Crusaders' Coliseum difficulty is a test for Blizzard
by Mike Schramm 
Jul 23rd 2009 at 9:00AM
I've suspected this on the podcast, and I'm sure many people have figured this before, but Crygil makes it absolutely clear: the four difficulty levels set up on the Crusaders' Coliseum is just a test for Blizzard. This isn't at all the standard, it's just something different they're trying with this format of dungeon, and they'll be watching to see how players respond. As Crygil says, it definitely doesn't mean that they'll be going back and revamping the old dungeons to reflect the new layout (where 10 and 25-man raids each have their own Heroic modes), and the corollary is that it doesn't necessarily mean that Icecrown will be like this, either. They're giving this a shot, and if there are issues with it, they'll go back to the old way or consider something else.Will it work? My guess is that it will. Besides the fact that players will always run the heck out of the game's latest raid (and Blizzard can definitely use that as justification that it's a popular way to do things), I think any move that gives players more options will be received well. Some guilds will try to run all four modes all the time, and will get sick of the instance way before any new content shows up, but I think most folks will just choose one or two difficulties to run every week (say, 25-man Heroic with their guild, and 10-man Heroic with a PuG), and get their gear from there. Whether we'll see this again in Icecrown, however, I'm not sure -- this seems like a setup for a lower-tier instance that everyone gets to run, not an expansion-ending, top-of-the-line raid. Blizzard may go back to the normal 10 and 25-man setup for Icecrown, and then bring this scheme back for instances in the next expansion, whatever that may be.
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: Patches, Analysis / Opinion, Odds and ends, Raiding
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Okabe Jul 23rd 2009 9:08AM
Not going to lie --the new instance setup has me a little confused.
Back to 10/25 I say!
Tumleren Jul 23rd 2009 11:21AM
What's confusing?
You have 10 man normal, 25 man normal, 10 man heroic, 25 man heroic
Radiophonic Jul 23rd 2009 4:32PM
Anyone know the lockout timers on the 10/25 versions?
Okabe Jul 23rd 2009 9:20AM
One quick question (somewhat off topic):
With Emblems of Triumph and Conquest going to be so readily available (Triumph from dailies which gives you access to lvl 245 gear) what motivation will there be for people to continue doing Naxx or even 10 man Uld?
I can assume you'll still have to do Uld to gear up for Coliseum 10-man, but it sounds like you're going to be able to grind out the gear one way or another by doing either emblem runs.
Gothia Jul 23rd 2009 9:49AM
Umm, how about gearing up and what seems so easy on paper is not always so in life. People that run Ulduar still run Nax and Os and Voa and Heroics nothing has change in the quest for better gear. Just becuase you have one or two pieces of 245 ilevel gear doesn't mean you are geared to run higher content, but the hope is that eventually you will be ready?.
Karilyn Jul 23rd 2009 9:57AM
That's kinda the point Okabe.
They want to reduce the motivation to do Naxx by a lot, and Ulduar by a little, and push people who haven't yet cleared Ulduar to finish it and move onto the Coliseum.
As of this next patch, I think they intend new players hitting 80 to maybe go to Naxx around two weeks max before they are ready to start on Ulduar. And about a month max in Ulduar before they are ready for the Coliseum.
Note I am talking max. More realistically, a (somewhat non-moronic) player should be able to start Coliseum after about 2 weeks from a fresh level 80 character.
First week:
A couple of heroics.
A Naxx run
An Ulduar run later that week.
Second week:
Some more heroics for badges
A second Ulduar run
They can now join their guild in Coliseum later this week
*shrug*
Spazmoose Jul 23rd 2009 10:38AM
There will certainly be motivation for running Naxx, Ulduar, and heroics once they change the emblem type that drops in those places. The reason for this: somewhere around 500 possible emblems per week (if you did every heroic every day, ran all sub-T9 raid, and did all of the daily quests, and received the satchel of spoils in OS).
In all reality, though, the majority of people will not continue running those, other than to get the last pieces of gear, and/or to farm emblems to buy something, so Karilyn is probably correct, and you won't sit at one tier for long.
However, there are reasons to continue running these instances:
#1 Pick up an item that is still a possible upgrade to what you have (perhaps a former BiS item)
#2 Gearing alts and/or other guild members for higher tier raiding.
#3 Obtaining emblems for upgrade gear
#4 Obtaining emblems in order to downgrade to valor/heroism in order to purchase items to sell/trade, such as the Valor bracers, Frozen Orbs, Rare Gems, etc.
V Magius Jul 23rd 2009 10:47AM
I was under the impression this was supposed to be a way for some of the smaller guilds to get geared quick as an alternative to Heroics.
Run 5 man Coliseum for the gear. Run Heroics for the rep. Now you're ready for higher raiding.
Clbull Jul 23rd 2009 12:00PM
Well it makes sense really. Blizzard are trying to push more people towards the current raid with the 3.2 updates by the looks of things. Think about it:
1) Emblems of Conquest available from Heroics, Tier 7 raids and 10 man Ulduar, this gives plenty of oppurtunities to buy the Ulduar quality gear that you need, without having to run Ulduar.
2) This gives a guild the option to blaze through Naxxramas at a much faster pace, and Ulduar at a slightly faster pace.
I think its odd that people are complaining that Emblems of Conquest will be more widely available in 3.2. Its not making the ability to get the latest gear trivial, as Trial of the Crusader would likely have a tougher difficulty (since it gives better gear than Ulduar.)
Binners Jul 23rd 2009 12:30PM
Good list, Spazmooze.. but you missed one:
#5: Because Heroics, Naxx, VoA, OS are actually fun! And better emblems will give people who feel that it's a waste of time a reason to go. The more people looking for groups, the better it is for everyone.
