Damion Schubert (sort of) defends the raid mechanic
by Samuel Axon 
Dec 20th 2007 at 11:00AM
He recently updated his blog with a strong defense of Blizzard's decision to emphasize raiding. You should read it for yourself, but the gist of it is that there are more raiders than you think, that players of a PvE game want a PvE endgame (as opposed to a PvP one like the Battlegrounds), and that because raids are re-playable content, Blizzard gets more bang for its development buck.
His ultimate point, though, is that Blizzard focuses on raiding content because that's what players want. But I wonder if a lot of those players, especially the more casual types, would want something different if they were aware of other options. And Schubert suggested that there are alternatives. What are they, and do you want them, or are you perfectly happy with working your way up to Black Temple?
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Raiding
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 5)
NCteacher Dec 20th 2007 11:14AM
I think some good alternatives, which do not stray far away from PVE content, is to shorten the Endgame instances or create wings, the way Naxx was. Each wing only taking about an hour and a half for a good group, thus you are able to get in more content in a shorter time and after you have completed the wing, you feel a since of acomplishment. I grow very tired of running SSC and Kara with its length, and I can esp. remember back when I ran MC and BWL...so you can tell blizz is learning something, with optional bosses and non-respawning mobs.
Mikezila Dec 20th 2007 11:17AM
Personally I think raiding is too great an undertaking, and requires too much time investment. My work schedule is too unpredictable for me to be able to pick nights a week to raid, and the setup of having to go through each of the new raids in the order they were released makes it really hard to get to cool new content you want to see.
Why can't they just release raids in normal and heroic versions? Make the normal version like any other five man, with normal five man quality loot, and let the heroic be the 25 man raid. That way anyone can see it, and the "elite hardcore" get their uber-epics.
When the trailer for Naxx came out, I thought it looked so cool. So damn cool. I couldn't wait to go in there. I never got to. I spent a ton of (at that time) money to get keyed, and then I never even got to go into the instance once before BC came out, because my guild was still working on BWL and AQ20/40.
I hate to bring it up, much like bringing up Nazis, but how come we all pay the same $15 a month, but I'm not allowed to see any of the new stuff that's coming out?
donoteatmikezila Dec 20th 2007 11:20AM
In before "but you are allowed to join a raid guild and spend three nights a week grinding for gear".
I know I'm "allowed" to raid, just like I'm "allowed" not to. I'm saying they need to put in a way for me (and people like me) to see the new content, even if we don't get the epic loot, without having to deal with a raid environment.
Buuty Dec 20th 2007 11:14AM
Commentor ilisdur said all that really needed to be said about what most see as the raiding problem in WoW: "This leads back to the central problem with WoW raiding: it’s a group-mandatory set of content that’s inaccessible to people who played WoW as a solo game, and had no expectation of joining a large team. I’m happy that we’ve got a solid group of 5, but three of those five live in my house, and one of the others works with me.
I’ve said before that I don’t like being forced to play with strangers in order to experience a game’s content, and rereading that post from the perspective of someone who is now 70th level and has purple gear (welfare PvP epics, sure, but purple!) I still agree with everything I said then. 25-man raids drive friends apart, encourage negative social interactions, and lock content behind barriers that not all players are willing or able to surmount. It will be a cold day in hell before I submit to a guild’s raid scheduling regime, but that means there’s a hard limit on the content I’m likely to ever see."
Patrick Baker (Master P) Dec 20th 2007 1:47PM
I agree 100%!
Matt Dec 20th 2007 5:05PM
Massively-Multiplayer Role Playing Game.
See, it's a game, a Role Playing Game. And it has multiple players. Go play Oblivion if you want to solo.
Pingmeister Dec 20th 2007 11:17AM
While the second M in MMORPG is Multiplayer I would still prefer more single-player content. DAOC added instanced dungeons that ramped up their level and rewards the more people in the group but were still do-able by single players. It would even ramp down the level if a player dropped during a run.
As someone who does not get large blocks of time to play raiding is pretty much out of the picture for me.
Buuty Dec 20th 2007 11:18AM
Good point NCTeacher. the length is another obstacle that really has nothing to do with being social, hardcore, casual, or anything else. It is simply unrealistic to expect people to play for 4 hours straight without stopping. Difficult content can be created with winged instances and bosses with harder manuvers that require better stategies. Making players run through hallway after hallway to kill groiup after group of trash mob does not make a better game, and it nothing but a time check that eleiminates many players who LOVE the game, but have life committments that don't allow them to raid all night long.
