The new PvE endgame, featuring "Noob Extinction"
by Mike Schramm 
Jan 30th 2007 at 11:20AM
Kamikazeelf over at Curse Gaming has a really insightful article up about how endgame PVE is going to change as more and more players hit 70 in the Burning Crusade. After writing up this guide for endgame instances, the gist of his opinions is this: more gaming for less people.There are, as he says, tons of things to do for attunement to most of the endgame dungeons-- including attunements just to get attuned for the attunements. And that's just for mains-- your alts will also have to get attuned if you want to take them to the endgame raids. Considering raid group numbers are lowering (from 40 to 25), that means guilds are going to be slimming down by necessity-- not only will fewer people be able to go, but fewer people will get to go because the attunements will rule a lot of people out.
And this, says Kamikazeelf, will lead to something called "Noob Extinction" (I happen to enjoy the phrase). Basically, if it's so hard to get into these dungeons, and so few people can go, players who don't know what they're doing will quickly get outed. On a 40-man raid, you could afford 10 people standing there and doing half a job. But in a 25 man raid, where a whole guild has to run instances over and over just to get people attuned, the proverbial "fools" just can't be suffered. At the highest instances (and there are a few of them), the rule will be that you're good, or you're gone.
Now, there are, of course, exceptions. Some guilds are friends, and everyone will help everyone else out so everyone has a good time. Some players won't bother with PvE at all, and instead focus characters only on PvP (for my alts, this is probably what I'll do). But the truth is that this will leave some players out in the cold-- both kids who don't know what they're doing, and casual players who can't afford two weeks just to get attuned to one instance. Whether or not that's a good thing for the game at large remains to be seen.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Guilds, Blizzard, Instances, Raiding, The Burning Crusade
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Qebui Jan 30th 2007 11:41AM
It will be interesting for my current guild. We only have 10 people on average on at peak time. I guess we will have to be a honor/pvp grind guild. I will be curious how many people stick around once they get to lvl 70. I'm 65 1/2 and I don't see or feel a need to rush. I have a couple of guildmates who want to be 70 by 1/31/06. I guess once I get to 70 I will have to decide to stay with WoW.
the six winger Jan 30th 2007 11:51AM
As it has been mentioned before. Casuals need not apply. Casuals are by a far margin the greatest money makers for blizzard, and yet we get the table scraps. It's not as if ideas haven't been put out there. 20 part hard quests that will take you a good 2 hours per part to complete but will net you something nice. Eh I'm used to it now. I take my time and roll alts when I hit max level ... or even before. I still like leveling so all is ... ok. /rant
Flit Jan 30th 2007 11:57AM
Yeah, right, because blizzard wants to alienate 75% of wow players in the endgame. If it does force out the casual players, they'll nerf it.
Chadwick Jan 30th 2007 12:32PM
Or maybe this is a wake up call for all the people that screw around or need to learn to how to work with a larger group of people. As for the casual issue, they lowered the raid cap to 25 so that it would be easier for smaller and casual groups to get into these new instances. Now if you have to work to get attuned to enter them, I don't see the problem.
crsh Jan 30th 2007 12:15PM
I think it's premature to worry about any of this; requirements are likely to change. In any case, BC is not finished and complete and all out yet; they'll add new stuff to it that won't require 2 months to get attuned for. Think BWL and ZG and AQ, they were added afterwards; we already know Black Temple and Zul'Amman will get patched in later, there will be more.
theadob Jan 30th 2007 1:20PM
This game is pretty rich. It needs to cater to both the casual user and the big time end game instancer. I am a casual player who plays a lot but hates the large instances and raiding. (let the mocking begin)
I think its great that Blizzard is bringing out things for the end gamers. Those people need the competition that these multi-stage instances to have fun.
I enjoy the fact that I have new continents to explore and new quests to tackle because I am a solo specialist. Not ever added item has to work for every player as long as they keep adding new things to do for all players. I for one am impressed.
Sagara Jan 30th 2007 12:26PM
Having run the attunements for all this stuff, it's not really as terrible as anyone makes out.
Most of the long quest lines have great rewards regardless of the fact that they attune you to a dungeon. And Heroic Mode means that even with 5 good players who don't have much time, you can get some pretty decent gear and experience some pretty amazing fights.
Every end game 5 man (Arcatraz, Shattered Halls, Shadow Labyrinth, etc) has had new elements that made me reconsider what was possible in a 5 man encounter and broke the mold. Every one of these is reachable even as a "noob" and by running them a few times you're able to try your hand at the heroic modes (which will require consumables probably but they're meant to be 5 man raids).
The article even mentions a bit of why the end game has been improved, though I would think splitting the dungeons into wings / adding heroic mode / the truckload of quests with nice rewards / the easy reputation gain system also with nice rewards all make the end game a whole lot more accessible and playable for the casual player. I haven't seen a hard attunement quest that took me someplace that wasn't otherwise useful for me in another way (through rewards / xp / gear / reputation).
