Thoughts on Icecrown Citadel and gating
by Allison Robert 
Jan 28th 2010 at 4:00PM
That's the part of the gating system -- "Raiders (having) the fear of God struck into them for wiping just once," as Lume puts it -- of which I'm not overly fond myself. A key raider lagging or disconnecting can result in a wipe on much of this content, and more particularly on the two bosses (Putricide and Lana'thel) for whom limited attempts currently exist. Both command very high DPS requirements, so even if you can easily afford the loss of a laggy DPS or two on something like Festergut (which is pretty baldly a DPS check in its own right), a single person going offline on Lana'thel-25 can wreck both the attempt and peoples' nerves. Losing 4 Blood-Queen Lana'thel attempts last week due to the bug with Kinetic Bombs aggroing her through the ceiling during the Council fight was equally frustrating.
To play devil's advocate, the gating system does have a few things going for it. As I've written previously, any honest player would admit that blowing through content isn't an ideal way to experience it. The gating mechanic also pressures people to fix their mistakes more quickly, and that's something raid leaders like a lot (let's be honest, we've all been in raids where at least 75% of the wipes were due to really dumb mistakes). And Blizzard isn't really restricting your ability to kill these bosses so much as it's punishing raids that attempt to brute-force a kill without fixing strategy flaws.
Unfortunately, this has the side effect of punishing raids for more innocent mistakes or technical problems. Ultimately, I'd guess that gated content has a different impact on each raid, and it's a bit irritating that some of this impact is out of the raid's collective control.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Raiding
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
BenMS Jan 28th 2010 4:04PM
Speaking of really dumb mistakes, I would like to out myself right now as the Shaman who cleansed the disease debuff on our Abom tank last night during what was up until then our best attempt at Putricide. Dumb mistakes = wipes. Don't do it people!
Matt Jan 28th 2010 5:32PM
I did that very thing the other night on my Priest. I thought I was being so helpful ("Hey, this guy has a disease, I'll just abolish that") but then I felt like an idiot when I heard over vent "Umm, I just lost my abom". Ah well, the attempt wasn't going that well anyway...
Coldbear Jan 28th 2010 5:59PM
Got you one better. Managed to disable the BigWigs warning for being targeted by the Orange Gas Cloud as melee dps on Prof. Putricide in order to clean up my UI to more easily see warnings for Choking Gas Bombs.
Boss happened to be tanked toward the middle for a second. Tons of explosions and stuff going on in melee - got targeted BAM DEAD RAID.
"Oh, sorry guys. That one's on me"
Two nights later, new raid reset. Same undefeated boss. First pull.
"Hey guys, I won't wipe the raid tonight, I promise."
Very first try the Gas Cloud is running by the boss while I'm staying on the boss as ordered. Switches targets and I don't react fast enough ...BAM DEAD RAID.
/facepalm
Almost as much fun as back when I landed a crit Regrowth on the tank the millisecond _after_ he pulled Vael back in the days of BWL srs bsns.
Sleutel Jan 28th 2010 7:15PM
Tuesday night, I was DPSing for five attempts on Blood Queen. So, I got into the mental space of "glowing line connecting you to other players = run to them NOW NOW NOW." Then, last night, I was tanking it. On the first attempt's first air phase, as the other tank is feared and running away from me (Berserker Rage FTW here), I suddenly notice a glowing line connecting us. And I panic. "OH MY GOD," I think, "HER PACT OF THE DARKFALLEN MUST HAVE BUGGED." And instead of stopping to check to see what actual debuff I had, I rushed to collapse on the other tank. And promptly died to Bloodbolt splash.
/facepalm /facepalm /facepalm
(Seriously, though, whose bright idea was it to have two similar visual cues for two very different mechanics in the same fight?)
TamChronin Jan 28th 2010 10:54PM
Dumb mistakes really do make for wipes. Our raid leader wasted one of our attempts last night... >_< He got DI-ed after a wipe and clicked it off before the boss respawned...half of us are running back anyway...and all the sudden, people can't get in.
He forgot to pull his totems as he was backing away. He was outside the door, but totems got "wiped" and cost us an attempt. ~sigh~
My first thought? I'm glad I don't play my shaman anymore. hehe
Noctune Jan 29th 2010 5:10AM
I still rememberd our first try in Vanilla Wow when we attempted Hakkar
one of our druid healers decided to "clean the poison" ... lets just say it was so funny to watch 20ppl step in poison to get the debuf then have them all cleansed p: and a wipe ... and a OOOPPPS when we told him not to cleanse the debuf .... =)
I think ppl should laugh more about thoes dum mistakes, its a game for crying out loud. not work.
i normaly is saying do a mistake once is fine
do it twice and i start looking sceptical on you.
do the same mistake more often and well i declare you to be stupid.
