Ready Check: Tiered raid progression vs. raid accessibility
by Tyler Caraway 
Feb 10th 2012 at 5:00PM
Let's do a little bit of polling in my head, shall we? How many of you raided during vanilla? Not all that many, I'm sure, and not purely because not that many folks from that time are still around but also because a horridly low number of people who were around back then did raid. But let's say you did raid. How many actually got to clear through the original Naxx? Now, that's a small number of hands; after all, even Blizzard said that less than 1% of the player base so much as downed a single boss in the that instance. Moving on to The Burning Crusade, how many raided there? More hands that previously, I'm sure. Now how many of you progressed past Karazhan? How many cleared through Black Temple? Sunwell?
Let's keep getting more current, though. How many say Naxx in Wrath? Now how many saw ICC? OK, how many say any T11 content? How many of those saw Dragon Soul? Interesting! The number of hands gets progressively smaller as the raids within vanilla WoW and The Burning Crusade progress, yet it stays relatively the same throughout Wrath and Cataclysm. That's because in Wrath, Blizzard drastically changed its view on raiding -- far beyond merely making it easier.
The truth behind accessibility
Originally, raiding took an extremely linear progression path. You raided Molten Core so that you could get the gear to raid Blackwing Lair so that you could get the gear to raid AQ so that you could get the gear to raid Naxx. The same was true for The Burning Crusade as well. You raided Karazhan to raid SSC/TK to raid Hyjal/BT to raid Sunwell. If your raiding group was good enough, you might be able to pull off skipping a step, but that was extremely difficult to pull off if your raid team was still trying to do progression.
All of that changed in Wrath. Blizzard did far more than create four varying difficulty modes -- 10-man, 25-man, 10-man heroic, and 25-man heroic. It completely revamped the way in which players progressed through the endgame scene itself. You didn't have to farm older raids in order to get into the newer raids anymore; progression instantly jumped to the most current raiding tier. Just hit 80 and ICC is already out? No problem! Justice and valor gear that you can get from farming 5-man instances will jump you straight past all the prior raiding tiers so that you can jump right into the most current raiding tier.
This was the change that made raiding as accessible as it is today. Forget 10s and 25s; forget normals and heroics. Those were nice changes that helped set the curve. But it was the ability to completely skip entire tiers of content that really opened up raiding on a whole new level.
Once you hit max level, you began your search for a solid raiding guild. Generally, you'd find several that were still working on intro-level raids and were more than willing to take you. You'd join up, start raiding, get your gear, and suddenly realize that you weren't really progressing anywhere. You would clear, say, Karazhan, maybe work on a few TK/SSC bosses, maybe even down a few now and again, but true progression never seemed to happen. There was a constant cycle of players coming and going; probably every other week, at least one person seemed to drop off into the void. Suddenly, you noticed that a guild that was already clearing TK/SSC and working on Hyjal/BT was looking for your spec, and they were willing to take you! So you jumped on board. Congrats -- you just left your first feeder guild.
That is what a feeder guild was, guilds whose progression was perpetually locked in a stagnant loop because every time that one of their players get geared enough to the point that the raid might really start to push progression, he would jump ship to a guild that was already progressed. It seems cruel -- those people seem horrible, honorless, and what have you -- but that was how the game was played. Less progressed guilds existed purely for the sake of gearing new recruits for more progressed guilds; thus, the more progressed guilds didn't have to waste their time going back to old instances to farm gear for new recruits.
Emblems and now points removed the need for this type of cycle entirely. Feeder guilds ceased to exist because there was no need for them. Recruits could be fully geared from the previous raiding tier in a week's worth of 5-man farming.
How change is better
In many ways, this was a fantastic change. Being that feeder guild was no fun, perpetually locked into your current state with no means of advancement. It was hellish to everyone involved. Many of these guilds didn't survive very long, and even if they did, their leadership usually changed by the month. It was a system that needed to be broken, and Blizzard did just that. It had to be intentional. Blizzard has always said that the reason it implemented this change was so new players who just hit max level would be able to keep up with their friends -- but let's be honest, that's bull and we all know it. Blizzard saw the perpetual state of feeder guilds and knew that it had to be broken if it wanted true raid accessibility.
