Hard modes and raider morale
by Mike Schramm 
Jul 27th 2009 at 3:00PM
Karl, writing over on the WoW Livejournal, has an interesting set of thoughts about hard modes and just how they work with raiders' morale. Hard modes are designed to give raiders something extra -- if you've conquered the normal modes of raids like Ulduar, hard modes are put in there by Blizzard to offer you some extra risk for a corresponding reward. But as they've become more and more routine, some raids are taking on the hard modes even before they've cleared the whole instance, leading up to a night of wiping on early hard modes, and then wiping on later progression. And wiping all night is never good for any raid's morale.Of course, this is one of the causes for the way the Crusaders' Coliseum in patch 3.2 is designed: instead of having both hard and normal modes constrained to one instance, you can run a 10 or 25-man instance in normal mode all the way, leaving the Heroic mode open when you're ready to do some wiping.
But then again, think about what the mindset is here -- players are throwing themselves on early bosses' hard modes even when they haven't beaten the end bosses yet. It seems like most raids will take any opportunity they get for more loot, no matter how tough it is, and that's what's leading to all of this "glass chewing" Karl is talking about. Even if Blizzard gives players the option to run a normal instance without worrying about hard modes, won't players still just run Heroic anyway, for the better gear?
Seems like the answer has to come from raid leaders -- if your guild is losing morale by beating your heads up against nothing but hard modes and progression content, it's time to dial it back a bit, and do a couple of farming runs instead. Especially in a 25-man raid, even downing the normal modes of most bosses should net your raiders some piece of gear they need, and pushing players to do bosses they'll wipe on all night leads to more burnout, even if it does net you some guild first downs eventually.
It's interesting that players always seem to be fighting to raid a tier above what they're really capable of -- I remember even back when we were raiding halfway through Molten Core, my guild would schedule a night in Blackwing Lair, even though we never did anything but wipe in there. Maybe the separation of normal and Heroic in patch 3.2 will help slow down players a little bit, but you have to think that, by now, Blizzard should know that players will grab for the best gear they can.
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, Items, Analysis / Opinion, Instances, Raiding, Bosses
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Jewbanks Oct 3rd 2010 12:12AM
I know in our raid group there is a little bit of frustration to push to do hard modes even though our 25 has yet to down yogg, we were so close thursday.
Our 10 man is regularly clearing all the hard modes/speedkills before the keepers ( I lie we usually only do FL with 3 orbs but managed 4 once, but it took 2hours). We have Thorim and Hodir's hard modes down and Freya with 2 keepers up.
Our 10 man consist on different weeks of about 15 or so members of our 25 man, so when we get in 25 man we want to push for some of the easier hard modes were sure our group can get, but it usually just leads to frustration.
We have decided recently that from now on our 25 man is just a rush to kill yogg now, and then well go back to worrying about hard modes, but it is frustrating knowing that if everyone else put in the same work wed probably be further ahead.
Josin Jul 27th 2009 3:11PM
I don't know that the non-Heroic modes will exactly sit dormant. Most folks get the concept of gear progression, and will run the non-heroic modes before jumping into the Heroics.
Granted, there's always going to be stupid people who want to jump into the hardest thing possible as soon as they ding 80, but if those people didn't exist, PuGs wouldn't be a four-letter word... so they serve a purpose, I suppose.
Daniel Jul 27th 2009 3:29PM
I just don't see it the same way. I don't think people who are jumping up are stupid. I think some of them are doing it simply because they like the challenge. You're not going to get more skilled by more of the boring grind. For other people it's a question of time inefficiency. Even if they wipe a few times in hard mode, that's probably quicker than the standard progression. And finally there are those who simply don't want to be left behind and feel social pressure to keep up with other guilds and think they can take a short-cut. Those are the ones that suffer worst.
I agree that most people "get" gear progression. But I don't think most people like it or accept it. I think that's one of, though not the only reason, Blizzard is blowing up loot in 3.2.
Josin Jul 27th 2009 3:38PM
Jumping into Tier 9 content in quest blues and Heroic drops isn't wise, I don't care how much you "like a challenge" some things just aren't going to work.
