Well, doesn't more challenging means inevitably more time spent on fight ?Originally Posted by Ion
The skill comes up early when you are undergeared, not 2-3 months into an expansion/patch.
WoW is in ultra-cashcow mode, GC and his team are only about keeping subs. Why make interesting and rewarding PvP, 5 mans and 10/15/20 man only raids (Kara/ubrs/Scholo/AQ20/ZG...) if we can just make the same raid in 6 different modes of derp; while pimping it with even more derp, over time?
Welcome to buisness model gaming...
Because keeping subs and putting out interesting content aren't at all related...
This kind of statement makes me lol.
I will agree that Prime's post is a bit over the top, however I happen to agree with his general premise. I'm sure this opinion isn't shared by all, or even most, but to my eyes it appears that Blizzard has been phoning it in for a while now on content. Professions have been allowed to mostly wither away, and serious 5man content isn't even attempted (at least Wrath finished up with Halls of Reflection, which was moderately difficult in some respects). As I described waaaaay back on page one of this thread, Blizzard has over this expansion made raiding the endgame progression for everyone. And yes, ever since WoW has been around raiding has been the pinnacle of endgame, but at least in classic and TBC there were other options if you didn't want to raid.
And they've been broadening raid accessibility in the cheapest way possible, by using the same raid instances, same bosses, just with different packages of mechanics. Now on its own, this isn't a bad thing. It takes lots of time and effort to design a raid instance. However, when coupled with the rest of character progression going by the wayside, it starts to feel a bit cheap to me.
WoW is going on 8 years old now. They know as well as anyone else that the game will not last forever, and so they've been diverting resources into new games for them to make money on. All of this is perfectly understandable. However, this has the effect of lessening the WoW experience. And while I can understand in a way why all of this is happening, it doesn't stop me (or some others) from calling a spade a spade and being upfront and honest about what is going on.
Blizzard's goal right now is to simply keep subscribers up and hold market share as best they can until Titan comes out. In that context, most of their game design decisions start to make sense. It's not personal... it's just business.
A small derail:
From a blue post on D3, talking about Hardcore mode, where people have asked them to make dead hardcore toons lootable, and give them an escape, etc, and Blizzard basically says 'no!' Kinda sounds like the old Blizzard, so maybe there's hope.
If you want to see the whole thing, check out the front page of http://diablofans.comI think as a designer, you're trying to make a game, you very rarely get to be evil; but this is the one case where, you know what? If you don't like it, you're not hard enough - and I get to say that and people will cheer!
/end derail
They did attempt to make serious 5 man content, i.e. the 4.0 level 85 heroics and the 4.1 Zandalari Heroics. So I have no clue what you are talking about. The problem was, a large part of the player base wasn't interested in "serious 5 man content" and wanted faceroll "heroics", so people started leaving in droves.
In MoP they are still trying to do serious 5 man content with the challenge modes. I don't know how well that's going to work out, but you have to at least give them credit for TRYING to make serious 5 man content.
What options? There really wasn't much in terms of PVE options in vanilla outside of raiding. How many 5 man dungeons did they add between launch and TBC? Unless I'm having a major brain fart, the only addition was Dire Maul. And vanilla lasted much longer than the expansions have.As I described waaaaay back on page one of this thread, Blizzard has over this expansion made raiding the endgame progression for everyone. And yes, ever since WoW has been around raiding has been the pinnacle of endgame, but at least in classic and TBC there were other options if you didn't want to raid.
I don't get this complaint. You would rather have 1/3 of the content so that the same raid isn't used for different difficulties? Sorry, but that is just a stupid and inefficient way to design the game.And they've been broadening raid accessibility in the cheapest way possible, by using the same raid instances, same bosses, just with different packages of mechanics. Now on its own, this isn't a bad thing. It takes lots of time and effort to design a raid instance. However, when coupled with the rest of character progression going by the wayside, it starts to feel a bit cheap to me.
P.S. If that quote Mavfin is talking about is in reference to hardcore difficulty in diablo (i.e. permadeath), I would LOVE, LOVE, LOVE a hardcore/permadeath server for WOW.
On a hardcore server you could not raid, do pvp or do 5 mans without the very significant risk of dying. Tell me, what reason would there be to roll a character on a Hardcore realm?P.S. If that quote Mavfin is talking about is in reference to hardcore difficulty in diablo (i.e. permadeath), I would LOVE, LOVE, LOVE a hardcore/permadeath server for WOW.
Now I think about it, yes, make hardcore servers. Then all the griefers would flock to those realms because permanently killing a player's character and destroying the fruits of their efforts is way more fun than killing a player that will respawn in 30 seconds with 50% life and we could get on with playing the game properly without those <snipped>.
Amen.
No one tanks in a void.........
