Patch 5.3 interview with Ghostcrawler
Mystery of the Unborn Val'kyr
The latest patch 5.3 news
All of the latest Mists of Pandaria news"There are no simple solutions" -- Design diversity in WoW
by Matthew Rossi 
Oct 15th 2011 at 2:00PM
I intend to go over the entire post carefully, but here are some highlights to ponder up front:
- The 1.35% number is just plain wrong. Blizzard has its own numbers that it's not going to share, but the 1.35% is probably as accurate as could be expected without access to Blizzard's internal data gathering.
- Blizzard's design intent is to make content for all of the playerbase. "It's both a blessing and a curse that the WoW player base is as large and diverse as it is."
- Players raid for many different reasons, some challenge, others loot, and others just to see the content. Some players are happy if they just see a boss once, while others enjoy weekly clearing.
- The idea of being willing to wipe a hundred or more times to clear a boss, a staple of the raider mentality for years, is not appealing to most players.
Hardcore or casual, I'm the one holding the mouse
Bashiok - 1.35% of all wow players completed normal FL
As others have pointed out, your 1.35% is just wrong due to the stats MMO is stating, but whatever, we're not going to reveal any of our internal numbers to show how wrong you are, or discount the numbers posted on MMO for that matter. I will say they're likely as accurate as they can be. Meaning, they're wrong, but at no fault of theirs simply due to the data they have available to them. While we do have data we pull and review very regularly, it's not always a true measure of success or failure without considering the context.
We try and make content for all of our players. It's both a blessing and a curse that the WoW player base is as large and diverse as it is. "Hardcore" players for example tend to dramatically underestimate the skill gap between themselves and the vast majority of other players. A lot of games handle this problem through multiple difficulty settings. That is harder to do in a game as content rich as World of Warcraft, but it is something we're looking at more and more with new features like Raid Finder essentially adding a more accessible setting.
But even with a system (we believe) as awesome as the Raid Finder, there are no simple solutions.
We try and make content for all of our players. It's both a blessing and a curse that the WoW player base is as large and diverse as it is. "Hardcore" players for example tend to dramatically underestimate the skill gap between themselves and the vast majority of other players. A lot of games handle this problem through multiple difficulty settings. That is harder to do in a game as content rich as World of Warcraft, but it is something we're looking at more and more with new features like Raid Finder essentially adding a more accessible setting.
But even with a system (we believe) as awesome as the Raid Finder, there are no simple solutions.
One of the points Bashiok makes in this section of the post needs to be examined because it's not just the hardcore players who underestimate that skill gap. A great many people who play this game don't understand how far guilds getting world firsts and raiding heroic content will go for those kills. Hundreds upon hundreds of wipes, class balance ruthlessly examined and the absolutely optimal raid comp chosen, leveling alts for the express purpose of seeing the content and learning it before lockouts. Combine this with skill (yes, the players in guilds getting world- or even region-first kills are most likely far better than most of us reading Bashiok's post), and we're talking a level of skill and dedication that could make raiding impossible for the average player if normal mode raids were designed to meet it.
World of Warcraft effectively is about to have several difficulty settings for raiding. Raid Finder raids will be the baseline of difficulty, with 10- and 25-man normal raids the next level (and there will be players on both sides of that divide arguing which is harder; it's not germane to this post), and then heroic content as the third level of difficulty. This is the most diverse level of difficulty in raiding since 10- and 25-man raids were given a shared lockout, and it is directly due to the wide variety of skill, dedication, and gear spread across that diverse playerbase.
Bashiok - 1.35% of all wow players completed normal FL
Players are motivated to raid (and do any content for that matter) for a lot of different reasons. A sizeable number of players are satisfied with seeing most of the game content once. If they kill the dragon or slay the Lich King, they (appropriately) feel like they have won the game. That view is pretty heretical to the traditional raider, who is used to working for weeks to defeat a boss and then spending the next few weeks or months farming that boss so that their group has a leg up for the next tier of content. Other players can be motivated by gear, and once they accrue their rewards they are done with the content. Others are motivated by the challenge, and if things are too easy, they lose interest. These players also tend to assume that everyone shares their mindset and they will be happy to wipe on a fight over and over and over with hopes of improving.
