Who is normal raiding for anymore?

[Argorwal-ysera (Argorwal)]

@Devrox-stormrage

well, I LOVED the “Flex” raid style in 5.3. I did it all the time even when I didn’t have to just because it was FUN, and I had a “regular” group that I would sign up for every week to do Siege of Org. It was probably one of the best periods because Flex wasn’t THAT hard, but it wasn’t stupid easy for “average” players either. So while progressing on normal we would do flex, flex provided a great way to test out trials or people wanting to explore a different role, etc.

THen for Warlords they claimed Flex was now Normal, and that IMHO was bollocks because Normal became harder than Flex was in 5.3.

Also flex in 5.4 (Siege of Orgrimmar) gave better gear than you could get from doing the world content at the time (Timeless isle).

[Sketches-vashj]

Blizz: “It’s a player problem. Git gud! Don’t you guys realize how serious raiding is in an 18 year old video game?”

[Devrox-stormrage]

The sad part is a lot of players say that too, which really just shows they are disconnected from the issue. Same with M+ issues. It’s like a rich person telling a poor person well you just need to work 3 jobs and save money duh it’s easy to be rich.

There are two “castes” in this game, the people who don’t struggle at all and think it’s easy/good, and the people who do and are basically told to shut up and git gud by the first group.

[Dan-emerald-dream]

@Galabris-alexstrasza

and is not something double legendary and tier is going to fix innately because the problem is too much emphasis on pass/fail mechanic checks to where having the objectively bad players is far too much of a detriment before even considering the level of their output.

This design has been going for a while, and I find it, well, odd.

Because eventually, I can see some dev going “Let’s make a raid boss where everyone does 1 damage per second, regardless of what buttons they push, and the entire fight is just dancing-to-mechanics survival mode with no enrage timer”. Like an entire fight that is just the Heigan safety dance.

[Boostins-lightbringer]

It’s for a continuation of the experience that older players used to have, or it’s the first half of progression (other half being heroic) for mid/upper family guilds.

[Våld-area-52]

Shouldn’t the difficulty of the raids mirror that of the player power gains? Start at normal, clear, gather tier, head into Heroic, clear, gather gear, then on to mythic. Progress gear and fight knowledge, then progress difficulties. That or if they made the first 5 bosses in raid also drop tier maybe I’d have more interest in spending time in heroic until we all get our tier sets. Atm, it’s about return on investment in time played because there is only so much time available.

Idk, maybe they copy LFR, call it Flex and remove the queue/number requirements.

[Tresa-eldrethalas (Tresa)]

Glad to see some good conversations in here, and some confirmation that I’m not just imagining it.

Hopefully Blizzard will address this and not just let it bleed out.

[Halpurt-dalaran]

Your post exactly sums up what my experience has been this raid tier. I raid with a very casual group that has historically been able to progress steadily through normal and then dabble with heroic. Bosses 3-5 have been a frustrating wall for this group. It’s a sad day when you can’t have a drunk BDK as your tank because the boss mechanics are tuned to their current degree.

[Debbyfrowner-thrall]

@Våld-area-52

Idk, maybe they copy LFR, call it Flex and remove the queue/number requirements.

That would be a good start. The raid is too hard and the LFR experience isn’t good

[Kneeshooter-amanthul (Kneeshooter)]

@Sentenzà-illidan

Unfortunately for Blizzard, beer league players are the most likely to quit the game if they’re not having fun, because they play almost strictly for fun rather than with a goal of earning AOTC or CE.

This is true in my case. During Legion my main guild was very active and for the majority of our members Normal was their raid difficulty of choice. We found we had fun, mucked up a bit, laughed a lot and enjoyed ourselves. But towards the end of BfA that started to change and fewer people were turning up each week to the point where there wasnt enough to fill a raid group. And then they started just not logging on, or the better ones left the guild to find a more active one.

Its sad because it caused the disintegration of a guild Ive played in since MoP. I could never figure why but I came to the conclusion that most of them just didnt enjoy the raid experience anymore.

