Keep 25 and 10icc lockouts separate

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I'll keep this short and sweet: The loot tables are different and you're going to make people choose between loot they might want in 25, or loot they might want in 10 heroic. I hope they think about this a little more because I don't think they even considered this. How about getting a Shadowmourne? Half the people that do 25icc with me are going to be saved to 10man, so I'm royally boned there.

In a perfect world the loot tables would be updated in Icecrown Citadel and Ruby Sanctum. More importantly though, we want players testing out this new feature and becoming more familiar with it. We feel it's a higher priority for raiders to have a chance to get some experience with this system before entering Cataclysm raids, than it is for Wrath raiding progression to be seamless this far into the expansion.

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Which just makes it where people that like doing 10mans but feel the need to still try and get a few 25man shinies are turboscrewed... While also simultaneously providing the player base LESS things to do until cataclysm actually drops several months from now.

The design behind the new system is partially to address this issue. 10- and 25-player raids weren't designed with the intent that players would just do a raid twice a week. It's understandable that this became natural player behavior though given the design and loot system, which is why we're changing it for Cataclysm.

Whether or not you'll be running the same raids for the next several months is pure speculation. Ultimately, the distinction between 10- and 25-player shinies is almost completely null and void when factoring in new items in Cataclysm.

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I prefer not to beta test and like to leave that to the toons who like to do that type of thing.

That's fine. If you'd like the system to be functioning smoothly by the time you hit 85, and if you'd like to actually know how it works, it's better that we release it before Cataclysm ships.

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Give out more beta invites if you're that desperate. Just don't ask raiders to pay $30 to beta test for the next two months. We're your customers, we aren't here for your convenience.

I'm not asking you to beta test. I'm asking you to familiarize yourself with the way raiding will be set up in Cataclysm and let us know what you think based on your experiences prior to the release of Cataclysm.

Patches 4.0.1 and 4.0.3 will include a great deal of Cataclysm content, so it's probably best you're prepared to try it all out. If you want to call that testing, cool.

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I don't mean to sound indignant, but do you even know what we want? People who are raiding this late into the expansion are either stock piling money, finding ways to kill time, or gearing Alts.

All this change will do is limit our monetary income via GDKP runs, cut our raid lockout opportunities in half, and cut out the potential gear we can get on an alt in half.

If I wanted to see how the new raid id system worked, I would go to the ptr.

Instead, I get this new raid lockout concept crammed down my throat so I become more familiar with it.

To be honest, I really don't care about an instance lock or trying to continue a raid... I just want to play the game and have somehing to do. And this change doesn't help n

At some point players are going to need to adjust to Cataclysm changing the world, just as you did with the 2.0 and 3.0 patches. We need to release these patches to set everything up for Cataclysm.

Could we have planned to release patch 4.0.1 without the new raid system? Technically yes, but patch 4.0.1 is overhauling game systems entirely. The raid system is only one part of all of the systems changes going in. You're going to have to adjust to them at some point so we can release the next expansion with the core systems overhauls in place. It might create an awkward period of time between the release of patch 4.0.1 and the release of the next expansion, but we ask that you embrace it, check out the new features, and let us know what you think.

Q u o t e:


This.

I don't mind having the new raid system, but the way they are doing it now is going to put a lot of us between a rock and a hard place. Which raid group to we choose to raid with? How do we get around hurting feelings by telling one group that we would rather raid with the other group? It's gonna be a very sticky situation for a lot of us. :(

New raid system is fine, testing it out is fine. Testing it out at the expense of my guild is the part that is painful. :/

How do you adjust to talent trees with only 31-point talents? How will the PvE/PvP currency conversions affect you? Why are some stats being removed on items? How does the new guild interface work? What's with the new class mechanics for six out of the ten classes?

The answers to all of these questions point to one overwhelming fact: Cataclysm is coming. :)