[Deployed]

Leviathonlx said:

Attunements were far better than this gated crap and Blizzard apparently forgot how to stretch content out without artificial gates. They could EASILY gate the content by making a 'gateway'/gearcheck boss such as 40 man Naxx Patchwerk, Shahraz in BT, Brutallus in Sunwell or Kael'thas but instead they want to do something that is FAR more annoying. I didn't mind wiping on any of those above bosses for over a month but that was since it was FUN always getting closer and closer to downing the boss and it felt like a huge accomplishment when we did. Gateway bosses might be too hard for 'casuals' but it would eventually get nerfed anyway or the stacking buff would of just got them through it eventually.

Gearcheck bosses would result in one of two things with todays raid evironment. Hardcore guilds (all versions of them) would sprint ahead and everyone else that struggles with passing these bosses would fall behind and simply would struggle to experience the raid.

The second result is that even hardcore guilds struggle with the gearcheck boss, in which case it would be like subjecting a casual raid guild in Blue items to the difficulty of ToGC.

Periodic gating is there to keep players together. To stop one secion of the community sprinting so far ahead that it's just demoralising to the "lesser" raiders (and the programmers for not finding the perfect balance).


Just to make this clear, I'm not a fan of this gating, I'm just explaining how I understand it and just trying to point out the difference that some alternatives would cause.

Personally, I like the idea of a server being able to affect that gate. Being able to open it faster. Again, something I wish survived the Sunwell patch. I mentioned before that periodic gating makes players feel helpless. If they actually had an affect on the timed release of the gates (but still having something there to stop people seeing Arthas in week 1), we wouldn't see this many complaints.


Xentrophy, I didn't mean to imply that as being the only purpose behind it. I also forgot the part that the heroic modes won't be available until Arthas is defeated, which in itself moots most of that comment, but I cannot rule out that the perception of a situation I made in that post had "some" factor. I certainly would rule out raids doing that in order to make beating heroic modes easier on themselves. Other than that, I fully agree. As mentioned earlier

[Leviathonlx]

Deployed said:

Gearcheck bosses would result in one of two things with todays raid evironment. Hardcore guilds (all versions of them) would sprint ahead and everyone else that struggles with passing these bosses would fall behind and simply would struggle to experience the raid.

The second result is that even hardcore guilds struggle with the gearcheck boss, in which case it would be like subjecting a casual raid guild in Blue items to the difficulty of ToGC.

Periodic gating is there to keep players together. To stop one secion of the community sprinting so far ahead that it's just demoralising to the "lesser" raiders (and the programmers for not finding the perfect balance).


Just to make this clear, I'm not a fan of this gating, I'm just explaining how I understand it and just trying to point out the difference that some alternatives would cause.

Personally, I like the idea of a server being able to affect that gate. Being able to open it faster. Again, something I wish survived the Sunwell patch. I mentioned before that periodic gating makes players feel helpless. If they actually had an affect on the timed release of the gates (but still having something there to stop people seeing Arthas in week 1), we wouldn't see this many complaints.


Xentrophy, I didn't mean to imply that as being the only purpose behind it. I also forgot the part that the heroic modes won't be available until Arthas is defeated, which in itself moots most of that comment, but I cannot rule out that the perception of a situation I made in that post had "some" factor. I certainly would rule out raids doing that in order to make beating heroic modes easier on themselves. Other than that, I fully agree. As mentioned earlier

Keeping players together won't really work and I doubt that was much of the reasoning. The moment bosses become available the same top guilds will get through the content before everyone else and the same top guilds will get through the hard modes quicker (which won't be gated once available...in 2 months), but the only difference with this gating system is that the top guilds on the servers will be sitting around bored after a night or 2 of raiding for the first month or so.

Leveling the playing field is what was done when they added hard modes and made the normal modes a bit easier. Now with TOC they went over the top and the normal mode was beyond a joke and no fight there was harder than any normal fight in Ulduar. It SEEMS so far that the normal mode fights in ICC are hard but are far from pushovers so even your normal average guild (especially with the attempt limits) would likely not even make it past 2 wings in the first week(s) and that will separate guilds much more than non gating would.

Gear checks cause the problem that some guilds may not be able to do it but you can do a gear check in a way that is only a gear check aka there is no reason for a guild in mostly T8 to go very far into ICC. The lesser guilds falling behind isn't an issue since that will happen regardless of what is used since those same guilds are going to clear through the hardmodes much faster than those other guilds. And for the most part gear checks are usually well done such as Brutallus which basically required that your tanks had T6 gear otherwise they were going to get their faces smashed in. The best part about ICC is the stacking buff which basically ensures that even people not geared enough for the instance would eventually have enough leverage to get by.

It's just a artificial bad way to prolong content when there is no reason to. Icecrown Citadel is already 200 times funner than TOC will ever be and I really wouldn't care about farming it for months on end. The limited attempts system CAN work with more attempts and shouldn't be there at all for normal modes since it goes against Blizzards whole philosophy with this expansion.

This post has been edited by Leviathonlx: 19 November 2009 - 04:05 PM

[Xentropy]

I don't know if gear checks are a great way to go either, at least on normal modes. ToGC25 Beasts are considered a gear check, but with mostly 245 gear my guild still can't down them...after one-shotting ToC25 for weeks in total yawnfests. Blizzard seems to have put up these gigantic brick walls where there's nothing in-between so-easy-PUGs-do-it and so-hard-you-can't-have-even-one-out-of-25-people-in-your-raid-be-mediocre. It'll help that (once heroic modes are available AT ALL) you can turn heroic mode on and off on a per-boss basis in Icecrown. Knowing Heroic Jaraxxus and Faction Champs are EASIER than Beasts and not being able to even attempt them because they're behind one of those "gear checks" you love to see is frustrating to no end.