[Fenharel-illidan]

The first 7 bosses were fairly easy for us aside from learning some footing. But whew, Anduin on normal felt insanely punishing in comparison. Esp when the bosses who come after him were nowhere near as difficult

[Birds-stormrage]

@Sentenzà-illidan

Blizzard is fooling themselves if they think that just because this patch will last 52 weeks, that people won’t care about the first 5 weeks - when in fact those are by far the most important for many players.

I know what your saying and I used to agree. But now I’m think we’re getting a new expansion sooner than we’ve been lead on to believe.

There is no way 9.2 is lasting a year. I guess we’ll find out soon enough though right?

[Argorwal-ysera (Argorwal)]

@Birds-stormrage

@Sentenzà-illidan

Blizzard is fooling themselves if they think that just because this patch will last 52 weeks, that people won’t care about the first 5 weeks - when in fact those are by far the most important for many players.

I know what your saying and I used to agree. But now I’m think we’re getting a new expansion sooner than we’ve been lead on to believe.

There is no way 9.2 is lasting a year. I guess we’ll find out soon enough though right?

People will forget about the time gate.

Who even remembers that when ICC released it took 2 months to even release Arthas to fight him? The raid was gated 1 wing at a time every 2 weeks until finally in February (raid released in December) you were allowed to fight him.

And you had to kill Arthas on normal to unlock heroic, so you couldn’t even start until February.

Who remembers that Saurfang, professor, blood queen, sindragosa, and Arthas all shared 10 attempts each? So if you wipes too much on blood Queen you couldn’t even fight the other end bosses (all of which dropped tier).

Does anyone remember that when ICC and Wrath gets remembered??

[Allendor-hyjal]

@Tyinidar-emerald-dream

The problem is, we steamrolled pretty much to Anduin on normal and hit a wall, decided, let’s go get some heroic gear. We can’t clear Skolex with our gear, which most of us should be geared for.

It irritates me that Anduin is the hardest boss in the raid.

[Dokthar-wyrmrest-accord]

i’ve posted links to the gating on GD many times. people either didn’t play until after wrath or have really bad memories. lol

[Birds-stormrage]

I get all that and remember. This is not Wotlk though lol.

What I’m saying is that if this were a normal schedule, 9.2 would have to last until maybe august 2023 since this is the last major patch?? That’s not happening. They’re obviously not on a normal schedule, but they’re also not releasing an expansion in February-July 2023…right?

I know anything can happen. But there’s just no way bruh. I’m gonna lock in my prediction that the next expansion is coming this year or very very early 2023.

We’ll know soon like I said earlier. We’ll be talking about this again on April 19th. If I’m wrong you guys can throw it in my face its cool

[Argorwal-ysera (Argorwal)]

Hehe I really hope it’s coming in late 2022, but it’s really hard to be that optimistic.

1+ year droughts aren’t really that uncommon (ICC, SoO, HFC) sadly.

[Tootens-frostmourne]

Maybe spend your next 2.5 hour session going over the mechanics and watching a video as a group?

When groups are wiping on normal it is usually a collective effort as not many mechanics will straight up 1 shot everyone.

If you have been stuck on the first boss for 3 weeks then there is an issue of multiple people doing the mechanics wrong multiple times…just make sure eveyone actually know what they’re doing and should be able to down the bosses easy.

If you have logs post them and we can have a look at it for you and maybe give some clarity on what the issues are.

[Crapula-black-dragonflight (Crapula)]

I dont think you get the concept of what a beer/family group is and how they want to spend 2.5 hours.

[Grimthar-illidan (Grimthar)]

OP is right, I like to raid but can’t dedicate time to a guild so I usually happily pug clear normal and some heroic. It’s different this time and I’ve since unsubbed. They’ve gone overboard with their mechanics and I can’t be bothered to sit through constantly reforming groups. I would like to think I’ll come back later in the expansion when people know the fights but that never happens. I love raiding but pugging sucks even more these days.