Fortunately, as you mentioned, Blizzard is going to make the new content more quickly accessible to newly leveled players by dropping Conquest badges in all Heroics, but if anything, I foresee that increasing the number of people doing the old Heroic dungeons moreso than going undergeared into the new ones.
Or at least I hope that's how it goes. There's enough undergeared people splattering themselves against Emalon as it is right now. I shudder to imagine the futility of the Colosseum with crap gear.
Tridus Jul 27th 2009 3:12PM
I really think this is a bad way of doing things for people. The payout for killing a hard mode is one item with a higher ilvl. Some of those items are very good, but there's one of them.
The payoff for killing a new boss is 3 items, tier pieces, items for slots that you can't fill earlier in the dungeon, and in some cases access to more bosses.
Doing Hearbreaker is nice, but in terms of getting your raid ready for hard modes, getting a first kill has a MUCH higher payoff then getting a hard mode.
Robert M Jul 27th 2009 4:25PM
/agree
I also think Schramm hit on the idea of progression. The hard modes are the built in progression of a raid. Instead of several areas of progression that are instanced seperately, you now have another tier of progression built into the game. It doens't hurt to try the hard modes after a few weeks of learning strats and downing bosses.
The responsibility falls to the raid leader. If your raid isn't even coming close on a couple tries, then maybe you need to go back to the basic kill and try the attempt next week when everyone's gear has improved with a drop or 2.
Drow Jul 27th 2009 4:37PM
This is where Blizzard is failing with easy/hard modes. Some hard modes are SO INCREDIBLY EASY it's stupid not to do them in 25-man, like Flame Levi and XT. Then there are the others that people really struggle with. Sure, we've cleared Ulduar25 several times, but when you try to push for a new hard mode, people get frustrated and say "f it" and go to normal mode, wasting it. Even now with 4 lockouts, that's a LOT of raiding basically the same stuff FOUR TIMES A WEEK.
It makes me want back the old progression. Like the author said. Finish MC, then start to move onto BWL. Finish SSC and TK, then move onto Hyjal and into BT. Instead, we have to finish normal mode, just to go back into the SAME place with the SAME bosses and SAME lore, with slightly different mechanics for ONE better ilvl item.
I say go back to having an instance, and make the boss, the boss. Never changes (besides nerfs/buffs for balance). You get the boss down, and progress.No picking modes or doing a fight easy to move on or wiping for no reason.
Gareth Jul 28th 2009 10:57AM
Definitely agree with you on that Drow, once I clear an instance on any mode in my mind its cleared, its more of a console gaming mentality to do the same thing with hard modes.
I'm not against the idea of hard/easy raids though, its just that the way that they've been implemented was the lazy option. Instead good and fun game design would have us fighting the big bad bosses captains for the easy mode and taking a different route through the same instance (something I see Everquest 2 is doing), so even if we entered the same raid we could be doing something totally different.
As for the original post, the hard modes really didn't work well with the guild I was in,
our casual guild was unable to get it together for flame leviathan with a tower up (before it was nerfed, a few people were undergeared but it was more then doable, the reason for failure was mostly lack of will and effort, of course resulting in the poor result).
Basically people just wanted the easy loot, instead I think it would have been cooler for that fight to instead give you the hard mode rewards for completing the fight better (maybe keeping some things intact like doorways, npcs etc) since then the best rewards are always sitting there for you on the table.
theuberpea Jul 27th 2009 3:45PM
I do not understand the mentality behind trying Hard Modes before having achieved all you can on the normal modes. You will be potentially be under geared for the encounter and the progression just isn't logical. When you first started playing computer games did you from level 5 to level 10? No. You went from 1-10 progressing at a regular and logical rate.
I am part of the leadership of a fairly new 10 man raiding guild that has cleared Ulduar. We have started workinn on hard modes and have made solid progression with these but we always made it clear to our raiders that hard modes would only be attempted once Yogg had died. Once he went down we got cracking on hard modes with players who were adequately geared and had a good idea of what Ulduar consisted of.
