Why Blizzard is splitting normal and Heroic modes off on their own
by Mike Schramm 
Jun 23rd 2009 at 11:00AM
So now that a lot of the dust has settled from the big 3.2 patch notes bombshell last week (and before it gets all stirred up again by the PTR starting up), let's reflect a bit. Specifically on the fact that unlike all of the instances in the game so far, the Crusaders' Coliseum will let you run it four different times (in 10-man and 25-man normal, and 10- and 25-man Heroic) every raid lockout period. We talked about this on the podcast: that's a lot of running the same content. But Zarhym replies with what Blizzard's thinking on this is. Currently, when you go to Ulduar, you have to decide as you go whether you'll take on the bosses' hard modes or not, and once your decision is made, that's it for the week. But with four different modes, running normal won't lock you out of Heroic, and vice versa. You've got the options to choose from.I still think, though, that this is more of an experimental release on Blizzard's part, rather than a full rethinking of the way dungeons should be done. The Coliseum isn't an instance like we've ever seen before (though Vault is probably the closest) -- it's supposed to be extremely modular, and it's very much a patch-specific release rather than standard content like Naxx or Ulduar. We'll have to see exactly how it works, but my guess is that Blizzard is testing the waters with this and the other raid content in Wrath. Chances are that if for some reason this doesn't work out (will we eventually see raiders running all four modes every week, and finding the content much more repetitive than Blizzard planned?), the idea of simply having hard modes on bosses rather than lockouts probably isn't completely abandoned yet.
Patch 3.2 will bring about a new 5, 10, and 25 man instance to WoW, and usher in a new 40-man battleground called the Isle of Conquest. WoW.com will have you covered every step of the way, from extensive PTR coverage through the official live release. Check out WoW.com's Guide to Patch 3.2 for all the latest!Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Odds and ends, Blizzard, Raiding
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Aona Jun 23rd 2009 11:19AM
I think they are also trying to get more people wanting to pug the 10 man version instead of just the 25s, with loot being a little similar? I'm not sure where I saw that.
mike Jun 23rd 2009 11:24AM
This is a good point, more lockouts = more attempts. I, for one, never pug 25 content and save it for my guild. All 10 content is good to go. However, I am always hesitant to pug the 10 as getting locked and not having access for the rest of the week due to a poor pug is a horrible situation. Having so many versions of the same content will offer people the oppritunity to pug more often. It's kind of an obvious conclusion but i never thought about it myself. With so many lockouts i will be much more prone to pugging as i know if it doesn't go well i can just start a different option.
Oops Jun 23rd 2009 11:19AM
I think this is a change for the better. Within a raid there are usually people that just want to push through and get their gear, whereas others are willing to wipe multiple times and possibly miss out on some subsequent bosses due to time constraints for a hard mode.
This solution caters to both parties.
lownwolf Jun 23rd 2009 11:20AM
Depending on the amount of time that the Coliseum will take, I'm beginning to think that Blizzard wants us to run Ulduar a couple days of the week and then either start the week or finish with the Coliseum. There are a couple of things pointing me towards this conclusion. 1, the relative size proportion between Ulduar and the Coliseum, Ulduar seems to be much bigger. 2, the speed at which they are dropping the next tier of content on to us, with most guilds not having finished ulduar launching another raid with the same time commitment and size as ulduar is a bit much. 3, the way in which they're rolling the coliseum out with staggered 'boss releases.'
In this way the Vault analogy works very well as it's just a quick raid for the same relative ilevel of loot (although coliseum will be slightly higher) that a guild can hit on a day that they're tired of wiping on ulduar hard modes or they've finished ulduar early. It basically solves both ends of the spectrum, finished with ulduar? -> Farm Ulduar & run Coliseum. Still wiping on Ulduar hard/normal? Attempt ulduar a couple nights & run Coliseum for some upgrades so your next attempt at Ulduar is a bit easier.
Jon Do Jun 23rd 2009 11:22AM
Call me cynical, but what I see so far for dungeon runners and raids are carrots to grind old, and limited new, content.
Hopefully Blizz will prove me wrong on that.
Ron Jun 23rd 2009 11:41AM
You're right. Ulduar isn't new at all.
Plan Jun 23rd 2009 4:05PM
It annoys me to read so many raiders making this complaint, when running the same content over, and over, and over again is raiding's MO.
