Katiamora wrote:
In the end, Blizzard will do what they will do no matter the number of threads about it or whether anyone thinks they've shut down anyone else. We can have a small voice in the conversation and contribute our thoughts but at the end of the day it doesn't mean too much. At the moment, based on Chilton's comments this year at Gamescon, they seem to be leaning towards wanting more participation in raid content, not less. Hence implementation of first Dungeon Journal and now Raid Finder. How it all works out remains to be seen.
Take that for what it is. The boat has already set sail...
It doesn't seem to me to be very likely that there will be 20k-40k guilds downing heroic Ragnaros, much less heroic Deathwing by the end of the expansion. Further, no one will want to be running Deathwing once a new expansion is out, especially if it includes a brand new continent. If Blizzard can actually shorten the shelf life of an expansion to 18 months or less there won't be that long period of time where everyone catches up.
Why not, with a new expansion, plan to have everyone on the same tier at different levels of difficulty (LFR/Normal/Heroic just to attach some words) with appropriate rewards that will allow players who wish to advance to do so. If designed properly, raids shouldn't need to be fixed later on to make them easier. People and guilds who don't want to mess with the LFR/easiest mode can bypass it entirely.
I'm not entirely certain why this is so controversial other than it's a change from past and current practice. If I were a Blizzard designer, I'd want everyone playing on the same content, not having a large chunk of the player population stuck one content tier behind.
Just my opinion. And worth just about that...
A proposed easier or introductory mode would, I hope, allow people to experience difficult mechanics for the first time without instant death and a consequent wipe. Eventually one could, if one desires to, move on to the same content at higher-level difficulty where mistakes matter more [and the rewards consequently higher]. Those that have geared up enough in instances or through whatever mechanism they use to gear themselves can skip over this if they like. If you've been absent from the game for a couple of weeks or working on an alt and need a warmup, well, here you go. If not, fine.
The real point is to allow someone who is less skilled but genuinely wants to get better learn what they need to learn without costing everyone in the group, friend or total stranger, a repair bill before moving on. All of this would be less needed if there was a game culture that tolerated learning and mistakes. I'm not aware that that culture exists outside of guilds. Anyway, as a general outline, that's how I would like to see it work.
[edited to clarify risk/reward]...
My concern with opening up raiding to more or all is simple. If I had a dollar for every time I've heard about guilds breaking up and complaining that there's no bench of good players out there to draw from, I'd have my subscription paid for the rest of my natural life. I went through this at the start of the Xpac so haven't really raided much myself. Even in this thread it's been stated that the player base at the guild application level is terribly inadequate.
So it seems to me as if smart people would be looking for ways to get more people into raiding, widening the talent pool, then figuring out ways to help those that want to do well. An introductory-level of difficulty for current tier content is one (but only one) way to think about this. Serious players who think about the future of raiding can think of others. But at some point, the goal should be for raiding to be more generally inclusive, not exclusive.
Aedilhild wrote:
You haven't "shut" anything "down," and if you think otherwise, you're taking this issue far too personally. As per your reply to me, what does it matter who is considered a "raider" unless this is about social exclusion and, again, stakes in a video game that have become overly personal?
Even though our respective experiences are weighed and adduced, this is about debating; nothing more. Katiamora has it right: Blizzard will make its choice, and none of us on either side of the argument should assume the developers will appease us...
One of the essential features of FPS matchmaking is to balance teams according to skill perceived by available data. Bungie famously executed the concept in 2004 for Halo 2. For the first time, thousands of players stood a chance of winning or losing a fair match most of the time; they couldn't before because players joined the same lobbies whether they were new to the game, uncoordinated or phenomenal. Notably, the skill rankings earned by players formed a kind of ladder, since after a few months most players had reached their limit; at the end of the day, some would be much better (or much worse) than others. Experiences varied greatly depending on the players and tactics used, but everyone was playing the same game.
Through heroic modes, WoW already allows a significant division between players. Guilds dedicated to heroic progression will not raid with 90% or more of the raiding population. Guilds capable of heroic progression will not raid with 75% of the raiding population. Despite this, almost all negative player feedback in Cataclysm has been directed at the encounters common to all segments! It seems pretty clear: an additional segment (instance mode) would not only give a portion of that last 75% "a league of their own," but would draw in players who have avoided or quit raiding this expansion.
The goal is not to have all players together; it's to have all players playing the same game.
Ravenbane wrote:
I honestly don't think the current T11 raids could be any easier. The reason people can't complete them is that, unlike say the ZA/ZG heroics, there is nobody willing to carry the bad players through them.
The 4.3 raid finder will go a long way towards fixing this, assuming there will some reward for using it and the lockouts will be taken away when you queue for a random raid...
This is already going to happen when they introduce the raid finder in 4.3. There will be a buff for people who use it, guaranteed...
Catching up isn't that big of a concern as long as they can progress at their own rate. BC was a big problem in this regard since many guilds never got past T5 content because of attunements. There were many guilds in wrath (e.g. the guilds ranked in the 20,000 to 40,000 range) who happily progressed a tier behind everyone else.
Areydan wrote:
If you completely strip the feature of rewards then it will never be used. I don't see this as being a useful addition to the game whatsoever.
The point of this discussion is not to penalize or punish unskilled, unorganized or unmotivated players who are struggling with the normal mode content. It's to provide them a less challenging, but less rewarding progression path to still experience current content.
I agree with you. A flat buff/nerf won't be enough to segment the difficulty. Much like the nerfs applied to Tier 11, certain abilities will have to be altered or removed entirely. The challenge is balancing this to keep it challenging enough to be entertaining, and keeping the rewards meaningful enough to draw players to it. Careful consideration will also have to be made to ensure the Normal and Heroic modes don't suffer and they are adequately rewarded for tackling the more difficult content.
I do think this is possible, but it might have to wait until the next expansion.
There's a
long thread consisting mostly of sock puppets (OP, Ravenbane, Areydan, Aedilhild, Katiamora) on DnR about the future of raiding. Apparently, Blizzard is trying to lay down astroturf for the direction they've decided upon: 15-man raids, 10-man sub-raids, and three difficulty settings...and tank DPS will define mitigation.
(The criteria I usually use for judging "sock puppet"/"grey poster" status is: apparent belief in Blizzard's infallibility, detailed but overly numerical/statistical view of the game, and out-of-touch beliefs about the community, guiding the dialogue and talking in concrete terms about concepts that don't exist yet - overall, espousing opinions irreconcilable with apparent level of knowledge and experience).
With quotes like that, what I ask is:
-Are they hardcore raiders? No, because raiders know these claims are false and know these proposals are bad.
-Are they casuals/bads, or mediocre raiders? No, because players at that level don't possess such a level of in-depth knowledge.
The only people who could write that way are game designers who don't play games.
The really bizarre thing is that most of the content of the thread is just dialogue between sock puppets. The dialogue really doesn't convince anyone else; it only serves as an echo chamber for the Blizzard devs/CMs...for one year, a sea of forum bans and over a million lost subs later, they are (almost) the only ones who really feel convinced that they're on the right track.
Also,
you saw this coming when they introduced thread ratings. Then Fasc comes in on page eight, gg.
The next expansion (which should release roughly contemporaneous with GW2/SWTOR) is going to be interesting to watch. I'm sure downrating posts and skewing dialogues will be all that's needed to make sure the Western playerbase doesn't lose three million subs in the first year. Because that's my prediction.
Why do I care? Because, I really hate human stupidity. No matter how much I witness, it never ceases to surprise me.
