Icecrown Citadel: Game changing raid progression mechanics

[wildcard]

when people say "i hope the are hard" or "i hope its really ultra hard" you have to keep in mind, most guilds havent killed algalon. and alot of guilds cannot kill anub on heroic. do you want to make it content we wont ever see?

That's the kind of whining I love.  I think the game is in a good place right now with average raid content being beatable by the majority of the game population.  And it's good for business.  It doesn't make any sense to pay all that revenue to develop content only 10% of your customers will ever see.  The new heroic encounter mechanic is there to appease the hardcore "I must be challenged!" types who only seem to be happy when they can lord their phat epics over everyone else.

its hardly whining, ill see the content. i would just prefer to see it with my guildies.

I wasn't talking about you whining, just the elitist whining in general from the people who think they're the bees' knees because they've seen more content than others and therefore they deserve to be special. :)

i actualy agree that not everyone should be able to see all content.

Everyone won't see the heroic and/or hard mode versions of basic content.  Or at least, successfully conquer it, which is what it sounds like you're getting at.  There's a lot less human-hours of work required to develop a harder version of "normal" content than there is to develop specific, different "elite" content.  Financially it's smarter for Blizzard to do it this way.  And I, who don't wanna raid 5-6 nights a week, still want to see 100% of the lore and content for my monthly fee.

[Vitandus]

Everyone that makes a modicum of effort should be able to see the end of a raid instance. Keep in mind that World of Warcraft is a business venture and a social game. It does nothing for Blizzard's financial bottom line to put in content that only 5% of the user base will see. This inability to progress creates user churn. Likewise, it makes no sense to place guild-rending content that destroys the social entities (guilds) and impacts the community.

If people want to brag about their ability in this game, they can do hard mode content, which offers different loot.

Hard-core only content is also a significant barrier to entry for new WoW players that want to raid. You buy WoW, get up to 80, then have to find a guild willing to carry you to good loot. In the old days, chances of a new 80 finding a guild to carry you was slim. Nowadays, getting someone geared to run final raid content is much easier, and therefore people are more willing to give folks a chance.

[One Ear]

Keep in mind that World of Warcraft is a business venture and a social game. It does nothing for Blizzard's financial bottom line to put in content that only 5% of the user base will see. This inability to progress creates user churn. Likewise, it makes no sense to place guild-rending content that destroys the social entities (guilds) and impacts the community.

So..... vanilla wow where only about 1-3 guilds (if that) in each faction saw anything in Naxx was a financial failure and didn't have the 8 billion subscribers that built the game? That somehow didn't happen?

Anecdotally, I think there was a LOT less user churn in vanilla than in BC or Wrath. The guild-rending happens a ton more now since things are so poorly balanced in terms of individual responsibility between encounter to encounter.

Encounter design was better back before BC. Now, with trying to be the every-man game, it has lost something. The current "gimmics" are really annoying and the balance is just not there like it was before BC.

The more I think about it, the more I think Blizz should have just did 25s and 10s and let that be the delineation. Originally, I thought normal/heroic 25s/10s was great. Now, I think they are just going down a wrong path further and further making content that is either way too easy or that is way too hard trying to satisfy everyone and really not satisfying anyone. It is extremely annoying, IMO, to do hard modes on encounters that you have already beat. Especially when that encounter is simply the boss hits harder, you have an insanely short enrage timer, and the boss has more health.

[Vitandus]

User churn is based on perceived value as compared to sunken cost. It is not simply a linear line graph of "accessibility" versus "churn/membership". There are other values at play.

I am going to use the cell phone as an example. In the old days, before number portability, the primary factor limiting churn was the pain of moving to a new phone number. That limitation is no longer a factor. As a result, the factors become financial - incentives to move, cost of breaking a contract, offer of a new phone at a subsidized price, happiness with service, and sunken cost. For example, as an iPhone user, I may not be happy with AT&T, but first off, it's really the only GSM game in town, and secondly, I now have an investment in iPhone applications and workflow that I am reluctant to change. On the flip side, the carrier - AT&T in my case - has a significant interest in maintaining a level of service to ensure my investment outweighs my desire to move.

