The progression in WoW which I remember and enjoyed; you geared up a bit outside of raids and were probably in an average guild.
The raids opened, first week you got sort of wiped out but cleared a boss or two. Next week players got some experience and identified what needed to be fixed to clear, raid got a few notable upgrades from cleared bosses and progressed with a boss or two more downed each week. Gear ups were prioritized to main-tank and usually milestones like them getting 2-piece set helped clear the rest of the raid. Wiping was part of the experience, PuGs werent really a thing people did to clear top content because coordination was required and that improved regularly playing with the same group.
In that format, it was satisfying to have progression in content and by the time the new raid or expac releases were about to happen stuff was either getting cleared due to your guilds accumulated gear-up from partial clears and locking in that progression, or Blizzard sort of relented and nerfed the raid late in the release. Nearly everyone got to clear it all over the course of the phase. As average players. This way, each week you were getting a bit farther into the content, and so it was new things being encountered week to week.
The culture now has shifted to most players wanting week 1 clears, leading to repetitive content. I see posts here for people wanting that, preferring it… I’m not really getting it?
I don’t feel whatever satisfaction people get on good parses, I don’t feel a connection to ‘rare’ loot from content that is granted like an hourly wage for showing up knowing its a guaranteed quick clear, and where drops don’t facilitate progression into some more difficult part of the game.. the fun part is making weekly progress into content which requires coordination and compounded accumulated progress.
TLDR I guess
I just want to know are Blizzard and the post-nerf crowd are acknowledged and on the same page that the ideal content progression that they want in the PvE end game is week 1 clears on average PuGs & guilds, continued through the phase on weekly repeat for PARSE improvements and novelty gear?
Communication solves most problems, so if that’s the vision for this TBC release, other repeat releases - I think it’s well executed and obviously engaging for many, I would just like to get clarity that’s the game we’re playing and expect to play going forward.
PS: I dont think anyone really benefits from two versions of the raid, heroic / normal… last thing we need is more of that
