Arcane Brilliance: Adventures with and observations on the Raid Finder
by Christian Belt 
Nov 5th 2011 at 10:00PM
I have to admit: Nothing in patch 4.3 excites me as much as the Raid Finder. Not transmogrification, not the Deathwing raid, not the fact that we're drawing ever closer to me being able to roll a Pandaren kung fu mage. Nope, I'm excited about the Raid Finder.
There was a time during my WoW career when I was able to adjust my schedule around my guild's raid nights, but that time hasn't really existed for some time now. My family has grown, my work responsibilities have grown, and my WoW time has become increasingly limited and far more unreliable. I play when I can play these days, and it's nigh impossible to plan a raid schedule around that. I'd wager I'm not alone in this.
So the idea of being able to see much of the same endgame content and gear up enough to help my guild on my own schedule much the same way I gear up through 5-mans now ... that just thrills me to death.
But putting together a 25-man raid is an exponentially more complex endeavor than simply throwing together a 5-man run. How does this Raid Finder tool function in practice? Well, I've taken my mage to the PTR, and I've tested it out for myself. And I'm here to tell you:
It totally works. And it totally doesn't.
The Raid Finder will totally find you a raid
First things first. As a tool to locate 24 other well-geared players to fill a raid or as a tool to fill a few empty spots in your guild's raid, the Raid Finder performs as advertised. You can absolutely take your lonely mage, queue him for a raid, and be coupled with 24 raid-mates in a matter of minutes. On the PTR, with a limited playerbase (but one which I assume is extremely interested in testing out this new functionality), my mage was finding raids in 10 minutes or less, a far shorter wait than he has on the live realms for 5-mans.
It's tremendously convenient, user-friendly -- and even in the early stages of testing, almost seamless. I encountered the occasional disconnect, but by and large, the Raid Finder will find you a raid, and fast. We'll see how it holds up when millions of players are using it, but it seems like the framework is solid.
The system generally puts together a balanced raid. The gear requirements are fairly steep, ensuring nobody comes in undergeared. The setup selects two tanks, six healers, and 17 damage dealers, and it analyzes gear to try and provide a good mix of melee and ranged DPS. What you end up with, most of the time, is a reasonably varied selection of the parts you need to organize a raid.
The trouble generally starts once you're safely in and ready to start downing bosses.
Lack of leadership
When queuing, you can select whether or not you want to be a raid leader, and the system automatically chooses one of those brave individuals to be the actual leader of these 25 disparate personalities. The problem is that oftentimes, that guy -- the one who just a few minutes earlier clicked a box agreeing to be a raid leader -- is in no way prepared to be an actual raid leader.
The first raid leader I got proceeded to lead us in absolute, serial-killer silence. I could hear him breathing over voice chat ... at least I think that was him ... but he was otherwise completely mute. Being a raid leader is far more complicated than being the dungeon leader in a 5-man. There are things you need to do. And there is absolutely no prerequisite for clicking that Yes, I want to lead this raid button. You do not have to have raided before. You do not have to know the fights. You do not have to have the capacity for verbal communication. You do not have to have opposable thumbs.
And once you get into the raid and discover that your raid leader is a mouth-breathing sociopath -- or even worse, a warlock -- there is no way to replace him. This is a problem.
It's a simple fix, though, and Blizzard has ample testing time left to address it. Just give us a way to vote on a new raid leader once the raid is formed.
Lack of ability to be led
Though having a bad leader is a crippling blow to any raid, a far more difficult problem to control is the sad fact that a vast majority of players don't seem to be able to listen to a good one. Putting 25 random players together reveals a sad fact: As a playerbase, we simply don't know how to listen or follow simple instructions. It's bad enough when you have an experienced guild and a raid of people who respect each other. Now imagine that those 25 people don't know each other, will never see each other again, and have as their primary motivation some quick loot before their guild run starts in an hour.
I've been in some bad PUG raids before. But prior to trying the Raid Finder, I have never before witnessed such a green-tinged cloud of simultaneous brain-farting as I have in the past week. It's truly disturbing. Mass fire-standing. Pulling before the raid is set up, wiping, then pulling early again. Repeated failure to grasp even the simplest mechanics of a fairly basic fight. People going AFK without telling anyone. Tanks going AFK in the middle of the fight.
