In favour of attunements

[Kazeyonoma]

but how does anyone know if someone is gonna be good or bad until they've proven themselves, what says joe somebody who is actually good but can't find pugs because they're all obsessed with 6k gearscores hasn't had a chance to step into ulduar. how does this guy now, ever get a chance to app to an ulduar guild? Answer? He doesn't. The attunement just kept out a good player, but the attunement FAILED at keeping out bad players. Benefit? None, Detriment? Plenty. Attunement? Bad.

in TBC, it was awful having to try to reattune people constantly for stuff, it sucked ass if you had a bad turnout day, and you had plenty of people online, but they couldn't help you because they never got their Gruul Kill. I mean, i ran my own guilds fulltime latenight karazhan group to try to keep attuning people and get gear for the newer players, but it just slowed down progression because we either a) had to wait for people who were already attuned to get recruited, or spend raid nights re-attuning people. Hell, I remember not being able to step foot in BT because I missed the one night they killed A'lar and I couldn't finish my attunement chain. All it did was keep people out, and waste guild time attuning everyone.

[Loganisis]

What about a completely radical break from attunements at all, and have different server levels?

Think Diablo. Normal, Nightmare, Hell.

Normal, "standard" wow. Most players
Nightmare - Transfer here if you want to play more challenging - same server size, fewer of these though. Things like the ICC buff occur far slower.
Hell - The best of the best - Transfer here if you're in a guild that guns for server firsts and/or world first. Maybe only 1 server per continent.

You'd have to prove yourself all over again if you moved from Normal to Nightmare and again from Nightmare to Hell, but at the same time, those on the more difficult servers would know that you are serious in your intent to raid, rather than wanting it handed to you.

Problems
A) Server transfer charges would prefferablly be dropped for these moves.
B) Removing the top 10% of players from each realm would probably exacerbate problems and make it more difficult for newer players to not learn bad habits.
C) A true 'caste' system would be created
D) It would be difficult to establish yourself on the next tier

However this would allow people who are dedicated to progressing and are serious about wanting to improve to find that path.

Maybe this has been discussed before and rejected, but it would seem to resolve the core, underlying problem, dedicated players wanting a way to remove a lot of the crap without hindering players new to the game who would advance to that point and join them.

[NewfieDave]

Kazey, how do you feel about players skipping content? Regardless of whether the player is good or bad, should they have to follow the same progression path as everybody else if they're a few months late to the raid party?

My opinion is that it's preferable to make players see all the content if they want to progress to the end. Attunements enforce this system. You're absolutely right that attunements have been poorly implemented historically, but I don't see anything fundamentally wrong with the concept of one peice of content leading to another. The problem has always been that players don't want to waste their time in old content attuning people because the new content is much more attractive in terms of reward potential for time invested. This problem exists even without attunements. I'm still sitting on 20 Val'anyr fragments that will likely never be completed. There's no reward incentive for me to get people to choose Ulduar25 over ICC25 on my guild's raid nights, and trying to PUG it is hopeless.

[Blindf1re]

Attunements are bad. Period.

Attunements contribute to a better pool of raiders who want to complete the most challenging content. Despite your opinion, they are not just bad.. period.

As stated by a poster above, the raid leader is ultimately responsible for the quality of players invited to the raid. Raid leaders used to be confident any player with an attunement had invested a certain amount of time into their character and had a minimal level of competence with their class. Oftentimes it could simply come down to what guild tag they had under their name. Being carried by their friends was the "worst case scenario", and at least you could be assured they could follow some simple instructions or research what they needed to do before stepping foot into the most difficult content.

But without attunements or player/guild notoriety, the only gauges of a players time investment is gearscore and achievements. Which has proven more often that not to mean a large pool of mouth-breathing facerollers are in your raid.

I'm not personally advocating hard "you've not farmed x reputation" or "you've not farmed y gear" so "you can't raid z new content" attunements. Those were bad attunements.

I am advocating something as simple as putting an attunment quest item on an early boss in the previous tier of instance. To increase the pool, you could even put it on the same boss as the weekly frost badge boss. Put some unique enchant/profession items/mounts in there. Instantly, there is more demand for the previous tier dungeon, and a fairly low barrier to entry for the highest tier.

