Thursday, May 1, 2014

[WoW] Raiding in Warlords: The Good, The (Maybe) Bad, The Strange

Now that Blizzard has published their raid retrospective and how it all feeds into their design decisions for WoD (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3), we can finally start dissecting their big picture, from valor points to heroic 5-mans, to the raids themselves.

The Good


The greatest things that Blizzard has “discovered” were the idea of having multiple difficulties, and the idea of raid sizes not being static. I put discovered in quotation marks because, as Ion Hazzikostas even mentions, difficulty levels in video games isn’t precisely new. In fact, it’s a very old concept; but no one until now has really applied it with rigor in an MMO. Wrath of the Lich King really was the start of difficulty modes, but rolling into Warlords of Draenor we’ll have four official difficulty modes: LFR, Normal, Heroic, Mythic. LFR being tourist mode where you can faceroll your way through, to Mythic being the hardest of the hard.



It’s funny, because I don’t really Flex raid (which is the difficulty just above LFR today), but I love the fact that it exists. It’s great for folks who want to get into raiding but need some practice at a lower difficulty, or the folks who just want to raid as a group, but don’t really care for progression. I think adding a difficulty between stupid easy (LFR) and moderately difficult (Normal) was good, because let me tell you, Normal raiding the past two expansions has been a bit of a harsh wakeup call for a lot of raiders, especially those of us who raided 10 man in Wrath.


Non-static raid sizes, basically, the raid scaling in difficulty from 10 to 30 people and every step in between, is also amazing. No longer do I need to bench people. I can just have a core 10 people, have a few extras, and go from there. I feel like Heroic raiding will likely still favor static rosters with no bench, as having that solid core of people is still really important at higher difficulties.


The other part that I’m pretty happy with is the idea that LFR—tourist mode—won’t drop tier sets or super awesome trinkets. One of the frustrating things is being “stuck” running lower difficulty content with people who are going to yell at you for being a try-hard just so you can get those pieces. By making separate loot tables, Blizzard is divorcing LFR from the other raid difficulties. There’ll be no reason for someone raiding higher difficulties to venture into LFR, keeping two populations that are often at odds apart.


The Potentially Bad


Now, they have a potential issue here with Legendries. If they pull a Mists of Pandaria and make you run LFR 20 times just to get the random drops for it, then they’ll have undone any of the work they did to separate the two audiences. I think if they want to go this route, they’ll need to be hardcore about really disincentivizing raiders from moving down the difficulty ladder.


Which bring us to another potential issue: raid lockouts. Today, the highest and second highest difficulties lock each other out. If you’ve killed up to boss 7 in your raid, regardless of either difficulty, you couldn’t kill those bosses a second time in a different difficulty and get loot. With the new system, no difficulty will lock the others out. This brings back the issue around high-end guilds pressured to run lower difficulties to get loot to hit those World Firsts. Or not even the World First guilds, but Mythic raiding guilds.


Nobody wants to be the person who’s holding everyone else back, and since the game is largely gear-based, it creates an incentive for players to run as many difficulties as they can to get more loot. This has already happened once before in WoW’s history: Trial of the Grand Crusader. Folks would run it on 10 man normal, 10 man heroic, 25 man normal, and 25 man heroic, every week. Running the same raid 4 times a week is a bit crazy, and draining.


“But Talarian,” you may ask, “isn’t that their choice? Why should we stop people from doing that if they don’t want to?” Well, depends. I’m already on record as stating that game designers can absolutely influence the community and player behavior via game design. If Blizzard is truly concerned about high-end raider burnout, then they’ll do something to keep those raiders from running all the raids during the week. One option might be to only allow for loot from one difficulty a week.


Another interesting option is one Theck brought up ages ago; he proposes that when you defeat a boss on a specific difficulty, you get personal loot rolls for every difficulty below it, on top of the normal loot drops. Basically, you’ve proven you can beat the higher difficulty, and you don’t need to run the lower difficulty. It has some quirks around off-spec items that may need extra UI or thought.


A slight variation on the idea was brought up by Brian Packer on Twitter, where you could tie the lower difficulties to your Garrison and have followers “raid” lower difficulties for you to possibly get loot once you defeat the higher difficulty that week.


Now, to be fair, they’re probably mostly okay for later tiers. Ion is on record that Tier 17 Mythic gear will be better than Tier 18 Normal gear, so if that’s the case, later tiers in the expansion bring the number of raid difficulties with upgrades down to two, which might be just fine in the long term. The first tier is still going to stink though, short of another solution, as everyone will be starting from scratch.


The Strange


One of the strange things about the entire system is how it interacts with Heroic 5-Mans, however. We know that Heroic 5-Mans will be decently hard. Not Cataclysm hard, mind you, but harder than they are today. And gated by Proving Grounds, as well (a silver, which isn’t terribly onerous today). But apparently LFR 6.0 loot will have a higher ilvl than 5-Man Heroics.