In reality, we know from data that a lot of players might be willing to wipe a few times, and then after that, they're done raiding and potentially even playing. It might be easy to dismiss those players and argue raiding is not for them, but that's not really our design goal. Raids represent an enormous commitment of developer resources. In the same way that we would never make 20 new Arenas just for Gladiator-level players, we don't want to develop a raid that only 2% of our raiders can see. We will make sure that there are challenging encounters for players who enjoy that sort of thing (as many of us professional game developers do), but then our goal will be to, over time, broaden the potential audience by bringing the content difficulty down. We think the shock with Firelands for some players was that the nerfs were so severe instead of gradual. For the 4.3 Dragon Soul raid we plan on gradually nerfing it over time, sort of like we did with Icecrown Citadel, except by nerfing the content instead of buffing the players.
In reality, we know from data that a lot of players might be willing to wipe a few times, and then after that, they're done raiding and potentially even playing. It might be easy to dismiss those players and argue raiding is not for them, but that's not really our design goal. Raids represent an enormous commitment of developer resources. In the same way that we would never make 20 new Arenas just for Gladiator-level players, we don't want to develop a raid that only 2% of our raiders can see. We will make sure that there are challenging encounters for players who enjoy that sort of thing (as many of us professional game developers do), but then our goal will be to, over time, broaden the potential audience by bringing the content difficulty down. We think the shock with Firelands for some players was that the nerfs were so severe instead of gradual. For the 4.3 Dragon Soul raid we plan on gradually nerfing it over time, sort of like we did with Icecrown Citadel, except by nerfing the content instead of buffing the players.
What I find fascinating about this passage of the post is how up front Bashiok is about the design challenge inherent in trying to design raiding content for these widely disparate groups of players. To a degree, the Raid Finder is a means to an end, and that end is helping satisfy players who are not willing to invest the time required for higher difficulty in raiding, making it possible for them to get in and see these boss fights.
The evolution of content and the raid
Raids are being tasked (and have been tasked throughout WoW's existence) with two fairly divided challenges. Raids are where the biggest lore reveals in the game are, and they're also where the hardest, most complicated, and most rewarding fights in the game are. If you're a total lore nerd (guilty) like myself and you actually want to be able to see fights like the most recent tier's Ragnaros fight, you need to either figure out a way to get yourself into the cutting edge of raid progression, or you can watch a video somewhere. No one pays to play a game so they can watch someone else do it. But for the player who has invested the time and effort to clear the fight when it was cutting edge, the idea that all that work was for naught can be enraging. And that's just two different kinds of playstyle; it doesn't take those that raid for gear or those that raid for technical perfection into account.
This leads to the current and evolving design paradigm where, if all you want to do is see the fight, you can use the Raid Finder and do exactly that. If you just want to gear up, you can run RF for a few weeks, get solid gear and valor points, and you're happy. If you have a few days a week you can dedicate to it, you can raid normal mode content, experience more challenges and get better gear. And if you hunger for the most difficult fights in the game, you're welcome to focus on heroic modes and achievements.
Furthermore, all of this has to have some level of pick-and-choose in order for the system to work. Raiders who want to push the absolute bleeding edge of content are going to make use of RF to gear up their alts and get familiar with fights. RF-geared players still have the option of running a normal mode pickup group and will have the benefit of not going into the harder version of the raid blind or undergeared.