But the fact Heroic can't even be unlocked for months after 3.3's release is going to mean, unless Normal modes have been tuned too hard*, months more one-shotting (and even more time in yawnfest ToC25) before finally maybe finding our guild's sweet spot of medium difficulty by turning on Heroic mode for some of the "easier" hard modes in ICC. But none of those even CAN be the end bosses of wings, because using up attempts on Heroic mode just means less loot from Normal mode too, because for my guild I can't just leave one attempt left and then do it on Normal. I can't depend on no d/c's, no idiots, no wastes of that one attempt even on the easy stuff.

* Honestly, Normal should be a pushover by the new design strategy--I think that's the only thing ToC got right--the Heroic modes just need to ramp meaningfully from medium to insane instead of starting with very hard, dropping to medium to reward those who can do the very hard boss with FOUR BOSSES worth of loot, then back to insane for the last boss. I don't think there's much of an argument that that isn't what's happening right now. Just look at the numbers. A quick perusal of WoWProgress shows 63.93% of guilds have downed Anub regular, then it drops to just 21.22% for Heroic Beasts, and barely drops off from there to 18.9% Heroic Jaraxxus, 15.87% Heroic Faction Champs, and 12.05% Valkyr Twins before the next big dump to 2.87% Heroic Anub. Less than 1/3 of those who can down Anub on regular can even down Heroic Beasts, but 3/4 of those also get 3/5, and over half of those who can down Heroic Beasts can also get 4/5. They're functionally handing out 4 bosses worth of loot for downing Beasts on Heroic. How is that more fair than tuning Beasts to be easier than Jaraxxus which is easier than Faction Champs which is easier than Twins? That's the "gear check" argument, though. That there should be gateway bosses that award multiple bosses worth of gear for blowing past. I've never liked that sort of setup. It may make sense for the Evil Overlord list (don't throw your low level minions at the Hero and let them level up before hitting your high level minions...just throw your strongest guys at them at the start and watch them die), but it doesn't make sense from a gameplay, balance, and fun standpoint in a video game.

This post has been edited by Xentropy: 20 November 2009 - 02:41 AM

[lekiki]

Im not sure I fully understand the limited attempt mechanic. Am i right in saying when the plagueworks open you will then i assume kill Rotface and festergut, but then you will be hit with a 5 attempt limit to kill Professor Putricide? Assuming you fail. You then must wait till the next reset to regain your 5 attempts. When the crimson wing opens, will you then gain 10 attempts on the prof and blood queen. When last wing opens you then gain 15 attemps on all the 4 bosses mentioned?

The idea to only unlock heroic after completing the normal modes is fantastic. What we saw up till now was that all the top hardcore guilds who for example had equipped themselves in full 213 gear from naxx 25 could jump straight into ulduar 10 hard modes. More casual guilds who were all stuck on 200 gear were forced to complete ulduar 10 to attempt these as completing naxx 25 would be counter productive with 219 gear introduced. this gave all hardcore guilds such as advantage to get the world firsts for example which yes, you can say they worked for it in previous content but it really does not let everyone start on an even foot. With this system all the guilds who attempt the HARD modes which is what is important to us all in terms of competition, will be alot more equal in terms of gear. Because they would all have completed the normal mode gives them the extra Ilevel gear. Then they can fight it out evenly for the top spots in terms of skill, rather than who was formed earlier and who was in a better posistion coming into the new patch.

Gated is a very bad idea. JUST MAKE THE BOSSES HARD!!!! That will itself slow down the wow community, yes the top 1% of guilds will still complete it relatively quickly. So make your hard mode versions 99% impossible. Then guilds who are casual can progress at a steady pace and you top 1% of guilds can work day and night on your hard modes.

Limited attempts I am very undecided on. While it adds extra difficulty which EVERYONE complains about (too easy blah blah) it also leaves you with nothing but ToC and Ulduar if you are unfortunate enough to fail. It adds tension, nescessity of skill, concentration. I will certainly enjoy this.

All in all this is going to be a great raid im sure. Why dont all you guys try it, before handing in your resignations to blizzard already.

[Kody]

lekiki said:

Im not sure I fully understand the limited attempt mechanic. Am i right in saying when the plagueworks open you will then i assume kill Rotface and festergut, but then you will be hit with a 5 attempt limit to kill Professor Putricide? Assuming you fail. You then must wait till the next reset to regain your 5 attempts. When the crimson wing opens, will you then gain 10 attempts on the prof and blood queen. When last wing opens you then gain 15 attemps on all the 4 bosses mentioned?

I believe it's 5 attempts per boss, but you've got the basics of it yeah.

[unknownhero]

This ruins all the world first excitement

[Vorsgald]

Xentropy said:

We have to right now keep attempting until we get RNG that always applies fire to the 15 raiders we have who know how to use their movement and, y'know, AVOID the fire. The 10 who stand in fire dying DOES affect us because they at least know how to stand there and dps, just not also move and avoid junk. So we lose their dps and wipe, and try again until the RNG doesn't target those 10 people. With 5 or 10 or 15 attempts, there's no way that RNG is going to come around for weeks or months. Bad mojo.

There's a ten man version, if you don't have 25 good players.
My guild is a good "casual" guild that doesn't bother with the 25mans because we don't feel like dealing with morons. 10 man gear is good enough for 10 man hard modes, and if it's not...the 25man will probably still be PUGgable anyway. Then you can worry about the other fifteen.

[Xentropy]

If the normal 25's are PUGable anyway it's not a problem. The issue here is that NORMAL MODES have attempt limits. So if they ARE genuinely difficult, they're telling you to go back and keep one-shotting easy mode ToC25. Because 2 weeks of that wasn't too much, 3 months of that wasn't too much, we need 6 more months of ToC25.