I can honestly say that if I’m restricted to only 2 total lockouts for TOC each week(one 10m and one 25m) they’ll both be with my guild. I assume this will likely be the case for most players/guilds, as they will outfit 3x 10m runs and 1x 25m run (likely filling their 3rd 10 man with Alts in guild).
Most guilds already have 2-3 hour blocks 2 days per week for raiding, and when you go from Naxx and Ulduar 10/25, which will fill those time blocks up each week during each phase, then move to TOC, which only fills 30-45 minutes for each lockout, players will run out of things to do and likely play less/raid less. You’re going from 12 and 13 boss encounter raids w/trash mobs to a 5 boss encounter raid w/out trash.
Also, as TOC is a significantly easier “catch-up” raid to bring new and undergeared players up to speed before ICC, the original allowance of 4 lockouts per week actually encouraged more social interaction with non-guild/new players, by allowing you to go “hard-core” with your guildies on hard-mode versions and play relaxed and fill spots on the fly with LFG/LFR players for the normal-mode versions.
Most of the friends I made in WOW were from Wrath Era, many I still play with or talk to even today. They were met through Pugging through RDF tool and 10m normal raids. I then incorporated them to fill spots in Hard-mode and 25m raids once they had “proven” themselves as competent player in Heroic Dungeons and Normal raids. This is and has always been the normal course for organic relationships in WoW.
I strongly believe that changing the raid lockouts to anything different from how it was originally done in Wrath would be a mistake, as well as not implementing RDF(even if not upon release, as was the case originally). RDF allows for quicker and easier dungeons, especially with the teleport to dungeon feature. That alone will increase the total number of dungeons per day, which is almost guaranteed to increase the number of pug groups that have random players in it, thus creating more opportunities to meet more players, which by all you’ve stated in your plans to change things, is your focus…
P.S. RDF also SIGNIFICANTLY increases dungeon grouping at ALL levels prior to 70 for leveling players in old world content. (lots of friends made here as well)
People are disposable regardless of where they came from. There is no magical connection to people regardless of how the group was formed and how you entered the dungeon. I haven’t met anyone who is irreplaceable to a dungeon group (hell, even raid) throughout 20 years of playing MMOs.
Are you worried that much about being kicked? In years of playing this game I have rarely, if ever, seen people get blindly vote kicked from a group. The people that I have seen get kicked are usually AFK, spamming group chat with nonsense or trying to start drama.
Do you really feel that summoning people who were too lazy to fly to the stone and/or “exchanging a few messages along the way” demonstrates the social mechanism you are looking for? That doesn’t sound like a profound social experience because I bet once you enter the dungeon most people won’t talk.
But if you buy a boost to 70 you will not need to do the low level dungeons. You can pay for a second subscription if you want another 70 boost. You can pay for a third subscription if you want another 70 boost.
See how this goes? It’s almost like the change for RDF makes them more money.
Future wife didnt say anything, ninjad your 401k and 1/2 your income for the next 18 years. So even though communication wasnt had, expectations were set.
I am feeling the same way after coming back to Blizzard after being gone for quite some time. The company they once were is no more and what we have now is basically Electronic Arts except Activision Blizzard. They said they would not change classic and they did and continue to do so with zero care for customers with legit complaints.
Not even just the RDF dilemma but unmoderated global chat and more. They just don’t seem to care and focus on making the quick buck while trying to be super politically correct and it’s disgusting. I 'm surprised the servers aren’t running in super low bandwidth rate mode to save even more pennies. I think they are pretty much just farming us now.
I figured id come back for Wrath and find a guild and play WoW again but after burning to 64 and doing maybe 3 or 4 dungeons the entire time while continually looking for groups, I find it is an abysmal waste of time and progression just sucks. As a famous gnome once said “Time is money friend.” I wish Blizzard would quit wasting mine. I can understand why TBC didn’t have RDF although both Vanilla and TBC would have been better with it. I refuse to play Wrath without it though.
The odds of me even finding a guild even if I gave them a 1 year contract, and offered to raid and pvp daily is very very slim. So at least I could play some pre raid stuff and try to get a char geared up and then maybe hop on an alt once i’m capped with nothing to do or grind some pvp out but it just doesn’t seem possible. That is even being logged in 12-14 hours a day actually playing the game non boosted.
