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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsPrevious tier of raid content is meant to be pugged, says Bashiok
by Mathew McCurley 
Jun 30th 2011 at 7:00PM
Bashiok does say that servers will take a bit to gain the momentum and general fluency with the encounters, but that it is entirely able to be pugged. Further, he says that from here on out, Blizzard has adopted the mantra of one cutting-edge tier, with the previous raids nerfed to allow players an easier time to complete them.
Personally, I am a huge fan of this type of content shift, and I think we've reached a pretty good compromise with regards to content accessibility and raid design. Raiders get their challenge while the content is relevant, hard modes are still skill-based encounters that do not get the nerf bat, and the previous tier of normal mode content is much more accessible to more casual raiders. Much as Ulduar drakes still presented a challenge in execution during Wrath even though we outgeared them, hard modes in Cataclysm are the execution challenges that will still prove to be tricky for meta achievements. Count me in.
Bashiok comments on previous raid tier nerfs
We specifically intend for the 4.0 raids to be puggable now that Firelands is out. Grabbing some tier 11 by way of Justice, quest rewards, plus across the board difficulty nerfs should really be enough to get them going.
The patch has only been out a day or so though. I think it'll probably take a little bit before people really get it into their heads that they should be pugging the previous tier because it's not too hard to be successful. It's just getting people used to the various encounters and mechanics.
Maybe people are waiting for the holiday weekend? If nothing else, leading one yourself is always an option. I think we'd agree that we need some better ways to get pug raids together considering we intend to follow the "New Raid is Hard, old Tier is Puggable" format from here on.
The patch has only been out a day or so though. I think it'll probably take a little bit before people really get it into their heads that they should be pugging the previous tier because it's not too hard to be successful. It's just getting people used to the various encounters and mechanics.
Maybe people are waiting for the holiday weekend? If nothing else, leading one yourself is always an option. I think we'd agree that we need some better ways to get pug raids together considering we intend to follow the "New Raid is Hard, old Tier is Puggable" format from here on.
The news is already rolling out for the upcoming WoW Patch 4.2! Preview the new Firelands raid, marvel at the new legendary staff, and get the inside scoop on new quest hubs -- plus new Tier 12 armor!
Reader Comments (Page 4 of 4)
Speetz1213 Jul 1st 2011 2:21AM
I think it is a solid way to do things; as someone who got to t11 content late, as I hit 85 on my Rogue about 1 month or maybe a few weeks into Cata, but decided I hated DPSing on him (Get's REALLY boring after 3 hours 3 days a week -.-) and leveled a Shaman, to heal, as my main PvE toon. I do 2k+ PvP on my Rogue, and though my Shaman was at about 355ish when 4.2 came, therefore only needing a couple JP t11 pieces and some of the new loot to hit 359/360 so I can raid, it will make getting my Rogue geared much faster, so I can PuG these raids or do them with my guild on off nights. I love this whoe idea for alts, and the fact that over time you can still get 365 + gear without actually raiding, while Raiding stil provides the best challenge and reward!
So my Rogue, I will grab maybe 2-3 365/378 rep/quest pieces, maybe buy 1 if I'm lucky, then just run Heroics for a couple weeks with guildies to have him geared for entry-level (and possibly more with the DPS Rogues can actually pull now) FL raids!
Plus, even if I decide to switch guilds, because for instance my current one is stuck on the second FL boss for a month and isn't getting anywhere and I could easily be playing at H mode level, but they are holding me back, I can go to another guild and miss a week etc. and still feel like I'm getting SOMETHING out of either crafting, questing, rep, dailies, etc.
It's nice that this tier there is more going on, and I think they handled the tier/gear situation, along with the rep/quests/crafting, and everything else very, very well.
Now if only the (not-so) 'epic' Thrall quest was a few DAYS longer, and the initial dailies weren't so underwhelming, though did pick up somewhat (I wish they took up more than 10 whole minutes -.-) then I'd be happy as a clam. There is a bit more they could have done in that department, though it is pretty alright, mostly made up for to the level of "decent to pretty darn good" form how neat and intricate both the FL raid is, and to a lesser extent the Molten Front.