Chances are, most raiders who consider themselves more-than-casual have spent hundreds of hours already running the same content in Naxxramas, OS and EoE.
And if your guild raids four days a week and has been steadily making progress in Ulduar, by looking at the time Ulduar's been out (more than nine weeks) and the typical raid schedule of most guilds (about three hours a night) most of you will have run that instance a minimum of 104 hours -- the equivalent of about four-and-a-half straight days of playing -- and that's just for one setting of that dungeon. If you've raided both normal and heroic equally, it's possible your total time in that instance is twice that -- more than 200 total hours spent looking at the same textures, fighting the same trash, wiping on and downing the same bosses, trying the same hard modes, and praying that the specific piece of loot you need actually drops.
For comparison, that's the equivalent of more than FOUR ENTIRE WEEKENDS sitting in your computer chair.
After all, without the loot, you would not spend more than 200 hours in that place. The dungeons in classic gaming are awesome too -- everyone loves the classic dungeons of original Zelda, Dragon Warrior and Final Fantasy -- but no one in their right mind would say, "Dude, I've spent 200 hours running Level 3 in The Legend of Zelda...I just can't get enough of that place!"
The gaps between content have been longer in the past, so for long-time raiders, it's likely they've spent thousands of hours running the same collection of 15 or so dungeons.
So how can these same people suddenly become so offended at the thought that there will be two more lockout periods for ONE dungeon in the game? It's a drop in the bucket compared to everything else.
Shisho Jun 23rd 2009 5:33PM
Even though it's a generalized comment that's not really all that new, I voted it up, because I don't see why it was voted down.
The point here is that leveling characters, item/rep/reward grinds, achievements, and redundant content are all old and outdated video game concepts. They have a bigger role in single player RPGs, but somehow got incorporated into MMOs in their initial conception.
A lot of these "new features" are ideas that they were absurdly late to jump on the band wagon for, and ideas that really don't have much of a fit in an MMO that isn't designed to appeal to people's addictions. That's just focused on general game design, and not even their own specific WoW related design. They're pretty terrible at updating their own game unique concepts too. IE - How long from release did it take them to make Blessing of Kings a baseline skill? Was this a hard decision?
So the real criticism towards Blizzard is that they've had the popularity, the finances, the resources, and countless numbers of innovative ideas at their fingertips. They chose not to go that progressive route in game evolution, and opted for the safe and familiar status quo, and resorted to ways of enhancing it to feel and look new enough to be satisfactory to the largest number of subscribers.
They're more in the business of business than the business of games. Hopefully some other company with clout will take a risk and end the madness of this stagnated MMO model to which there aren't many (or any) alternatives.
You can say that WoW is probably the best MMO available, but you can't say it's the best possible MMO. There's a lot developer's have learned about these games over many years and from their communities, and they haven't innovated at all.
There is something fundamentally haywire going on inside Blizzard, and I think it's obvious to most people in some way, but since we're so far removed from the details of all their internal operations we're only left to speculate.
Chochkey Jun 23rd 2009 11:36AM
I think Blizzard is testing out ideas for their ((next-gen MMO)) in WoW...
midnight08 Jun 23rd 2009 2:38PM
Not likely - the 2 game have different teams - they may let the other group know their findings but i would think we'll see a very different MMO in their next gen game. From what they have learned here the game will be developed very differently from its core offering many more options than they will ever have in WoW. (for instance flight... they designed aseroth without it in mind... had they known that they would be including it and the benefits/challenges of the system, they would have ben able to develop the old content to later accept flight from the beginning. ) The new MMo will have its own challenges and ideas most likely.
Otoh - i see this as testing for future wow content as is suggested. Wrath seems very transitional and i expect that we'll see a much more fleshed out system next expansion (unless they still feel it needs work). The wow life cycle is good for at least another 2-4 expansions and i'm sure they not only already have the general content planned out, but that they also want to push to make the endgame content as epic and innovative as possible...
What company wouldnt want to set the bar for all future generations of games in their category for the forseeable future? I think that they have done that so far with wow, and know they must contunue to evolve to hold that.