Look at the numbers. Even with 10s and 25s, even with normals and heroics, more players fail to complete raid zones than do complete them. There is a disproportionate number of players that've killed Halfus and Magmaw compared to those who've downed Nefarian and Cho'gall. The same was true for Shannox and Ragnaros (although Firelands, with many fewer bosses, did have more equalized progression), and it wasn't until after nerfs to these raids that raid progression did increase.
Without justice and valor gear, without additional 5-mans to boost gearing, guilds still would have fallen into the same pattern that they had in The Burning Crusade and vanilla. It probably wouldn't have been as extreme now as it was then, but it would still have happened. You would still have ended up with guilds that never got through all of T11 and might only have seen a little bit of T12 progression, because their members would have constantly been rushing off to join up with guilds that had already cleared T12 and were working on T13. This gear reset for every single tier was needed to prevent that from happening, and it's worked.
Like magic, though, everything always has a price. While guilds are freed from being stuck in a single tier, players are able to skip entire tiers worth of raiding -- but that was half the point, so how is that a price? Because raids have a purpose. Karazhan was successful, and Molten Core and Zul'Gurub were successful, not due to their design but because of the purpose that they served. They were introductory raids. Their mechanics were a bit simpler, they weren't as tightly tuned (eventually, in the case for MC), and they introduced players to the entire concept of raiding versus 5-man content. A 5-man boss might have a single ability to watch out for, maybe two in a few cases, but a raid boss? You can get 8 to 10 abilities, multiple phases, adds, anything, everything -- it's crazy!
Introductory raids existed to teach players the more basic raiding concepts, that you can't stand in fires, that you have to interrupt, that you need to work as a team. The movement mechanics of Netherspite, while interesting and neat in their own right, wasn't nearly as difficult as those of Hydross. At their core, the two were fairly similar, but Hydross was a step above Netherspite in difficulty not purely because it required more DPS, more effective health, and more healing, but because the overall mechanics of the encounter were more complex.
WoW doesn't have that system any more. There are no introductory raids because every raid is an introductory raid. Players don't progress from T11 to T12 to T13; they don't even progress from T12 to T13. They hit max level and they jump straight into T13 content.
This forces a drastic change to the way in which raids have to be designed. You can't have a first boss like Hydross or Al'ar that are fairly complex and difficult. Instead, every raid has to start with Huntsman- or Mandokir-level fights. For a tier such as T11 where there are 13 or whatever encounters, that's fine. Tossing in a few easier or learning encounters that new players can train against is a good thing. When a tier has only seven or eight bosses, though? It's a little more tricky.
Paying the piper
Compare Dragon Soul to Icecrown Citadel. Marrowgar was a fairly easy encounter as far as those go. He had Bone Spikes and a whirlwind -- that's it. Deathwhisper, too, was fairly basic. Adds spawn at set intervals and set locations, and then you had a phase 2 with simple movement and interrupting. Lootship was lootship, but after that, the encounters ramped up in complexity rather quickly.
Dragon Soul is fairly similar. Morchok is an extremely basic encounter; so too is Zon'ozz and, to an extent, Yor'sahj as well (although I would argue that he's way more fun and potentially complex than Hagara). By the time you're done with the introductory encounters, there's just not much left to go on. Firelands, though better than Dragon Soul as well, was much the same.
Shorts raids are fine by design, but coupled with the need for two or three intro bosses, it makes for rather boring tiers. This is the price that Blizzard is paying with the new raid design. Let's hope that it can amply pay it in Mists of Pandaria, because it frankly did not in Cataclysm.
Ready Check shares all the strategies and inside information you need to take your raiding to the next level. Be sure to look up our strategy guides to Cataclysm's 5-man instances, and for more healer-centric advice, visit Raid Rx.
Filed under: Raiding, Ready Check (Raiding)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Steffan Feb 10th 2012 5:18PM
Wow, less than 1% downed a single boss in the original Naxx? Dang, how many less fully cleared it? And, indeed, how few groups were able to get an Atiesh?
David Whyld Feb 10th 2012 6:28PM
I think Blizzard once stated that only 3% of the playerbase ever cleared Naxx, so that less than 1% managing to kill a single boss is likely a figure just made up on the spot to try and get a point across.
muffin_of_chaos Feb 11th 2012 3:06PM
1% of the current player base, dudeche.
ewinterb@hotmail.com Feb 10th 2012 5:25PM
Maybe instead of adding new dungeons every tier, they should just let LFR work it's magic. And when the next tier comes out, improve upon the difficulty in LFR, bump up it's rewards to match what the normal modes gave, and even give the option for Heroic. Make them 10m, not 25m.
