Encouraging people to do Oculus

Q u o t e:
Seriously if you want to enforce people to do Occulus then buff the loot from the bosses, dont nerf the bosses, this will acomplish absolutely nothing ...

If you give people some cookies they'll be happy to try it out but if you just dumb it down and make it the same boring reward as before ... people will keep deserting this dungeon, how has blizzard not realised this yet? Perhaps too lazy to add items to the game, lowering some stats in their database is prolly the cheap easy way that us, loyal, touchy, whining costomers deserve ?

We tend to provide better loot for forward progression, not the other way around. So you'll see better loot in the three Icecrown Citadel five-player wings (which will include the chance to embark upon the epic quest line to obtain Quel'Delar) given that the dungeon is tuned for higher gear levels than Oculus, just as you see better loot in Trial of the Champion than existing Wrath of the Lich King dungeons today. I'd prefer it if you didn't call it an act of laziness either, as there are plenty of new items with unique art being added in the 3.3 content update.

In any event, given that Oculus will award Emblems of Triumph in patch 3.3, two Emblems of Frost if it's your first Heroic dungeon of the day run via the Random Dungeon option in the Dungeon system, and two additional Emblems of Triumph if you complete the Heroic dungeon via the Random Dungeon option each time after that, you're technically provided access to better rewards -- and a faster accumulation of emblems -- than you are today. ;)

Q u o t e:
No one avoids Occ because of bad gear. They avoid it because no one likes riding drakes.

It's funny. Last week several community managers, developers, encounter designers, and quality assurance folk logged in to the test realms to try out the Dungeon tool by playing in pick-up groups with players via the Random Dungeon option. One of the encounter designers was hit with Oculus first. In jest, we all had a good laugh at the choice provided him for his first go. No one left the group and they cleared it in a flash, I believe getting the 20-minute achievement as well. This was before creatures and bosses were tuned down a bit, and vehicle gear-scaling improved on the test realms.

It's anecdotal to be sure, but players certainly didn't shy away from enjoying the time running the dungeon with a Blizzard employee; and they had little trouble clearing it. It's one of the faster dungeons in Wrath if done right. Maybe we should implement a system where, every time Oculus is selected for you in the Dungeon tool, a Blizzard employee is put in your group. :p

We'll be logging in again tomorrow afternoon to join groups with players and test the Dungeon tool. Feel free to join us. You best not desert my group if Oculus is chosen, though you're welcome to test the Vote Kick functionality if you don't like me: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=21043884910&sid=1

Q u o t e:

Tell me, do you really think that the players on the PTR represent an average cross-section of your user base and not the so-called "upper tier" of players with advanced skill and gear? Because from where I as an "average" am looking from, it seems what you and the developers experience on the PTR and the reality on the live servers are two very different situations.

This might not fully address your question, but part of the reason the changes were made to Oculus was due to the fact that players were shying away from that dungeon while testing the Dungeon system more often than they were from other dungeons. This is the type of data we're watching on the test realms, particularly when features such as this come along.

Are the test realm players a typical sample audience? Perhaps not. But in the grand scheme of our World of Warcraft player base, I wouldn't even say those regularly running Heroic dungeons are a good sample audience. This is a large game and people enjoy many different aspects of it, some more so than others.

Q u o t e:
Incidentally, what happens to the remaining group if a member leaves? Are they put back into the LFG as a group, or just shunted back individually? What about in the middle of a run?

The chosen leader of the group will be asked if the group wants to continue the dungeon. If the leader chooses to continue, a new player will be chosen from the Dungeon system.

Q u o t e:

So you cant invite friends to the group after someone leaves?

Q u o t e:

Hm, that makes a lot of sense. Would people who join the group after some bosses have been cleared get the same sort of save warning when they join, and if they decline return to the queue?
I suppose I could always just hop on the ptr and see for myself tho >.>

I don't want to answer these questions right now, as I don't know off the top of my head and am not at work. I'll try to do some more testing of the different features tomorrow when I'm allotted time on the test realms.

Q u o t e:
I thought if you were in the random dungeon queue you didn't get saved? It had no lockout timer like the normal versions but the loot and *snicker* difficulty of heroic?

;)

It's not that you don't get saved to a Heroic dungeon when using the Random Option in the tool; rather, the Random Option will ignore your Heroic lockouts if you continue to use it, though it will attempt to weight the chance of being randomly selected for a Heroic dungeon to which you've been saved lower than those to which you have not, provided there are enough people in the queue to fill a group for an alternate instance without making you wait an excessive amount of time for a dungeon you have yet to do.

Q u o t e:
So basically, you have a chance to do dungeons that you are saved to?

When using the Random Dungeon option, yes.

Q u o t e:
Can someone please fix the title of this thread?!

Would it seem like I was poking fun at the original poster or using authoritarian revisionist history if I changed it to "Encouraging people to do Oculus"?

Q u o t e:

So if I'm reading this right:

- It's completely possible to get instances that you're saved to.

- However, if you're saved to an instance, the system will put that instance at the bottom of the priority list. You will only get a group for that instance if nobody is doing the instances that you are not saved to.

- Going further: if everybody ends up saving themselves to the first boss of Oculus as convention (this seems probable) in order to avoid having to run it for the day, the end effect is that Oculus will effectively no longer be run. The reason being that, because Oculus is at the bottom of "all" the priority lists, "nobody" will be able to form a group for it due to "everybody" being in any other Heroic.

So in my opinion, the situation involving Oculus can only truly be solved by overhauling the instance. Making it easier to do doesn't remove the few aspects of it that require some skill. Even if the boss AoEs get nerfed into oblivion, Eregos will still end up ticking people off with the need to keep track of something in order to not get wiped. Heck, even H ToC junk like Poison or Bladestorm can get healed through (though that's very difficult).

I think you've discovered the ultimate truth: if everyone just runs Oculus people might have to do it less! :p