A Look At Blizzard's Raid Philosophy
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Admin on Friday, July 10, 2009 - 22 Comments Tags: 10 man, 25 man, Ulduar, heroic, patch 3.2, raiding, raids, regular, wotlk
Admin on Friday, July 10, 2009 - 22 Comments Tags: 10 man, 25 man, Ulduar, heroic, patch 3.2, raiding, raids, regular, wotlk 
As we enter the end of the 3rd 'set' of raid instances in the current expansion, I think it is a good time to take a look at Blizzard's new raid philosophy which made another dramatic change in WotLK, not unlike the change from 40 man raids to 25 man raids in Burning Crusade. With the release of this expansion Blizzard essentially made a promise to the entire WoW community that the raid content would be opened up to everyone (in theory). They changed all raids in Wrath to have two separate versions, a 10 man and a 25 man. Within those raids they had even more lines drawn with heroic and standard versions of many of the fights.
For better or for worse though, six months into this expansion we can see that they are well on the way to their goal to opening this content up to nearly everyone. On my home server of Cenarius you can find PuGs for any range of content that fits your need without too many problems. Did your side just capture Wintergrasp? It's very easy to find a group for Vault of Archavon which drops some of the best armor pieces in the game (for both PvPers and PvEers). Naxxramas, Eye of Eternity, Obsidian Sanctum, and even Ulduar are all PuG options for both versions. Granted you most likely will not be hitting up the hard modes with these kinds of groups, but you're seeing the content, which is esentially what Blizzard wants. This is why they brought Naxxramas back (which I missed the first time around, so I am a huge fan of the decision) and why they have expanded the types of groups that can attend these raids, and brought around the philosophy of “bring the player, not the class” (which was a problem in TBC, especially with Sunwell).
As positive as these changes are there are naysayers, mostly in the hardcore raiding community. They do have a point as they continually clear through normal modes like nothing. Blizzard really changed the raid designs with Ulduar though. There was only one fight with the release of WotLK that gave those who went “the extra mile” incentive and better gear for doing the fight in a more challenging way (Sartharion with three drakes up). With Ulduar though, most fights have a hard mode, better loot and a greater sense of accomplishment. To even clear the whole instance though players must clear hard modes to unlock the extra boss Algalon.
Now that Ulduar has been fully cleared (all hard modes completed) we can shift our focus to the future once again with 3.2. The raid philosophy gets a slight shift again, this time with the separation of 10 man and 25 man raids into regular and heroic, all with separate lockout timers, so essentially you'll be able to run Trial of the Crusader four times a week, all on the same character. In the coming weeks though, we will get a lot more information about this raid zone as we will see the zone live on the PTR for testing.
Blizzard seems to be opening things more and more for players to experience the raids. With the change to badges helping players gear up fairly quickly to be able to have proper gear for the new content shows a shift in design philosophy. Previously you absolutely had to have cleared old content (within that expansion) to really gear up for the newest, or next tier, of content. The lines have been blurred now and there is no “one” way to gear up properly anymore. Once patch 3.2 drops we will most likely see an emergence of heroics being run once again, and quick clears of Naxxramas (my guild doesn't even have anything besides Ulduar and Wintergrasp on our raid schedule).
It seems as if Blizzard is attempting to please everyone with this patch, the hardcore raiders will have their 25 man heroic and regular 25 man to gear up quickly and easily. While tighter knit guilds still have the opportunity to do regular or heroic modes. Blizzard is also introducing a feature that I think every guild will be able to appreciate, with the ability to extend a lockout period an additional week. This will allow guilds to get additional work on a particularly challenging boss, but will require them to give up loot on the “easier” bosses for one week. I think this will be another level of strategy for raid leaders and guild leaders to use their time more effectively for their guild.
Possibly the biggest surprise throughout all of this is that there will be absolutely no trash in this instance, purely bosses! I am a huge fan of this and I think more people will be happy over this than just me, no more complaining that mages pad the meters on trash! Will this be how it is in Icecrown Citadel though? I would be very surprised if they did, as I think this is a special case scenario and I think they want the Colosseum feel to feel authentic and not similar to how it was in Hyjal. If we take a look at our preview of Crusader's Coliseum then it appears that it will be just one area that we fight in (this may or not be the case and we should know very soon).
