I used to raid… once.
No more. Blizz killed that for me, and for so many “casual” players. But they have been trying to kill WoW for years now.
4 Likes
The same elitists jerks who were icy veins before icy veins, helping everyone learn their class?
2 Likes
100%. this whole raids made for higher gear lev and the double lagendary
i can see anduin being a push over very soon
1 Like
I mean we’ve seen this with other final expansion raids yet normal was much easier.
Massive boost with corruption for Ny’alotha.
Massive boosts with overcharged artifacts for Antorus.
Massive power boosts with the legendary ring (a massive raid cooldown) for HFC.
3 Likes
I think it’s just the raid for me tbh. None of these fights are really fun. The mechanics aren’t really hard, just annoying.
Used to think the crab was fun, but then heroic irritated me.
I think I’ll have a better time next in 3 days, when the bosses start getting over with quicker lmao
1 Like
One of our raid teams is a somewhat below average group. We can one shot the first 7 bosses, occassionally wiping. But we can barely get anduin below 80%. It is madness.
1 Like
I agree, but at the same time we’re going to see the biggest jumps in character power we’ve ever seen throughout a tier with the sole exception of Nyalotha (due to Corruptions).
It’s not like the lower skills F&F raid teams are going to be stuck at that level of power for the entire tier, with maybe some linear gains. Double legendaries and 4p are going to be exponential increases of power, even at the lower end of player/skill.
SFO is not going to be a short tier. It may even be as long as HFC or SoO were. Giving up in frustrating because you’re not full-clearing this early in the tier is not the reasonable play.
If you can’t get Anduin BELOW 80%, you need to seriously, seriously reevaluate your strategy.
Like that’s not a “boss is overtuned” issue, that’s you just failing the first real mechanic over and over.
If you’re dying that early, it’s because you’re probably messing up Blasphemy, which you need to spread out BEFORE it comes out so people don’t touch others with the same colour.
It’s still crap design though. They need to stop going overboard on encounters just because some vocal players scream it’s easy otherwise.
It’s all wrong. It doesn’t matter if players have improved, the point of raiding was never to be a showcase of skill but an activity for larger groups. That’s why in EverQuest raids were not the focused endgame but something cool. WoW took that and bastardized it into being the thing the cool kids did (we all know why) and it’s gotten worse ever since.
A F&F guild shouldn’t expect to clear normal within the first weeks, sure. But they shouldn’t be stuck on the first boss or two to the point of frustration either. Those types of guilds are much more likely to keep trying if it’s a few bosses in, since then it feels like you’re making progress at least. Even if that ultra casual guild never kills more than a few, they’ll likely stick around. If that “wall” is the first or second boss, though, the entire thing feels worthless to even try.
We saw this in Cataclysm with BoT and BWD (and T4W but barely anyone did that) after a year of ICC with +30% buff, even though most of your F&F type guilds never got to Arthas anyway. People quit because the early Cata bosses were a step up in raw difficulty, not even mechanics.
We then saw the same exact mistake in Mists when Stone Guard, the very first boss of the first raid (and MSV was like half a level behind Heart and Terrace), was generally a wall for these guilds (largely due to changing weekly IIRC) while the second boss was actually easier.
In Throne of Thunder we saw a repeat of the mistake with Horridon as the second boss that was another guild killer boss and IIRC had to be nerfed a few times. The sweet spot seems to be around the first 3-4 bosses (equivalent to a wing of LFR), after that the difficulty can increase and you’ll see less burnout because even if the guild never kills the 5th boss, the spark stays alive and getting the first 4 on farm makes you want to keep going.
Ironically, Highmaul in WoD felt pretty well done, but admittedly at that time I was in a heroic+early mythic guild (before 3 difficulties burned me out about a month in and made me unsub, but that’s another story) so maybe it felt easier but from what I remember the first two bosses weren’t bad, and either of the next two were a step up but provided a lot of learning opportunities to progress each week towards a kill.
