Old topic rant: Lockouts

Today’s blog post pinged because I was listening to the Outlandish
podcast and one of the guys was chatting about the lockouts. The lockouts
in place now strike me as odd.

+100 Need rolls in Raid Finder

The Raid Finder will give Need rolls a +100 modifier if your Role in the instance matches the item. This is excellent. In fact, put that in the LFG system too please.

How do they tell what is a Tank item vs a Dps item?

Well they’d either classify each item which would take ages or they have an algorithm (a previous post about exactly that type of algorithm in April). Its like they’re reading the blog.

Raiding is a Party not a Sport

Maintaining the weekly raid roster is a bloody hard thing to do; just ask any recruitment or guild officer. With the holidays, life, and general grumpiness of raiders these days, there is little to do except be constantly supporting the ego and feelings of the current team, and potentially recruiting for replacements at the same time. WoW Insider has a post up that talks about the concept of rebuilding years, akin to a sports team that has an off year while they train up younger players.

The sports team analogy does not mix with WoW though, due to the expectation and flexibility that raiders have vs the sports teams. In fact I think the sports team example actually makes it worse for the players who are left behind because it might make them think the social mechanics are different to what they really are. Why?

• Raiders are not in financial contracts, and nobody is being paid.
• Raiders cannot be forced to login.
• An off-season for a raid team is enough for many to leave, or slow further.
• There is no glamor or praise for the bench & support roles.

So cut it with the sports analogies. Also the job/work comparisons are moot too for exactly the same reasons. You think I go to work for fun every day? I can see that the amateur sports team comparison as closer to the raiding structure, but it still misses the range of social & community aspects that MMOs teams often have.

Ok then, what would be a good comparison? Dinner parties.

• You probably want to attend because its meant to be fun. The invite list is finite, but sometimes a bit of stretch can be accommodated.
• If you’re invited regularly it means you’re probably in a core group of some sort who often catch-up.
• You’d like to believe that the people are friends, or at least will be civil to each other. You also might not like your old friends new partner, but hey – its their mistake.
• Real life or other events will get in the way and make you late or not attend. The importance of the person in your life will probably dictate if you go. If the devotion is akin to family you’ll probably go regardless and apologise, and might even ring ahead.
• You’re meant to bring something to the party as a gift, but its ok if you don’t. The gifts are just like Pots, Food, and Flasks. Some people never bring anything, and everyone knows who they are, but its unlikely they’ll be abused for it.
• Sometimes you’re a ring in that hardly knows anyone, and that is a double edged sword. You might end up standing in the corner (or dead on the floor) half the night.
• God help you if its a date too – as you’ll be scrutinised the entire night by strangers.
• Some parties suck and are a total waste of time. Other parties are good even if you don’t do a lot, as you just hang out with your friends.
• There is a chance of meeting some new people, or knowing them better.
• And if you’re desperate for people to attend the party you can just invite almost anyone and see what type of person you get. Generally that does not work very well though.

So what does that mean for raid composition? Well that is where you need to remember that just like the birthday party the participants are looking to have their expectations met, and the people running the party have a huge amount of work to do while its going on. They carry the balance of all these aspects with them.

They stress about it all through the process, and they plan all that they can before hand. Sometimes all the plans go to hell 5 minutes before the party should start, other times the party goes badly mid way through (anyone got a bad uncle or mom who drops in?). During the party they are the hosts who try to keep everything flowing. And afterward they are the idiots who have to clean up, and deal with any issues.

What can you do as a good Dinner Party attendee / Raider?

• Don’t be an ass if you don’t get an invite. Sometimes there is just not room.
• Bring a positive attitude, and bring a gift or two.
• Respect everyone, and know when to keep your mouth shut.
• Don’t expect that you can just turn up with two extras, even if they’re hot.
• If you really miss out, get off your ass and organise your own party. Do that for 5 weeks and then talk to the normal leads – your attitude might have changed a bit.

As an aside, these comparisons come to mind too while I wrote this, and while they’re a tad odd they are still very demonstrative:

• When the Fury Warrior throws up in the garden and needs to sit quietly inside for 5 minutes, its the raid leaders who arrange that break.
• When the Princess can’t be happy until everything is just her way, everyone groans quietly but keeps on anyway.
• When that loud annoying nerd won’t shut the hell up about Dr Who, its the team leads who must assign somebody to “handle” him.

In closing – respect the raid leaders and organisers, and try to have fun. They have far more to stress about that just one person. I hope all your parties are fun and you get a heap of gifts.

You want hardcore? Then burn

Divine Plea as a post about the QQ on Nurfs. I agree mostly. The qq on the nurf makes me mad too, especially when it comes from folks who were in no way even close to being negatively affected; so I commented:

How about this – Blizzard rolls back the nurfs on HMs, in fact they increase them. Make HMs so brutal that only 0.25% of the player base can stand it, and add a month long attunement to them as well. You want a way to prove how godlike you are, fine. I hope Blizzard gives it to you in spades.

You want hardcore? Where is the limit, and what about your neighbor’s limit? Oh, right, screw your neighbour…its all about you.