The tourist mode, which is already really easy today, will have better loot than the higher difficulty, skill-gated 5-Man dungeon content. Watcher claims that it would kill LFR to make them equal because the Heroic dungeons are available day 1, but LFR is gated; wings appear week to week. But if the harder content has less rewards, nobody will do them. See: Heroic Scenarios today. I’d argue H Scenarios are more difficult than LFR, but they give pretty crappy rewards (well, they are one of those efficient sources of valor today). Don’t see too many people clamoring to do heroic scenarios anymore. But I don’t have that data, I suppose.


Which is another thing. There’s been almost no mention of scenarios in all of this. Were they a failed experiment?


Originally the Heroic 5-Mans were touted as an alternate progression path to LFR, but if the gear is worse, not much of an alternate path, that. If there’s no change, then I think between the gating, the harder difficulty, and no real rewards, they’ll be as empty as they are today, or emptier, even. The only saving grace is you can chain run Heroic 5-Mans, so when you can’t run LFR anymore that week, you might fill other slots with lesser gear. But that’s really not an alternate path anymore either, that’s just filler. We’ll see how much weaker Heroic 5-Man gear is. If it’s not significantly weaker, then it may be okay.


The Conclusion

Overall, I like the changes, or largely indifferent. I’ll be honest, I don’t raid higher than Normal today (Heroic tomorrow). I mean, we’re just starting to dip our toes into the highest difficulty in the next month, but that’s an artifact of an extremely long raid tier. I’m not sure we’ll have it in us to bang our heads against the highest difficulties for long given it’s effectively the same content we’ve been raiding for nearly 8 months already. So with that in mind it doesn’t really affect me around the higher levels of difficulties. We’re just not hardcore enough to worry about running all the lower difficulties all the time. We may dabble in them, but no more than that. It’s an interesting point from an academic perspective, though.


But more difficulties and the flexible raids of all types (barring Mythic) really are great changes that will help raiding overall in my opinion. I’ll be waiting to see how the 5-Mans play out though. I’m pretty skeptical their plan will work well.
#WoW, #GameDesign, #GoodDesign, #BadDesign, #DesignExperiment

12 comments:

  1. I'm very disappointed by the decision to have heroic dungeon gear be lower than LFR; all it means is that things there will stay the same. Dungeons will quickly be be obsolete and if you want to maximize your gear (aka the issue they were trying to fix by splitting LFR from other raids) you'll have to run LFR. "But you don't HAVE to," they will say, and in response we give the same reason THEY realized when they decided to change LFR: You don't HAVE to, but you'd be stupid not to.

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    1. If it's anything like MoP, the problem will really only exist in the first tier. But given Blizzard wants 5-Mans to be a little more prominent, I wouldn't be surprised to see more drop halfway through the expansion.

      If he loot is only 8 ills below LFR, it might be okay? You're still stuck running LFR for a couple weeks, but quickly the rest of your gear will be filled with H 5-Man gear? But then we're still required to run LFR :(

      I don't really know. It's a gnarly problem, because I think with daily instead of weekly lockouts on Heroic 5-Mans (and no lockouts for random), Watcher is right that it would kill LFR... Maybe the solution is to introduce similar lockouts on 5-mans? Or reduce the lockouts on LFR and bring the loot ilvl down a bit further as well as the drop rate?

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  2. "I feel like Heroic raiding will likely still favor static rosters with no bench, as having that solid core of people is still really important at higher difficulties."

    FYI, Heroic Raiding currently does NOT favor static rosters with no bench -- I don't know of a single heroic guild that runs with exactly 10 or 25 people. Some hardcore 10 mans get by with 11 but most run 12-13 and 25 mans run 30-35 people.

    "I’m already on record as stating that game designers can absolutely influence the community and player behavior via game design."

    Indeed.

    "Ion is on record that Tier 17 Mythic gear will be better than Tier 18 Normal gear, so if that’s the case, later tiers in the expansion bring the number of raid difficulties with upgrades down to two, which might be just fine in the long term."

    I'm still worried about tier sets and trinkets, though, which may make T18N lower ilvl gear superior to T17M.

    "But apparently LFR 6.0 loot will have a higher ilvl than 5-Man Heroics."

    I don't get this either. I thought their whole point was that if you were a normal or above (so normal/heroic/mythic) raider then you could only do 5 man heroics and completely skip LFR.

    We'll see, I suppose.

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    1. "Nobody wants to be the person who’s holding everyone else back, and since the game is largely gear-based, it creates an incentive for players to run as many difficulties as they can to get more loot."

      Oh, and FWIW, unless you're 14/14H at the moment then improving your play will make a far larger difference in your performance than going up by 5-10 ilvl. Normal SoO is clearable in 530 ilvl or so with a good group, possibly less. More gear gives more cushion for error but the gear isn't what is holding people back 99% of the time.

      I'm not saying gear doesn't help, but it's less of a big deal than most people think in almost all cases.

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    2. "FYI, Heroic Raiding currently does NOT favor static rosters with no bench -- I don't know of a single heroic guild that runs with exactly 10 or 25 people. Some hardcore 10 mans get by with 11 but most run 12-13 and 25 mans run 30-35 people."
      ~Sorry, terminology confusion. Normal today, Heroic tomorrow. I doubt most 10N raids today are running with deep benches.