Do you like the way Blizzard is pushing their raid content now? There are a lot more options for people (three separate versions of the Tier 9 gear) do you think this will spread the player base out a bit too much? And one more thing, what will you be doing with your guild, just one tier of the new raid or multiple ones?
Reader Comments (22)
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@ the above posters: Do you have nothing better to do?
@ DJTyrant: I'm sort of torn on the changes to badges to make t8 super easy to get (run heroic dungeons over heroic raids). I have only just started collecting raid gear recently and have only two pieces of t7. Because I was so late to the game, I missed out on all of the classic and most of the BC content.
I was never in a raid guild, so I also didn't blow through WotLK content. I want to be able to actually "do things right" the first time rather than have it all changed so that it becomes relatively easy to reach the the (current) "top of the line" gear.
In short, I'm thinking I'm more likely to agree with the "hardcore" player base. How they complain that "Great! Now any noob who hits 80 and runs heroics can get into Ulduar! They don't learn how to play their class anymore than they need to and having it done for them can/will ruin the experience!"
However, I will also say that those hardcore players that ARE complaining, just ignore it and keep playing the way you want.
Patch 3.2 certainly promises to be interesting, is all I can really say.
/facepalm @ first 4 posters
I am looking forward to 3.2 but I have to admit that throwing Emblems of Conquest at the general masses SO SOON after the release of Ulduar is a mistake. I understand the need to be able to gear up new characters to a raiding environment as fast as possible, it just feels like Blizzard skipped the step of releasing Valor badges to heroics and Conquest badges to Ulduar 10 man. Emblems of Triumph being available via the heroic and dungeon dailies also seems too "available" considering they were just released.
On the other hand, I do like the differing Tiers of iLevel loot for raid modes.
25 man HEROIC // 25 man Regular = 10 man HEROIC // 10 man Regular, I just hope that the "difference" in gear is more noticeable than 25 man Naxx to 10 man Ulduar was.
Thinking beyond 3.2 though, the potential of Blizzard releasing information on the new Expansion at Blizzcon has my googlies in a bundle, heres keeping my fingers crossed! ^_^
I think there's a real problem with trash mobs just now. I know that people just want to do the bosses but the trash is so easy now. I think they need to balance it more cos the trash in TBC was really hard but now it's too easy. What's the point of having CC spells if no-one needs them. When was the last time anyone saw a mage use sheep.
@Kalcifer: Yeah man, you have a point. Mages don't use Sheep anymore, Rogues stopped using Sap, and even the new Shaman's Hex is only beeing used in PVP. Man, trash mobs were really cool! As a casual players, I think that the joy of the game is really have something challenging, from the beginning to the end, in every pull. Now, you get the Coliseum, wich will feat just the bosses (very cool ones, by the way, something like a revamp of old strategies) and no thrash...I don't know man, but this just feels wrong...
they are changing and adding things way to fast in my opinion. everything ive done so far can pretty much be erased and deemed pointless because the new teir will be even easier to get so it leaves me wondering why i even tried to get what i have now. but on the other side im happy to have a way to gear up all my alts from recruit a friend
uhh....12th!!!
/facepalm @ people who are angered by "first" posts.
I feel like the loot for this should be like the Zul'Aman patch, new and better loot but not necessarily a new tier of armor. I guess this expansion will just have 4 tiers instead of 3 which isn't a huge problem, just feels a little odd to me.
15th!!
I'm actually wondering about how easy OS, EoE and Nax will be. With some good players in full t8.5 nax10 could be 5manned.
Yea..man blizzard changed the game so much :[ thats wow that we played 3 years ago :[
I just want to point out a couple of things quickly.
Not all the Tier 9 loot will be available from emblems so you wont suddenly see non raiders running around in full T9.
As has happened now, nobody is impressed if your full purple what everyone is focussing on is the iLevel of the gear, so let the casuals have their feeling of epicness while the higher end raiders actually know what gear is the best and are able to get to it.
