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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsOl' Grumpy and the Goblet of Firelands adjustments
by Matthew Rossi 
Sep 21st 2011 at 6:00PM
So, this time I've been called back into service to talk about the recent Firelands adjustments, or as I like to call them, significant nerfs. Quite frankly, my take on these is a bit more nuanced than the last time, so I sadly won't get to grump around as much as I prefer. Frankly, there are several key differences between this series of nerfs and the ones to T11 content that make the situation a little less cut-and-dried.
- This time, both normal and heroic content is being nerfed. Last time, normal mode fights were nerfed across the board, but heroic content was left unchanged so that people who wanted to experience it at the original challenge level could do so. This is a decision I lauded at the time, and I find the different implementation this time kind of baffling.
- We got half as much time with tier 12 as we did tier 11 before the changes. Now, to some degree this isn't an entirely fair comparison because we also had to level from 80 to 85 before we got a chance to do tier 11, and in addition there were 13 total fights in tier 11 content plus a bonus heroic only encounter. Tier 12 has eight, seven in Firelands and one in Baradin Hold that barely even counts. But it still seems very early to nerf this content.
- These are some serious nerfs to content that is still relevant. Unlike the T11 changes, which took place as T12 dropped, these fights are still the fights that we're all doing. There's nothing to replace them, no place for the players who have done it before the nerfs to go if they want to stay on the cutting edge of content. This is the cutting edge, and it's now between 15% and 25% less sharp.
Today's most relevant content
I think it deserves to be said again: This is not nerfing outdated content to make people want to do it; this is nerfing the most relevant content the game currently has to offer. Reducing the health and damage for Firelands normal and heroic in this way implies that either Firelands was tuned higher than most raiders were ready for (an assertion I personally would not have supported), or we'll be seeing new content pretty soon, or both. When perusing the comments for the post we did announcing the changes, I was at first surprised and then thoughtful about the number of posters who said they simply had not cleared Firelands yet at the three-month mark.
What I'm seeing people talk about is the amount of trash that needs to be cleared vs. raid time, the basic summer curse we're all familiar with, and the learning curves for specific boss mechanics. I think these are all fair points. In the interest of full disclosure, I'll admit that I've been raiding Firelands since it dropped and clearing heroic modes for over a month, putting me squarely in the middle of the road for raid progression. So for me, these are issues that haven't interrupted my progress through Firelands. But to be fair, I left a less progressed guild that hadn't even completed all of tier 11 a week or so before Firelands dropped, and that guild's lack of progression wasn't based on skill or lack thereof but rather on time and player availability.
Frankly, releasing a major raid in the middle of summer means you have to expect a lot of difficulty filling the rosters. It all snowballs from there, really. A raid night missed for whatever reason tanks progression. If you raid two or three nights a week, missing one of those nights is proportionally bigger than if you raid four, especially if you generally have to raid with whoever shows up like a lot of smaller guilds do. It's not even the case that the content itself is too hard, but time factors compound with each missed raid.
Restel Syndrome
Combine this with new mechanics that are unique to each fight, and I think what we're looking at is the Restel Syndrome. Named for a friend and excellent player I've known for years, Restel Syndrome is when raid design excellence (I'm on record as finding each Firelands fight to be at least solid if not outright brilliantly designed) causes a steeper learning curve that simply cannot tolerate any sort of raid delay or missed learning chance.
The fact that Firelands is seven really well designed boss fights with unique mechanics means that there's no Loot Reaver, no Gunship, no "here's some loot for showing up" bosses that don't take much learning. While you may view a particular Firelands boss as that for your guild, in my discussions with other players, I've noticed a lot of variation as to which boss is easier for what guild. Some struggle on Rhyolith, while others blew right through him. Some love Alysrazor, while others hate the fight. Beth'tilac is equally lauded as easy as it is cursed and bemoaned.
These factors combine and cause each raid to find its progression stymied at different rates. I know excellent guilds that have fallen apart over a perceived or real lack of progress in Firelands, guilds that have been together for years and faced all the challenges of the last couple of expansions and their raid content. Is it my belief that Firelands is an inherently harder raid? No, not at all. But it is my belief that it is providing unexpected roadblocks for guilds of all sizes and styles of play, from the hardcore raider to the semi-casual and down to people who only experience raid content when they pug it. With the emphasis on accessibility that the Raid Finder will provide, this seems to me to be a similar kind of change as the recent threat changes -- a Band-Aid intended to get more people into Fireland while it is still relevant.
The message behind the nerfs
Looking at it from that perspective, do I think this a good change or a bad one? Well, I personally think it's too severe and for that reason would call it a bad change. But I'm not opposed to the basic idea of making such a change to relevant content; I just would have been significantly more conservative in the initial application. I also believe this means those patch 4.3 previews we've been seeing may go live as soon as the end of next month, perhaps just after BlizzCon. Nerfs this big say "This content is less relevant than you think" to me.