Mostly I mean that. But a little of me knows that there is a rational argument for why its not OK to just sweep the nurf bat around. I suspect it is mainly the timing and the lack of notice that is the real issue for some players. If they’d known about it sooner, or perhaps if it had happened at the same time as 4.3 they’d care a lot less. If their personal progression was a little faster, they’d be less bothered?

By no means am I having a bitch or rant, I’m actually finding this change to be a very interesting way to understand the players. People are coming out on all sides with great perspectives on the affects – this “drama” shows us more about the shades of grey.

Progression is somewhat an illusion. Some people fight to get 7/7, and others fight to get as far as they can, and others fight until they must sleep. It is relative. There are darn handy websites who track your exact progression relative to others, relative to every other bloody guild playing the game. You want an idea of your progression? Then track and measure yourself by your server ranking. Then Battlegroup, then Region, and then across the playerbase. Then you’ll know where you sit.

If you are 5/7 now, you’ll probably get 7/7 soon after the nurf, and if you are progressing based upon competition with others, or for some sort of experience validation – then this change should have no real affect.

…but then I know it will in the back of your mind, and I know that it still feels wrong somehow. Like an itch you just can’t scratch, it drives you to say and do things that are unusual. All I can offer to you folks is the advice that you’ll get another chance in patch 4.3.

All this talk of progression and difficulty also makes me think that along with an Easy mode for Raids, perhaps we could see a DEATH-MODE as well. There are the fights where the bosses are just bastards. They’d be like me as a DnD games master after too much sugar and not enough sleep. Giant blue lightning bolts from the sky…indoors!

Give me a Total-Party-Kill counter in the GUI.

A rolling debuff that must slay a team mate at a random time in the fight, so you don’t get to “save” a res.

An artificial latency increase by 500ms.

And fire…more fire than you’ve seen since the first rpgs were written.

and Burn.

I see nothing wrong with giving the really cutting edge guys quasi-impossible tasks that mere mortals are not meant to do. In fact don’t even give them a reward for it, the suffering and final completion are the reward.

Or just the suffering. Happy killing (now with 30% less hit points).

Easy mode raiding, why not?

Blessing of Kings has a nice post about a way to have more transient raiding – its a good read, and worth considering.The post is well thought out, comprehensive, and clear.

If not found in wow, it could be a feature of other MMOs that seek to entertain a more casual play style, which would be a draw card in my opinion. World of Warcraft has most of what would be needed already, or is coming soon in patch 4.3. Odd eh?

As an extension of BoK’s ideas – it would not be too much of a stretch to add Easy mode raids (let the hate fly!).

I know that people might hate the idea of dumbing down the content for casuals (just read the forums), and many raiders would be darn pissy with the idea. But think, if the rewards were less, achievements different, and the lockouts different – the easy mode raids would allow for learning, some side-grades, and a sense of theme and plot without a monumental increase in effort. Where is the difference between Easy mode, vs the Normal and Hard modes when the lockouts were separate for 10s and 25s. Some players thought 10 man fight on Normal were already easy mode. Same people probably hate this idea too – with potentially valid reasons from their perspective.

There would be no direct negative impact on the Normal and Hardmode raiders, except the nudge to their ego. To them the kids in the sandpit playing at war (and eating dirt) are happy, as they are playing a separate game. Yes, it would require tuning to make sure that easy was not trivial, but it would not impact the Normal and the Hard raiders.

An easier mode is different from the “Buff of Nerfage” that Icecrown had. That was an end of expansion way to ensure that everyone could play through content, and it was good too. The buff applied across all, whereas a Easy mode would allow more people time to fight and learn the bosses before the rush at the end. Some guilds may even just complete Easy mode and be happy – that content might be enough for some. For others it will be a step ladder into the content. It would also remove the need to add a “Buff of Nerfage” at the end of the content patches – why bother. If all you want to do is kill the boss, then switch to Easy mode and see the content’s theatrical style. No way in hell you’d be considered a Hardcore raider, but you’d still see it.

Even as I write this I have doubts too though. Who would use it? Would the achievement of Easy mode be considered more a brand of failure than none at all? Would enough people use it instead of Normal and Hard to justify the time investment?

The casualisation of wow has had an affect on a lot of players, and there are as many perspectives as there are players on what the right choice is. facts about subscriber numbers may influence the choices made in the coming patches and expansions too. We’ve already seen a change to threat that some folks don’t like, but others (such as myself) think are excellent. Is this casualisation? Probably, and it helps keep me paying my subscription every month.

One limiting factor that I don’t think was good in the end in Cata was the shared lockout for 10s and 25s. There were ways in Wrath to pug those odd 10s and 25s so that you had extra opportunities to gear. When the shared lockout was first described I thought it might have benefits, but I’ve come around to the opinion that having a wide range of options is actually better than having a strictly defined path. Perhaps the Easy offers a similar option, a separate lockout for Easy mode. This way a low geared toon (all those alts) would run the Easy mode to get basic rewards and confirm their literacy for their role, and then be able to migrate into Normals when they were ready.