I probably wouldn't play on a hardcore PVP server. That's too hardcore for me lol. But as to what reason there would be to roll on a hardcore realm, because hardcore is incredibly exciting and when you already have a handful of max level characters on a normal realm, what the hell else do you have to do?
I suppose you would have to disable cross realm grouping on this server though. I think it's plausible though.
Those 5-mans really weren't that difficult, but I'll grant you they took a step in the right direction.... at first. The problem was with implementation. Because 5-man heroics were put in as a gear grind to prepare for raids, people felt they had to be able to run them quickly. If normal dungeons were instead used to gear up for raids AND heroics (of course there would have to be more than 3 at max level) I think the story would have been different. I won't get into them caving on difficulty.
As I understand it, Challenge modes are meant to be speed runs through 5-mans with normalized gear. I appreciate the fact that it will be with normalized gear so you cannot outgear them, but the "speed run" aspect doesn't appeal to me on paper. Time will tell though.In MoP they are still trying to do serious 5 man content with the challenge modes. I don't know how well that's going to work out, but you have to at least give them credit for TRYING to make serious 5 man content.
Progression doesn't necessarily mean new content being introduced along the way. I recall Scholomance, Stratholme, Dire Maul, the end of BRD, LBRS, and UBRS (10-man) all being appropriate for max level characters. It wasn't tiered progression like raids, it was horizontal progression. And for characters that were wearing whatever gear you had from instances and questing (greens and blues), they were at an appropriate difficulty level. Those instances were large too; the fact that it could take most of an afternoon to clear one of those 5-mans meant that the content lasted. Was I running through the 5-mans as often as raiders were playing MC, BWL, or AQ? No. But I was able to run those instances with friends of mine and to be honest, up until TBC hit we weren't bored, and we were attempting to clear 2-3 of those instances per week. Notice I said attempting. Maybe it was just because some of us were noobish, but we didn't always succeed at finishing the instance... and that's fine. It would give us something to shoot for the next time. We didn't wander in with the expectation that the bosses would keel over for us. Some days we just didn't have it, or we'd run out of time.What options? There really wasn't much in terms of PVE options in vanilla outside of raiding. How many 5 man dungeons did they add between launch and TBC? Unless I'm having a major brain fart, the only addition was Dire Maul. And vanilla lasted much longer than the expansions have.
Crafting in those days meant a lot more. Because most people didn't raid, and 5-mans were difficult (at least to a significant portion of the WoW population) gearing was slower and more paced. Crafted gear wasn't the most powerful in the game, but it had its place. With gold far more difficult to earn, most people didn't powerlevel professions. I personally enjoy gradually learning professions.
And since questing wasn't as streamlined (whether that's a good or bad thing is a discussion for a different day), there were numerous questlines out there waiting to be found and experienced. If you weren't a raider oftentimes these questlines would finish with useful gear.
There was a more meaningful PvP progression as well, but I'll leave it at that since this thread is focused on PvE.
Am I wearing rose-colored glasses? Perhaps a bit. But there was more back then than there is today. If you were a raider you wouldn't need to do these things. But my point is there were meaningful alternatives to raiding.
If you would read what I said, I said that I understood that approach to implementing different raid difficulties and sizes. I accept that it is a necessary evil. My point is that the time/effort/money they saved on replicating raids could go toward other facets of the game.I don't get this complaint. You would rather have 1/3 of the content so that the same raid isn't used for different difficulties? Sorry, but that is just a stupid and inefficient way to design the game.
Dungeons in vanilla were in fact a "gear grind to prepare for raids"... it's just that raiding wasn't nearly as accessible as it is now. In other words, people didn't grind them for gear to run raids because they couldn't run raids. There's only two ways to not make dungeons a ramp for raids. You either make it such that the majority of players don't have the opportunity to raid, or you make dungeons a separate but equal progression path as raids.
I think you have rose-colored glasses more than a bit. There's no way in HELL that they could get away with the same hand full of dungeons and "horizontal progression" for TWO YEARS, not now. People tolerated it back then because that was all that they knew and there was very little competition. I completely disagree with your idea on how crafting was back then. In my experience, crafting was a huge grind where you rarely made anything at all worth using. And once you got to max level, guess what? Your usefulness was crafting resistance gear. It sucked balls.
Zoltar,
I think you are looking at classic WoW from the perspective of a raider, and not of a non-raider. The 5-man dungeons were gear grinds for raiders, but because they were non-trivial to complete, they could serve as an end to itself. I would quibble a bit with your assertion that "people didn't grind them for gear to run raids because they couldn't run raids." Some people who didn't grind them for gear I'm sure could have run raids had they chosen to, but for whatever reason (RL scheduling, lack of desire, etc.) did not. It is possible for something to serve two purposes. In this case I would say that the dungeons served as an end for some, and a means to an end for others.