Noctune Jan 29th 2010 5:10AM
Honestly i whould rather see a more funny solution to the problem
Week1 every mob in the instance have 2x normal hp & sizeable more dps
every week from that week it deteriorate slowly down to normal levels.
in the ICC case it could be that the undead is getting weaker and weaker every week since the Argent Dawn & Ebony Blade is bashing on there door and killing off minons in tousands.
This whould allow hardcore guilds to go for bosses earlier then intended so they can flex there arms. its a nice and fast way to deal with the progression. perhaps 2x is to big but atleast make it extreamly hard first week and the decrese the dificulty.
Lissanna Jan 28th 2010 4:09PM
Sometimes, I miss Vanilla & Burning Crusade raiding, where the actual difficulty of the content was what gated it, instead of having a limited # of attempts.
Maiku Jan 28th 2010 4:16PM
like sunwell? :P
Finnicks Jan 28th 2010 4:21PM
The problem here is that the only way to make the content gate itself is to make it so hard that even the hardcore elite guilds of the world have trouble with it, which effectively shuts out the other 98% of WoW players from every seeing it.
The Gating is there to prevent world-class uberguilds from clearing the place within 6 hours of release because Blizzard had to make the regular mode accessible to less hardcore players.
Let's face it, within hours of ICC opening its doors we were seeing the hardcore elite clearing out the first wing.
When the Lich King is released, you can bet Ensidia and the rest of the uber guilds will get the world first, world second, world third, ect all within the first few hours.
Outis Jan 28th 2010 4:21PM
If by "actual difficulty" you mean "overtuned encounters requiring massive consumable/world buff usage or gear farming", "stupid resist gear cockblocks", "mobs despawning after a period of time and not coming back until a soft reset or similar elapsed period of time", "bugged encounters that don't get fixed for weeks or months (cough c'thun cough vashj 2.0 cough)", "elaborate gear checks also requiring an extremely atypical amount of one role (4H)", or "asinine encounter mechanics that reward perfect RNG and punish the smallest deviation from a good draw" (original gruul, original magtheridon).
They played fair with difficulty in Sunwell, making the encounters legitimately difficult, and even so there was never a boss that survived more than one reset worldwide.
Avhi Jan 28th 2010 4:50PM
"The problem here is that the only way to make the content gate itself is to make it so hard that even the hardcore elite guilds of the world have trouble with it, which effectively shuts out the other 98% of WoW players from every seeing it."
"The Gating is there to prevent world-class uberguilds from clearing the place within 6 hours of release because Blizzard had to make the regular mode accessible to less hardcore players."
Your two concerns are at odds with each other as much as bliz's philosophy. On one hand you are concerned about how fast ubber guilds will clear the content. On the other, you are worried that if they don't artificially gate and just make it gate itself, you are concerned the regular joe won't be able to clear it.
First, who care's how quick ensidia can clear content? Does that have any impact on you what so ever? (inc what I am going to get downranked for) Their ability to clear content as such a quick rate is a testament to how watered down the content is. Go look back in the records and see how long it took them to clear BT or Hyjal, and look at what it is like now.
And don't give me the "hard modes are hard" speech. I am no longer in a raiding guild now a days. Know why? Cause within weeks of the last boss of ToGC being available I got a pug kill on him. That's right, a pug.
Blizzard is systematically reducing the elitist content in the game. Problem is, that system has worked for them for years.
obc Jan 28th 2010 5:08PM
@ avhi: your PUG group killen Anub25 on HM which a lot of guild still havent done and that only after a few weeks release of anub?
Eyhk Jan 28th 2010 5:11PM
The reason behind Blizz's changes was for more people to get to experience the entire game. Back in Classic, if your guild cannot clear ZG, AQ20, or MC, you cannot advance to BWL, AQ40. If you can't do BWL, AQ40, you can't do Naax. A huge majority of guilds never got past MC, while a select few guilds got to see Naax and facerolled through BWL and AQ40. Blizzard had to create whole new raid instances just for the select few, who quickly became bored with the existing content. Now, most everybody to some extent can enjoy the content that Blizz has developed, and that is a huge plus for me. It might take longer than some guilds would like, but what's the rush? I pick the current iteration over Classic any day.
omedon666 Jan 28th 2010 5:12PM
@Avhi
Yes, it worked for them for years. And like the gimmicky cross dressing shock artist rock star, they have their audience now, so out comes the quality acoustic album, and everyone that liked them for all the wrong reasons will either grow with the artist, or join the massively huge new audience that will be drawn to the true talent now being displayed. The artist has grown, he's making music now. We can sing along, or go to some tired old club that's playing the tripe they performed in garter belts and lipstick three years ago.