I think the way we went about things meant that we maintained morale, gear and knowledge and didn't suffer burn out from excessive wiping.
theuberpea Jul 27th 2009 3:53PM
Ugh. Must learn to proof read before hitting "Add Comment".
Squeek Jul 27th 2009 7:46PM
Well, I'll give you a perfect scenario! In fact, I'll give you two!
Let's say you're on Yogg and you're having problems, as most people who get to Yogg do for the first three weeks or so. You can get to Yogg so easily, too. It's practically effortless. You think maybe along the way you can kill bosses that will drop better items that will help you beat Yogg? We certainly did. It was a huge difference when our DK tank upgraded from Titansteel Destroyer to Aesir's Edge (he had terrible luck with drops in Naxx25). It was a huge difference for the DPS who got their hard mode weapons too, since all the 10-man hard mode weapons are ilevel 232.
In terms of difficulty, Yogg is significantly harder than doing Orbit-uary or Heartbreaker. FL is just figuring out the proper arrangement and duties of the vehicles and their passengers, and XT is all about DPS, keeping distances, and watchful healers.
#2: Let's say you play an underappreciated class that Blizzard doesn't fully support. What do I mean by that? I mean that they have decided you simply do not need gear and that no gear will drop for you. No, I am not complaining about the RNG, I'm saying that there are numerous specs that simply do not have an upgrade through the "normal" progression (such as mine--elemental shaman). I am still using an iLv 213 weapon due to the fact that Blizzard thought it would be hilarious to make my only upgrade drop from Yogg 25 and make all the other casters want it too. Fortunately, they also have a weapon in Vezax 10 Hard mode with similar stats and a different type so I don't get outrolled by everybody else (though the problem now is that Vezax's hard mode is the 2nd hardest hard mode). There are no bracers, belts, rings, legs, hands, shoulders, or boots in Uld10 for my spec, either.
When I first heard about Hard modes, I thought it would be just like the way they've implemented it in the new raid--the same gear you can get from the normal raid with better stats. Unfortunately, they decided that they could not drop every spec's item in one mode of difficulty, so they spread out the loot you need to get geared over all four Ulduars. When your group isn't really super-geared to even do Hodir's hardmode, isn't big enough to get a 25 going, and obviously cannot do 25-man hard modes, you're basically limiting yourself to a quarter of the loot that is intended for your class. Good luck getting geared.
theuberpea Jul 28th 2009 9:13AM
Whilst I can understand the scenarios you describe I do not believe them to be valid. Please do not take this personally or as me being elitist but it defeats the point to me if you have to outgear an encounter in order to defeat it.
You're complaint of "only" having a 213 weapon is a bit silly. 90% of the raids gear was iLvl 200 when we downed Yogg. We've never raided 25 man and some of us even had a few pieces of gear that were from 5 man heroics. We downed Yogg on our 3rd week of being in Ulduar without completing any hard modes. We still had the heals to keep everyone up, the dps to kill all we needed to and the tanks were sufficiently geared to be kept alive. We wiped a LOT on that first night but we also walked out of Ulduar having seen Yogg for the first time and having killed him for the first time(this was also the first night we had seen General Vezax). Maybe we're just very lucky in that we can get 10 players who have the skills, intelligence and communication to make gear less of a clinching factor when downing bosses.
I stand by the idea that logical progression dictates you complete normal modes first and then move onto hard modes. It simply makes far more sense to me. A few of our raiders were very keen to start on hard modes before Yogg went down but having laid down the law in the way that we did I think it may have even helped motivate people to perform. If knowing that downing Yogg means they will get a chance at that sweet sword that XT hard mode drops they would be more likely to put their all into getting Yogg down. It also means that we don't have the normal encounters looming over us whilst we progress through hard modes. We know we can down every boss in normal mode so now we can try and up the ante a bit and see how it goes without ever thinking "maybe we shouldn't be doing this yet".
I would also suggest that being a purely 10 man guild helps us with this. We have a much smaller community and everyone knows each other better than they potentially would in a 25 man guild. This helps as it's easier to set and communicate common goals and be sure that all are happy with them.
