World of Warcraft®

09/13/2011 11:18 AMPosted by Tangina

My entire point was that top 200 guilds DO NOT "power the engine of organized raiding, the creation and maintenance of the larger raiding community". The average interaction between the Top 200 guilds and the average WoW player is much closer to what I stated, destabilizing smaller guilds through their general practices, and generally causing more detrimental effects than helpful effects to other guilds.

In Wrath this wasn't true at least on my server. The top guilds actually did somewhat "power the engine of organized raiding" through the many alt runs and GDKP runs. A lot more players were exposed to different high end guild approaches to fights than they are now with access only to web videos or the one exclusive perform or don't return alt pug run.

In Wrath, being able to pug quality raids virtually eliminated the poaching issue my guild had seen in the past. And I'd say the server playerbase as a whole was improved skill-wise by being able to participate and get some experience downing bosses. Not saying they became awesome raiders by any means, but I did see improvements in general and pugging wasn't the complete cluster F that it is right now.

Making raiding hard, making guild runs so important, and the 10/25 shared lockout have caused more detrimental effects than anything the top 200 guilds could do.

Tangina, I understand that you want to disagree, but I think I did make a mistake when I simply mentioned the top 200 guilds. I was wrong.

After looking around a bit, it's obvious that this nerf actually affects quite a larger percentage of the raiding population, which ironically enough, really only supports the point myself and others have made, even more.

You could always try and make that argument, but I believe it's moot, because this is discouraging to more than the top 200. It's discouraging to a few thousand guilds. Even if it was only affecting 50% of that population, we're talking about a number that is 7.5 times as large.

Also, your anger is hilarious. You simply must ignore the point that has been made regarding the sites that power the rest of the raiding engine. I'd hate to see what would happen if all the websites, resources, and videos of the top end were to disappear. People would be lost and content would be nerfed drastically more to meet their abilities. In fact, I can only imagine what the game would return to, if bosses like Heroic Baleroc weren't killable for weeks after their release. I'm sure people would begin to deem those bosses unkillable, when the reality of the situation would be that there was no one left with the vigor or the skill to actually take them down in a timely manner.

I think it's too soon.

Progression is meant to be a challenge, not handed to you. It's important to pay attention to the mechanics. It should be a kick in the seat when you stand in fire. Not a nudge. Or you'll stay in the habit of standing in stuff. This hinders everyone in current/new content.

If people are having trouble, they should seek out help. Research the fights, look into you class more. Find addons (like GTFO). Change your playstyle. Don't just complain until it's changed.

The content is being cleared on normal & heroic in 10 and 25 man. It's not too hard.

Our group struggled through some attendance woes and scheduling issues, but last week leapt from 1/7 to 4/7 on 25N. That was an amazing week, and the culmination of about a month of hard work and dedication on the part of all of our raiders.

Now it seems we have one more week to feel like we've earned any new kills. If we are suddenly 6/7 Week of 9/19, I know I won't be sure if I should be proud of our raiders or disappointed that we "needed" nerfs, however small they may be initially. Hopefully I can still muster the excitement to give convincing congratulations.

Tangina, I understand that you want to disagree, but I think I did make a mistake when I simply mentioned the top 200 guilds. I was wrong.

After looking around a bit, it's obvious that this nerf actually affects quite a larger percentage of the raiding population, which ironically enough, really only supports the point myself and others have made, even more.

You could always try and make that argument, but I believe it's moot, because this is discouraging to more than the top 200. It's discouraging to a few thousand guilds. Even if it was only affecting 50% of that population, we're talking about a number that is 7.5 times as large.

Also, your anger is hilarious. You simply must ignore the point that has been made regarding the sites that power the rest of the raiding engine. I'd hate to see what would happen if all the websites, resources, and videos of the top end were to disappear. People would be lost and content would be nerfed drastically more to meet their abilities. In fact, I can only imagine what the game would return to, if bosses like Heroic Baleroc weren't killable for weeks after their release. I'm sure people would begin to deem those bosses unkillable, when the reality of the situation would be that there was no one left with the vigor or the skill to actually take them down in a timely manner.

Those benefits that keep being mentioned regarding top 200 guilds all evolved across the lifespan of WoW. If the Top 200 guilds all quit, the creation of those benefits would be picked up by others. The idea that the top 5% leaving the game would cripple it is wrong, and is a cheap adolescent stunt. It amounts to threatening to take your ball and go home.

Btw don't know if it's the DK avatar or what, but I'm not angry at all. I also don't agree with or quite understand the reasoning for the nerfs starting next week, but I'm choosing not to be a little girl in reacting to it. It is what it is, and is most likely driven by business decisions (i.e. a third straight quarter of subscription loses). Your quasi-academic posts about your take on how the fundamentals of raiding is wrongheaded and does not help any discussion of these nerfs.

Those benefits that keep being mentioned regarding top 200 guilds all evolved across the lifespan of WoW. If the Top 200 guilds all quit, the creation of those benefits would be picked up by others. The idea that the top 5% leaving the game would cripple it is wrong, and is a cheap adolescent stunt. It amounts to threatening to take your ball and go home.

Btw don't know if it's the DK avatar or what, but I'm not angry at all. I also don't agree with or quite understand the reasoning for the nerfs starting next week, but I'm choosing not to be a little girl in reacting to it. It is what it is, and is most likely driven by business decisions (i.e. a third straight quarter of subscription loses). Your quasi-academic posts about your take on how the fundamentals of raiding is wrongheaded and does not help any discussion of these nerfs.

If the Top 200 guilds were to leave the game, it would not cripple it, but it would damage the player base. Blizzard knows this and it was the main reason Heroic modes were developed; to keep that carrot just out of reach for more people.