You may be right that what worked in classic may not work in modern day WoW, but that's missing the point. My only point in bringing up these examples was to show that alternatives did exist in the past moreso than they do now. The alternatives can change over time, and I'm not trying to dictate what alternatives there should be now, only reminding people what there used to be. In TBC, Blizzard took the idea of max level dungeons and ran with it, producing a suite of heroic 5-mans. As with classic, some people used them as gear stepping stones for raids. Others, such as myself, simply enjoyed running them. To each their own. But having a meaningful choice for non-trivial PvE content is a good thing in my opinion.
And as far as crafting goes, we can agree to disagree. I enjoyed crafting in classic WoW. Again, because I was not a raider, I did not feel the need to churn out resistance gear or grind tons of mats for raid consumables. I could take my time in leveling various professions without raid pressure. It was far more immersive in my opinion, but it's just that: my opinion. Opinions can differ, and as I said a few posts back, I'm sure my opinions do not jive with those of most players. So be it.
Last edited by ChairmanHez; 05-05-2012 at 12:19 AM.
I concur with Lore's explanation of how raids are kind of linear with their difficulty. Very basic for LFR, more things going on in Normal, and even more things for Hardmodes. I think this is the case.
I had this thought a while back: I am not enjoying Dragon Soul very much - the raid instance as a whole. I'm not challenged like I was with Heroic Ragnaros. I think the reason why is because previously, in Firelands, Bastion of Twilight, Blackwing Descent, and Throne of the Four Winds, you really had to look out for yourself. Firelands: stay out of Shannox's traps; stay out of Alysrazor's brushfire, tornadoes; be careful with stacking/spreading on Majordomo. BoT: watch out for fireballs coming in on the Halfus encounter; don't stand in fire around Cho'gall. BWD: don't stand in Magmaw's lava pillar.... yadda yadda.. you get the drift. Fire is bad.
I think that the difficulty in raiding has devolved because of LFR. It can't be difficult. There can't be fire to get out of, or more than likely every single LFR will fail. Sure, there are a few things... get out of Morchok's goo, stand in Twilight Onslaught. But really... other than maybe some trash or choice encounters, is there anything to watch out for? I feel that LFR is the main reason that Dragon Soul lacks anything extraordinary, any feeling of epicness. LFR has to be accessible, and from there, Normal can have a few additions but really the fights don't vary significantly. Hardmodes are meant to be hard, but again, they just plopped the cherry on top of the whipped cream on top of the banana... but there is no ice cream.
I don't think LFR hurt DS at all, I think it was just HM design in general. Like... LFR you pretty much ignore all of the mechanics and just pew pew. In Normal you pay attention to some of the mechanics but can ignore some, then in HM you actually have to pay attention to mechanics. That's why it sucked imo. Very few fights added something interesting and dynamic into them.
Hell... I think Morchokk had the potential to be the MOST interesting fight in the instance on hardmode, instead they designed it such that you could just split into two completely independent groups that just ignored the other group with almost no enrage timer... Yay!? Interesting and possibly complex fight turned into: eh, you could really probably just 5 man this on normal and it would be the exact same fight.
[Today 09:38 AM] Reev: The older I get, the more I think those Greek philosophers were just annoying hipsters.
A curiosity based question to those who have raided all three variants of Dragon Soul.
Given your experience in DS, do you get any distinct impression that Blizzard started designing the instance with heroic, and "de-tuned" it for normal and LFR, or the other way around? Or did they start with normal, and scale up and down from that point?
Last edited by Lrot; 05-08-2012 at 06:11 AM.
That is a good question. I think that they started with LFR or Normal.
LFR: Nobody is expected to do anything special. Stay alive, contribute to the fight somehow. You're part of a group, doing a task that you queued for.
Normal: Two or three, maybe four, mechanics to deal with, simple at the core. Strip away two for LFR, good to go. Add a few for Heroic modes, sounds good.
I think they start with 25 normal, strip out some abilities that the LFR numpties (take it as a term of endearment) won't understand and wouldn't execute if they did. Then they take the 25N and make it work for 10N. Then they take those fights, and make them harder for 25H and 10H.
I find it interesting that with all the predictions in this thread of large sub losses, Blizzard was able to report basically stable subs in Q1 2012, same numbers as Q4 2011. Maybe there's more to the game for casuals than some realize?
Not entirely unexpected that subs stabilized, Blizz learned the lessons of Cata ie stupid hard costs subs.
It wasn't stupid hard though. Blizzard just spent almost all of wrath training players into bad habits. And GW2 Beta has really shown this, where players just aren't used to the idea of moving out of AoE. You spend the first 80 odd levels not having to worry about fire/dispels/interupts/positioning is it any suprise that when those do matter players suddenly whinge about it being too hard?
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