Random raid factors and the high cost of failure
by Allison Robert 
Jan 30th 2012 at 2:00PM
Compare this to encounters where the primary difficulty is role-specific or even player-specific. Good DPSers pushed their output to the limit on Patchwerk, healers learned to anticipate damage during Malygos' Vortex while one or two people got good at yanking sparks into the raid, and tanks grew experienced with fast pick-ups on Kael'thas. But the average raid group, even when experienced, probably tripped over and over again on encounters like Teron Gorefiend or Anub'arak. When you can't control who gets targeted by Shadow of Death or Anub'arak's spikes and when the randomness limits the experience that any one player can get ... Well, it's easy to see how certain fights acquire the nightmare moniker.
When you think about it, most of the truly difficult boss fights in the game from classic through present have all incorporated that Tag! You're it! element, and the inability to control for that randomness keeps these fights unpredictable and uncertain until players outlevel the content. As Klepsakovic observes, it's not fun for the raid group as a whole to die to one person's mistake, but it's an unfortunate method of making an encounter challenging -- raising the cost of failure.
The Raid Finder version of Dragon Soul seems like an oblique confirmation of what Klepsakovic's saying here, I think, and it's going to be interesting to see what Blizzard yanks or preserves in future encounters to keep the content accessible to as many players as possible. The true distinction between the average, the good, and the great won't be high DPS, careful gearing, or longevity -- it'll be the ability to cope with random elements that will never be present in the Raid Finder version of an encounter.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
extomar Jan 30th 2012 2:21PM
To use a sport metaphor: Raiding in WOW for a lot of people is treated like inter-mural while the game changed into a more junior or minor league. Back before ICC, you could take 25 players and have a dozen players who where "serious" while the others where more casual and still beat a lot of the fights on Normal. For better or worse that formula doesn't work at all in Cataclysm let alone Dragon Soul. It went from "tossing the ball around in an afternoon" to "working on structured drills for the big game".
I do think there is a place for both types of raids but the tools need to be better if Blizzard wants us to "drill" where I'd first start off with a way on Normal to instantly "kill/reset" the fight.
threesixteen Jan 30th 2012 3:08PM
i like the basis of this analogy. i'm sure it'll be disputed in the details but an insightful comment nonetheless.
it is fun for me to look up notes on abilities and strats for fights etc, but sometimes this can get a bit ridiculous for the average wow player. it would be fun to see some boss mechanics set up as individual time-based shooter fights (kinda like the spaceship missions in SWTOR) where independant success (# of kills for example) could be evaluated separately from the raid team success (made it to the end of the gauntlet alive for example)... this way players don't get yelled at for lower number of kills (for example) because the team all made it to the end (maybe room for a few 'misses').
25 man heroics probably fulfill the role of "MLB ball" for the determined, committed player, where 10 normal is a nice pace for the AAA type; while LFR is basically .500 up in a playground.
eel5pe Jan 30th 2012 5:10PM
I LOVE sporting analogies for WoW. Whenever some of my less-geeky friends look down on my hobby, I point out that it's basically like participating in a rec-sports league but on computers over long-distances.
I agree that raids have gotten harder- just look at some of the Molten Core bosses and marvel at encounters with the complexity of a modern five-man boss. However at the same time players have gotten proportionally more skilled: the resources which a player has to improve himself has increased exponentially, whether its addons, elitist jerks, spreadsheets or fight videos. So I don't think its so much that the game has progressed from IM-level to minor league play, it's that players have gotten a lot better so the game had to react accordingly. Just as Naismith had no way of expecting that someday we'd have players capable of dunking, or the NFL could never anticipate that a team could field Ticonderoga-class linemen with the agility of a ballerina, WoW has had to adjust its rules on-the-fly for a playerbase that is increasingly skilled.
But it's a good thing! Fight mechanics are increasingly creative and challenging. The downside is that yes, if you chose not to use the resources at your disposal, you fall increasingly behind the curve. But to continue the sporting analogy, in the old days players could eat fried foods, smoke before games, and party all night afterwards. Nowadays players at all levels of competition know that to win they need to take care of their body, eat right, do drills, lift weights, and attend camps because if they don't they'll get surpassed by someone willing to do so. Yes, it sucks for the more casual player, but look at how much more entertaining a modern basketball game is than say, a game in the pre-shot clock era. So sadly this means that in today's game, a player has to to step up their game or get left behind. If they're unwilling to do so*, don't blame the game, blame the player for failing to keep up.