The reason you are seeing nerfs already is it has been 12 weeks or so since the latest raid content was released. Blizzard has maintained they want to increase the rate they release expansions, and I think this decision solidifies patch 4.3 will be here sooner than you think.

If you think they are hurting for subscriptions, go look at their public income statements so you can go ---> OoOOooOOOo.

I'm a raid leader of both 4/7 harmode group, and a 6/7 normal group and I'm actually a fan of these nerfs. Though I wouldn't be unsubing if they didn't happen now, and happened in 3 weeks instead.

Gasp, you look like me!

How can I tell which 7/7 HM Fireland guild is good when I app to guilds a couple months from now?

I can tell you right now that this announcement made some of our raiders lose interest in finishing up HM's in Firelands.

Lot's of good feedback in here from raiders of all backgrounds and current progression. I haven't take the time to really pick through your posts, Tangina, but I acknowledge your position and am glad that you're bringing an opposing viewpoint.

As Eternal Reign mentioned earlier in this thread, the heroic Rag kill felt a bit hollow. I understand the need to drop the bar immediately prior to the release of new content (that follows the theme of allowing players to see content, obviously some raiders wouldn't be seeing a Nef kill with T12 being available.) As has been stated by many other posters in the thread though, the disheartening aspects of the nerfs implemented last week were both the time frame of their implementation(a mere two months after tier release) and the fact that they were unannounced.

It's just hard to see the logic in decreasing the challenge of these encounters with so much time remaining of them being relevant.

When the casuals have no one to look up to and say "oooo i want that too" or have anyone to carry them to loot/gear whatever they end up quitting or going to the next game that everyone went to. When websites such as EJ/AJ/ and the like end up switching to another game or dying off people wont be able to learn.



This happened with Everquest, it will happen with WoW as well.

The opposite actually happened with everquest. The game was so hard that most guilds were raiding content from the last expansion (no gear resets) or even prior. Every other aspect of everquest was also much more difficult, from tradeskills to factions etc. In everquest, all the non progression people left for wow because it was easier and required less time investement. The raid players that moved over mostly did so from either being burnt out on the time investment for raids (my guild raided 6 days a week for 5+ hours) or because their guilds were crumbling because all the potential recruits moved to wow.

I honestly don't think raid difficulty is the real culprit for lack of firelands activity. Tier 11 was stupid hard for an intro tier, and it caused all the mid level guilds to fold over the difficulty and pug players to just quit. So now you end up with dozens of servers, like dunemaul, that are so dead you can't even get the people to pug BH unless it is on a tuesday most of the time. Compared to wotlk, where I was able to keep three alts geared up just from pugs.

Excellent posts, OP. Would read again and will recommend to others.

their playerbase ... is nobody noticing that the easier content gets the nastier the playerbase gets?

back when high king mulgar was pugged heavily (along with gruul for the elusive DST but I'll talk about mulgaar for a particular reason) you had a bossfight that was very overhelming at first sight. many pugs all the way to tier 6 needed many many attempts to get mulgar down.

you pug warlock walks in, its his first time you tell him to tank. your pug mage rolls in. its his first time too. you tell him also to tank. it's not gonna be a one-shot....oh no. an hour from now we might be getting somewhere.

Now? difficulty goes down 20%, patience goes down 50%.

It wont fix the playerbase, it'll worsen it.

Also, THIS.
Infinitely, eternally this.

09/13/2011 04:02 AMPosted by Brannon

T11 normal modes were overtuned, and T12 normal modes probably too. A lot of more "casual" players probably gave up on raiding after attempting T11.

No they weren't overtuned, and I raided with a bad guild who had a few (2-3) good players. The end bosses were the hardest, and they weren't overtuned. Nef's Shadow Barrage on 10 man was tuned for 25 man levels, but they hotfixed that.

Well written post will recommend to others.

(Speaking from a normal mode raiders perspective. Obviously i disagree with the nerfing of heroic content as well.)

I'm the leader of a 10 man cross guild normal raiding team. Due to a late start as well as connection issues and real life commitments we've be slow on progression. We will get alys'razor this lockout bringing us to 5/7 before the nerfs begin.

Its a shame though because everyone I raid with would've been capable of downing rag at the current difficulty (10n) before 4.3 most likely without nerfs like this..this move has been very demoralizing not just to me, but to many on my realm.

What is interesting to note is that on Nagrand, there was not anger inchat channels yesterday, but disappointment. Many guilds raiding teams are in a similar position to me and could've completed this tiers normal encounters without the nerfs.

This is not about the exclusivity of raiding, that concept died along time ago. This is about me like minded individuals wanting to overcome challenges together without getting a helping hand from blizz.

Thanks alot blizz, i cant defend you on this one :( TOO SOON!!!

Tier 11 was very overtuned for the first tier of the xpac. With the gear reset, there is always attrition and rebuilding for everyone except the lucky and the very top guilds that can draw people in with their ranking. Having the first tier be the most difficulty raid tier the game has ever seen before guilds had a chance to stabilize and get new/returning people up to speed was very bad.

Don't forget, there is a little box you can fill out when you cancel your account describing why. If everyone was quitting because "the game is getting to easy", do you really think these nerfs would be going through?

My personal opinion is the heroics should not be nerfed until their content is obsolete. It may have been fun to get heroic icc stuff on my alts, but it tended to make the main run sloppy and the farming boring and frustrating with people not paying attention because of the buff.

Don't forget, there is a little box you can fill out when you cancel your account describing why. If everyone was quitting because "the game is getting to easy", do you really think these nerfs would be going through?

I'd probably hedge on the side of people are quitting because there is very very little to do at this game at 85 compared to like what there was at 70 in TBC. So they are trying to push more and more people into raiding and as such have to lower the bar to brain dead level.