Start a bit late and want to raid highest tier content? Catch a pug doing it for the weekly quest.
Can't get a pug? Start your own or invite some friends (gasp... the horror of communicating with other people)
Can't get a group started? Ask a friend or pay a high level guild to run you through.
*Can't do any of that? You're probably not prepared to do high level content.

*EDIT: I'll restate this since I don't want it to seem as if high level content should be exclusive to only the elite.
Can't do any of that? To me, this means you're probably not prepared to spend a few hours a night wiping on raid encounters. It means you're not prepared to invest the time into getting the best possible gear to maximize your role within your group. It means either you haven't tried to become a part of the raiding community at large or meet and mingle with other raiders/guilds, etc.

I'm in favor of strengthening the community, because that is at core of every MMO, and that experience is what we'll remember when this game has become obsolete. Raiding is only fun because of the interaction and achievements that occur when playing together. If you're here because you want a single player experience, I suggest you go buy God of War. The boss fights are way more intense, and if you get stuck or don't have enough time, you can turn it on easy mode.

By creating an environment where there is no challenge or barriers for the collective, the sense of accomplishment for everyone is diminished.

[Chamenas]

I'm not sure going back and forth in this thread will gain anything new, so I may or may not watch from the sidelines but I'm going to keep posting it in it to a minimum. I've said what I needed to say, and others such as Kaz have said it as well. There's really very little to argue beyond that.

Edit: Blindf1re. Your questions have already been answered and responded to. Why keep bringing up the same points that have already been countered to? read the posts in this thread for the reasons on why your ideas won't work.

[Trogdorrior]

And from the financial stand-point, think about the kind of money to be made if you do (unfortunately) charge for attunement runs for non guilded players? :P

[Trogdorrior]

I'm not sure going back and forth in this thread will gain anything new,

That's the only way real progress is made. That's been true since Socrates. Some people do not like arguments. That's fine. But unless each side argues for their own beliefs no real forward movement will ever be attained.

[Chamenas]

That's the only way real progress is made. That's been true since Socrates. Some people do not like arguments. That's fine. But unless each side argues for their own beliefs no real forward movement will ever be attained.

That implies that new revelations are brought forth in the arguments. The same points are being made, as if people aren't actually reading the posts in the thread. This is the basic fallacy of forum-board arguing, and why this is nothing like a Socrates circle.

[Trogdorrior]

But, I got you to respond :P


and for the sake of honesty, I don't think anyone reads a forum from the first post to the last. It's uneccesary. Each point, although similar, carries the idiosynchrasies of the person who voiced it and those little, almost unnoticeable changes and variations are what ultimately lead to a greater understanding. The point of a good argument is not to win, but to learn.

[Chamenas]

But, I got you to respond :P

Because we're talking about arguing or debating or what-have-you. We're not talking about content related to the thread, because what needs to be said has been said. All you need to do is take a look at Blindf1re's post to realize that he clearly isn't reading all that has been posted. Why would I then be encouraged to post what I've already posted in the hopes that he might read it then? There's nothing progressive there.

[Quinafoi]

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/btattunement/

[Trogdorrior]

I clearly read what you posted. Don't fault the community for the actions of an individual. I like attunements. I always will. Not giant sweeping attunements, but simple ones that ensure that any given player has earned the right to be where they are. The post about the weekly boss drop, for example, is a progressive, if not redundant idea that would preserve the need for experience. No matter what Blizzard will do, someone will find a way around it.

I do not like the fact that some high school kid can buy the game tomorrow because his best friend is a GL and then get carried to ICC gear without ever seeing or touching lower level content. Is that jealously? of course, but only a little bit. More so, it is, in my opinion, contributing to the slow unweaving of the fabric of tight knit guilds that really should NEED to work together to progress. (which of course, most do)

Like I said before, requiring someone to down a boss, one boss, even in a pug environment isn't game breaking, and it never will be, in my opinion. It's a small and simple check that will ensure for the most part -barring those isolated and upreventable events of "cheating" - people are earning their way into their gear. I would much rather recruit someone in decent gear that has collected "trophies" from Naxx and Ulduar than someone with a slightly higher GS but no "trophies".

There are some issues with that last point, but I'll let someone else call me out on that.