Rubitard Jul 27th 2009 3:20PM
Brinksmanship has played a large roll in forcing some players into content they're not prepared for. The prevailing thought with a few guilds seems to be that if you're not pushing for the hardest content possible, you're showing how little you really know how to play. This is, of course, counter-intuitive. As with many stricken with "mob mentality," however, you find that the crazy ideas win out over the rational. We're talking about people who've long since forgotten that a game is something that should be enjoyed, not endured.
Theresa Jul 27th 2009 3:22PM
I know that part of the push can also come from guild rankings. Due to how my server handles progression (points given for boss kills, more for hard modes), my 25 man guild is ranked lower than some guilds that have not even cleared the instance, simply because they chose to work on some of the easier hard modes instead of Yogg. My guild made a commitment from the start however that we would not work on hard modes until Yogg was dead and on farm.
Judicius Jul 27th 2009 5:29PM
This is a point that wasn't even touched, and needs attention. It's not always about loot whoring. A lot of the time it's about competition.
It used to be that people competed for world first or server first. Now thanks to sites like wowjutsu or wowprogress people are competing for rankings. This on top of the fact that most servers have a ranking thread in their server forum.
If a guild is looking to one up another, if they're looking to rank better due to the new dynamic and importance placed on it by this rising ranking culture, it stands to reason that if 3 towers is more points than downing Kologram; they'll be doing that.
Not all the hard modes in Ulduar really required Ulduar gear to be attainable. That's a design flaw imho. With the raids broken out from one another (hard mode and basic) it falls to blizzard to make it so hard mode isn't a cakewalk in 3.1 BiS.
So long as people can, they will, take the easiest path to their goals. This is true whether it be loot or rank.
Cyanea Jul 27th 2009 3:24PM
Honestly? It's all up to the RL and Assistants to maintain morale in situations like that. My guild is still working on Naxx (yes, I know, but summer hit us hard and we're a small guild of mostly friends who transferred from another server and we'd like to keep it that way) and we were bashing our heads against the Four Horsemen the other day to the point where it was getting frustrating (the one person we had to pug was being an idiot). So we went and smashed Patchy and the rest of the Construct quarter.
zleepnir Jul 27th 2009 3:30PM
Hard modes are the actual progression. Every fight in ulduar has a hard mode (whether it rewards extra loot or not), and that hard mode is part of the meta. Normal modes are relatively free epics, and are Blizzard's way of saying "lookit the kewl new content".
If you're wiping on hard modes and your players are getting discouraged, you are likely not ready for hard modes, whether it's an issue of not having the gear, not having the ingenuity/execution, or not having the dedication.
I personally like how you are allowed to pick and choose which hard modes you want to tackle in a given week. Splitting up an "all normal mode" and "all hard mode" instance seems like a step backward, but it may help to slow players down instead of letting them just jump on fights they're not quite ready for. Wanna do it effectively? Bring back attunements.
t0xic Jul 27th 2009 3:50PM
I agree with attunements, but not as they were implemented in the past. Doing a long quest chain for a key may seem "epic" to some (when the content is current), but it shows its age when a new expansion hits. Don't even get me started on rep grinds with irrelevant factions.
They should just require everyone go through normal mode a set number of times before heroic mode is unlocked. 5 runs through and you can run heroic. No keys, no quests, no rep. Just a simple counter. Maybe that number needs tweaked, but it would be better than people running heroics and not knowing basic fight mechanics. It's not a foolproof solution, but I think it's better than what we have.
Netherscourge Jul 27th 2009 3:42PM
It's all about loot and Titles now.
Nobody cares about easy-modes unless they reward good loot.
I jumped into Ulduar 25 and have progressed farther then in Ulduar 10 because the gear is better.
Nobody cares about SIDE-GRADES, they want UPGRADES.
Skai Jul 27th 2009 3:48PM
I imagine most guilds will simply treat the Coliseum as a 10 bosses instance, with the first half having 245 loot and the latter 258 items. If it really doesn't have any trash, I imagine it won't take more than 30-45 minutes to do once on farm. I don't see many guilds skipping it, until the next tier of raiding.