This would do 2 things. Take less of the developers to come up with new dungeons all the time, give the casual an easy way to experience the 10m normal experience, and give them a chance to gear up for the next tier if they want to.
Arrohon Feb 10th 2012 5:34PM
Some people don't have computers that can handle 25-mans. This means that LFR is a no-go for them. Not giving them any content for 1-2 years just because their computer or internet isn't up to snuff is kinda not fair.
DragonFireKai Feb 10th 2012 6:01PM
Any one of those suggestions would completely destroy the purpose of lfr.
Dropping to ten man would return to the LFD percentages of roles required, and dramatically increase the queue time for DPS players.
Implementing normal mode mechanics into a group consisting of the normal LFD morlocks would utterly destroy them. Just putting the splash damage back on the green ooze on Yor'sahj would wreck the completion rate of lfr groups. Much less heroic mechanics.
DarkWalker Feb 10th 2012 9:06PM
I actually think LFR should have all mechanics from Normal, but with their consequences tuned way down. Also, make it very obvious to the failing player that he has failed, and make the consequences of failing a huge irritation so the player has a big incentive to perform well; for example, instead of outright killing a player or wiping a raid, stun the guilty player for 30 seconds.
This would turn the LFR into a far better learning tool for the encounters, without making them any harder than they are right now.
TimR Feb 10th 2012 5:23PM
I'm hoping with the advent of Raid Finder that we can go back to a more progressive difficulty with raids. If every raid has a raid finder version, even players gearing up later in an expansion have the opportunity to hit the earlier raids.
Homeschool Feb 10th 2012 6:02PM
They've put themselves in a perfect situation to do so. Raid Finder can be the difficulty mode for teaching about raiding, and the Normal and Heroic encounters can be based on the expectation that players will know the requisite skills.
I wish they'd do the same to dungeons, and make the current Normals into Dungeon Finder, the Heroics into Normals, and give us a new, harder Heroic mode specifically for the hardcore non-raiders.
Arrohon Feb 10th 2012 6:33PM
You mean Challenge Modes? Check!
Sure, you won't get gear with meaningful stats, but who cares? If you want the difficulty, that should be motivation enough.
Evelinda Feb 13th 2012 8:21AM
My thoughts exactly. If every tier has a raid finder setting, there won't be a need for simple, explanatory fights every tier, you can just get them out of the way early on.
I was in one of the aforementioned feeder guilds, where we had a half dozen core raiders, fge same people running kara every week, with a rotating line up of others. trying to team up with other guilds to do mag /gruul, pushing through to zul'aman, all the while having to explain every fight every second week because another couple of players had taken their gear and moved on to other guilds was not fun.
That said, I miss the complexity of the encounters back then. RF dragon soul is almost unwipeable, and it has to be, because it's essentially entry level raiding. I'm really hoping that with the opportunities afforded by multiple tiers of rf in the next expansion, we'll see a ramp up I'm difficulty through the tiers, so that the final tier, 16 or whatever it will be, is genuinely challenging. It'll be hard, but i have hope it can be done.
vegetto375 Feb 10th 2012 5:23PM
Myst can havethe beauty of both worlds. This is all thanks to the Raid Finder. The Raid Finder is the introductory raid. With the Raid Finder everyone can progress thru all the tiers without having to jump guilds just to get to next progress one. The Raid Finder is the missing link between accessability and progression, you don't ned a guild to be stuck in a certain tier so that it helps boost everyone in to the next. With this is easy for a player to experience all the raids in all their characters and feel that that character is prgressing, it also doen't lock you into a time frame for completion as it lets you do it at your own pace.
With the Raid Finder and the Dungeon Finder you can even bring attunement back. Having quest that require you to collect diferent things in many dungeons is easy with the Dungeon Finder. Blizzard can create and epic quest line that leads you into a raid and most people will get to experience it, plus the increase lore is a sweet plus.
camisado Feb 10th 2012 5:52PM
I like this idea. In most other video games you have to beat level one before moving on to level two. I don't understand why that natural progression was a problem with raiding. It's kind of ridiculous that in both wotlk and Cata you could ding the level cap and immediately go into the newest raid in my opinion.