[Selyndia]

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t particularly like complex attunements. Dealing with the old original Key Quests from EQ (Veeshan’s Peak, Vex Thal, etc), and I had to handle the flags from EQ from Planes of Power, and how much of a giant pain that was. Juggling attunements and keying through Vanilla and then through Burning Crusader were also frustrating, especially for newer players or those changing characters. Logistically it’s frustrating as hell to deal with, and the more complex the more frustrating.

However, there are benefits to Attunements from a development standpoint.

First it extends the life cycle of content. Currently content is effectively burned up and disposed of within months of its release by all players, not just the “Top Tier” guilds. When Ulduar came out, Naxx became mostly forgotten and Malygos might as well as not even existed. When ToC came out, Ulduar was dropped by almost everyone. This created a life cycle of content of only a couple of months before it became completely obsolete. Compare that to TBC content, which saw people raiding it throughout most of the expansion (There were several reasons for this, not just attunements though). Which is better, content that takes months to design and is only seen by a small percentage of the population; that slowly gets larger, but is in constant use; or content that everyone can have access to but then discards after only a couple of months? I think the ideal would be content that everyone can have access to but sees constant use, which requires both WoTLK’s ease in accessibility model, and TBC’s “encouraging returning to content” model. Very easy attunements can do this, and still provide accessibility if done correctly, as would appropriate rewards to doing said things, hitting both goals.

Second, it delays access slightly to the farthest extent of the instances. Blizzard already is using a form of gating to delay by a fixed time in how much of an instance we can see, and has stated they like that model. Providing a similar model to slightly delay instant access doesn’t seem outlandish. Even if it takes only a day or two to do to get an entire guild attuned, it can slow down the “Every guild on the server rushing into new content on release day” scenario that we’ve been seeing, and still encourages them to go back a little bit instead of just ditching old raid content.

Attunements aren’t “Bad. Period.” There are benefits to them. The question is: Do the benefits outweigh the negatives?

No one really complained about MgT attunement as it was simple, and it ensured people had seen the instance once while also very slightly delaying their access to it and also provided an additional tangible reward. The ICC 5 mans have attunements, yet I don’t see people up in arms about those, as they provided both a tangible reward as well as ensured people had at least cleared the previous instance before dumping them into the harder ones. Technically hard mode attunements for ToGC and ICC are similar, in that you have to clear the current content before you can unlock the hard modes. The problems with this weren’t so much that the attunement exists, but that it took so long, due to gating, to become available. Even Malygos was essentially an attunement.

[NewfieDave]

The funny thing about weekly raid quests (as currently implemented) is that they actually make it HARDER to do certain old content. Try getting an Ulduar10 hard modes PUG group together on a week where Ulduar is the weekly raid quest.

IMO, the weekly raid quests should be for killing end bosses, and the rewards should be more relevant than bonus emblems in a world full of easy emblems.

Edit: Oh, and props to Quinafoi for linking that classic April Fool's joke.

[Blindf1re]

Because we're talking about arguing or debating or what-have-you. We're not talking about content related to the thread, because what needs to be said has been said. All you need to do is take a look at Blindf1re's post to realize that he clearly isn't reading all that has been posted. Why would I then be encouraged to post what I've already posted in the hopes that he might read it then? There's nothing progressive there.

I've read the thread from beginning to end. There are probably several threads floating around about the same topic, which none of us may have read. Why not just say, "Well this argument has already been talked about in another thread. I suggest you read that one instead of posting your ideas here". My point still stands in my opinion, which is why I continue posting here. I keep seeing posts like "attunments are bad for the state of the game" or "attunements are bad. period." Why not just create a thread where people post ideas, then you can just refute them because you're philosophically opposed to them?

[Trogdorrior]

As Seylindia pointed out, I would dare to say that no one pointed out the ICC 5man attunements because those don't require a GL or RL to have to worry about anything. I would also dare to say that the majority of people that are against attuments do not carry that position out of fear for their own characters, but rather the amount of work they would need to put in when getting together the other 9-24 people that will help them get their loot. No disrespect there, but we might as well be honest and point out that the game requires a player to bring at least 9-24 other people with them so that they can get the best gear for their character, it's ultimately a somewhat selfish act. That's how blizzard built it.

Attunements can complicate things for guild leaders, but it also makes sure that the content lasts longer, like posted above. If a GL gets an application from someone who is very serious about the joining the guild, why not bring them along on an attunement run for guild alts to feel them out? There are many good reasons to keep some form of attunements.