Speaking from experience it will kill a F&F guild to get to the second boss or third boss and then spend weeks struggling with the first boss again if the first boss is fairly difficult, feeling like you only “got lucky” that first kill is not a good feeling. That’s why progressive difficulty is so important: you need to let the F&F guilds get those early bosses on farm so it feels like they’re doing something every week making progress on that later boss, whether or not they actually kill it.
These lessons shouldn’t be forgotten every expansion and yet they are, even every tier. If blizzard insists on the approach they’ve done for years now where each tier is its own “season” (god i hate that concept in an RPG) they need to design each tier as though it was the only one (because it is) and have early bosses be simple and later bosses harder. If the high end guilds steamroll it, that shouldn’t be a concern because catering to them screws over everybody else.
6 Likes
I actually like mechanics heavy fights, I think they are fun. Would like to see more BUT, not with how WoW raids are generally designed.
For me, and I’m sure plenty feel different, the problem isn’t the mechanics heavy fights, it’s everything else in between. Mechanics heavy fights can be fun, but when you combine that with large amounts of worthless, BORING trash, it just makes the entire raid feel like a slog. By the time I’m actually at the boss, I’ve lost most of my excitement for the fight. Honestly, it just feels like a massive time sink.
To me, I feel like one of two things needs to give: reduce the mechanics in the boss fights or reduce the time wasting garbage in between. To me, the latter makes more sense.
1 Like
I mean the wall shouldn’t be that early in, even this early in, even for a F&F guild. If you’re wiping that early in the raid consistently, it’s because people aren’t reading the dungeon journal, not because the fights are hard.
Like on average I’d say Sepulcher is a bit harder than Sanctum on Normal, but it’s not outrageously so, and while SoD had Dom sockets, they aren’t nearly as big a powerspike as tier or double legendaries will be, which will be a gigantic soft-nerf to SOF, and put it pretty firmly on the easier side of raids in N/H.
1 Like
Translation: “Mythic raiders are going to get INSANELY powerful this tier with next week being a big spike since every hardcore player gets their double legendary.”
So you want those normal raiders out of the game completely, because they aren’t hardcore enough and have not dedicated their lives to raiding enough to suit you. Don’t worry, you’ll get your wish.
1 Like
Literally every player who does the ZM questline gets the legendary?
lmao
1 Like
1 Like
You said that typical normal raiders are not dedicated enough to suit you, and the game is better off without them. Who will they be replaced with? Nobody.
The playerbase is what it is. Trying to push guilds that raid normal as a social experience to become hardcore players with the dedication of heroic or mythic raiders just shows us how out of touch with the reality of the playerbase you are.
But you’re right, many of those guilds have already folded, and you didn’t even notice. Normal raid participation dropped dramatically in 9.1 over 9.0 or BfA number.
Well Sabbia, I personally wouldn’t take the opinion of someone who never met an unpopular game mechanic they didn’t like with even a grain of salt. Surely if you keep ignoring problems with the game, millions of players who left will come streaming back because some anonymous troll who seems to think they work for the blizzard PR department told them everything is fine.
2 Likes
It’s true, I’m a shining beacon of positivity on these boards. Everyone looks to me to bring positive WoW vibes to this cesspit of a forum, because, as my entire post history clearly indicates, I have nothing but love for the past two expansions. 
Maybe have a decaf, friend. I’m playing probably 3 hours a week and I’ll have 3 toons with double leggos next week.
Why don’t you guys suggest to your casual friends and family guilds to just que up in looking for raid? If you are spending weeks wiping on the first boss in normal then that’s really where you belong
This is my favorite. I love homework being required to enjoy my video games. I can think of many other games requiring addons, 3rd party websites, and watching someone else play to enjoy myself. Wait….
3 Likes
i feel as tho you are mistaken. with the great vault and soon to be creation catalyst it will be the easiest its ever ben to aquire tier not to mention each (tier) boss having a regular loot table and a Tier loot table id argue its never be easier to aquire said loot remember these bosses and raids are designed to last months to everyone except the very best so you will gain the power eva just not right away.
Logical errors 101:
My single, anecdotal experience negates all of your experiences that contradict it.
Basically: what you say can’t be true because I had this one experience. So silly…