The difference coordination makes
Another element of the argument to discuss is this willingness to wipe and how it influences when content is lowered in difficulty. One of the barriers in getting players to see raid content is the ability to assemble a raid team, which is an aspect that the Raid Finder is aimed at addressing. Another, however, is purely in terms of the content's difficulty and in how much skill and coordination it requires to complete it. There is a vast difference between a raid group that has experience working together and a group of strangers unfamiliar with raiding itself. What Bashiok said about hardcore players underestimating the skill gap can also be used here: The average WoW player who raids even in a normal mode capacity does not understand how much of an effect their knowledge of each other, of how to communicate and how to adapt to each other, has on their ability to complete the content.
I am not saying that you are better than a pickup group's players because they are bad. I'm saying you're better than they are because you have overcome a barrier: You have familiarity with each other, with your strengths and weaknesses as players, and that you know how to communicate with each other. This is a barrier to raiding that you have already overcome, and it should not be underestimated or ignored.
Your group has already found its wipe threshold, also. Designing content for as many players as possible means that the entry level has to be wipe-friendly, that it has to be capable of being completed without the same level of coordination that more challenging difficulty settings require. And one of the weapons in the designers tool kit for new raiders coming into this content, especially as time passes, is to progressively lower its difficulty.
I haven't changed my mind about how Blizzard nerfed Firelands, but I also agree with Bashiok here that it was the "how" of those nerfs and not the "why" of them that took me by surprise. Content will always be nerfed as it loses relevance, even if it is only nerfed by gear progression. Building an awareness of that process into design can only benefit more players. If you only want to see the content once, wait a few months -- it'll get there.
Bashiok - 1.35% of all wow players completed normal FLThere is another portion of players that are just not interested in raiding no matter how accessible it is, and that's fine too, but we do keep track of how player behavior in the past may match player behavior currently or even in the future as we make these choices. Overall our goals are to ultimately get as many people seeing and downing Deathwing as saw the end of Naxxramas in Wrath of the Lich King. That's not all going to be day 1 of the patch, or even in the first month, but with the Raid Finder and gradual lowering of content we think we can create that initial super high barrier to test the true worth of the hardest of the hardcore, while also providing some fun and accessible content to a much wider swath of players.
What this ultimately does is work the predilections of as many players as possible into design iteration itself. If you know you have this wide variety of player motivations, you also know you can't possibly succeed in designing for all of them initially. But you can gradually broaden the scope of the accessibility of the content. When patch 4.3 launches, there will be new 5-man dungeons for players to gear up in while dedicated raiders hurl themselves into the new raids, and some players hit the Raid Finder to see the content in a "story mode" difficulty setting that will allow more than one kind of raider to gain what they're looking for.
What progression means depends on who is asking
Over time, as some raiders move into heroic modes, others will step up from the Raid Finder or heroic 5-mans to normal mode raiding, be it 10- or 25-man. Then, as content is reduced in difficulty, more and more players will make use of more and more of these options. While it may never reach a level of accessibility wherein all players raid, it will be much more likely that all those players who want to raid will at least get to do some form of it, and therefore, all that content gated behind the barriers inherent to raiding will be available. Just as PVP currently has normal and Rated Battlegrounds as well as Arenas for all kinds of PVP players, from the player who likes to run AV to blow off steam to the player who is going for a 2,200 rating, so will there be options for raiders as well.
This is quite possibly the greatest challenge to design Blizzard has ever undertaken, an attempt to satisfy as many players as possible. Whether it will be successful or not is as yet unknown. It's an extremely daunting task, designing for players who will wipe on heroic Ragnaros 500 times in a few days and for players who would rather not wipe on normal Rag five times. It may not even matter if it can actually be done. The effort of trying to do it, of trying to include both kinds of players and everyone in between, may be more important and more informative for the future than anything else.