[Kazeyonoma]

Here, instead of making an unwarranted straight conclusion why attunements are bad, let me explain why in clear cut fashion.

cons:
1) limits alts, and new players from current content, thus making recruitment hard
2) does nothing to prevent bad players from bypassing attunements
3) does cause hindrance to potential good players who are unlucky with attunement runs
4) adds more time to current raider weekly schedule to attune other guild members in an already intensive raiding schedule which leads to faster burnout
5) no way to guarantee old content is run properly, likely just blitzed through by overgeared people carrying others, this is NOT experiencing content, this is carrying through content, you don't even learn the fights in most cases, you just stand around, twiddle your thumbs, and get achievements/attunements, further expresses the concerns in #2

pros:
1) forces people to do old content
2) slows down gear acquisition

[Chamenas]

I've read the thread from beginning to end. There are probably several threads floating around about the same topic, which none of us may have read. Why not just say, "Well this argument has already been talked about in another thread. I suggest you read that one instead of posting your ideas here". My point still stands in my opinion, which is why I continue posting here. I keep seeing posts like "attunments are bad for the state of the game" or "attunements are bad. period." Why not just create a thread where people post ideas, then you can just refute them because you're philosophically opposed to them?

People have said why they are bad, and yet you can't even bring those points forth. Which shows me just how you read those posts and why it wouldn't be healthy for either of us for me to entertain such arguments.

[bling581]

Old style attunements that required the completion of all previous raid content would ruin quite a lot of fun for me, and many others as well. One thing that keeps me interested in the game is playing alts and other classes. It would be a nightmare trying to find time to get each of my desired alts through the attunement process just to get in alt runs. I know some higher end guilds that rely on gearing alts to help their progression. One of the top guilds on my server runs 2 25 man raids, each with half mains and half alts. As Kaz stated, it really sucked running new apps and other players through old instances to get attunements finished. In vanilla I ran alts through the 5 man dungeons. Even in BC the farthest most of my guilds alts reached was Kara or the beginning of SSC. Lich King has opened new opportunities to players like myself that enjoy playing multiple characters and shouldn't be penalized with things like attunements.

Nowadays you can buy just about anything, even 25 man LK kills to unlock hard modes. What would stop bad players from buying attunement runs? Besides, one person's definition of a "bad player" may be different than another's. A casual guild may be fine with Average Joe, but a hardcore guild might see them as a bad player that has no place apping to their guild. To some degree it would keep the total noobs out but there's quite a few negatives to the system.

[Trogdorrior]

Here, instead of making an unwarranted straight conclusion why attunements are bad, let me explain why in clear cut fashion.

cons:
1) limits alts, and new players from current content, thus making recruitment hard
2) does nothing to prevent bad players from bypassing attunements
3) does cause hindrance to potential good players who are unlucky with attunement runs
4) adds more time to current raider weekly schedule to attune other guild members in an already intensive raiding schedule which leads to faster burnout
5) no way to guarantee old content is run properly, likely just blitzed through by overgeared people carrying others, this is NOT experiencing content, this is carrying through content, you don't even learn the fights in most cases, you just stand around, twiddle your thumbs, and get achievements/attunements, further expresses the concerns in #2

pros:
1) forces people to do old content
2) slows down gear acquisition

Addressing numbers 1 and 2. What mechanic allowing number 2 is also causing number 1? If it's so easy for "bad players" to get attuned, why would it be difficult for alts, and in turn recruitment?

Point 3 becomes much easier if said player is bad apparently.
Point 4 - I know plenty of guilds on my server, Cho'Gall, that spends loads of time in older content just because it's fun. Servers like that completely debunk both points 1,2, and 3.
Point 5 - A valid point. But I have seen overgeared players wipe on fights because of fight mechanics. This isn't a consistent enough occurrence to be valid as defence of your point, in my opinion.


On a side note, how many players on any given server are "Bad"? what percentage of the total population is that? What percentage of the average raiding guild is made of "bads"? If these numbers are inconsistent, then that also debunks your second point.

I understand where you are coming from, but in my personal experience, these points are tremendously situational, and in some cases could be slightly tweaked into arguments in my defense.