They made MF REALLY seem like there was a war going on, and this was right behind the front lines, and we were barely able to hold them back, you know? Now where was that same effort for the Thrall teleport-me-til-I'm-done "quest?"
dk Jul 1st 2011 2:56AM
Ummm ... this is great, what is the name of this raid that I can pug? Everyone is so comfy with the lingo that I can't know the name of the raid. Seriously, an amazingly thick layer of wow-speak in this article.
MrJackSauce Jul 1st 2011 3:07AM
They are talking about any raid or "Tier Level" that is not the current one.
Right now they mean BoT, TotFW et. al.
MrJackSauce Jul 1st 2011 3:08AM
Thehee, I mean Bastion of Twilight, Throne of the Four Winds and Blackwing Descent.
dk Jul 1st 2011 3:09AM
Just the name of the puggable raid ... the three letter acronym, would be fine.
dk Jul 1st 2011 3:10AM
Ty ty, mrjacksauce.
Jex Jul 1st 2011 3:44AM
I can get behind the reasoning for this, but I still don't see that the difficulty nerfs were necessary in order to achieve what Bashiok's aiming for here. Gear alone would have done that.
I'm in a casual raid guild that was 10/12 when 4.2 hit. We had BoT cleared and we'd probably have managed the others if we had a bit more time. Only one of our raiders had the 'Cataclysmically Epic' achievement as of 4.2, but we were still finding most of the t11 bosses significantly easier as we geared up. Only the end-raid bosses and the rng madness of Ascendant Council were causing us any real headaches.
Last night we waltzed into BWD and utterly facerolled everything up to Nef. If we'd had another half an hour available he'd probably have gone down too. I'm really not sure it needs to be *that* easy. WoW has a natural 'nerfing' process built into it with gear inflation and patch 4.2 has made >t11 gear remarkably easy to pick up: you could quite easily get yourself three 378 items in the first lockout without touching a Firelands boss. At the same time, any
Lost Sul Jul 1st 2011 4:00AM
The new nerfed BWD is more forgiving than a Z-heroic now. We obliterated it in a pug in about 2 hours tonight. The deadliest boss is now the elevator boss. Nef was a joke. We zerged Ony and easily healed through crackles phase 3. Was like running Naxx in ICC heroic gear back in Wrath.
Draven Jul 1st 2011 6:13AM
Absolutely right - where Cataclysm shafted the casuals big time at launch was the insanely tough heroic's and the lack of a introductory tier of easy Raiding like Naxx in WotLK.
The so called elitist's were happy and vocally asserted that the casual's should stick to normal 5 man's and stay there - an assertion GC's much reviled blog validated.
So once 85 - the average time constrained casual was supposed just roam around in 3 lvl 85 normal dungeon's with Heroic's and PUG weekend raiding Wrath Style outta the question.
600K Casual's dumped WoW soon (I'm sure loads more left subsequently) and Blizz immediately realised what catering to the vocal elitist's can lead to.
I left about a month after Cata too and have re-subbed only recently due to 4.2 changes and direction the game has taken.
I look forward to Trade chat being full of Tier 11 PUG's that i will run with on weekends - as it is only weekends that i have time to be on for more than an hour.
And you know what is ironic - all the so called elitist's who hate 'Content being nerfed' are actually not uber gamer's who play for the challenge - 100% of these moron's have spent months raiding and barely managed to clear normal mode's - and then failed spectacularly on Heroic Modes.
The raider who has cleared heroic mode's is not bothered at all by old or even current normal content being nerfed - just these vocal idiots.
eel5pe Jul 1st 2011 10:55AM
You complain about elitists dissing casuals, so you repay them by generalizing and stereotyping elitists.
Ghostcrawler's "much reviled" blog? He turned out to be right! He said yes, content was hard and exclusive, but it would become available to the less-geared, less-skilled, and less-motivated once gear was more easily obtained and people practiced the encounter. That's exactly what's happening now! Heroic dungeons are pretty faceroll now. People instinctively deal with mechanics, and the ones that are missed can be tanked/healed through.
How do you know the 600,000 players who quit were casuals? Yes you were among them, but that doesn't make them all like you.