In the end, I find these changes baffling and more extreme than was necessary, but I think they might have been inevitable based on how few guilds actually cleared all the content and got into heroic modes. With 4.3 already showing us its hand, so to speak, it may be that the Firelands' time in the sun is almost over.
Brace yourselves for what could be some of most exciting updates to the game recently with patch 4.3. Look at what's ahead: new item storage options, cross-realm raiding, cosmetic armor skinning and your chance to battle the mighty Deathwing -- from astride his back! Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Raiding, Hotfixes
Reader Comments (Page 6 of 6)
Blayze Sep 22nd 2011 5:06PM
"You lost us HOW many customers?!"
Blayze Sep 22nd 2011 9:38AM
Too little, too late. I'd wager a good deal of those who left have been turned off MMOs for good.
saygon Sep 22nd 2011 10:20AM
To all of you "elitist" out there complaining about the nerfs to FL, get over it. There are way, way, WAY more players in the wow community who don't have the time to invest in clearing progression content than who do. Wow is for everyone, not just you jack offs who think progression content is only for you and everyone else should wait for your crappy guild to clear it. please....shut up haters.
Badgelooter Sep 22nd 2011 1:01PM
Here's the thing. Even if the next tier's raid is tuned to the same difficulty level as post-nerf FL, the jackoffs will beat most of us to the punch. It's a simple matter of putting in the time.
For the hardcore player, the whole point of raiding is to experience challenging content and learn how to overcome it. They get a kick out of saying "I was the first person in the world to kill an internet dragon." That makes them happy. Other folks get happy when they hit the gold cap, get a rare mount, hit the top of the PvP ladder, or just get to hang out with their buddies, shooting the poo and taking a few swings at a raid boss when they have the time and the group. By taking away the challenge, Blizzard has increased the value of the game to players who do not put in the time (for whatever reason, work, family, school, or just not that interested...I'm not judging) at the cost of decreasing the enjoyment of the hardcore player by taking away some of the mystique of living on the cutting edge of the game. In the end, it is a matter of time invested learning fights, gearing toons, and perfecting raid comps so their group is number one. Not everyone can do that.
I get the feeling that hardcore raiders are disproportionately represented on this and other forums because they do have the time to invest in browsing these sites. To a large degree, the non-hardcore community relies on them to spearhead the charge into new content. I don't have the time or the knowledge to program a min/max application which tells me how to best gem/enchant/reforge my toon. But some pointy-headed dude who plays for 70 hours a week does. Rather than spending time and gold on trial and error, I can go to a reforger site and, with a few mouseclicks, find out how to improve my gear. A quick search on youtube shows me how to do each fight. Ten minutes on a forum can explain the strat to me so I know what to watch for. As much as the casual player decries the hardcore player's access to content, when the casual player shows up in a raid for the first time, he *should* rely on the hardcore's experience by doing homework.
rapsam2003 Sep 22nd 2011 12:47PM
What's actually scary to me is that they probably won't release 4.3 until after the new year. (Solely for the reason that they want people to buy Diablo 3, and having 4.3 compete with D3 might hurt sales.) So, although this is good, in the sense that my guild can probably clear heroic modes before then, it is bad, in the sense that we'll just be grinding content for gear until 4.3.
A few of my guildmates have done FL on alts since the nerfs, and they've all said FL is stupid easy now (assuming you know the encounters). The good news, from the standpoint of people seeing content, is that more people will probably try FL now. Problem is...I don't enjoy the "rushed" feel. Even if we do have to wait a few months for 4.3, it still feels rushed.
hokiebuddy Sep 22nd 2011 3:20PM
This will probably be one of the last nerfs to happen to content considering they are adding the easy mode to the raid finder. If nerfing the content so people could see it is their reasoning, what reason do they have to nerf content when they create easy mode and if you get stuck on "x end boss" on the medium progression, well at least you can go see him on the easy progression path. Personally I like nerfs as I'm not in a cutting edge guild and we were just starting rag 2 weeks ago before the nerfs, so any change to make it easier for the less apt players that we carry each evening is fine with me :-)
Minos Sep 22nd 2011 11:26PM
I just envisioned orneriness at is awesome pinnacle. Find something Ol' Grumpy and Grandpappy Frostheim disagree on. Have a debate.
amkosh Sep 23rd 2011 1:02AM
I read this as a bribe... I'm guessing is that even more people started leaving after summer ended, full disclosure, I left WoW as well during this period, and Blizzard is trying to show those people that there is more content they can do.
Unfortunately for Blizzard, in my case at least, it is not going to work. My problem with WoW raiding content isn't really in the organizational realm, nor the difficulty tho both factors do contribute. My problem is time, and to nerf the content in that would make em into shortish 5 mans, not the epic things that some players want.