Brace yourselves for what could be some of most exciting updates to the game recently with patch 4.3. Review the official patch notes, and then dig into 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, News items, Lore, Hotfixes
Reader Comments (Page 3 of 4)
kaosgrace Oct 16th 2011 9:52AM
@Skarn:
I obviously don't know your raid group, but I'd like to encourage you to keep working on the heroics. My group is in that same zone where the pre-nerf normals were "just right" (we'd been 6/7N for about 2 weeks and had been making some solid progress on Rag when the nerfs came out). And what we've found is that post-nerf, we've been learning the heroics at about the same rate we were learning the normals.
There's one exception, and a good one. Pre-nerf Rhyo took us 130-some wipes in the first three weeks. We just downed nerfed heroic Rhyo in 11 wipes. But Shannox was about the same last week as it was on normal in week 3; Baleroc looks to be about the same difficulty, with the same enrage timer issue we initially had on normal; Beth gave us exactly the same "omgwtf aoe damage, let's come back to this in a few weeks" feeling we had in week 1. If you can get over the "this is heroic and it's scary" mental block, I suspect you'll find they really are about the right difficulty.
Skarn Oct 16th 2011 4:04PM
We pretty much jumped straight into Heroics after the nerfs. We were also 6/7 before the nerfs and had just started working on Rags. Took us one more week to get him down, then moved into Heroics the next week. We're currently 2/7 on (nerfed) Heroic modes. Shannox went down pretty easy after we figured out trapping duties. We also took down Staghelm, who is also fairly easy and is mostly a numbers fight. Short version: Spend a lot of time in Cat phase because Scorpion hits HARD. Working on Rhyolith now, hopefully get him this week.
Sally Bowls Oct 15th 2011 3:34PM
I think there probably needs to be > 3 modes.
I think what casuals need nerfed is not HP/DMG as much as mechanics. There are any number of cool "dance" moves that are required for fun HMs that are killer for a group where a lot of never played together and several even in 10m have never seen the fight before. There is a place for 4-night a week raiders, but my experience is that far fewer % will do that in Cata than in TBC. There is a huge difference between requiring skill and requiring one-time, boss-specific skill. The bottom couple of tiers of difficulty should be far more about playing your class than gimmicks and should be able to be accomplished with 600ms latency.
I also think the "holy trinity" and raid lockouts causes more problems than people mention. If you are not a HC "don't miss a raid or be gkicked" guild, it causes lots of problems. If you have 2 tanks then job/family/illness/vacation/business travel means you frequently come up short. If you have 3-4 tanks who want to raid, you have frequent disappointments and they leave to go where they can raid.
TiredOfTheSidelines Oct 15th 2011 3:37PM
I'm trying to figure what to do about raiding because there really aren't a lot of options.
I was in a good guild in Wrath that cleared pretty much everything, but it was sadly killed by drama when the guild leveling system came out. I ended up rerolling on another server to get away from all that, so I'm sort of both new and experienced.
I'm a competent but not world-class player. I like to think I'm fun to be around (even if not everybody always gets my sense of humor, at least I try very hard not to be critical or negative, and to help out, pitch in, and volunteer). I play as DPS because that's what I enjoy; my performance and gear is competitive (for what you can get without raiding from valor points and dailies). I read about fights I haven't seen beforehand, I come prepared with flasks, potions, and food, and I try pretty hard not to stand in the fire or otherwise make life hard for the healers and tanks.
I'd like to think I could make a valuable contribution to a decent raiding team that lives somewhere between casual and hardcore. But in the current environment, there is nothing between casual and hardcore. Your choices for raiding are to raid with your guild or to raid with PUGs.
There are almost no PUG runs on my server (it's an RP server and I don't think I could ever play on a server that wasn't) and for the few that do happen, don't bother showing up if you don't already have the hard mode achievement for the content they're doing on normal (and all the gear that dropped from it).
(I don't try to start my own PUG runs because I don't have the vent server, the knowledge and experience of the current content, and if I am perfectly honest with myself, the social skills / temperament to be a raid leader.)
