The only thing I don't find awesome about this is the "reward for the leader" part. Why should only one person be rewarded when 5 people complete a successful run?

"Leading" in a 5-man is not actually something that requires much thought or skill. In the current environment of "aoe everything down", it doesn't require anything at all if everyone has been to the instance before. And getting the group together isn't a great feat either, that's the entire point of LFG.

Any rewards you will receive would most likely be minimal, like an extra EoC or SKS, or the equivalent of those in Cataclysm. I think its more of an incentive to get people to use it, rather than just ignore it and run with guildies.

@CTD

On the contrary, I believe leading is everything. (Not necessarily for 5-mans, but for raids, definitely).

At the moment in time, if you get 25 people together in raid, if they all know how to play they will have the same talent builds, glyphs, rotations, and knowledge of the fights (per class I'm talking about here obviously) if they want to be competitive at what they do. The only thing that gets these 25 people through a raid is the leader.

WoW itself isn't hard, leading is.

@Xiol

Oh, I agree with you completely. But we're talking specifically about 5-mans here. And leading isn't everything there.

And Street Justice, I don't mind giving small rewards as incentive to use the new system, but give it to everyone in the run then. After all, it IS a group effort.

@Xiol

Well, did anyone ask about leading 25 mans? Did you read the transcript of the talk? The rewards are for leading 5-mans at this time. Who gives a damn how easy or hard it is to lead a 25 man in relation to this?

As for the reward, this will be interesting. LFG could turn into an enormous list of nothing but people LFM. Everyone wants to lead and no one will sign on unless they can be leader. Net result, PUG'ing is still difficult.

Next up, no more passing leadership to the tank so they can mark targets. Leader does that, and now rather than a quick and easy progression, we'll get to see debates, requests and questions between the leader and the tank for multiple groups throughout the instance.

I'll be very interested to see if this feature survives its beta testing.

Rewards for leading is a good idea. Putting a group together and leading noobish people through an instance does require some effort and leadership, and you get blamed if things fall apart. Though this has been less of an issue with the EZ-mode WoTLK 5-mans. Perhaps this could signal a return of more noob-unfriendly instances?

Say if it is your first time in an instance (or in a heroic mode), you could choose to give a "leadership award" to someone who you thought has been a good guide. I'm very grateful when other players explain the fight to me etc. The reward doesn't have to be anything big, more of a recognition than an inducement.

Its the kind of thing that happens between decent human beings. Sadly, humanity is often discarded in PUGs without loot to back it up.

I agree that getting a reward for having the crown on your head during some 30-min milk run is dubious.

@ramivore that is only needed the first time you run an instance. and we all know that with wow, latest at the levelcap you'll grind dungeons over and over. which is when everyone will want to be leader and things get bitchy and annoying.