So I would advise new players to just stick with FFIV unless this new Blizzard comes to their senses and stops changing classic and adds RDF back into Wrath. I will never go back to live WoW either with stuff like level scaling and what not. RDF was the best thing to happen to MMO period. If SWTOR had it at launch it would have been a premium game to this day. Much like WoW now there was nobody to play with and you just sit in chat looking for groups until you get sick of it and log.
WoW was never a fully persistent game. When it first came out the big difference was instanced dungeons. Many were skeptical about it for the same reason as RDF. It took players out of the persistent world. Imagine trying to manage without instances now… Yeah same deal for RDF. If you don’t want to use it and rather play with premades then fine. It changes nothing for people that don’t use it. However for everyone else it opens a whole new world of groups that are accessible at ANY time of the day.
Instead of sitting in chat ALL day hoping to get a group you can run the daily bonus (Helping Others and yourself) and then bang out some more Dungeons as you feel like it or as the quests hubs unlock them and you level up. The whole point of MMO is progression and without it the game stagnates and then you REALLY run into problems.
So disappointed my sub has already been canceled. This really needed to be in Wrath from the start too. All these other changes are not helping either. Now they are changing spells and spell names. Game mechanics and everything are being changed now including instancing and persistence… What a mess. Too bad I was having so much fun before they actually started changing stuff and then dropped the RDF bomb.
Game design dictates how people approach the content and each other. Pretending that refusing to use RDF in a world where it’s already implemented results in the same experience as it not existing in the first place is idiotic. It’s the same argument people use regarding Flight. It’s a surface level garbage argument.
So Wrath should be changed for your preferences that were catered to in Classic and TBC Classic already? And continue to be in Classic Era as well.
And by the way, lfd is absolutely optional in the group forming process. Want to invite friends and guildies to a group? Go ahead. So your argument is about hitting a button to queue for a dungeon? Really? That’s game breaking for you?
It didn’t have dual spec either. It didn’t have tome of cold weather flying. It didn’t have a hundred things. Neither did TBC Classic or Classic. Why is dungeon finder suddenly the exception? But you know what? Blizz could make it the exception. The problem is they’ve said repeatedly it’s NEVER coming to Wrath Classic.
Choice A: Allow people who don’t want dungeon finder to queue how they want, while making everyone else unhappy.
Choice B: Allow people who don’t want dungeon finder to queue how they want, and allow people who do want it to queue how they want. Everyone is happy.
Having random dungeon finder doesn’t stop the apparently tons of people who want to manually form groups from doing so. All it does is hurt a huge portion of the player base that doesn’t need to be patronized and told how they’re supposed to enjoy the game they’re paying for.
Makes them more money?? I dont think so. Look how many subs they lost in tbc because of not helping the situation. Couldnt evem give dual spec. I wont be playing wotlk because of it. Thats another sub gone.
As soon as they made the no boosting change in SOM, the players left. Mass exited. Nobody wants to level. They dont need to force ppl to buy the boost. If they have it available it will be bought. Removing rdf is a money loser.
Ppl can doubt all they want. Subs are going to decline fast as soon as ppl start feeling loke they are wasting time. Woltk is a very very easy game. Not having rdf is a huge mistake.
This is the kind if thing that ruined retail. Not rdf. They made heroics pointless and gated the mythics. They have no clue what they are doing but are so stuck on themselves that they cant admit it.
I thought they were actually turning the ship. So glad they are showimg the truth before dragonflight. I have about a month left of tbc. Gonna enjoy the best expansion ever for a little lomger, then say gb to blizz bs forever. Tbc could have been even better with dual spec and rdf. Imagine if they made a chamge that actually improved the game. Lol.
Completely agree here. One of the worst decisions, (among some other bad ones) in Retail was to remove incentives to farm heroics and put those reward behind world dailies. It’s an MMO and running dungeons lets us play with others. Instead Blizzard specifically took that away to put the rewards behind dailies that the masses run solo. It’s non-sensical to me.
I think we’re on the same side. They aren’t forcing anything, and I never said they are, but they are heavily pushing you towards the financial decision they want. There are a ton of great videos on monetization in games and all of their decisions tend to mirror the trends discussed in those videos.
Understandably the timeline is pretty condensed atm with the launch date. We still don’t know any details about the 70 boosts.
Clarification on “a later patch” for race/faction change would be appreciated as well. Does that mean a month into launch or does that mean something like Ulduar patch?
Just another reminder that your decision to not add RDF is a mistake, and your wasting dev time and probably causing more damage than good trying to force in a janky half-baked LFG system to replace it.