With guild raids, the raiding guilds that haven't completely collapsed aren't recruiting because their ranks are already stuffed with the leftover players from the ones that did. That basically leaves "we take anybody" guilds which, while they're fine and I since I said above that I'm not critical, I'm not going to turn around and criticize them now. But my personal experience is that I, in that environment, have not seen a lot of raid content successfully cleared.
So basically, at least on my server, I can't find any regular raids that are both successful and looking for additional people, and I really don't know what to do.
Maybe 4.3 and LFR will change things, but currently in the Zandalari heroics people behind the mask of randomness behave atrociously. I do 4 Z's a week to get valor capped, and I have yet to have a week go by without having to watch (between other people, not myself), people get either vote kicked or relentlessly, viciously verbally abused until they drop on their own because of the slightest mistake, because of some perceived problem with their gear/DPS/healing/tanking, or just because they say they haven't done the content before. And god help you if you try to stand up for somebody the wolf pack has decided is a liability.
This is all a lot worse in Zandalaris than it is in regular random heroics (where it still does happen) because of the higher difficulty and "hurry up valor points" mindset. How is LFR, as the new hardest random-group content, supposed to be anything other than that scaled up? It really doesn't feel like Blizzard is "making raiding more accessible" as much as they are pandering to the lowest common denominator. Which, unfortunately, the lowest common denominator in WoW can be pretty ugly at times. :(
I guess I just miss the old days when 10 people would show up prepared and on time, treat each other with respect, play competently, have fun, and with a bit of patience, make decent progress and slowly advance through the content week to week. (Although I guess saying "I miss the good old days of Wrath 10-mans" puts me in a pretty small club.)
Is it all really gone, or did I just wander too far off the path to find my way home on my own?
llcjay2003 Oct 15th 2011 3:55PM
Sounds like you need a server change, my friend. Check out the WoW site's or MMO-Champ's guild recruitment forums or pick random servers and bring a low level alt in and scope things out. To make it easier, pick a server that is decent on progression (at least top 30%) and has at the least a consistent medium population.
One warning: stay away from Mal'ganis. It has become a cesspool of suck.
TiredOfTheSidelines Oct 15th 2011 4:03PM
I've tried playing on non-RP servers; I just can't do it. Seeing people, real characters wander the streets and have conversations and events is probably the most special part of WoW as far as I'm concerned.
llcjay2003 Oct 15th 2011 4:09PM
Ah, I see. It is indeed difficult, I hear, to find an RP server that has progression in-line with PvE or PvP servers. I confess, I don't know anything about this realm, but I hear Moonguard mentioned frequently as a good server for RP. You'll have to check and see if it is a progression server as well, but it might be worth a look.
VioletArrows Oct 15th 2011 3:53PM
I'm not entirely sure what I'm going to do with the raid finder. As it is, I can barely get through heroics without my last shreds of sanity fraying. I probably still won't use it, at least not for a long time.
What I find curious is, they admit that raiders are the minority, but 1) they always block off story (and put hardest worked on/tweaked content) behind it, 2) they've been told over and over that there needs to be an endgame that isn't pvp or raiding, but this expansion they pulled out almost all the 85 normals and still do 3), try and shove people who don't want to or can't go towards raiding anyway.
On that note, I'm trying to figure out what non-raid endgame content would be. Don't say dailies. I...I don't know how much more of that I can take. *rocks back and forth*
amkosh Oct 15th 2011 3:54PM
I read the forum post a while back, and my take away was different from what's listed here. I'll disclose that I'm a retired WoW player, and that I retired because I ran out of things that I wanted to do that didn't bore me to tears.
The original post that this answered was to wonder why Blizzard tosses so much of its resources towards raiding when so few players actually do it, and what Blizzard could do to improve, or more accurately what Blizzard could do to stop messing up.
My takeaway is that Blizzard(Bashiok)'s response was misdirection. He refused to provide stats, and honestly if the stats were in Blizzard's favor, what would it hurt to do so? Think TOR or Rift is going to care that much? And if they do care and it helps em, so what? Blizzard would be giving at most 1-2 cycles(2-3 months per cycle) to em, as they'll figure it out when they see the reception of content on their games. And all of that would be within one Blizzard patch period.