I honestly don't know how to address this issue. These are generally well-meaning people who appear to lack the ability or motivation to be lead. It's an issue that exists on the live realms but is brought into sharp focus in this new raid system. I'm hoping that over time, the community will self-regulate itself to the point where this is less of a glaring issue.
A vote-kick system that's far too limited
The current system for vote-kicking folk on the PTR is limited in the same ways it's limited in the 5-man Dungeon Finder. Which is to say, way, way too limited.
When you get the troll who thinks it's funny to repeatedly pull the boss before everybody's ready, or the tank who simply cannot do his job, or the healer who insists on wearing DPS gear, or the 12-year-old racist who can't control his Vent outbursts, or the AFK warlock on follow, or the raid leader who won't lead the raid, or the guy in Russia who is apparently playing WoW on a TI-86 calculator over a satellite phone connection ... You need to be able to kick that guy, and you need to be able to do it quickly.
This isn't a 5-man dungeon run, where three douchebags can queue together and kick anybody they like. This is a vote-kick that requires a majority of 25 people. I firmly believe the vote kick for the Raid Finder should be basically unlimited. When the community can rid itself of the idiots without having to sit out a DCed tank through a 5-minute mandatory wait period or having to endure the 5-man group of trolls who queued together due to limitations on how often you can kick people, I believe a great many of the issues we're seeing on the PTR will diminish.
This is probably the single most vital change that needs to happen before this tool goes live. Unlimited kicking.
And now to try to end on a positive note ...
I've focused on the negatives, but holy crap, am I still excited for this thing! Once some of the leadership/douchebag player kinks have been worked out, this is still a fantastic new way to experience amazing content. By and large, my mage was getting quick groups, and then he was able to experience a toned-down version of the most difficult content in the game with a group of strangers. You still have to be good, and you still have to do your job, but this also provides an opportunity for you to raid how you like without worrying as much about what your guild raid setup needs, what spec you're expected to assume, and what kind of loot your guild leader's girlfriend will ninja from everybody on this run.
The content appears to be tuned so that even a less-than-ideal grouping will be able to succeed. The loot is excellent if not completely top-tier. The fights still need to be learned, but the Dungeon Journal helps alleviate some of the ignorance, if you can get people to actually take a second and read the entries provided therein. I was able to enter a raid, do my job, and feel a sense of accomplishment when we finally downed the boss. The interface is very intuitive and well designed. It's the players who generally screw it up for everybody.
Other things I'd like to see added include:
- Overwhelming incentives to finish the raid. It needs to be something that will motivate even the most flaky among us to stick things out and keep those with the urge to grief in line long enough to get their goodies at the end.
- A rating system for players. I understand this could be abused, but that could be controlled with some thoughtful limitations. If players know they have a permanent reputation rating that other players can see, perhaps they'll be less inclined to be asshats. This would not necessarily be limited to the Raid Finder, and it would probably take quite a bit of work to institute properly.
- The difficulty level is probably about right, but if the problems with the playerbase aren't addressed, it may need to be tweaked even lower, or else nobody will be finishing these raids.
- I want long, long deserter debuffs for those who drop early and shorter debuffs for those who get themselves kicked. I want a massive disincentive for quitting and at least some for being a twerp and getting yourself kicked. I understand that there will be some who get kicked for no good reason, but with a 25-man majority vote required, this shouldn't happen very often, and the debuff should be of relatively short duration so that those who do get kicked unnecessarily won't have to suffer much. The deserter debuff for the Raid Finder currently only applies to queuing for the actual Raid Finder, so those with the debuff can still queue for other things.
- Voice chat enabled automatically upon entering the raid. Getting 25 random people on Vent is simply a mess. But voice chat is just too important to have. There's a default system, imperfect though it may be, and we might as well use it. You'd still have the odd soul who either doesn't have a microphone or doesn't want to use voice chat for whatever reason, but as long as the majority of the raid is able to speak to each other, things should go much more smoothly.