Mike Schramm Jan 30th 2007 12:31PM
Sagara, you make a great point. While there is a lot to do for attunements, it's not at all a waste of time-- it's fun and has great rewards associated with it. This article doesn't mean the end of guilds completely-- like I said, good guilds will help each other do what they need to do to get things done.
But I think it does raise the cover charge, so to speak, on a number of endgame instances. Personally, I think it's great-- I'd rather have a 25 man raid full of people who really want to be there, than a 40man that has 10 people who don't really care about how the game works. I'm not hardcore by any means-- I don't think these attunements will weed out "casual" players so much as they'll weed out players that just don't care.
magimagic Jan 30th 2007 5:19PM
Planes of power from Everquest all over again. I remember when it was all about getting keyed for a plane to get keyed for another plane that was one of 3 or 4 planes to get you in to another plane. Even after a year i was not able to get anywhere near all the keys and finaly gave up and this was one of the reason i stoped playing everquest. The raid dungeons should be made availible to everyone with the goal to pick up quest items from each boss or limit the whole keying quest to the top most raid instance only. I dont want to feel excluded just because i dont have time or the drive to finish this multi staged keying quests.
Taifu Jan 30th 2007 1:53PM
The issue may be getting into a good raid guild since most will be splitting up or weeding out "bad" players. I don't see hard-core or medium-core guilds being patient with unskilled players trying become skilled. Granted there are a variety of things to do. Good luck finding a good guild if you havn't foudn one yet.
Brad Jan 30th 2007 1:58PM
I don't think that the Author means that the Attunements themselves will separate casuals from hard core. Attunements are time sinks, nothing more. Casual vs. Hard Core simply means that it takes one type of gamer longer to achieve than the other. I don't think that was entirely his point.
What he was getting at is the fact that much of what is required in order to achieve attunement is challenging. So in order to get attuned you must have enough competency to get through the Attunement. I think this is an excellent development strategy for WOW.
It means that on average those that survive the Attunements will likely (emphasis here, likely) be a more well rounded player than those who are unable to hack it.
Before TBC came out the attunements were very simple to complete. (Ony just took some time) The major limiting factor was you needed 40 people online at the same time several times a week. Blizzard has reduced that requirement down to 25 people for all content, and 10 for Kharazan. They have implemented heroic mode so you still get to experience some very challenging and fun encounters.
As a raid leader in my guild I see nothing but good from this. The worst part of WOW was having 10-20 people who didn't do their share during raids. That type of individual won't hack it with these attunements. Their lousy play is immediately apparent in the current 5 mans, much less a heroic level instance.
Bravo!
umamasyean Jan 30th 2007 4:09PM
Obviously some of you may not have been there when...
OMG...we wiped 5 times on General Drakisath with a 20 player raid... We were close tho! Maybe next raid...
Anyone wanna attempt 5-Scholomance? It's gonna take arround 6 hours...and we might not finish but it will be fun!
Wow! You finished 5-Scholomance quests??? You're so awesome. Can you transmute Essense of water for me? I'll pay you 80g!!! ...followed by...Man, I've been waiting so long for this Icy Chill enchant and it blows but at least it looks cool! :P
The point is. It's not hard. You can't expect Blizzard to release something that 50% of hte people will finish in 1 month. And in time, when everyone figures out the tricks and the Wiki's and strats are published, everyone will have multiple 60's attuned...including the "noobs". Hey, if anything, noobs are the ones with the most RL money! So gotta keep them interested! lol
Brim Jan 31st 2007 7:51AM
@#12: "I dont want to feel excluded just because i dont have time or the drive to finish this multi staged keying quests"
So basicly what your saying is that you do not like this game and are not willing to invest some time in it,(Blizz even cut up said time in smaller pieces to accomodate the 'casuals') BUT you do want to get front row seats for free?
Grulnak Jan 31st 2007 8:18AM
The article seems very negative to me - "Blizzard came up with a way to neutralize the so called 'hardcore PvE guilds'", and I think it's partially right at best.
Yes, 40 man raids are gone, and now that the dust has settled people seem more positive about this than negative (various comments about the 15 slackers having to get with it or find a new guild). But to my guild the raid size has gone up from 20 to 25 man, not down from 40. We are a casual guild (high average age with jobs and/or families) so the raid relatively little, hence a place like Naxx was always going to be beyond us, but places like ZG and AQ20 were challanging but beatable with practice, the way things should be.
Members who play a lot tend to have several high level alts, rather than wanting to raid every day, so the attunement hurdle will be an issue from them. But I imagine we'll either attune only 1, perhaps 2 chars, with others maybe being used for PvP, or they'll slowly attune new chars when they want a change of playstyle. Either way, we're a friendly guild so we'll help each other out.
Too early to say yet, but nearly everything I've seen of the new end game looks positive to me, with the exception that old rep is totally wasted. IMO there should have been some relationship between the old and new Cenarion rep - not a bit issue for me as I was Friendly with them at best, but seems unfair and illogical for those who put the work in.
chimera Feb 28th 2007 3:32AM
I'm somewhat casual, but I already have a 70 priest and mage, both in BC blues, holding a Karazhan key :P