*I am of course, leaving out an entire segment of the population which either isn't internet savvy enough or not fortunate enough to have friends to guide them. This is something that needs to be addressed by the game, and to their credit the developers have acknowledged that WoW doesn't do a very good job of teaching their players how to play. However, I don't think the solution is to dumb down the content to Wrath-faceroll levels.
extomar Jan 30th 2012 2:23PM
To use a sport metaphor: Raiding in WOW for a lot of people is treated like inter-mural while the game changed into a more junior or minor league. Back before ICC, you could take 25 players and have a dozen players who where "serious" while the others where more casual and still beat a lot of the fights on Normal. For better or worse that formula doesn't work at all in Cataclysm let alone Dragon Soul. It went from "tossing the ball around in an afternoon" to "working on structured drills for the big game".
I do think there is a place for both types of raids but the tools need to be better if Blizzard wants us to "drill" where I'd first start off with a way on Normal to instantly "kill/reset" the fight.
malaika Jan 30th 2012 3:04PM
So THAT's why I remember Sindagrosa so vividly. The Ice Blocks, the magic debuff, that thing in Phase 3, etc.
DarkWalker Jan 30th 2012 3:19PM
One of the most fun boss failures I ever had was a not-wipe on Sindragosa, when a player single handedly managed to freeze the whole raid, minus one tank (me). It was not a wipe because, when every living player is encased, the fight resets and the ice breaks - and without any healing I went down fast. So, 9 out of 10 players made it out alive :)
Jamus Jan 30th 2012 3:20PM
I remembered Sindragosa vividly because my magic was pathetic and it constantly betrayed me...
HerriPaul Jan 30th 2012 3:27PM
Drats, Klepsakovic lost me when I made the mistake of reading some of his political inanities first…
Tom Jan 30th 2012 3:58PM
That's tame compared to the deluge of drek I'm exposed to from the Left daily. You think people can't get any more irresponsible, then you read Twitter, Yahoo, MSN, Facebook...a true litany of the irresponsible.
klepsacovic Jan 30th 2012 4:04PM
That's why you save the political inanities until after the rest. Like dessert.
I wonder how much the problem stems from the rolling rather than progressive raid model. Under a progressive system you'll see more filtering, so that by the time people get to higher raids, you can be sure they know how to play and are in the habit of quickly learning new fights. That means the devs can hold off the random noob checks until later raids and only test the higher end guilds that would have a more homogeneous, and high, skill level. With the rolling model, both good and bad players will inevitably run into those fights, causing the problem we see.
Narayana Jan 30th 2012 3:41PM
I was actually thinking about something very similar to this the other day. One of the key components of raiding that is missing from raid finder is any real threat of failure. On the surface, this seems like a guaranteed by-product of PUG raiding with 25 strangers. However, I think there's a real line of distinction that should be drawn on what should and should not be assumed from a raid finder group.
Because Raid Finder is built on PUGs with no ability to voice chat and no long-term culpability, Blizzard is right to require much in the way of coordination from Raid Finder groups. They can't include mechanics that require everyone to do X or the raid wipes for fear that one bad player (or troll) could wipe the group leading to a bad experience for 24 people because of one guy.
However, this lack of coordination does not mean that there should be no threat in RF. Instead, Blizzard should focus on threats based on personal culpability with personal consequences in the RF difficulty. It really hit me when I was doing Ultraxion the other day and I neglected to hit heroic will. I was shocked that I didn't die- and actually a little disappointed. Something so integral to the fight and so obvious SHOULD kill me.
And that's the extent of it- it should kill ME, and not wipe the group. Of course, the group will fail if there are enough people not doing the right things, but that is also not an innately bad thing. The group didn't fail because of one guy in this case- it failed because of the sum efforts of the individuals in it.
Evelinda Jan 30th 2012 10:36PM
so true!
