I did some maths... CE is getting easier

Gameplay Dungeons, Raids and Scenarios
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So…

There is a lot, a lot of the Big G mounts sat in Dornogal right now… and It’s really made me think - has CE become a lot easier to achieve. I did some maths…

I went back to VOTI, ATSC, AMIR, NP and LoM and I took the number of guilds who killed the Last boss and the number of guilds who killed the second last boss, stuck it all in a nice graph and the results showed quite a trend.

In VoTI

2130 Guilds killed Diurna, and 1575 killed Raz, meaning 74% of guilds that killed the 2nd last killed the last.

In AtSC

1897 killed Nef and 1549 killed Sark, meaning 82% of guilds that killed the 2nd last killed the last.

In Amir

1541 killed Tindral and 1129 killed Fyrakk meaning 73% of guilds that killed the 2nd last killed the last.

So this was DF, it shows a generic decline in total kills which could be standard Expansion player fall off.

In NP

1776 Killed Court and 1538 killed Ansurek meaning 87% of guilds that killed the 2nd last killed the last.

*In LoM **
*Season to date

2075 Guild have killed Mugzee and 1862 have killed Gallywix meaning 90% of guilds that killed the 2nd last killed the last.

So right now, not even at the end of the season of Season 2 of an expansion we have 300 more boss kills than a Season 1 previous expansion, with natural player decline in S1 vs S2… I’d say this is extremely compelling that CE has become more achievable on its own.

But yes, we all agree Gallywix MYthic was a bit of a let down, like great fight, so much fun, but is that it? 7 min fight with 1 important movement overlap then stroll to the end with 1 arm behind your back?

But there’s more to CE than just the final boss… You have to get there first, through some really complex navigation of mechanics. Bosses 1-6 feel comparable to previous tiers (excluding Ovinax) and Bosses 7 feel like they are more difficult at times - Court vs Ansurek, Tindral vs Fyrakk, Mugzee vs Gallywix.

But mechanical ability aside there’s another huge aspect on why CE has gone from 1400 Guild average in DF to 1700 average in TWW.

Gear acquisition has become (IMO) to damn easy, like the upgrade paths, the fact gear has been thrown at players, giving mythic upgrade crests on M+ 5’s, Delves giving Gilded… its all equated to something thats just… simple. There have been weeks in the season where without setting foot in a M+5 you can cap Gilded for the week in a couple of hours, by delves and the trade up system, this has led to an ilvl creep.

Then we have the Ilvl boost which is a result from the below. Because ilvls were capping very early due to the availability of loot, we got an extra 6 ilvls to extend the cap - which again was like 2-3 weeks worth of play before recapping the ilvl cap.

We then have the DPS/HPS increase buffs… 18% increase in DPS/HPS from just turning up in raids.

So then finally, we have a belt, a head enchant and a food buff from raid thats around an extra 5% DPS…

Essentially we’re sitting on +23% DPS/HPS without the extra 6 ilvls to put into this increase.

So what’s my point… We have seen an organic growth of +16% in 2nd lass boss to final boss kills over an expansion, from DF where the average was 76% to 89% ((89-76)/76=16). The final boss kills too are extreme with multiple kills, Gallywixx has over 2550 logged kills vs 1299 on Raz, thats almost double without the season being over.

But this has left us with much faster prog… a feeling of well… thats it now, 9 weeks of not really progging anything… and its not really that much fun. Like we still turn up to raid, still bring alts in, trials in, play about, have fun… but its not a challenge, it doesnt really feel like Cutting Edge, its… easy.

My suggestion is to really stop giving us this borrowed power, these irrelevant raid buffs… If you’re wiping on a boss at 3% constantly and cant get it over the line, the solution shouldnt be, well lets wait to rest when we get 3% dmg and a head enchant to knock it over… It should be problem solving, player growth… not a power growth we havent earnt.

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it’s supposed to be easy once it’s on farm. congrats on CE. enjoy the downtime before the next tier opens! :slight_smile:

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Oh. You woulda been done with prog before these 9 weeks on previous seasons?