The important thing to focus on, I believe, is this: With the Raid Finder, if you want to raid in World of Warcraft, you totally can. That's big.
Every week, Arcane Brilliance teleports you inside the wonderful world of mages and then hurls a Fireball in your face. Start out with our recent beginner's guide to being a mage, then check out our three-part State of the Mage columns on arcane, fire and frost. Don't forget to look at some of the addons your mage should probably be using.Filed under: Mage, Analysis / Opinion, (Mage) Arcane Brilliance
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 7)
henrymontana1978 Nov 5th 2011 10:05PM
I'm not currently playing WoW. But the Raid Finder is something I'm very excited about using when I do reactivate. I prefer PvP over PvE and don't enjoy raiding on a schedule, so the RF is something I plan to make use of for sure.
Paulio Nov 6th 2011 1:24AM
^ This.
RF is pretty much the only reason for me to resub. I appreciated an article talking about it in-depth. I won't resub for PVP only so I've really got my fingers crossed that RF will bring me back. Go go go ptr testing!
Narayana Nov 6th 2011 9:17AM
I'm in the same boat. I quit back in March and was pretty confident that I was done, but the raid finder got me so excited that I signed up again now to get my Mage and tank geared up.
I am nervous about endless douchebaggery, though. Id like to see a 24 hr deserter debuff that applies to both the raid finder and normal raids.
llcjay2003 Nov 5th 2011 10:16PM
Led, not "lead" :P
This does worry me a bit about the RF, though. Hopefully, Blizzard will address these issues and save us all some major headaches.
Christian Belt Nov 5th 2011 10:32PM
No no, you don't understand. I was talking about players' lack of ability to be "lead," the dense metal. If we were all more dense and metallic, I think the world would be a better place.
Sigh.
llcjay2003 Nov 5th 2011 10:39PM
But then we would have trouble swimming :P
Imnick Nov 5th 2011 10:47PM
I don't know, I think more lead in raids would lead to a bit of a poisonous atmosphere in Ventrilo
Smoke353 Nov 5th 2011 10:48PM
I think the problem is their capacity to be dense. They need to be less leadable.
Twill Nov 6th 2011 10:21AM
I can't think of anything to add to this, but I'm really enjoying what you've all written.
Maybe I'm being too dense.
*Sunglasses*
YEAAAAAAAAAA
Wes Nov 6th 2011 3:23PM
I think with that last comment, this thread is at its end. It was clearly just shot full of lead.
*Sunglasses*
YEAAAAAAAAAA
Tushar Bharadia Nov 7th 2011 9:55AM
I think they need to be more "leadly", they'd me more malleable that way :P
superdx Nov 5th 2011 10:19PM
Pug raids generally are terrible for current content. Bosses are hard, no one knows what to do and you depend on raiders who've already seen this content on their main toon. Everyone else is along for the ride, and not everyone is cut out for teamwork, following instructions or even being at their computers. There's a reason raiding guilds need to recruit - people who need to AFK suddenly do not make good raiders simply because they hold up the raid and then ~20 other people are doing nothing but idling in WoW.
The only raids that seem to work well i.e. don't run 8 hours and can kill 3-5 bosses are old content raids, where everyone outgears the instance and you can have a decent shot at killing anything that doesn't have truly messy mechanics that require repeated practice attempts.
Thus in my opinion the only solution is to make it possible to slightly overgear the raid finder instances so that people actually get something done. Having a raid REQUIRE a raid leader is a terrible pre-requisite, and one that seems to be made at a roll of the dice. There are only so many decent raid leaders in the world! And raid leading itself is a thankless job with a group of recruited people, leading a bunch of unknowns would be a real good way to ensure an account cancellation after a couple tries.
llcjay2003 Nov 5th 2011 10:31PM
"And raid leading itself is a thankless job with a group of recruited people, leading a bunch of unknowns would be a real good way to ensure an account cancellation after a couple tries."
Indeed. If the problems are not addressed, it will be raid leaders who lead on time spent with the "deserter" debuff.
