So now we do 25p. . . - Blue Tracker

#0 - May 13, 2009, 6:05 p.m.

Blizzard, I usually don't complain about your game, I really enjoy WoW. Yeah, here I am complaining, not because I want to stop playing, bash you, or kick a hornet's nest, but because I truly care about WoW. If I didn't care I would tell my guild goodbye, delete my toons, and cancel my account. But I would rather not, and I probably won't, but still. . .

Raiding in Wrath is not exactly the type of material that can hold attention for long periods of time, simply because the content is milked far too much. When Wrath was released we got Naxx with 10p and 25p raids in the same instance. What ever happened to BC content where you have separate 10 and 25p raids? Same thing with Ulduar, right now my guild is progressing through Ulduar 10p, after we clear it and have that on farm, I don't know if myself or many of my guildies will feel like doing the same thing, in the same instance on 25p. Blizzard even milked Ulduar that much more with hard mode.

At least in BC you actually went to a new raid when you progressed from 10 to 25p content. As I gear up, what do I have to look forward to, the same bosses that are just harder? No new environs, mobs, and strats that are more or less the same.

Northrend is a 3-D masterpiece, a true work of art, I can truly say the zone design is, in many cases, jaw dropping. Bliz put a lot of work into that, but was that at the cost of content? BC zone design was drab, and flat yet we had very interesting and varied raids. Okay, I know content was released throughout BC's life, but even still, you had separate 10 and 25p raids. And it may just be my personal observation, but people weren't as bored with BC content as they were with Wrath; well many didn't become as bored so quickly.

Heroic raids, really? So we do Ulduar 10p, get good at that, do Ulduar 10p hard in conjunction with, perhaps, Ulduar 25p, conquer that, then do even more Ulduar 25p hard mode - Jeez that's a lot of the same instance.

Bornakk

#10 - May 13, 2009, 6:29 p.m.

Don't forget there were also a lot of complaints during The Burning Crusade by players not able to enjoy the content like Black Temple because there was no real progression path from Karazhan and Zul'Aman to the 25 player raids. While yes, you may be running the same dungeon in multiple ways with the new setup, we plan to continue to iterate on it and develop for what is best for the player base.

And as some others have brought up, doing both the normal and heroic versions of a raid dungeon is up to the players, it may help you progress faster if that is your goal, but we don't try to make it a requirement.

Bornakk

#39 - May 13, 2009, 6:57 p.m.

Q u o t e:

prime example of how the developers take information in and screw it up.

Raid progression failed in BC because it went normals,Kara,heroics...........and way the hell over here was BT.

We wanted it to go normals,heroics, 10 man raid, different 10 man raid, different 10 man raid, 25 man raid different 25 man raid, different 25 man raid.

At what point did you miss the boat on what players thought progression was?

Just using this example there is a request for normal dungeons and 6 raid dungeons which really is a lot of work. The problem with this is that the people who want to do bigger 25 player raids would complain when only 10 player raids are available as we wouldn't have reached the 25 player ones yet, and then vice versa when we are adding the 25 player raid dungeons and ignoring 10 player raids. Making a raid dungeon is a lot of work and not something that is easy to complete.

We went with this new model as it allows a progression path for players who want to do just 10 player raids and for those who want to do just 25 player raids. All players also get to experience all of the content that we worked on in the way that works best for them.

Q u o t e:
And I'd like to bring this point up...why did you fail so hard this expansion on itemization of normals?I could run ever single normal dungeon and not gear up enough for level 80 heroics.It's pretty much get to 80, buy crafted gear both blue and epic and do heroics and hope people are willing to deal with you for a couple weeks til you start getting geared properly.

In my experience it's kind of the other way around, players feel they can skip almost all of the normals and go straight to heroics. Either way we would like it to be a little smoother, but there isn't an exact line on what is right and wrong on them.

Bornakk

#89 - May 13, 2009, 7:51 p.m.

Q u o t e:
Acutally, there was a perfect linear progression in early BC. Normal->Heroics->Kara->Gruul->Magtheridon->SC/Eye->MH/BT->Sunwell. What screwed that up was constantly introducing new badge gear that enabled newer raiders to skip the entry level content, as well as the removal of attunments. Instead of having to "graduate" to more advanced content by proving your compentence at early content, people were allowed to go anywhere, whether they were prepared or not. Naturally, since they didn't master the eariler content, the later content was too "hard" for them, and out came the nerf bat.

For many players they went from Karazhan to pugs for Gruul/Magtheridon/SSC/TK then to Zul'Aman as their guild was focused on 10 player raids and not 25 player raids. So that should be added in there as the other progression for players but this is more confusing than we'd like it to be and still ends up somewhat blocking the Hyjal/Black Temple/Sunwell area from a lot of players.

The goal is to open up raiding to more players with a smooth progression line and a setting that they can adapt to easier. I would say the model so far in Wrath of the Lich King does this better, but there is still room for improvements.