PST - Episode 81

[Gregasaurous]

On the weekly raid quests, I think Lore only really discussed one form of them that there was in Wrath. As you recall, there was the ICC weekly raid quest (go kill the Giant dude, do Sindy different, do DW different, etc.) but there was also the weekly quest you picked up from in front of VH in Dal, the "Sarth must die!", "Patchwerk must die!", etc quests. As a Wrathbaby that got into raiding at the point ToC was released, I enjoyed going back to see a sample of those "old" raids. 9 times out of 10, it was a pug group and you rarely wiped on something like that, but it was another thing a raider had to accomplish in a week in order to maximize their frost badges. As you rightly pointed out, the use of badges/VP is now quite different from that tier, but the idea was good. As in, "here's an incentive to go kill a boss or two in an older raid." Would people put together groups to go down Halfus/Omno/Conclave/etc these days if the reward was right? Probably.

Did you miss the part where most of the raiding community didn't like that either? Having to go back and farm old content is never appreciated. Ask any 10 man raider who was farming Firelands for Dragonwrath well through 4.3. Any WOTLK raiders who were farming Ulduar just for Val'anyr until halfway through ICC. Nobody likes it when farming old content becomes a "mandatory" part of being the best raider you can be. And it doesn't fit with Blizzards new approach at end game where it's (suposedly) going to be a: "Do your own thing without feeling/being bad for doing it."

[tawnos]

I think quite a few people liked going back and doing (moderate amounts of) old content for a current reward. Did the people who had already done those zones repeatedly on farm enjoy it? Probably not. Does that constitute your "most of the raiding community"? I doubt it very much but I don't think there is any way to accurately determine it. My guess is that the average raider in any tier didn't see the previous tier, let alone the entire expansion.

[Neepall]

Yeah only SCII is predominately a 1v1 game (at least on the competitive end) and LoL ranked solo queue is usually a nightmare full of idiots (not to mention the competitive players don't care about personal ratings but about how good their team is). Basically like trying to PuG HC raiding (when it's not nerfed). Sometimes it works very nicely but more often than not you end up frustrated.

Yes sc2 is mainly a 1v1 situation and it works well, the LoL aspect can work well too. Sure there can be trolls or just bads in there as well. Again in order for a ranking ladder to work there has to be a upper, lower, and mid range rung in the mix. That is a risk that each play must chance, the same as if you was to put together a group prior. People may look good on paper, but fail to be able to compete even in a preformed group. The great thing about a good player is the ability to adapt to the situation and perform their job to the fullest. Often games that overcome the bads/trolls/idiots in those random games can make for some of the best matches. Again I will drop the CoD ref again. You hop into a matchmaking game there HcCtF as an example, each player has personal ranking already that is a given but a person's rank(ings) has little to do with the game itself. People are on equal ground at the start, there is an objective, people do their stuff, either poorly or great, and the outcome is off of that. It isn't replacement for full team games, but it is an alternative.

As to trying to pug pre-nerf hc content, yes it can be done and should be possible. I want the community to get rid of this bloody stigma that is attached to pugging away. It is as bad as the hardcore/casual / 10/25 / etc of hogwash. Every bit of content is capable of being done with a pug, a pug does not, by any means, relate to any difference of work required. In earlier times it was quite common to have a good amount of pug's in your group due to various things; the drop to 25/10 lessened this. Not that didn't throw it out the window though, it just placed more responsibility on the people there.
In tbc we typically pugged 2 alt runs every week for bt/mh (pre-swp) most people on most servers rarely even saw this content but yet it was pugged. Swp didn't see much pugs until 3.0 but those of us in there before that patch can understand that. Muru was a guild killer, brut had high dps requirements, rest needed a large amount of coordination. Past that patch it was fairly common to see pugs for this, yes they had to work hard but it was no less than guilds. Hell some guilds still never even seen this content.
Wrath rolls around, and this became even more pug friendly, raiding is starting to catch up. Players are getting better, things become easier, not that the content was extremely hard either... My giant blueberry tanked our server first S+3 kill, so things are not brick wall or cake walk. There are still guilds that struggled with progression, and there was pugs that could breeze through the content at the same time. My weekly pugs got many a HM uld/togc/icc/fl/ds kills before tons of guilds did. Why? Because we worked, people did their job, and those that lacked was gone. Sure bad pugs can happen, but again that comes with the territory same as guild runs. It all comes down to the right leader, communication, proper selection, and effort; again just the same as any guild.
Remember us as the raiding community is still only a fraction of the player base. <5% cleared original naxx, <5% cleared swp pre3.0 and not even 10% has cleared hm ds still. But just because all of the people are not rocking the same guild tag, doesn't mean they cannot execute a scripted encounter as good as those who wear a matching guild tag.

Did you miss the part where most of the raiding community didn't like that either? Having to go back and farm old content is never appreciated. Ask any 10 man raider who was farming Firelands for Dragonwrath well through 4.3. Any WOTLK raiders who were farming Ulduar just for Val'anyr until halfway through ICC. Nobody likes it when farming old content becomes a "mandatory" part of being the best raider you can be. And it doesn't fit with Blizzards new approach at end game where it's (suposedly) going to be a: "Do your own thing without feeling/being bad for doing it."