How do you know that just because I didn't like the content nerf that I don't "play for the challenge" and am a "moron"? There was a guy on page 1 who was a casual gamer (10 of 12 pre-patch), and didn't like the nerfs because he felt it made tier 11 too trivial. What is he?
You are just as much at fault for generalizing about elitists as the "elitists" (probably trolling on level 1 alts) are for generalizing casuals as bad. Nuance, nuance, nuance.
Chmee Jul 1st 2011 8:00AM
I'm really of two minds about this. On the one hand, the ability to do "old" content more easily is a plus. On the other, it exacerbates the old feeling that "ooh, new content, I have to drop everything I was trying to accomplish and go do the new stuff". If, like me, you're not hard core enough to make sure you get all your old "to do" lists completed before a new patch comes out, you feel like you're continually behind the eight ball and trying to catch up, which is not a feeling I like to have.
dms614 Jul 1st 2011 8:43AM
There will always be complainers, there's no magic balance. The thing I'd like to see is more levels of difficulty. Seems like in Burning Crusade there were more steps (and it wasn't crazy hard to jump up onto that next step, they were a bit smoother). Regular dungeons while you level, heroics when you hit 70, 10 man Kara and ZA, Gruul and Mag, Serpentshrine and TK...you had to get gear from these "steps" to do well in the next level of difficulty. There were also attunement requirements for the dungeons and some raids (which, after the billionth shadow labs run I was hating for heroics, but I also think attunements for raids can give Blizzard a chance to immerse you more in the lore behind that raid as well as keep the hard core people from experiencing so much of the "rush to level cap, grind, grind, griiiiiind, burnout" - but that's a different story)
With all of the comments I see about casual people wanting to experience the lore vs. hard core people wanting challenge and rewards, it might be worthwhile to think about bringing back vanilla difficulty to hard modes with different fight mechanics and more strategy required for the raiders that want the challenge (with time sensitive rewards like titles or mounts) and regular modes that drop only heroic quality gear that are possible to pug for the "casuals" that care more about the lore and experience than the gear. This way nothing has to be nerfed and the even smaller percentages of people that want to try to solo a hard mode or see it the way a cutting edge raider did at the time, can.
thebitterfig Jul 1st 2011 9:40AM
Thing is, all old content becomes trivialized and puggable (provided one can find the players) at some point. Onyxia was once hard, became easy, they buffed her to hard again, and eventually she became easy again.
The only difference is that they're intentionally doing this each patch, rather than waiting for gear to greatly outscale late-expansion, or waiting for the expansion switch. Kudos, I say.
Shinae Jul 1st 2011 11:04AM
/LFR
HalcyonGT Jul 1st 2011 11:13AM
Maybe its just my experience. But PUG raiding does not work. In fact, I dare say its a contradiction of terms. Again, this has been my experience over the course of two expansions (BC & Wrath); and I get it...some people do in fact have had success doing so. But on a consistent basis? Am I to understand that an expansion that at one point had players banging their heads on walls due to the difficulty of heroic 5mans will now feature accessible raiding? Not saying its not true. But it boggles the mind as to how this is even remotely possible. Raiding takes synergy, communication, established relationship(s) and concerted effort on everyone's part.
I've attempted PUG raiding for the last two expansions due to my raiding guild dissolving...and out of sheer wanting to see/experience the content; I allowed myself to be burned out on WoW. I still love the lore and the game itself. But the concept of teaming up with others to get things done no longer appeals to me. The concept of attempting raiding with 9 to 24 other people who may have a myriad of concerns that would be foreign to me is seriously troubling.
lsprof4 Jul 1st 2011 1:11PM
I hate to say it but I agree... after my friends all left, pugging quick LK 5 mans were about all the social I wanted.
Foodtime Jul 3rd 2011 2:17AM
we had SIX MONTHS to do T11, it wasn't hard and WAS puggable. Now it's nerfed, and the current content has been downed in the first week. One seven boss raid is the silliest thing I've ever heard, and this has to be the worst raid patch ever.
Blizzard doesn't know what they are doing anymore, imho.