Me, I like music, so I'll keep listening. :)
Glaras Jan 28th 2010 5:15PM
I have a solution for this issue.
1. No content will be gated. The whole of a raid instance will be available immediately on release of the patch.
2. The content will be tuned to require elite play on the order of Ensidia, et al. But the content will also have clearly defined and pre-built "step-downs" that will allow the instance to be nerfed in a predetermined way. (Conversely, the content could be tuned for regular raiders, but have pre-built step-ups that would be active when the instance is released.)
3. The high-end tuning will be maintained for 3 weeks (or 4, or 2, whatever is deemed appropriate) to allow high-performing raiders to make their attempts at clearing. The loot tables will not differ from lower-end tuning. During this period, however, achievements for downing bosses or accomplishing encounter objectives will have an "Elite" tag to clearly differentiate them from "normal"-tuned achievements.
4. After the determined period, the instance will be nerfed according to the plan, and the Elite achievements will no longer be available.
Nicholas Tam Jan 28th 2010 5:15PM
Limited attempts honestly aren't an issue for most guilds. Back when my guild started working on ToGC, we wouldn't get through 25 attempts over two nights of three-hour raids, let alone 50. Psychologically, when you're having a wipe night, it feels like you're wiping over and over and over, but look up your parses afterwards and you'll usually find there were fewer wipes than you felt. So maybe the 10/15/20 attempts we're getting in ICC is a considerably lower threshold, but if you're getting through the other bosses quickly enough that you still have enough raid time in the week for that many attempts, you're probably putting in 15-20 hours a week (not even accounting for the 10-man/25-man split), then you're in a hardcore guild that cares about your server rank. And it's for the benefit of your kind of guild that you don't have to lose out to guilds that put in, say, 30+ hours a week.
If any guilds are seriously disadvantaged by limited attempts, it's the ones who are good enough to chase server firsts, but primarily consist of members who learn by practicing. It favours the careful, preparatory style of excelling at raids over the performance-driven style of wiping quickly and trying again and again. I'm not so sure that homogenizing play styles is ever good for the game, but that's the cost of keeping progression competitive.
I still prefer attempt limits to a time limit like Algalon's. This way you at least allow for a DC or a bathroom break, or adjourning the raid for a day.
Avhi Jan 28th 2010 5:22PM
Me? I liked the hard rock. Where you really got into it, where the music took you up and you had no choice but to rock out to it with all of your heart. Music that made you feel glorious, that you knew was the pinnacle of how music should be. It was difficult to play, but that just made the achievement of getting through it all the greater to the point where completion of an act was so wonderful that 24 other people just SCREAMED when it was done. When you looked at others who had gone further than you into the music with longing, not knowing what it was like to climb to that next great height but dying to find out.
This new melody? It kinda puts me to sleep. It feels like the song a mother would sing to her child as he has weary eyes at the end of the night. It just doesn't have the same kick that the other did, it doesn't have the same glory, the elation, the fury. There are more voices singing to it, but it seems to me the song was brighter and greater when the few and determined sang along. And when was the last time you heard that great song that was 24 other people screaming with you when it was done? They just meekly say that we will see you all next week, and fade off one by one.
Vandersveldt Jan 28th 2010 5:26PM
Sunwell raiding was godlike. No game, EVER, will replicate the feeling of clearing that. Those of us that really appreciated Sunwell for what it was are only still here because like it or not, it's the best we've got. This, Demons Souls, and Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup. The hardcore base is pretty damn small these days, and it's really sad.
The people complaining that things were too hard, my god, you had 98% of the game to play in! Did you need our 2% to be dumbed down too?
PS, I shouldn't have to say this, but no one does it on this side of the fence. If you agree, click that frickin rank up button!
Styvorama Jan 28th 2010 5:31PM
@Avhi
By saying "Go look back in the records and see how long it took them to clear BT or Hyjal" are you implying that they had the same guild and raiding members then and now? Even for them HIGHLY unlikely.
I think it is foolish for them to program it around the