Brdley Dec 20th 2007 5:30PM
The assertion that you need 4 straight hours to do a 25-man raid is false. Mag and Gruul can each be done in less than an hour, with only a handful of pulls before you engage a boss. Even in SSC and TK it's typically 1/2 hour of trash before you get to a boss. Even if you wipe 6 or 7 times on the boss you can clear to and kill it in less than 2 hours.
As for winged dungeons ala Naxx, SSC and TK are both already built that way. You can do the bosses in pretty much any order you like, and once killed the trash leading up to them no longer respawns.
Marsh Dec 20th 2007 11:23AM
Get rid of the crazy long attunements and reduce the trash mobs. Sitting at your computer for 3-4 hours 4 nights a week just isn't something most people can do.
They should reduce the amount of trash mobs to the point where clearing a 25 man raid instance only takes 2 hours tops.
I also liked the options we had at 60. You didn't have to clear MC to go into BWL. You didn't have to kill C'thun to go into Naxx.
They should bring back 40 man raids as well. There's more room for people in large raid guilds that way. Right now if you're a rogue and you try to get into a raid guild the 2 rogue spots have already been taken and you're out of luck.
But I would like to see alternatives to raiding. Arena and battlegrounds offer a gear alternative but they're not as epic. They need to bring back the old days of world pvp like TM vs SS. We need some truely massive world pvp objectives like AV but on live realms.
Brdley Dec 20th 2007 5:50PM
Crazy long attunements? Where? Once you hit 70, you have access to *four* 25-man raid zones (Mag, Gruul, SSC, TK), no attunement required. The only instances you need to attune for are Hyjal and Black Temple (and let's face it, if you haven't cleared SSC and TK, the only thing you're going to get in Hyjal or BT is a large repair bill).
Trash mobs? Where? In Gruul's Lair there 2 trash pulls before you engage a boss. In Mag's Lair there are 4 or 5 pulls before you get to Mag. Even in SSC and TK there's usually 1/2 hour or less of trash before you get to the boss, and the trash doesn't respawn once you've killed the boss. You can easily clear either instance in 2-hour chunks (one boss per night, basically).
Options we had at 60? IMO it was worse, pre-TBC. You didn't *have* to clear MC to go to BWL, but the chances are good if you couldn't clear MC, you would get your butt kicked in BWL. As it stands now, you don't have to clear Mag or Gruul to go to SSC. You don't have to clear SSC to go into TK. What's the problem?
Chriasas Dec 20th 2007 11:25AM
I think raiding is great, but two problems come to mind. Lockouts, and group makeup.
WoW uses lockouts as a "gear governer". I think, if anything, there should be an official raid leader, raid instances on 1 week timers, and raid leaders can reset the raid instance.
Group makeup. Blizzard has become too enamoured with complicated fights involving extensive healing. Some fights require 8 or more healers, fully 1/3 of the raid. Casual guilds are usually DPS heavy, so there is a wall to casual PvE entrance in that people either need to respec, or at worst, reroll in order to suit the requirements of the raid.
Too often, raids are gear checks, rather than ejoyable experiences. Gruul and Mag come to mind. We need more Karazhan style enjoyable raids, and fewer high walls to climb.
dsimon Dec 20th 2007 11:49AM
Agreed. Although I'll be honest and say I've never done a 25-man, I can safely assume that wouldn't like it. Karazhan to me, both its aesthetics and difficulty, represent the epitome of what end-game should be. 25-man instances are just too hard to organize with a casual guild, and even though I consider myself a semi-hardcore player, I don't want to roll against that many people for loot. 10-mans are the way to go, and I hope in Wrath, Blizzard sticks with that mold. Save the 25-man instances for the end-end-game, the last two or three raids, and keep at least a full T7 set available via 10-mans only. In regard to ZA's inadequacy, the timed aspect and the hefty post-Kara gear reqs are extremely discouraging, and the gimmicky strats also suck.
Heraclea Dec 20th 2007 12:08PM
I agree also. The problem isn't with the concept of raids themselves. On my PvE server, it's relatively easy to muster 80 people who want to attack Orgrimmar for fun.
The design of the raid encounters, though, is not fun. Too many boss fights are elaborate, ritualistic clambakes that require discovery and mastery of the single strategies that work to get past their multiple stages. On too many fight's, it's possible for a single misstep by a single player to end up severely damaging the raid. This is certain to lead to drama and unpleasantness.
