Cataclysm Raid Changes

Wubeh wrote:

"Easy raids, lets go PvE. We can RP some other time."

Lets just hope they dont make PvE as fuckeasy as its been in Wrath.

Wrath PvE was far from easy. Consider that hardmodes are the true endgame raiding content, and normal modes are just the tourist ride for the people that aren't interested in raiding for the challenge, but still want to see the instance and experience the general concept of the (nerfed) encounters. Kil'jaeden in TBC was punked faster than heroic 25-man Lich King at any rate.

Even the true challenges of previous tiers like A Tribute to Immortality in TotGC and Yogg-0 in Ulduar still remain unconquered by all but a few even after nerfs and better gear.

Saevir wrote:

Wubeh wrote:

"Easy raids, lets go PvE. We can RP some other time."

Lets just hope they dont make PvE as fuckeasy as its been in Wrath.

Wrath PvE was far from easy. Consider that hardmodes are the true endgame raiding content, and normal modes are just the tourist ride for the people that aren't interested in raiding for the challenge, but still want to see the instance and experience the general concept of the (nerfed) encounters. Kil'jaeden in TBC was punked faster than heroic 25-man Lich King at any rate.

The entire first tier of raiding was vastly undertuned, as was all of the regular Dungeons and Heroics. I can count the number of encounters in WotLK I've seen which involved CC on one hand. It's all far too undertuned. Not so much the case with Vanilla and BC. The Kil'jaeden vs Lich King comparison is dumb because of how differently the instances are structured, but I've done neither so can't comment on the difficulty between then.

Saevir wrote:
Even the true challenges of previous tiers like A Tribute to Immortality in TotGC and Yogg-0 in Ulduar still remain unconquered by all but a few even after nerfs and better gear.

Because there's no reason to do that when you can go do Heroics and get better gear than Yogg-0. Hard modes vs normal modes are far too extreme atm. You can't really consider Hard modes the true endgame because they're far too impractical. They're the same content, provide barely any better reward and are tons more difficult than the normal ones. Finding 24 people who're willing to go through that is kinda hard.

Both TBC and Vanilla had way better raiding IMO, but I guess it's up to taste.

Well I guess it does cut down on all the 25 man gear powerboosting in 10 mans that we have now.

My only real problem with WotLK raiding was:

VoA.

WHAT THE FUCK!?

If anyone can explain the logic behind that one I'd be more than willing to listen, since it's beyond me.

VoA is so I can get awesome gear for little work, more time for RP then!

Good changes tbh, let us whom aint got the time to spend, not to loose out on alot of progress due to being unable to do both versions of all raids for gear/badges. :X

Ataris wrote:
The entire first tier of raiding was vastly undertuned, as was all of the regular Dungeons and Heroics. I can count the number of encounters in WotLK I've seen which involved CC on one hand. It's all far too undertuned. Not so much the case with Vanilla and BC. The Kil'jaeden vs Lich King comparison is dumb because of how differently the instances are structured, but I've done neither so can't comment on the difficulty between then.

No CC being necessary doesn't automatically mean something is easy. CC is just a tool. It was underused in Wrath and the devs admitted so and are seeking to utilise it more in cataclysm.

RE: raids being undertuned. The tier 7 raids are definetly easier than ICC. That's nothing new and has been the state of raid progression since vanilla. I suspect you're using the rose-colored glasses when comparing to vanilla though. A raid guild that went through Naxx at the start of wrath while being moderately challenged would have absolutely destroyed Molten Core if they had applied the same skill and mentality. The difficulty-curve starts over with each expansion out of necessity to facilitate new players, but old players still retain all the skills they have learned. Expecting the start of the new expansion's raid progression to pick up in difficulty where the old one ended (for the average player at least), is somewhat foolish at this point in my opinion.

Wrath didnt seen the introduction of hardmodes in any real capacity until Ulduar either, so tier 7 content didnt even have that to benefit from. Cataclysm will most likely change that.

Later raids were far from undertuned either. Hardmode Ulduar saw several nerfs for example, and on Defias at least, no one has achieved Tribute to Immortality yet (afaik). If besting these challenges with the gear provided in that tier of content was required to advance to the next (like with Kael'thas before the nerf), all of Defias, save Revelations, would still be stuck in Ulduar. The seperate tracks of progression simply allows the unsuccesful guilds to skip ahead without blizzard needing to provide nerfs.

