Raiding and Achievements

[WoRBot]

Carac examines the achievement system and how it affects raiding, both in old content and moving forward with Wrath of the Lich King.

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[Utamar]

A very good post! I feel that these achievements really spiced up the game for alot of people. Myself I just love them. And it is very true that it was respect to people that had cleared naxx or did Sunwell pre nerf, but now the pve content will be open for a greater part of the community. On the other hand the Raiding achievements really provide a new aspect to the hardcore side of the pve raiding

[BLORTH]

I agree with this whole-heartedly. I recently canceled my subscription, but after reading this it does bring a new light into the approach Blizzard might be taking.

[Ramzier]

Whilst some achievements are fun and they do add to the game a little, achievements should play NO factor in how hard or easy a boss fight should be, that should purely be down to the boss design only.

Doing a boss the wrong way, with less people than intended, with one hand tied behind your back, whilst hopping on one foot is not new content, it's an artifical way of increasing difficulty which isn't fun, you're still killing the same boss you've killed every week for the past 3 months, it's just a way for blizzard to be lazy, it's bad.

Having bosses like Sartharion which is accessible to all raiders, but with a difficulty ramp up so there is a challenge for high end guilds should they wish to do it (3 drakes still alive) is a good way of adding difficulty to raid encounters whilst still having the boss be accessible to everyone. Casuals get to kill the boss, but the "world first" race for the higher end guilds will mean something with the hard way of doing the boss.

Every boss in Ulduar should have a hard mode just like Sartharion does currently.

[Lacigam]

This

Originally Posted by Ramzier

Doing a boss the wrong way, with less people than intended, with one hand tied behind your back, whilst hopping on one foot is not new content, it's an artifical way of increasing difficulty which isn't fun, you're still killing the same boss you've killed every week for the past 3 months, it's just a way for blizzard to be lazy, it's bad.

contradicts this

Originally Posted by Ramzier

Having bosses like Sartharion which is accessible to all raiders, but with a difficulty ramp up so there is a challenge for high end guilds should they wish to do it (3 drakes still alive) is a good way of adding difficulty to raid encounters whilst still having the boss be accessible to everyone. Casuals get to kill the boss, but the "world first" race for the higher end guilds will mean something with the hard way of doing the boss.

Pick a side. Doing Sartharion with 3 drakes up is the "wrong" way to do it. It is simply making a boss you've fought 3 months straight be harder.



On my own opinion though, I agree with this article. I like the idea of being able to choose how difficult you want the encounter to be. I do wish, though, that they would take the approach of Sartharion on all encounters: If you choose to do an encounter a harder way, you should be rewarded for your efforts. Be it title, mount, pet, or simply more gear.

[slayme]

Blizzard is lazy because they dont tune all boss dmg to twice so its hard? They will make more raids with more bosses and the achievements are simply for that you can "save" the way you did the boss in most cases harder. If you want it to be challenging from start then go for the hard way right away, who says you shouldnt? If there was a button next to each boss that kills it then you would use that because its the easy way? (odd example but i dont have a better in my mind :P)

[mrgummage]

Achievement points annoy me because of all the time I wasted at level 60 and 70 I could have spent getting Timbermaw Exalted, farming the Baron Mount and completing all the quests if I'd know there would be a reward for it

[Tales]

This was a great read, and now I'm feeling like "it's so obvious after I heard it"

[fizyx]

Originally Posted by mrgummage

Achievement points annoy me because of all the time I wasted at level 60 and 70 I could have spent getting Timbermaw Exalted, farming the Baron Mount and completing all the quests if I'd know there would be a reward for it

Pah! Some of us did soend time doing that, just to do it, not for some little title reward! :P

Anyways, this post was very well written, and I agree wholeheartedly.

As to the poster above who is talking about doing bosses the wrong way and all, you seem to think that the only legitimate way to make content harder is to add adds and add control to it. At least, that's the point I got out of it, since you say Sartharion's hard mode is good, but all the rest are bad. But as I read through the dungeon and raid achievements, most of the challenges I see from them are actually very good ways of making encounters more difficult, from extreme dps races (Maly 5 min kill? 20 manning several of the bosses in Naxx?) Obviously they'll get easier as people get more and more gear, but with the content levels now, they are very good ways of making fights harder and more interesting. I don't believe this is Blizzard being lazy at all, but them just trying to extend a style of play that's always been prominent in the raiding community. Always, when they get bored, raiders have looked for ways to make existing content more interesting. A 60 pally solo's BRD shortly after BWL is released. 2 60's kill Ony pre-TBC. DNT kills Loatheb with 5 people at level 60. A rogue tanks every significant pre-Sunwell fight in TBC. These are all examples what the achievement system might have given us back in the day (albeit slightly extreme ones), and the achievement system has given many people an easier way to challenge themselves, and record it in a way that everyone can see. I think that the quality of the achievements can only get better, and I look forward to the things that Blizzard has in store for us with this new system.