Krick Jul 23rd 2009 1:40PM
At the moment, there are 6 pieces of ilevel 226 gear that I can purchase with Emblem of Conquest for my pally tank: neck/hands/waist/legs/head/chest. This gear is the same iLevel as gear that drops from the last boss in Naxx 25 and the bosses in Ulduar 10 hard mode.
The total cost for all 6 pieces of gear is 230 Emblem of Conquest.
In patch 3.2, the existing heroic 5-man dungeons will be changed to drop Emblem of Conquest instead of Emblem of Heroism.
There are currently 12 heroic 5-man dungeons.
After the patch, if you ran all 12 heroics every day, you would net 46 badges, plus 2 from the daily quest (assuming they don't change it). At 48 badges a day, it would take me roughly 5 days of chaining heroics to get all 6 pieces of gear.
I can't speak for all classes, but as soon as you hit level 80 as a paladin tank, you can purchase crafted gear for most slots that is sufficient for most (if not all) heroics. The missing pieces you can't get crafted can be filled in with BoE dungeon drops off the auction house and/or blue quest rewards.
So after patch 3.2, anyone who is willing to invest a week or two running heroics once they hit level 80 should have no problem getting raid-ready gear. I think this is awesome for struggling guilds.
...
Krick
http://www.tankadin.com
clevins Jul 23rd 2009 6:49PM
Karilyn..
No. There's no way a raider will hit 8 and get enough gear in 2 weeks to be performing at a T9 level. The 2pc T8 stuff is 116 EoC for example... that's not 'a couple of heroics' and a naxx run. And Naxx/Ulduar may or may not drop the gear that toon needs.
What the EoC change is for are people who are already geared in Naxx-10 stuff, maybe some Ulduar stuff... they can, with 2-4 weeks of Naxx/Ulduar/Heroic farming add 2-4 new pieces and credibly be in T9 content. A new to 80 player won't move from quest greens to T9 in less than a few weeks - they have 14 slots most of which need to be *at least* Naxx level stuff. Put another way, if you can do T9 in half blues, it will be too easy.
Landorf Jul 23rd 2009 9:25AM
My bet is that they actually are only implementing this as a social experiment to see how confusing they can make trade chat advertisements.
"WAIT I thought this was a HEROIC 10 man!!"
"No dude this is regular 25!"
"Are you kidding me I thought this was regular 10??"
"THIS INST FOR CENARION REPP?? IS SLAVE PENS 25 MAN NAO????"
/priest leaves party
/warrior leaves party
/warlock leaves party
/hunter leaves party
t0xic Jul 23rd 2009 10:17AM
Okay, I needed that. Thanks for getting my day off to a good start =)
Jaimec Jul 23rd 2009 9:53AM
I'm sorry if this is the fly on the soup but, this is the admitance that the ice is cold.
In a game like WoW any "new" feature, when implemented, is made as a test in the way "let's see how it turns out". If it turns out badly (hopefully not to badly) it will never be touched again and it will be forgoten, if it turns out as an huge sucess, then it picks up and, from there on, it becomes the rule.
No one could say for sure that Arenas would be an sucess before they opened, no one could say for sure if the Achievements would pick up or would be dismissed as irrelevants. Blizzard thought this new raid lockouts policy was worth a shot but, any game designer worth his salt has to be prepared to call a fail and revert a situation.
Cyrgil's comment was read by me as "we have ways in place to measure the effectiveness of this new form of raid lockouts and you must limit your assumptions since we're waiting to see if the idea is well received by the player base"
t0xic Jul 23rd 2009 10:30AM
My only problem with "trying out new things" is that when they make bad mistakes they never admit it, and they seldom fix it. Occulus anyone?
I guess it all depends on what constitutes failure or success. Blizzard gets to decide what those definitions are (not us).
Jaimec Jul 23rd 2009 12:48PM
Well Toxic, it's only fair that it's the owners of the game who get to have the final call :)
Oculus is unfixable since it would require a new dungeon all together and, when Blizzard makes a new dungeon, it just adds it to the lineup, and, since oculus is already made, no point in shutting it now.
Anyway, I believe I've read in wow.com that, on the PTR, the game designer of the Crusader's Coliseum went onto the PTR assuring people that the vehicules was only for one boss since a lot of testers were calling it a day and going to someplace else. That is a clear as any sign of a lot of people telling Blizzard to STOP with the bloody vehicules.
pants Jul 23rd 2009 12:32PM
@t0xic
Agreed, Oculus is bad and not fun.
To be fair though, they're making it so that the dragons scale with your gear in the next patch.
t0xic Jul 23rd 2009 12:53PM
@ pants:
Fair enough -- so they are changing Oculus. You're right -- they deserve credit for doing that much (because they seldom revisit old projects if they can avoid it).
There's a big difference between changing the instance to make it fun and making it scale with gear so badge farmers can steamroll over it in 3.2.
Change for the sake of change isn't necessarily good or bad. I just think they could do a better job of revisiting things that didn't work or could have worked better. They tend to have this attitude that once it's "done" they don't want to touch it again. That design philosophy has left a lot of lackluster elements laying around in the game. None of this would be "value added" change since the content already exists, but they would improve the polish of the game I think.
Just my two cents...
Gothia Jul 23rd 2009 9:42AM
Really, this is a great idea for raiders since this will offer 2 additional raids a week per setting to learn new content vice 2. I pug all of the raids each week and this will open up more gear for more players which is not a bad thing. Voa and Os are pretty short and I usually run out of things to run before the weekend.
The only people that will be confused are the ones not smart enough to know the difference between normal and heroic. Nax 10 normal or heroic what is so hard to understand? I hope they implement this change for all raids past and present.