However, that doesn't matter for crap. Blizzard's past the point where they can bitch and moan and get any sympathy from its players. Most of us are so sick of it, its pathetic. And now Blizzard's charging so much money in US/EU to get into WoW, it can no longer easily replace us. So if Blizzard's reading this, I'd stop talking and start doing. If you want my money, give me something fun to do that will fit in my schedule.
If you refuse, then you won't get my money. And I'm pretty sure that goes for the vasy majority of the player base. No one forces us to play WoW, and we only do so that's fun. And if you think that you can't because you feel you can't please all of us? Well I'm willing to bet sometime, someone will do so.
llcjay2003 Oct 15th 2011 4:04PM
I don't think Bashiok is deflecting at all in not posting stats. Stats are grossly misused and that is highly evident here. Just look at Boubouille's response to this debacle (who was responsible for the stats in question): "
Some people translated that to '1.35% of players saw the end game content!' and forgot that the sample was 2.7M characters, not 10 players, and someone smart pointed out that this % is probably around 15 or 20% at this point. (Which is pretty impressive for the end boss of the latest raiding tier)"
If this situation is not proof enough that people will skew stats to fit whatever they want to bitch about, then I don't know what is.
Secondly, I believe they are announcing a new battle chest at Blizzcon to lower the cost barrier to entry for WoW (the source eludes me, but I am fairly certain of this).
Thirdly, "Most of us are so sick of it, its pathetic." Sick of what? Most of whom?
And finally, "So if Blizzard's reading this, I'd stop talking and start doing. If you want my money, give me something fun to do that will fit in my schedule." I'm sure Blizzard is intensely worried about your money. Plenty of other people (you know, millions) must find something they find "fun to do" in WoW. The RF is their way to "stop talking and start doing" for a wider player base.
DarkWalker Oct 15th 2011 5:39PM
@llcjay2003
I, myself, am waiting for the Blizzcon announcements to decide if I might go back to WoW.
The way the game is currently, I'm simply not willing to go back to it; until gearing up for raiding goes back to being fun (i.e., not stressful), and doable in 30-minutes gaming windows (which is the size of the gameplay windows I actually have during weekdays - I effectively can't attempt anything longer outside weekends), I absolutely won't return. And, while the blues might be hinting at some to-be-announced improvements, there is nothing solid yet - and I lost what remained of my trust in Blizzard with Cataclysm, so I won't take just vague promises anymore.
Besides, there are a couple MMOs expected to be released soon, with a different approach to some game systems, that I want to try: mostly GW2 (instant travel, unlimited stored PvP specs, free respeccing, free server transfer, "raids" that any passing player can participate, individual loot, all classes able to fulfill all roles, and so on), but also TSW (no classes, no levels, instant and free "respec"). If one of them releases before Blizzard can convince me WoW changed enough to merit a second (or third) chance, there's a good chance I won't return to WoW, at least not in the next couple years.
BTW: Blizzard must be worried. Not about me or the OP specifically, but with the trend of players leaving with no replacements in sight. The infinite trial, the complimentary CD-Keys most players got, and BC becoming free all happened a couple months after Blizzard admitted the 600K decrease in the player base. The complimentary CD-Keys, in fact, were sent a week and half before the player base for the following quarter - the one with a 300K players decrease - was determined, so, unless Blizzard excluded those CD-Keys from their subscriber numbers, the real drop might have been even higher.
SamLowry Oct 16th 2011 3:12AM
"but we do keep track of how player behavior in the past may match player behavior currently"
And do they keep track of how many people entered raids during Wrath compared to now? Maybe they noticed a severe dropoff since a lot of us casual raiders were completely shut out by the new guild system.