The community rarely agrees on things. Yes the icc ones was not great because of the things of having to do stupid crap and it was a huge hassle and headache to do, specially during progression. But that isn't what Steveh was really talking about. He was talking more on the lines of the X Must Die! quests. Those quests was actually quite successful for a few reasons, they just required a person to go in a kill a boss that was early in the instance, which wasn't really progression raid, and not do anything special . Razor was the only one that required you to kill more than 1 boss, and that was because flame lev was in the way. The older content is always very easily pugged, and happened every day on my servers. They wasn't required since it wasn't relevant content, but the reward was nice, they was still fun, and often led to more than just that boss. Many a time did those runs just turn into a clear just for shits and giggles. The same cannot be said for the ICC ones.
There was no "farming" needed as you said, and well aware of the farming that happens. We have farmed 5 different staffs for recruits past 4.3, many of the uld mace, hell even in tbc we farmed illidan for 80+ kills and never seen a mh glaive drop at all. I had an off hand and our fury had the other off hand that dropped but never a single mh, same with classic content as well, the staff, tf, and sulf.
I am extremely aware of farming old content, but that has nothing to do with the topic that this was on. That is a problem with legendaries. Yes I firmly believe that all the legendary models that have been in game have been bad and that they should be no more, but this isn't the debate for that atm.
This has to do with the weekly quests. In which I believe, and stand by the idea that they could come back but will only work properly if they are for non-relevant content. Do I believe they should give a currency, no because the currency system has changed a whole lot since back in wrath. That model wont work well, in my eyes, but other worthwhile rewards sure. It would be kinda hard to make the rewards not mandatory though which is why I think currency shouldn't be the answer. Which most of us raiders get capped from just the raid alone so if it gave vp, why should I do it?. Maybe consumables could be nice, since you wouldn't "need" to get them but helpful to do so.

[Gregasaurous]

Apologies, the reference to Legendaries was in no way a directed rant at them, merely an example supporting my statement that most people resent farming out of date content. I wasn't saying that "Kill X Boss" quests were inherently bad, just that I highly doubt Blizzard would choose too use a model of it that put players back into old content again. Which is what my previous post was entirely about, not how legendaries suck.

[eald]

Apologies, the reference to Legendaries was in no way a directed rant at them, merely an example supporting my statement that most people resent farming out of date content. I wasn't saying that "Kill X Boss" quests were inherently bad, just that I highly doubt Blizzard would choose too use a model of it that put players back into old content again. Which is what my previous post was entirely about, not how legendaries suck.

This works in Rift. The way it works is that the reward is the coin that is one step behind of the actual raiding tier. For people that is gearing is great, for people that just raid casually too, guilds that are behind on progression or try to gear up or help some of their new recruits use them too. The hardcore, in progression, already established raider groups don't do that in its main.

If this is a another way to get Valor Points, where there are so many ways to cap, it could work.

[Lore]

Hey Lore, I remember you mentioning something about an 'MMO #2' that WAS successful, but you never elaborated on which one, I'm just curious, which one?

Whoops!

I was referring to Guild Wars 2. There's a lot of reasons why that's kind of an odd comparison to make though. The biggest are the lack of monthly fee, and the fact that the first Guild Wars wasn't really a "true" MMO in the traditional sense.

And, of course, the game hasn't released yet, so it's still feasible that it could flop.

[Lore]

I think quite a few people liked going back and doing (moderate amounts of) old content for a current reward. Did the people who had already done those zones repeatedly on farm enjoy it? Probably not. Does that constitute your "most of the raiding community"? I doubt it very much but I don't think there is any way to accurately determine it. My guess is that the average raider in any tier didn't see the previous tier, let alone the entire expansion.

The simple fact is that most people raid in guilds (at least on NA and EU servers). And although there are certainly new guilds formed every tier, many of the people in even those guilds will have already raided in a previous tier. Those people are not going to want to go back to old content, and any design that forces people not to have fun, even if it's only a small portion of the group, is a bad one.

[Gregasaurous]

Whoops!

I was referring to Guild Wars 2. There's a lot of reasons why that's kind of an odd comparison to make though. The biggest are the lack of monthly fee, and the fact that the first Guild Wars wasn't really a "true" MMO in the traditional sense.

And, of course, the game hasn't released yet, so it's still feasible that it could flop.

Oh... that didn't even come to mind since it's not even in beta yet?

[tawnos]

The simple fact is that most people raid in guilds (at least on NA and EU servers). And although there are certainly new guilds formed every tier, many of the people in even those guilds will have already raided in a previous tier. Those people are not going to want to go back to old content, and any design that forces people not to have fun, even if it's only a small portion of the group, is a bad one.

Just from my experience I don't buy that consistent, steady raid guilds are all that common. 25m guilds are much more resilient but I see far more 10m guilds created within the tier than raiding consistently in it and in prior tiers. Granted the 10m guild is a relatively new phenomenon but at least on the server I'm on they are dying and being recreated constantly and they are comprised largely of people returning to the game after varying lengths of absence. Outside of the 6-8HM guilds the average lifespan seems to be in the low numbers of months now (for 10m).

I run in a 25m and 2 10m guilds now and very few people in those saw enough of tier11 to have said they farmed it. Most of them either barely saw firelands or have never stepped foot in it. Its a constantly changing cast of characters and maybe when people return from D3 en masse there will be less turnover but for now I see very few people with a consistent raiding background which I think is pretty typical of the last release in an expansion.