For easy mode gear rewards it would make sense to me that the gear drops should not be any higher than the current 5 mans which are considered “hard”. As we’re in p4.2 that means 353 rewards if it existed now. The idea is not to use the gear as a reason to raid, but to offer alternatives to the basic 5 mans that expose the content. Training wheels? Yes, for sure.

I would also expect that Bind on Equip gear would not drop so as to not flood the market. And the gold rewards would be significantly reduced so that farming was not attractive at all. Likewise the quests that were needed for special story paths would not complete in easy mode either.

I would have also liked a Normal and Heroic mode for the ZA/ZG 5 mans too, but I guess the same time in tuning and scaling would have been needed – with a low potential audience. A scaled approach such as  ZA/ZG Normal offering 346 and Heroic with 353 is not a terrible idea. It changes nothing about the step up, but makes the ZA/ZG part of the runs that a PvE player uses to get geared.

So Easy mode raids…way off base, or something that you’d use? Let me know.

Raid Finder is not for old raids…

From a Q&A session:

Q: Will the Raid Finder allow access to lower raids?
A: Probably not for 4.3, but it’s something we’d like to do.

Honestly why bother adding the feature without lower raids? With Transmogrification this was a no-brainer feature that could really help.

They’re trying to add cross-realm too – which is another basic feature that makes sense. If they are afraid that old content would be run too often with the RF tool (huh?), then restrict it to the server only.

Or even better, just restrict it to within your guild, that way it will never get used at all. Grumble.

Cross-realm Raid Finder thoughts

Generally speaking this is another quality of life feature that I could see being useful. For folks missing achievements, gear and such its great. I can’t see many XR-raids being regularly successful in the current content, but might be for older raids. Like Nef, BWD, etc.

Hopefully it can be used for all previous raid content, not just the current expansion. Sunwell, BWL, AQ, etc all will be useful to run again – especially as people will be looking for gearsets.

Goal: cross-faction, real-id, and cross-realm, for both raids and dungeons.

Basically let us group up for anything, with anyone, and set some simple rules in place to make a forced balance, just like the LFD tool now. I see no reason to not allow cross-faction for runs, except that some look is faction specific. That is solvable via a rule that says the faction of the leader is dominant, and offer a vendor to switch it over if you get the incorrect faction loot.

Al’akir defeat completes normal mode content

Sunday night the guild went back into the windy Throne, and decided to continue the fight against Al’akir. The team not only defeated Al’akir, but also did it on first shot for the evening. A one-shot is a darn good way to start a raid night, and the guys must have been really on their game.

This means that Insidious (my guild on Nagrand-US) have now defeated all the current normal mode raid content; scraping through before the patch 4.2 is released in the near future. I’m very pleased that the team were able to do it, and that the regular folks now have those sexy mounts. Congrats folks, well earned. We’re now jumping to hard modes for the early bosses.

The guild will now do what we did at the end of Lich King, and have two runs going – a progression raid where the guild proves that these kills were not just luck and determination, and a second set of raids which are to gear-up the folks coming through. This makes the “can I bring my alt” question a lot more prevalent, but the officers and raid lead have a really solid understanding of balance and when to switch folks, so we have the opportunity to get the kills and complete the achievement for some of the players who might have missed it. When in doubt, the mains have priority, and the main runs are always the most important. That said, some of the raiders have toons that are equally as competitive as their mains, so we have flexibility – which is a great way to start patch 4.2 Firelands content.

Personally I’ve seen some of the really tough fights, but missed some of the easier ones; like I have the Nef kill, but never completed the Omnitron system, and wiped on Al’akir but never seen the fight before it. My plan is to get these together before 4.1 hits, so I too can nab the mount and say I was one of the cool kids who did it when it was hard.

Happy gaming, may the great raids roll.

Nefarian is dead

I am very pleased to brag that the fine folks of Insidious have finally killed Nefarian. It took over 60 attempts to kill him, over many nights of switching, burning, and altogether just flying back in to the instance for one more attempt.

Easiest part of the fight: the jump in at the start is great, just don’t miss that first platform. Actually maybe the lift on the way back in, that killed a few folks.

Hardest part of the fight: the interrupts in the dragonite spawns have to be done within 1.5 seconds, which makes Australian latency somewhat a limiting factor. Sometimes I’d be fine, others it would wipe the raid to miss one. This is bloody frustrating, and changing that cast time to 2 seconds would make a world of difference.

Getting into the Pillars, whilst also interrupting the dragonite thing – sheesh. Honestly the “pillar” boss was the thing that I screwed up overand over. Remembering to kite the adds in a small area which is also not on Ony’s flank is tricksy too.

wow calendar improvement thought

Quick thought I had while tring to suss out invite mods, guild events, and all sorts of other tricky tasks – the in game calendar could be greatly improved by make the accept in calendar sign-ups also allow selection of role.

Meaning the selection of Tank, Heal, Range, or Melee; and having a sort on that field, just like the sort on guildmember rank, etc. Off-spec would be handy too, but not nearly as good as having the role that the character will bring to the raid.