Angus Nov 6th 2011 7:30AM
I instituted "break time" Everyone knows it is coming 2 hours in. You go to the bathroom, get drinks, etc PRIOR to the start of raid. You know it is going to happen at a specific time, so you wait. We went from losing about an hour a raid to various people going "bio afk, 5 minutes" to losing a single 15 minute chunk. It was amazing how this 1 little change sped things up.
I intend to check that leader box and announce a similar move in this thing.
"welcome to my guild's LFR raid. We are here to have fun, hope you are too. We will be doing things a little differently than you might expect. I will be setting things up, looking at folk's gear, etc. I may whisper you to ask why you chose that ilevel 3 grey weapon that is equipped. I don't expect optimized everything, but I do expect some thought and effort, Int trinkets on melee is a no no. While this is going on, I'd like everyone to take a break, get your drinks, doing whatever needs doing. We will not take ANY more breaks until X time. If you have a problem with that, drop group now. If you intend to be an ass hat, drop group now. If you can't follow simple directions, drop group now. If you can't use vent or don't want to, drop group now. We vote kick as a unit, there are 13+ of us and we do NOT intend to have 1-2 people ruin it for the other 20+ in this raid. "
I think I might have to reduce the lines for a /RW macro...
Still working on it.
Poltergeist Nov 5th 2011 10:21PM
I always felt that the first logical step towards implementing a raid finder was to bring the in game voice chat up to par with the sound quality provided by vent and mumble servers. The most important tool I could think of for any prospective raid lead thrown into a pug full of 24 strangers would be the ability to communicate quickly to all those in the raid. Most people are spoiled by the quality that paid servers provide and hate to use the in game voice chat by comparison, and for good reason.
An upgraded sound codec, coupled with a restriction where only the raid lead and those with /assist could broadcast, would have pushed the raid finder from good to perfect.
Having to type out instructions to strangers with little patience and a pug mentality must be a nightmare. This is something Blizzard has overlooked that could have gone a long way towards the success of the new feature. I'm sure the raid finder will work just fine without it, but better voice chat could have made things less frustrating.
SamLowry Nov 5th 2011 11:41PM
No microphone, no interest in getting one. And I will be turning sound off if all I hear is a bunch of mouth-breathing kids.
If the fight is so complex that it can't be explained with a few typewritten instructions, then who is really to blame for the problems that follow? Yeah, the choreographers trying to force us to dance, i.e., the devs.
Samuel Nov 6th 2011 12:01AM
Yeah, how dare the developers try to make fights interesting and fun! How dare they!
*sighs*
Truth is, a lot of fights *are* too complex to be explained in a few short sentences without glossing over many of the details.
Scott Clark Nov 6th 2011 1:36AM
@SamLowry
Voice chat isn't there to explain the strategy before the fight. Voice chat is there to communicate changes to the strategy mid-fight, to account for things going wrong (such as unexpected deaths or disconnections). Voice chat is there to make minor adjustments based on the flow of the fight. Voice chat is there to coordinate assignments, tank swaps, bloodlust and heroism.
The raid leader needs to be able to communicate with the raid. There will be raiders that need to communicate information to the raid leader, so that the raid leader can make decisions. Typing is strictly inferior to voice as a coordination tool when raiders are watching their rotations as well as their feet.
The thesis statement of this article was that a raid requires a) a (competent) leader and b) a raid that is willing to take direction. Not every raider needs to be capable of leading; every raider DOES need to be capable of being led if they are to be successful. You don't need a mic to follow directions, so long as you make sure you're never in a position where you need to communicate anything to the raid mid-fight. For you to say that you don't need to listen to the RL mid-fight, makes you the problem raider this article was written about.
DarkAviator Nov 6th 2011 1:58AM
I haven't tried the voice chat since it's been implemented. Back then it was way too low. Coupled with the fact I haven't met anyone using it (we are mainly using TeamSpeak 3, at least on the German servers here in Europe), I didn't try it again the last years.
Kaphik Nov 6th 2011 8:20AM
And Mr. SamLowry just perfectly illustrated the biggest problem that WoW has: players who refuse to work WITH their group, instead working against their group. The RF cannot weed them out, unfortunately.