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Im not waiting for your response so ill post my real response now. CE may be getting easier, but its not a band thing. If youre a player thats able to get CE, people judge your skill based on how fast youre able to get it at that point. It doesnt actually matter how many people get the achieve. If youre looking to get CE within the first month, you (as a group) are better than a group getting it the second month and so forth.

With this in mind, the reason why more people getting CE isnt bad is it means more people pushing the very top end of raid. Sure you might not want to play with random pugs this season for Mythic raid, but if more of those random pugs already have a CE achievement under their belt (even if its the last day of the patch) youre more liekly to take them in later seasons. Simply being able to prog through all 8 bosses of the raid on the highest level is an achievement worthy of recognition. The second time you do it, its about getting it done quicker. Its more about how quickly youre able to adapt and change your playstyle to the needs of the raid/fight at this point whole maintaining optimal dps. The skill ceiling is still there, you just filter by time frame.

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Hey as a former solo raider back in the days of LK, I got my kill the week before Cata. Might have been a Sunday or a Monday or something close. Takes time for some people.

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Hey as a former solo raider back in the days of LK, I got my kill the week before Cata. Might have been a Sunday or a Monday or something close. Takes time for some people.

Almost 26 weeks later.

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there’s not supposed to be downtime. you’re supposed to live in the virtual world continuously.

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They added 6 ilvls randomly in the middle of the season. I don’t think it’s a stretch to call those ilvls unaccounted for. A guild who would have had a low percent wipe now kills it.

This is not to diminish the accomplishment at all, but I’ve also heard tale that the final boss is a relative joke to previous final bosses as well.

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they also added a stacking buff in the last two tiers… we’re back to ICC Determination shenanigans.

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The tier is the most out gearable one we’ve had for a long time, if not forever. Most if not all fights are timer based where the difficulty ramps up as the fight goes on. Shorter kill times means outright skipping mechanics which are in many cases the most challenging part of the encounter.

Mug’zee prog kills skip 2/3 of P1 and ignore one of the most dangerous mechanics in P3 by killing it before it would matter.

Gallywix skips P3 almost completely

Sprocketmonger skips P3

Bandit skips the two hardest overlaps in P1

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Gearing could be better. There’s no shortages of ideas and full on thesis on these very forums to explain ideas and experiments on what to do and how.

I think Mythic raiding is trying to be too many things for too many people. You’re trying to use the same difficulty for people who want to compete against the game (rewards driven) and people who want to compete against others (rankings driven). The latter has forced a stiff divide that detracts for the former, leading to yet more (imho questionable) design decisions like making the first boss or two completely free to entice (or trick) heroic guilds into trying to become mythic guilds.

It’s kind of a mess. Honestly, I don’t see why normal exists anymore, except as the “achievement hunter difficulty”. LFR must only exists for people with social anxiety, there’s no reason to even do it.

M+ solved this in a different (imho better) way. Rewards stop at completely attainable key levels and everything after that is pure competition.

I’ve always said that mythic should be the difficulty for people who want to compete against other people. Remove myth track gear, load it with achievements, and never nerf it. Make it the “high keys” of raiding. People who just do it for the CE and the mount and the gear can have a more realistic experience, not having difficulty inflated by people who want to compete against each other.

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I’d also like to see how many guilds get cutting edge early in the season rather than later where the boss pretty much rewards you for playing that long into a season. A late season kill is no where near the same as a first 8-10 week kill. Not even the same game sometimes.

Ansurek was nerfed to oblivion. Season 3 of Dragonflight had the highest raid and m+ numbers in the entire expansion so that argument of player fall of falls flat. Tindral was BRUTALLLLLL. And fyrakk wasn’t easy either and they never got nerfed to fall over states like Ansurek got to.

Not trying to diminish accomplishments but end of season kills should not be counted the same as 8-10 week kills when it’s the intended version of the boss.