RF ultraxion is a fight with a completely obvious mechanic, that blizzard actually provides you a button to avoid. If you fail at clicking a button, you should absolutely be punished for it. As it is, if you've got a competent heals team, then you can quite happily never push that button, and then get healed up straight after.
I agree, don't punish the raid for one person not pushing the button, but by God, that person should definitely be taking a dirt nap.
VSUReaper Jan 30th 2012 3:52PM
While I understand whats being said, I personally like the randomness of the "Tag! Your it!" phase of encounters. It keeps the fights from being overly choreographed, and makes you think on your feet.
Anuberak's spikes are on me, I have to kite it through the ice. I'm melee, so I cant just turn around and start DPS'ing right away when the spikes leave me, so I have to make sure that I can get back to where the boss is positioned. Intervene, heroic leave, charge: with 3 key strokes I'm back on the boss and I'm excited because I didn't screw up.
Patchwork, Kologarn, Baleroc, Staghelm - those fights are relatively boring and are executed like a choreographed dance, even if that dance includes you standing still dpsing for 4 minutes.
The randomness is good for the encounters as long as it can be worked with. If its a "hey - your going to die in 55 seconds no matter what happens! Sucks to be you" mechanic, then yeah, thats no good. But if its a "your going to die in 55 seconds unless you run around and touch the orb then play paticake with my chimp" then that can be worked with. You teach each raider (shouldnt be that hard or else they prolly shouldn't be raiding" to watch for the debuff, show them where the orb, and tell them how paticake goes and let them experience it for a handful of wipes.
Watch some vids, experience the fight a few times, and if you still cant seem to master the mechanic, maybe you shouldn't be in the raid?
Felinae Jan 30th 2012 11:57PM
You just described Vaelestraza - boom, you're going to die in x seconds, BTW you will go boom, so don't be standing next to anyone else or you will take them with you. Have a DPs boost to make up for the fact you're going to die.
klepsacovic Jan 30th 2012 4:05PM
I wonder how much the problem stems from the rolling rather than
progressive raid model. Under a progressive system you'll see more
filtering, so that by the time people get to higher raids, you can be
sure they know how to play and are in the habit of quickly learning
new fights. That means the devs can hold off the random noob checks
until later raids and only test the higher end guilds that would have
a more homogeneous, and high, skill level. With the rolling model,
both good and bad players will inevitably run into those fights,
causing the problem we see.
DragonFireKai Jan 30th 2012 8:26PM
I think that's responsible for the failure, but I don't believe that that's what's creating the outcry. In earlier times, most of the players claiming that raiding mechanics are too unforgiving were getting bounced out of Karazahn despite wearing sunwell level badge gear. Failure was the norm for them, it's what they expected. That hasn't changed. They failed at raiding in BC, and they're failing at raiding now.
What's got people up in arms is the fact that they now have expectations that are out of alignment with reality. Players spent the better part of an entire year raiding ICC10 with a 30% buff while wearing emblem gear that was 13 ilevels higher than the gear dropped in the instance. It was the equivalent of raiding Firelands on normal right now. They spent months running pugs with minimal standards and no voice com that would clear the entire instance because everyone overgeared it.
People got used to that, they expected that it was the norm, rather than a desperation pitch by Blizzard to bridge the gap to an expansion that was still a year away from a rushed release. When those expectations proved to be unfounded, they raged. If Cataclysm had been released six months earlier, this problem wouldn't exist.
Kasika Jan 30th 2012 4:14PM
I don't mind RNG fights if it kills the player for doing/not doing something he should/shouldn't of done.
I hate fights which punish THE WHOLE RAID when 1 player fails.
eel5pe Jan 30th 2012 4:30PM
Two somewhat related anecdotes:
1) We have one player who sucks at character control. I can count on one hand the times she's lived through Alysrazor's tornadoes, or P4 of Rag, or Atramedes' sound waves, or getting pulled inside Frostmourne, or... you get the picture. We won't kick her because we're a close-knit group, but I think the stress she's caused has taken five years off my life. However we've cleared DS at a record pace because none of the mechanics, outside of Fading Light (which is really just being alert enough to hit a button), have the "Tag You're It" mechanic. It's a good feeling progressing so fast, but I dread when Blizzard inevitably makes fights with those sorts of mechanics again.