[Ramzier]

Originally Posted by Lacigam

This



contradicts this

What? Doing the fight a wrong way to make it artifically more difficult is things like killing grand widow without using mind control, having to clear naxx with less than 21, killing 4hm at the same time, ect ect, whilst getting the same amount of items as killing it normally.

Sartharion with 3 drakes up is the correct way of adding difficulty to a fight which then rewards you with more loot. If they added achievements like "kill sartharion whilst getting hit by the flame tsunami" then you could compare naxx and sarth achievements.

I really dont care about achievements, but if they keep up the trend of making boss fights very easy then artifically making them harder by telling you to bring less people or to do the fight the wrong way for the same reward then atleast myself will start to look for other games to play. If they go the way they did with satharion then I think everyone will be pleased.

Pick a side. Doing Sartharion with 3 drakes up is the "wrong" way to do it. It is simply making a boss you've fought 3 months straight be harder.

Doing sartharion with 3 drakes up is a completely different encounter to doing him with 0 drakes up.

On my own opinion though, I agree with this article. I like the idea of being able to choose how difficult you want the encounter to be. I do wish, though, that they would take the approach of Sartharion on all encounters: If you choose to do an encounter a harder way, you should be rewarded for your efforts. Be it title, mount, pet, or simply more gear.

Which is exactly what I said, i think we agree that every boss should have a "hard mode" with better rewards.

[Kody]

I'm not so sure I agree with you saying they're different, Ramzier. Sure, that particular encounter may have been designed with the achievement in mind (or maybe not... none of us are in Daelo's head ), but the drakes are ultimately trash or mini-bosses.

[drypulse]

Originally Posted by Ramzier

I really dont care about achievements, but if they keep up the trend of making boss fights very easy then artifically making them harder by telling you to bring less people or to do the fight the wrong way for the same reward then atleast myself will start to look for other games to play. If they go the way they did with satharion then I think everyone will be pleased.

i'm gonna take a wild guess and say that blizzard comes up with achievements for shit after they're already got the encounter pinned down to what they want. i doubt they build the encounters around a list of achievements they thought were neat on paper.

and if you can agree that the achievements come after the fact, your whole argument has no basis, since you admit to not caring about achievements. just cause there's an achievement to bring less people cause someone at blizz realized "hey, this happens a lot anyways, why not give them something", doesn't mean you have(or even want to in your case) to do it.

[Ramzier]

Originally Posted by Kody

I'm not so sure I agree with you saying they're different, Ramzier. Sure, that particular encounter may have been designed with the achievement in mind (or maybe not... none of us are in Daelo's head ), but the drakes are ultimately trash or mini-bosses.

My PoV is mainly from a raid difficulty perspective. I think lowering the bar for boss difficulty then trying to make it harder through poorly thought out achievements like the ones in Naxxramas which don't even make the instance any harder anyway is the wrong way to go, and that the way they made Sartharion a more difficult fight was really well done. This is an mmo, you shouldn't have to bring 5 less people to an instance to make it harder.

[Kody]

Originally Posted by Ramzier

My PoV is mainly from a raid difficulty perspective. I think lowering the bar for boss difficulty then trying to make it harder through poorly thought out achievements like the ones in Naxxramas which don't even make the instance any harder anyway is the wrong way to go, and that the way they made Sartharion a more difficult fight was really well done. This is an mmo, you shouldn't have to bring 5 less people to an instance to make it harder.

This mindset I can definitely agree with.

[koenigsegg]

I really hope that Ulduar (or Uldum aswell? ) will be harder. Not only harder as in badass hard achievements, I want them to be hard as default. I wasn't doing to much Naxx pre TBC (killed 2 bosses only) and now I more or less cleared it in a week (2 raids) and Archavon died to easy aswell, but sure, it's for PvP geared people. Have not tried Sartharion or Malygos yet, but the first one should be a loler with no drake up (3 is badass thou, at 10-man, even at 25-man) but Malygos seems not that hard either.
But I understand if they want all content to be more available to everyone. But I rather see even harder 10-man and 25-mans (super heroics? lol) that really are for those that want a challenge. The normal 10 and 25-man for achievements and super heroics (lame name, I know) only kills and loot (only killing and realm first achievements).

But maybe only me that want it that way.