This is the third tier of raid content in this expansion and while Blizz are making it accessible they are also making it harder (not necessarily hard, just harder) which will mean that little by little those casuals who have not had to learn their class will either have to step up, will have learnt more from the previous 2 tiers and become a valuable player or be subject to epic fail and ridicule from the rest of their server.
I have no issues whatsoever in seeing people gear up and it by no means trivialises the time i put into doing it earlier and the fun i've had along the way, that doesnt go, it stays with me forever.
I think these changes are an excellent way of opening up content to players who could have more potential than they are currently filling and can only be good for the server as a whole in terms of finding teams, new guild members and new talent.
Want to prove your leet? do all the heroic 25 man hard modes and wave a big pointy stick :)
19th!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Lol @ first 4 posts.
well the not learning their class is a valid point. And it adds to the problem, since their gear is ok or even better then needed in case of nax runs, they are bound to get in. Wich makes pugs even more of a hell since now not only do you have to deal with a few idiots that managed to get some guild boosts to get the good stuff, but with every single noob in the game that knows how to run an heroic. And worse still, there is no point in running nax anymore, since the emblem gear you can buy will now give everyone the option to get at least two 2pc set bonuses on their gear and in that combination the lowest set still equals nax 25 drops. Hence the whole of nax will most likely be completely ignored.
Like one of the previous players i didn't join this game early, and i already missed out on a lot of content, I have only done onyxia as pre 80 content and the difficulty of that is just laughable if you're lvl 80.
My guild consists of a lot of these "just dinged 80 i can do nax 25 man" noobs, with only a few of us that actually know how to play. That few took the time to farm all heroics first, went on a couple of nax pugs, and then started to do guild runs with only 3 knowing the tacts and with gear for it. The rest "should" be able to do it gear wise, but their lack of experience with their characters made it hell, it took us five lockouts to even clear the damnmed thing with guild. And even now its impossible to clear it in a day for us. ( when with pugs i can clear the instance in a long afternoon... ) Our guild is still stuck at the pace of 1 / 2 quarters per day.
These guys will at least have the incentive to run some heroics now to get better gear but i doubt they'll be ready for ulduar or the new raid after that. And i gotta deal with the whole drama of them asking "decurse, i can decurse? but how do i find out who has a curse then???"
all over again.. and worse, it will be even more of that idiocy. At least now we can use nax 10 as a training ground for players, but with the gear levels they can achieve without raiding after this change, the difficulty of nax will be so low their expectations of raid difficulty will be much to low, and their assesment of their skill will be much to high when they start out in ulduar.
We all know the idiot dps players that come to a raid in mostly quest greens. Saying, but i cleared it on 25 man already, i deserve a slot on 10 man see, here is the achievement, i can do 10 man. Not realising they've been carried in the pug that gave them the achievement. Where in our guild the gear level at that time was simply to low to allow for players slacking that much ( guy did 1k dps at most, while fully raid buffed )
My point being, though applaudable that blizzard want to give raid content to everyone, their way of doing so might just turn and bite them in the behind, the steps needed to get to the "end" game are simply to few and mostly to easy with the change in emblems. I'm not a hardcore raider myself, i haven't even been to ulduar even though my gear is more then enough for it. Mostly since i didn't want the loot drama in pugs. It might still take me 3 months but i would have gotten there eventually, With this change i'll get there sooner but my assesment is that clearing it will be a lot harder compared to how it was done in the old system.
Unless we start enforcing rules like "must have cleared nax 10 in guild run flawless at least once... " to make up our raid sheets for ulduar. And who wants to be in a guild like that. Heck that 1k player was refused for nax 10 a couple of times since he couldn't pull his weight in hc's even so he went and pugged it. After that ( with the high lvl of noobness in the guild ) we could not refuse him, other noobs stated that he should be allowed aswell since he finished the harder part. And explaining to them that certain amounts of total dps are needed at bosses and that him being so low means others have to be better etc. It just doesn't sink in with some players around.
my DK has been ready for raids for a long while now about 2 months in the expenchion he is in full herioc gear with one t7 piece from from OS and some pieces 10 man naxx but aside from from that i still dont have teh gear for herioc naxx or eoe this will particuly help me since i got all i could from herioc