What I’m saying for that is, many of the mechanics in ‘current’ release itterations, and with how laughably pathetic the in game resources for understanding them are is that it is designed to EXPECT you to have that prior experience from prior expansions for things to make sense in modern dungeons and raids.
Case and point one of the Better raids for new players in recent memory. The Castle from SL. Even without DBM attacks are clearly telegraphed and mechanics are clear and understandable. Take the waltz fight, find your dance partners tells you exactly what to do, find the person you are connected too and get close to each other, same with find your places, very clear, very understandable, and if you mess up the mechanic, the direct impact to the full raid is minimal. Now, lets compare to another raid, same expansion, that also requires forced movement. The Fate Loom. Here, you need to go to a spot and walk with a ring, but nothing really tells you that clearly in either the guide, or the implementation. And if you mess up it’s a raid wipe. If you came into SL new, and Castle was your first raid, with how few of the ‘don’t make any mistakes at all or restart’ things it has, unless you were raiding in prior expansions that had similar mechanics, you’d be completely unprepared and unaware.
That is the big problem I have with people saying ‘ban all addons’ or things like that, or who think that all the raids are designed well. From a ‘joined during this expansion’ stand point, raids are very inhospitable due to the fact that alot of things that can and will happen in them you cannot adequately prepare for unless some one in your raid takes the time to explain the mechanic or you have been playing the game for a few expansions and got to experience similar in the past.