers as you struggle to find groups to complete the missing tier on a limited time schedule.
Lets not be disingenuous here. This is not at all true. People get carried in good groups all the time, even through current content. It happens more often than this statement implies and these proposed attunement changes will not change that fact filter out bad players. There will be less bad players. But, as I mentioned, there will also be less good players too.This also (somewhat, but not entriely) prevents carrying, and ensures, for the most part, that people that win gear have earned the right to wear that gear.
It's entirely possible that it will filter out more bad than good, simply due to the fact that there are more bad players in the game than good ones. The problem is that the smaller pool will make it harder to find groups in general. And, when you do find a group, there's no guarantee it will be a good group. Chances are that it will be better than the groups in the system as it is now, but it's nowhere close to 100%. So the tradeoff is a slightly higher chance at a better group for yourself. And the cons are that you might not even always get those groups, and, that you're punishing, unfairly, a large group of people who, as it is, find it difficult to find groups on their limited schedules. It's just bad for the game. The amount of people it would benefit is by far smaller than you imagine it would be, which makes clinging to the idea without considering others a bit selfish.
Now, I could understand hard modes having previous tier requirements for attunements. I wouldn't like it, of course, but the impact would be far smaller and would help to ensure that people doing hard modes are only people who have experience doing hard modes.
Well, we're going to have to simply disagree, won't we? Unfortunately you didn't offer anything that hasn't already been countered in this thread. So continuing by offering repeated arguments is only going to degenerate the topic. Your statements are mutually conflicting. Attunements are exclusive and only work if they continue to be exclusive. Ever-rising base tier progression is necessarily inclusive. The systems don't interact well at all.I don't think this is an accurate statement at all. Yes, some of the attunements which have been implemented in the past have had a negative affect upon the pool of raiders/alts available for a specific tier of content. But I believe attunments, if done correctly and in conjunction with ever-improving badge loot, can better contribute to a healthy and vibrant raiding community and create an incentive to zone into a lower tier raid instance.
Attunements create a smaller pool of players to raid with. This is fact that would be difficult to argue with.
Rising base tiers create a larger pool of players to raid with. This is also a fact that would be difficult to argue.
The problem is that, in creating a large pool of players, you have a lot more bad players included as well, but you also have more good players. In a smaller pool of players, you definitely have less bad players but you also have less good players. So, it would seem to make the most logical sense to go with the system which allows for you to have the most chances to match up with players and get something done.
You were probably in a backwater server, in the top population oceanic servers everyone was pugging all t4 content + ZA with random trade chatters around the time ZA came, when attunements were removed in t6 content there were usually MH pugs beating up rage and anetheron as well as sunwell trash farms. There were TONS of void reaver pugs as well as the occasional lurker below.
Since t6 level weapons and armors were available for 150 badges(some even better than illidan weapons *cough* crossbow*) it wasn't uncommon for every raider to do trade chat pugs on it on alts, kara + mag + gruul gave insanely fast badges.
So anyone who wants to raid current content has to be on a full server or play continuously since launch? That sounds like a reasonable and fair work around. Uhhhm, no.
Obviously, I am being a little extreme with my counter example, but you can't expect players who are new to the game mid-expansion to know enough to research all the realms that are available to start their toons or pay $25 to trasnfer once they realize they do want to raid at 80 and made a mistake at the character creation screen.
Really, if they simply made only a couple tier pieces available via badges and the rest drops (like the Naxx/Ulduar pattern), made weapons and good non-tier pieces (like belt/boots/back/bracers) only from drops some of the time - and gave good hard gear check bosses - this wouldn't be an issue. Release more gear every tier, but don't make it so encompassing (like, say, being able to get every tier piece + jewelry) that you could just gear up that way and be fine.
Then people will at least go back to some prior content, if only to get easier weapons and whatnot.
There's a lot of issues that always need to be solved. I want to be clear. I agree that there is a significant problem with the number of people who get into raids who shouldn't be raiding. I say this as someone who likes giving people a chance. I hate being exclusive. But when you get in groups with people who cant follow simple directions and hold you back, the reason for this can become quite clear.
It would be nice to come up with some sort of solution on how to fix this issue, but I don't think attunements are the way to go. They're naturally exclusive, but they won't necessarily give the result you're looking for. For now, the best solution is to be active in guild recruitment and be willing to kick out or place on probation members that aren't fulfilling their role. And, if you're forced to PUG a lot as I am. Remember those people who you did well with in the past and bring them back.
I will do some thinking on this when I can so that I can offer a counter-solution and not simply be negative, offering only arguments and disagreement.
I dunno. I don't think that it's reasonable to say that anyone should or shouldn't be raiding. You can say that they should or shouldn't be raiding with you, but you have a lot of choices.
Really, if it's a PuG, it's all fair game. There are plenty of ways to separate out the wheat from the chaff now. There doesn't need to be attunements to also do the same.
Don't they do that already? The emblem (non-tanking) trinkets are ok, but not so hot. Getting the neck and rings are pretty decent from emblems but they can be outdone by drops from previous tiers. The back and shield are probably the easiest examples of ones with no real emblem counterpart. I suppose they could remove or devalue emblem/heroic options in all of these slots but then you are back to having to get lucky with a PuG where everyone is after the same things (normal ToC anyone?) or has to be "carried" through runs by their guild hunting for that elusive drop before they can join them in the current content.
It just doesn't seem to solve the issue. Good players are still "stuck" in previous tiers unless they get lucky with a new guild who is good or a good PuG. Bads will still get through since there are more limited options on picking your raiders and they may get carried only to win the roll on the critical drop. Also, guilds have to go back to tiers they don't need or want to do in order to gear alts and new recruits.
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