And (my pet peeve) the design of too many encounters is deeply, deeply hostile to melee DPS. There are way too many fights in which, at some point, your only chance for survival is in running away. I did not roll a warrior to run away. There are too many fights that put AoE debuffs on single players, requiring them to run away from the rest of their team: these too are especially harsh to melee players.
Evan Dec 20th 2007 12:24PM
The above comments fail. They can all be chalked up to some form of QQing. The bottom-line is that this is an MMORPG and Blizzard wants you to continue playing it. They've found a good way to do that by offering raids to hardcore players willing to play the game as intended. You, lonely QQer, either aren't committed to seeing endgame or your guild is not committed... it's as simple as that. And if blizzard made it easy for everyone to see it, there would be no incentive and Blizzard would see much more attrition than they already do. You can claim that loot is the incentive and you'd be right to some extent, but the truth is.. most hardcore raiders commit because they want to be in that top 2% or whatever it is.. not just so they can have that glowing sword or those fancy boots.
I have killed Illidan... am I a better priest than you? Maybe or maybe not, but I have committed my time to finding the right guild, I have committed my time to wipe night after night to learn the encounters and I am committed to being as good as I can be. People can complain that they can't find a guild or don't want to, but they are out there.. you can even transfer servers now at will. You are not entitled to see everything there is to see simply because you pay 15 bucks a month, but you are entitled to play the game as it is intended and in doing so you can reach that horizon... or you can move on to another game or be more creative with your time in game. There's so much "solo" content out there it's insane, but from a business perspective Blizzard is doing the right thing. It can't be more obvious when you look at the numbers vs other MMOs out there.
Thanks for playing.
Obiter Dec 20th 2007 1:44PM
End-game could also include world PvP with a purpose. Like Haala, only with more complexity and for control of a truly meaningful city.
Good_Idea Dec 20th 2007 11:45AM
I think pvp players would like to see more variation in maps (which would be nice, different versions of WSG, AB, Eye), randomly selected.
Raiding is core to the game, especially since other games do the pvp aspect much better. Warcrafts strength is that it's the best raiding (and questing) game around, but it also has very decent pvp.
Amanda Dec 23rd 2007 9:01PM
People are complaining enuf about having to learn how to do things. Put in new random maps, people will complain that the actually have to learn how the map is set up, and actually learn how to play in that map.
Moketronics Dec 20th 2007 11:47AM
Well someone needs to come in on the opposite side.
I'm a raider, I love raiding, I love the challenge of organizing a large group of people to take down a really hard boss. I like meeting new people.
I'm married, have two jobs and am finishing off university, yet I have time to raid.
I think its very self centered to insist that because you don't like to play with other people there shouldn't be 25-man content. I blasted my way through the pre-endgame just to get there. Not that I didn't enjoy it, but the fight mechanics of a 10 or 25 person raid are just so much more interesting.
And making the raid content also a 'normal' 5-man instance? That would be totally lame, many of the fight's mechanics would have to be so substantially altered that you won't be experiencing the same content.
If there wasn't this focus on raiding I know I and many other people I play with wouldn't be playing WoW. I don't want to PVP all the time, I'm a damn holy priest (well my main anyway), I didn't make a holy priest thinking I'd spend all my time PVPing. I've played a bunch of MMOs before and this content is exactly what I wanted out of WoW.
There are lots of other games around that don't have end-game content like this, so why not go play those games?
I don't go play Need For Speed and rant about how its not realistic enough, I'd play Grand Turismo or something instead.
Besides, there'll be more 5-man content in the next expansion. Not to mention there is heroic mode 5-man instances as well, on top of pvp welfare epics.
Green Armadillo Dec 20th 2007 2:50PM
I have no problem with their being raids, or even with the number of raids there are in the game. My problems are:
- All of the lore-significant encounters are confined to raids. From the moment you pop in the DVD to install the game, all you hear is Illidan, Illidan, Illidan. Illidan who made his debut in a SINGLE PLAYER campaign of WCIII. Every single quest, every single zone in the expansion is in some way working towards a climactic encounter... that most of us only get to see on Youtube.
- My ability to continue advancing my character solo comes to an abrupt end because letting me have access to any more gear improvements would obselete the low end raids (see the pages and pages and pages of crying from raiders about PVP and Arena gear).
I paid the same for the game that you did. I pay the same monthly fees that you do. I spend as much time or more playing than you do. But, because I'm not willing to promise that said time will be from 5:30 to 10 PM server, 4 nights a week with 50+% attendence, it's game over for my main and time to go make alts. That is no more fair than a game without raids would be.