2) The most stressful day of my WoW life was when, as a casual member, my raid-guild pulled me in off the perma-bench to do attempts on Teron Gorefiend. The author alludes to the encounter but for those of you who haven't done it: he randomly selects a player to die, and that player then has to control a minion with unique abilities to kill some adds. Fail and the raid wipes. It was in many ways the epitome of personal responsibility, because it could pick anyone in the raid (other than the tanks), and if you failed repeatedly your guild had no choice but to sit you for the fight. That night Senor Gorefiend picked me EVERY SINGLE BLOODY TIME, even though I'd never been there before. Even worse, he would often pick me first, which sucked because if you died later people who died before you could help kill your adds, but going first means you have to do it unassisted. We got him on the tenth or so attempt, and I got a lot of praise in gchat. Took a lot of screenshots. A good day.
zEagleEye` Jan 30th 2012 4:36PM
Note - I am not a raider and have not been one. This is how I see things, I speak for nobody but myself.
I know at least one angry commenter (looking at you DragonFireKai) will down-vote me and lash me for bringing an "ignorant" into the discussion, BUT you may want to compare notes with the "Greedy Goblin" (http://greedygoblin.blogspot.com/) who wrote multiple times about the "dancing" in WoW.
I think that this column (allison's) and the "originator" (Klepsacovic's) point to the key issue, and that is the cost of failure and its consequences.
If in the past a "weaker" player died but the raid killed the boss, the main punishment was the "weaker" player (and the extra load for the ones who carried him/her).
If now a "weaker" player can cause a wipe then the "better" players would logically oppose bringing the "weaker" player in.
I'm told that the game used to be divided into Raiders ("l33t") and the rest of us. This was changed somewhat over time. Now it looks like the movement is back the other way.
If the "l33ts" want to be left alone in their sandbox it's their right.
It is also the right of others to voice other opinions.
I know I went a bit overboard here, but it's because of some intolerance I have noticed.
DragonFireKai Jan 30th 2012 8:16PM
My, you sure took it personally that I disagreed with a blog someone else wrote.
I take fault with Gevlon's theories because he's claiming that this "dance" is something new to Cataclysm. It's not. Other people have mentioned Gorefiend as a prime example, but raiding is and has always been rife with them.
Person selected at random fails to move on Geddon? Wipe.
Priest healed the tank during a Class call on Nefarian? Wipe.
A person who was randomly selected to go into C'thun's stomach screws up and dies to digestion? Wipe.
Someone dropped the injection on Grobbulus in the wrong place? Wipe.
One person fails to properly track their debuff on Thaddius? Wipe.
Chained frost tombs on Kel'thuzad? Wipe.
Screwed up the beams on Netherspite? Wipe.
Moved during Flame Wreath on Aran? Wipe.
"that guy" got picked by Bloodboil? Wipe.
In the past, if a weaker player failed at those mechanics, the raid wiped. A raid was justified in being opposed to bringing a player who chronically failed at living bombs into Molten Core, the very first raid instance. This has persisted through every raid instance in the history of the game.
Gevlon is just seeing it now because prior to Wrath, he was an auction house kingpin who didn't raid. Then he bought a spot in Windwalkers, a guild that was working through Hard Modes in Ulduar. He raided with them periodically until ToGC, when they could no longer afford to carry him. At that point, he created "Ungeared" where he took a bunch of undergeared players and raided ICC10 with the 30% buff, and made it through 8/13 normal mode. When Cataclysm came out, he putzed around trying to make groups to rejuvenate dead factions on lopsided servers. When he decided to get back into raiding, he tried making "The PuG", which is pretty much exactly what it sounds like. The PuG got their teeth kicked in because it had no standards, it didn't use any voice communication and had no set attendance, and there was neither 24 other high end players to carry him as happened in mid-Wrath, nor a 30% buff to boost him as there was in ICC. Every tier, Gevlon ran a different social experiment. There's nothing wrong with that, however, he's failed to see how the constraints of his experiments have altered his perception of the raiding experience. He has no idea what it's like to actually raid. He refuses to take the steps that would make his raiding more successful, instead he foists his failures onto the head of Blizzard, claiming that they changed things, when in fact, they had not.