Raid pugs simply don't exist for us anymore, so Blizz needed to do something drastic to keep us interested, err, keep us paying. (Anyone else out there besides me and everyone in my guild who cancelled their subscriptions for at least a few months this year?)
EverythingRuned Oct 15th 2011 3:57PM
It's all about progression.
If a player hits a wall on a particular boss for weeks and weeks, they can no longer progress. They become bored and might unsubscribe until the next major content patch.
If a player has defeated heroic ragnaros and farmed him for weeks and weeks, they can no longer progress. They become bored and might unsubscribe until the next major content patch.
By this point it's clear that warcraft is not meant to simulate a fantasy world- it's meant to provide the gaming experience that is the most engaging to its fanbase, so tweaking raids when people start becoming unable to progess makes sense.
TiredOfTheSidelines Oct 15th 2011 4:03PM
I've tried playing on non-RP servers; I just can't do it. Seeing people, real characters wander the streets and have conversations and events is probably the most special part of WoW as far as I'm concerned.
TiredOfTheSidelines Oct 15th 2011 4:03PM
Reply fail. :(
jangel66 Oct 15th 2011 4:09PM
i thought the blue post was one of the best i had seen in along time and was impressed with the amount of information it contained.
your review of the blue post was spot on and i enjoyed the article very much
keep up the good work
DarkWalker Oct 15th 2011 6:01PM
For my part, regarding my tolerance for wipes/difficulty:
- For solo content - i.e., content I'm not at the mercy of other player's schedules or lack of skill - I can accept a couple hundred tries for really hard content, perhaps even a couple thousand tries for content that is both long and hard.
- For group content where all the players are actual friends, I can tolerate at least a few dozen wipes if the group as a whole is having fun. This refers to friends, though; if I'm pairing with players that, while not random strangers, are not people I could call friends - as would mostly be the case in a raid-oriented guild without good friendship ties -my tolerance for wipes is way lower.
- For group content with players I know but don't consider friends, I can tolerate perhaps one dozen wipes without progression (or during the course of a random Heroic) before I start refusing to play again with that group, and perhaps even start refusing to do the content altogether with anyone that I don't consider a friend.
- For PUGs, I usually don't tolerate more than half a dozen wipes without progression. Not that I leave the group in the middle, but after one or two such experiences, I stop pugging altogether for an extended time period.
- For Heroic dungeons - due to them being the content meant to be farmed in preparation for raids, and the true rewards only being awarded for beating the last boss - I don't tolerate many wipes or not beating them. A long string of bad PUGs for Random Heroics were the actual reason I left back in January and didn't come back since, not even in the multiple times Blizzard offered me a free week to experience the changes to the game - a couple week of those really burned me out of the game, and this coming from someone that didn't even batter an eye at wiping for a couple months at the LK in a casual/friendly raid.
So, from my point of view, WoW did the difficulty scale wrong. I prefer to do challenging activities solo, and easy activities when in a group full of persons I don't know very well.
BacMan Oct 15th 2011 9:14PM
I think you said it well. Blizzard got it backwards. The fact that challenging content exists only in groups is big reason why so many players get bored. Some would argue that this WoW is an MMO and it required grouping, however I think Blizzard would have more success if more difficult solo content was available. I see no reason why Blizzard couldn't make epic and legendary weapons available through solo content that perhaps could only be used when outside of a group or raid. Items that would be useful for farming, soloing old dungeons, etc. This would give plenty of non-raiders (and raiders) something interesting to do. Running the same two dungeons (which takes on average about 1 hour) every day for some valor is boring. And here's another suggestion ... how about having separate queues for those looking to do dungeon achievements?
RetPallyJil Oct 15th 2011 6:05PM
If raiding isn't your thing, then it isn't your thing. Go away and don't ruin for people who enjoy it.
Amaxe Oct 15th 2011 6:19PM
"Go away and don't ruin for people who dislike it."
Those of us who don't raid fixed it for you.