Aramis Jun 23rd 2009 11:41AM
I think you're overthinking this. I believe the different modes are just, as in previous attempts, is simply an expansion on the idea of giving access to content to more people. Smaller guilds used to running 10-mans will now have equal access to the heroic content of the raids without the pangs of having to PUG a 25man. It's a great idea actually. And the whole "there's something for everyone" is emphasized even further with the 5-man run for people who just want to jump in, see the place, and have a little fun in the meantime.
Urvith Jun 23rd 2009 11:45AM
Mabie this is the answer to the problem with 25 man loot being better than 10 man but usually easier to obtain. If there makeing a distinction between 10 and 25 man normal and heroics they might make both of the normal instances drop similer loot and leave the tier X.5 stuff for the hard modes of the instance. Which would be a lot more fair than the system in place right now. Uldar was supposed to be the answer to this problem but all signs point to that idea tanking prety hard.
Jack Spicer Jun 23rd 2009 11:46AM
It could also be possible that it only takes 2 hours to finish an entire run of the coliseum, so offering four different variations of the aforementioned coliseum is just a way to 'pad' the experience.
Clevins Jun 23rd 2009 11:49AM
Assuming loot iLevel is dependent on mode and not raid size, this is a move to make 25s and 10s their own track. Right now you get significantly better loot for running with 15 more people which has led to attitudes like "real raiders run 25s" and has made 10s a stepchild in terms of achievements... you can overgear them just by running 25s, gearing up, then running 10s (I'm thinking Sarth+D here). This eliminates that dynamic and means that people won't feel forced to run 25s for better gear so that they can progress faster. And, by putting 10s on an even footing with 25s, it validates that 10s are a viable progression path without the need to run 25s at all.
Tomnationwide Jun 23rd 2009 11:52AM
Making these separate could be the maiden efforts of a new system that allows them to create Heroics for old world instances.
jbodar Jun 23rd 2009 7:45PM
What do hard modes and raid lockouts have to do with old world instances?
tympanic Jun 23rd 2009 12:18PM
I am not as big on this idea. Let's say, hypothetically, that Ulduar worked the same way. If my guild is currently working on doing Iron Council hard mode, we would have to do FL and XT on hard mode just to get to IC. It's nice to be able to quickly go through earlier bosses to get to the encounter we want to focus on for the night/week.
GamerX Jun 23rd 2009 12:24PM
You guys should broach the subject of all these wrongful bans for flame leviathan bug of people who killed him with x towers up (all the time, the proper way) and then when he doesn't reset after glitching through the wall they decide rather than wiping to just kill him not thinking anything of it because they've already killed him ~10 times before. Maybe blizzard will listen to you as I can assure you they aren't listening to the wrongfully accused.
Gridneo Jun 23rd 2009 12:31PM
I think this also comes from some of the flak they received from the separate wings of Vault. PUGs starting out couldn't do Emelon, and people would get locked out if they just did Archavon only.
I kinda think it should be on a Boss by Boss basis almost. Although, that would be a nightmare for raid leaders with people in the instance that have already done a particular boss. Hell, pseudo-instance the boss rooms so that you can reset via a button on the door. So those people that are locked out of that boss can't do it, and it doesn't interfere with people in the raid instance. Instance inside an instance? Nightmare for raid composition, but it doesn't really affect raiding guilds. I'd like to see the ability to set/reset a particular boss to attempt the hard modes if you like. I mean if we down IC for an achievement or something, and want to give the hardmode a try, we should be able to within the same lockout period; without having to reclear all that trash, etc... Now that's extra loot all around, but they could come up with a way to fix that.
emberwild Jun 23rd 2009 12:39PM
Emblems of Conquest will drop from 5man Heroics and Triumph from daily dungeon quests, allowing more people to get top end gear from "easy" and accessible dungeons. The faster you allow people to attain epics, the quicker they get to having nothing to do. Boredom kills games.
The last time Blizz did this was before the WotLK expansion to allow people to get gear to level in and because the gear would soon be obsolete, it didn't really matter to the top end raiders. Now there's no reason for it, except trying to satisfy those who don't want to pug 10mans to save themselves for Guild Hardmode raids. They can now do both, which is great but poor planning.
Hardcore gamers will do 10man easy, 10man hardmore, 25man easy and 25man hardmode get all the gear they need twice as fast and leave them wanting to leave the game twice as soon.