Entries in switch (1)
3.3: Icecrown Citadel To Feature Difficulty Toggle
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Amatera on Wednesday, October 7, 2009 - 4 Comments Tags: Ulduar, difficulty, hard, heroic, icc, icecrown citadel, switch, xt-002
Amatera on Wednesday, October 7, 2009 - 4 Comments Tags: Ulduar, difficulty, hard, heroic, icc, icecrown citadel, switch, xt-002 If you've read up on the latest Icecrown Citadel preview, you might have noticed the following text in the description:
"Icecrown Citadel features 10- and 25-player versions of the raid dungeon, and each version has 12 encounters. Each encounter can be fought in either normal or Heroic mode, and players can use a new user interface feature to toggle easily between difficulties."
As it implies, ICC will be returning to a more traditional style of raid progression, with only two lockouts (10-man and 25-man) as opposed to four, like Trial of the Crusader (10-man, 25-man, and heroic versions of each). But the wording didn't seem entirely clear. What exactly did it mean by each encounter being fought in either normal or Heroic mode, then? Well, the problem seems to be that Blizzard is doing a little dance with their own terminology. It should really read "each encounter being fought in either normal or Hard mode," since Heroic is once again being used as a label for the 25-man version of the dungeon.
What this really means is not that you will be able to switch between 10 and 25-man at will, but rather that you will have the opportunity to tweak the difficult of individual boss battles at any time you want outside of actually being in combat with one.
This is different from the way the mechanic is handled in Ulduar, where the Hard modes for each boss are activated in different ways like timers, buttons, and damage dealt. Bornakk confirms:
"Assuming everything goes as planned, you can switch it back and forth as much as you like. Encounter 1 on hard, 2 on normal, 3 on hard, 4 on normal, etc. In effect it works out similar to Ulduar but it's with a much more clear method in the UI as opposed to the fairly confusing process of figuring out some encounter mechanics just to activate it."To be honest, I'm not sure if this is necessarily a good change. Sure, it'll give everyone a chance to try out the Hard modes as they see fit, but sometimes the limits placed on accessing them also served as a trial to see whether or not a given raid group was cut out for it. For instance, if you don't have the chops to kill XT-002's heart, then you probably won't be able to finish the fight without dying or hitting the Enrage on Hard. Allowing just anyone to take a crack is going to end in a lot of bitter tears, and may even lead to some Hard modes being nerfed faster, since there will be a greater number of unprepared players engaging them and, thus, complaining about them. I'm all for convenience, but sometimes it feels as though tweaks like this further marginalize the hardcore player base. If Hard modes are supposed to challenge top level raiding guilds, why not just leave it that way? What say you, readers?