Ataris wrote:
Because there's no reason to do that when you can go do Heroics and get better gear than Yogg-0. Hard modes vs normal modes are far too extreme atm. You can't really consider Hard modes the true endgame because they're far too impractical. They're the same content, provide barely any better reward and are tons more difficult than the normal ones. Finding 24 people who're willing to go through that is kinda hard.

If the challenge alone and the prestige from beating doesn't interest a person, that's fine. They just forfeit the right to complain that content is too easy then. Going onwards, it's going to be the norm that hardmode/heroic versions of encounters will be for those seeking a challenge and normal mode is for everyone else. The fact that the same encounters and instances are reused for both shouldnt make any difference unless being able to go "I've seen <content x> and you haven't! Nyah!" as a reward for the extra challenge is your thing. If it is, Blizzard wants to disappoint you.

If the challenge alone and the prestige from beating doesn't interest a person, that's fine. They just forfeit the right to complain that content is too easy then. Going onwards, it's going to be the norm that hardmode/heroic versions of encounters will be for those seeking a challenge and normal mode is for everyone else. The fact that the same encounters and instances are reused for both shouldnt make any difference unless being able to go "I've seen <content x> and you haven't! Nyah!" as a reward for the extra challenge is your thing. If it is, Blizzard wants to disappoint you.

to borrow a hated acronym: qft

I've been on DB since launch. I've raided with the Burning Dawn > Last Stand > The Third Way as we moved anc changed. Some of that was with players here. I for one have seen my actual level of play increase dramatically.

I've still got my hunter on Earthern Ring. He has the weirdest gear @ 60. Some of this is because the gear was weird with strange stats, it is also because I had no idea how to play the game.

The game progresses. It evolves and changes. For the better mainly.

Inclusion of alien-squids and magic-addled elves anyone? Remember the cries at TBC launch?

I know it isn't the same per se. But the idea is the same. It was opening up areas of the game (with Dranei/Bloodelves it was specific races/areas and classes otherwise not seen for either faction) for players that hadn't experienced them, or couldn't do.

I'm an RPer and a raider. And I think the idea of these changes is brilliant.

Saevir wrote:

Ataris wrote:
The entire first tier of raiding was vastly undertuned, as was all of the regular Dungeons and Heroics. I can count the number of encounters in WotLK I've seen which involved CC on one hand. It's all far too undertuned. Not so much the case with Vanilla and BC. The Kil'jaeden vs Lich King comparison is dumb because of how differently the instances are structured, but I've done neither so can't comment on the difficulty between then.

No CC being necessary doesn't automatically mean something is easy. CC is just a tool. It was underused in Wrath and the devs admitted so and are seeking to utilise it more in cataclysm.

It means there's less to keep track of, less to do. i e easier content. There's nothing near Shattered Halls or Shadow Lab at TBC launch compared to anything in Wrath. And CC is there, it's just that the content is so simple/easy that you don't need it.

Saevir wrote:
RE: raids being undertuned. The tier 7 raids are definetly easier than ICC. That's nothing new and has been the state of raid progression since vanilla. I suspect you're using the rose-colored glasses when comparing to vanilla though. A raid guild that went through Naxx at the start of wrath while being moderately challenged would have absolutely destroyed Molten Core if they had applied the same skill and mentality. The difficulty-curve starts over with each expansion out of necessity to facilitate new players, but old players still retain all the skills they have learned. Expecting the start of the new expansion's raid progression to pick up in difficulty where the old one ended (for the average player at least), is somewhat foolish at this point in my opinion.

I don't think you understand what I'm saying. Undertuned does not mean easier than, it's about tuning the content relative to the playerbase. You could basically do Naxx in greens and blues. That was NOT possible in Kara at launch. MC was tuned pretty fine compared to the playerbase's skill and gear at the time. Wrath was not. It was far too easy. Nothing in Naxx could really kill you unless you were playing like a retard or you were vastly undergeared.

Saevir wrote:
Wrath didnt seen the introduction of hardmodes in any real capacity until Ulduar either, so tier 7 content didnt even have that to benefit from. Cataclysm will most likely change that.

That's true.