      "Oh, and FWIW, unless you're 14/14H at the moment then improving your play will make a far larger difference in your performance than going up by 5-10 ilvl. Normal SoO is clearable in 530 ilvl or so with a good group, possibly less. More gear gives more cushion for error but the gear isn't what is holding people back 99% of the time."
      ~Agreed, but two counterpoints: 1) if you're already playing near the top of your game like the World-first folk, then gear helps. 2) Better gear can be used in lieu of improving your skills. I've observed a common (albeit misconceived) perception that folks "can't do the content because [they] don't have enough gear" from plenty of folks in my guild.

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    3. "Sorry, terminology confusion. Normal today, Heroic tomorrow. I doubt most 10N raids today are running with deep benches."

      Ah, gotcha. You said "Heroic will likely still favor" so...

      "1) if you're already playing near the top of your game like the World-first folk, then gear helps."

      I'm not sure I'd call that a counterpoint since that is exactly what I said :P

      "I've observed a common (albeit misconceived) perception that folks "can't do the content because [they] don't have enough gear" from plenty of folks in my guild."

      Not sure that's a counterpoint either, since I was trying to make it clear that common perception is in fact incorrect.

      So, uh...sure? I guess?

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    4. Yeah, sorry, kinda derped there. I think we're, as my coworkers like to say, "violently in agreement" here. Too much sun, I think.

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    5. You've mortally wounded me with your violent agreement, good sir. Farewell, cruel world.

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  3. I agree on the heroic dungeons -- strange move, probably dumb. And while I don't care either way on trinkets, I really disagree with their decision to remove tier gear from LFR.

    The primary problem is inconsistency. They just admitted in their PVP blog post that they needed to get people into gear with the PVP set bonus earlier, and to that end, they were improving its accessibility. Yet they're going the opposite way for PVE, first by removing tier from vendors and now removing it from the lowest raid difficulty, and they haven't really explained why.

    It's already lower ilvl, usually has crappier color themes, and has that dreaded "raid finder" branded across its tooltip. But with plenty of animosity between hardcore and casual players already, what's the point? One last wedge between the peasants and the bourgeoisie? I don't know many normal-mode raiders who felt compelled to get a new set bonus or particular trinket through LFR, seeing as they were already decked out in a set bonus from the last raid tier, so their concern about raiding compulsion feels hollow. The overall message is, "Sorry, but you're not cool enough to get a set bonus anymore."

    And those set bonuses are important for people starting out: frequently more important than the gear ilvl. I'm sure some of us have dithered over breaking a set bonus until we had a full (or at least 2-piece) replacement. They frequently change play styles or open up new options. Perhaps just as importantly, they're a goal (if occasionally a yardstick) for players to meet, so that they feel ready to step into higher difficulties once they've at least got their set bonus and a weapon. They form an important bridge between LFR and Flex that allows players to feel like raiders, instead of mere tourists.

    So while Blizzard may want to cement LFR as Baby's First Raid, I think this change will solidify the strata too much. It's already annoying enough to get into a Flex group if you're new and starting from LFR, and further divisions between LFR and Flex can only make things worse.

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    1. "I don't know many normal-mode raiders who felt compelled to get a new set bonus or particular trinket through LFR, seeing as they were already decked out in a set bonus from the last raid tier, so their concern about raiding compulsion feels hollow."

      That's absolutely been the case because the new set bonus is so much better. It's happened in every tier -- even heroic raiders would often go for LFR pieces from the next raid (not all, just the ones with game-changing set bonuses).

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    2. Even Normal Raiders will prefer an LFR set piece over a Warforged/Thunderforged Normal piece. I swapped out a 567 Warforged helmet for an LFR 536 tier helmet so I could get my 4pT16 bonus on my Holy Paladin because yes, it is THAT powerful.

      Trinkets, I'm still running LFR for a shot at the LFR Prismatic Prison of Pride because again, so immensely powerful. http://wowhead.com/item=102299

      For my Enhancement Shaman, I managed to nab the LFR version of the Assurance of Consequence trinket (http://wowhead.com/item=102292), which upped my DPS by about 30,000 on its own.

      As you say yourself, those trinkets and tier bonuses are more important than ilvl. Which just argues the point that even Normal raiders feel compelled to run LFR to get them.

      I think your far stronger points are the ones that talk about stratifying the playerbase and the inconsistency with the PvP model.

      Blizzard is still pretending that PvP and PvE are the same game, when really they haven't been for years, and I think this philosophy difference in when tier pieces become available underscores that unless they've really finally solved the whole PvE players want PvP gear and vice versa.

      Stratifying the playerbase and making it harder for players to jump into higher levels of raiding I think depends on the difficulty gap between tomorrow's normal and tomorrow's LFR. But do keep in mind that Blizzard does claim that Heroic 5-Man gear will be sufficient to perform in Normal/Heroic (but not necessarily Mythic), so perhaps it's no big deal. Granted, as we already discussed, it's a little at odds with the fact that H5M gear is less ilvl, but even then, LFR should be more than sufficient to make the jump if it's better than H5M gear.

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  4. Nice post. Reading about this makes me want to play WoW again.

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