Now let's apply that to WoW. The initial investment of $50 is the first investment. This can be a significant financial investment to many, especially coupled with a $15 a month tax to continue. You also have the value of time invested into the game, which can be significant. This is all represents the desire to remain with the game.

Now that has to be weighed against the desire to leave. When content is unavailable to (based on a little remembered post by a dev, if memory serves) 90+% of the user base, you begin to alienate a percentage of players who are not happy with being totally casual. You also create a huge barrier to entry for new players that wish to raid. Most guilds did not want to recruit anyone in "just Kara" gear in Burning Crusade that wanted to join a 25 man guild. I have to assume these were factors involved in some churn, as Blizzard requests feedback when people quit. Considering the financial success of Blizzard, it must also be assumed that if the numbers showed hard core players forming the majority of income they would not have changed the game.

So here we are with easier, tiered content.

As far as difficulty - perhaps Blizzard should just ramp 25 man content to current Heroic levels and leave 10 man tiered? This will give the people that want to raid 25 man content a way to be "elite" and leave we ten man raiders with the ability to be masters of our own fate.

Classic? Yes, it felt epic having 40 people punching their way through classic content. It was not so epic after a long day of work to have to deal with 39 other people in a pay-to-play environment filled with whining babies. I recall a lot of people putting work, family, and life on hold to go raid. That, IMO, is bullshit and unhealthy.

I think the current 10/25 man raid system is silly. Give us the same drops across all tiers, and scale it according to the difficulty of encounter. Yes, I am biased since I am one of those 10 man raiders. Either that, or move to 15 man raids and just go with that moving forward.

I also think that a lot of us are just burnt out with the game and just have too much invested to just quit. Even new content can be less than satisfying since it's "Kill the boss, get loot, ho-hum". I am waiting for Blizzard to make some really content-shaking changes. I play now mostly to hang out with people I like (again the difference between now and 40 man classic days).

[wildcard]

The more I think about it, the more I think Blizz should have just did 25s and 10s and let that be the delineation.

I think they should have met somewhere in the middle and settled on ONE raid size.  I think 15 would have been perfect, with heroic versions accordingly.

[One Ear]

So here we are with easier, tiered content.

As far as difficulty - perhaps Blizzard should just ramp 25 man content to current Heroic levels and leave 10 man tiered? This will give the people that want to raid 25 man content a way to be "elite" and leave we ten man raiders with the ability to be masters of our own fate.

Classic? Yes, it felt epic having 40 people punching their way through classic content. It was not so epic after a long day of work to have to deal with 39 other people in a pay-to-play environment filled with whining babies. I recall a lot of people putting work, family, and life on hold to go raid. That, IMO, is bullshit and unhealthy.

I think the current 10/25 man raid system is silly. Give us the same drops across all tiers, and scale it according to the difficulty of encounter. Yes, I am biased since I am one of those 10 man raiders. Either that, or move to 15 man raids and just go with that moving forward.

The whining babies were not all in 40 man raids. We have those even in 10 mans. Heck even in 5 man pugs. The 40 man raids were hellish to organize and coordinate. And motivation and teamwork were more important than now, IMO. And the 40 mans didn't cover the market on putting life in the backseat. Plenty still do with 25s.

As I long for the old 40 man raids.... it's not the 40 raiders.... it's the encounters. Some of them are really memorable as they were extremely well balanced, tough, required more individual attention to detail, and were a lot more fun to work on. Aside from a couple fights in BC and 1 (maybe 2) in Wrath, I have not seen anything that is nearly as well done.

15 wouldn't be a bad size for a single raid. Accessible and easy to manage. Leaves the designers with ample room to come up with clever gimmicks.

PS: I don't necessarily disagree with the user churn analysis. But, I also don't think that the old vanilla formula for raiding was broken enough that it needed to evolve into what we have now. While keeping your customers happy is key to any business, I don't think that moving to a more accessible tiered raiding choice for content necessarily was a wise choice. I certainly don't think it made raiding more enjoyable. [I raid for the friendships and experience.] In the end, what would more high paying customers/players want? More accessible, but poorer quality raids or better quality, but less accessible raids? Blizz, unfortunately, IMO, chose the former.