Saevir wrote:
Later raids were far from undertuned either. Hardmode Ulduar saw several nerfs for example, and on Defias at least, no one has achieved Tribute to Immortality yet (afaik). If besting these challenges with the gear provided in that tier of content was required to advance to the next (like with Kael'thas before the nerf), all of Defias, save Revelations, would still be stuck in Ulduar. The seperate tracks of progression simply allows the unsuccesful guilds to skip ahead without blizzard needing to provide nerfs.

Ulduar was perfect until they started nerfing normal mode into the ground. Never tried hard modes because there was never incentive too in the guild I raided with.

Saevir wrote:

Ataris wrote:
Because there's no reason to do that when you can go do Heroics and get better gear than Yogg-0. Hard modes vs normal modes are far too extreme atm. You can't really consider Hard modes the true endgame because they're far too impractical. They're the same content, provide barely any better reward and are tons more difficult than the normal ones. Finding 24 people who're willing to go through that is kinda hard.

If the challenge alone and the prestige from beating doesn't interest a person, that's fine. They just forfeit the right to complain that content is too easy then. Going onwards, it's going to be the norm that hardmode/heroic versions of encounters will be for those seeking a challenge and normal mode is for everyone else. The fact that the same encounters and instances are reused for both shouldnt make any difference unless being able to go "I've seen <content x> and you haven't! Nyah!" as a reward for the extra challenge is your thing. If it is, Blizzard wants to disappoint you.

This is a game. Games balance is generally about Risk VS Reward. Currently there's not enough reward to make the game worth to play at Hard Mode. Besides, it shouldn't even be called Hard Mode. It should basically be Very Easy Mode VS Very Hard Mode, because that's what it currently is. It's like when the achievement system was implemented. Just because you wanted to fight a battle in a way that made it retardedly hard for (basically) the same rewards doesn't mean people can't argue that the Normal Modes are undertuned in comparison to the Hard Modes or the other way around.

And as I said, and a point which you largely ignored, is that there's not really 24 other people on DB that are really interested in going Hard Modes, because there simply isn't reason to atm.

Anyway, I think these changes look brilliant and will form a lot better endgame for WoW. But anyone who thinks Wrath was fine difficulty wise is pretty deluded IMO.

Draniah wrote:

We're removing personal rating requirements on almost all items; they're definitely removed for weapons.

...sigh...tsk...meh...**@#!

Excellent! Back to S3, where PvP was still fun!

*cough* SL/SL Warlock *cough*

Nubs will gain powerful gear. That's a joke.

SL/SL...

*Dreams off.*

Draniah wrote:Nubs will gain powerful gear. That's a joke.

They will still be nubs.
Will getting into PvP later easier since you will not lack weapons (unless you also PvE e tc).

Draniah wrote:Nubs will gain powerful gear. That's a joke.

Skilled players will gain even more powerful gear than that. Business as usual.

Removing weapon requirements is cool. It will eliminate all forms of PvE for me. No more queueing with elitist mongs with the random dungeon finder, no more easy as fuck heroics you do, just to farm a few badges and get a slight pvp gear upgrade.

This shit was rediculous.

Blizzard wants to do same thing in PvP like did in PvE. Kids, lazy people, and clueless players crying on forum about that raiding in TBC is too hard, so in WotLK you have easy mode normal raids for them... now people cry about that 1800 rating is too hard to get, they can't get PvP weapons, so Blizzard will remove personal rating from most PvP items including weapons from 1800. I'm not a 2,5 k rated player, but I worked my way over 1800 with basic lvl 200 PvE items and got my weapons. If you can't get to 1800, then you don't deserve it.

I don't mind if they add a basic PvP weapon for Honor, so you don't have to PvE, in fact I'm surprised why they haven't done that before. However, powerful weapons should be gained through skills, not grinding.

They didnt say rating requirements would go away entirely. I wouldn't be surprised if it remained in some form (with an equivalent for the new BG system) on current-tier gear and only went away for the previous tier that can be bought with honor.

Considering I only see gear as a tool I don't care one way or another.
Might become a bit annoying due to meeting crap oponents at times, but hey? Free points.
The difference between skilled players and unskilled players will still remain, and you'll still feel satisfaction when winning a difficult match. While idiots in good gear is slightly harder to beat than idiots in bad gear, fact remains they are still idiots.