Homeschool Feb 10th 2012 6:03PM
........
MYST
........
Eskarel Feb 11th 2012 12:17AM
@camisado The problem was time. In the old days before badge gear, the only way to survive the second tier of raiding was to get enough drops from the first one to outfit most of your raid, and that's not even counting the nightmare that was resist gear in vanilla.
With random drops being the only loot source, it could take a few months to finish and given tier. So to get to end expansion content in cata which has had fewer raid tiers you'd be looking at potentially six months or more of work to get a guild to dragon soul. And then another three to gear up from there. Unless your guild started the expansion together, guild hopping was the only way to go, and bliss doesn't want guild hopping because socially it's awful.
That's completely leaving aside attunement times and getting raid geared in the first place. Even most hardcore raiders never saw the original naxx for the most part. The only guy I know who did was in the vanilla beta you just needed that much time to get there.
The vast majority of WoW subscribers are not raiders though LFR may change this. To gate even most of the few people who do raid makes end game a very poor investment for blizz. Maybe if they put together a mechanism for loot to drop a lot less randomly at least in previous tiers it might work, but that would be a major game change.
KPB Feb 11th 2012 3:17PM
Tyler covered why it was horrible to require progression through the tiers pretty well. The problem was that it made a huge pyramid with literally 1 or 2 guilds at the top that actually get to complete the final bit of content (nax) on each server. Heck, I'm pretty sure some server never even had a single guild make it that far.
As he mentioned it was almost impossible for a guild to actually progress through the tiers as a guild. You'd end up with people leaving to jump to another guild that was already on the next tier so that their personal progression could continue because they'd finished with the tier your guild was on but the rest of the guild wasn't ready to progress yet. This would end up happening all the way up the chain to the top guild or two where there was no more up to go. Even when a new expansion came out it was hard because you'd become a "feeder guild" as soon as you started falling behind someone else and that first couple people left. It really was a cycle that once it got started was really hard to break.
For the people who did try to stick around with their guild because they felt some connection or responsibility you had lots of burn out from doing the same content over and over and over again. Think of how interested you were in ICC by the time Cata came out. Now imagine that rather than being the final raid that you've done to death that it was the first raid tier and this whole time you've been wanting to get to the next tier but never can because you can't keep enough people around long enough to gear the guild out to the point where that is possible.
Now granted this was in the era of 40 man raids so you had a lot larger roster to maintain and it definitely made these issues worse. A 10 man raid would have a better shot of actually progressing through tiers now but it also means that loosing 1 or 2 people is that much more damaging and it is harder to replace them or maintain a solid bench.
Having raided molten core with a guild in vanilla wow and started to progress into BWL with that guild (downed a boss or two as a guild altho I missed most of the BWL runs) I know the frustration described first hand and it sucked. I ended up quitting the guild when they put in a horrible DKP system and it ended up dying a month or two later after it's progression had not only stopped but regressed to the point of being unable to clear MC. Ultimately, I don't think it was the DKP system that killed the guild because they were still struggling with all the issues mentioned it just served as the straw that broke the camels back.
For blizzard this ends up being unacceptable for two reasons.
1) It really does make raiding a horrible experience for most people.
2) It means they spend a lot of effort on a lot of cool content that very few people get to see so has very poor returns.
babybalrog Feb 10th 2012 5:33PM
If blizzard actually manages to have multiple raids per tier, it could be that there is a shorter "introduction" raid, and a longer "real?" raid to let people get into. Just a thought
DragonFireKai Feb 10th 2012 5:41PM
I don't mind a couple introductory bosses, but we were promised tiers with multiple smaller instances, and apparently Blizzard forgot what multiple meant after they created T11. The last two teirs of Cataclysm rank with ToC as some of the worst raid content Blizzard has ever implemented becase they scrapped nearly half of each teir. Abyssal Maw was supposed to be a raid, and so was Well of Eternity, and the late cancellation of Abyssal Maw was the primary reason why the loot table in Firelands was rediculously overbloated with shared loot across bosses and the trash having a bigger loot table than any of the bosses and there were still huge itemization gaps, 392 cloaks anyone?
Ultimately, the model that Blizzard should be pursuing is one where raids don't become more or less difficult across tiers, they're just tuned for higher gear levels. But what goes hand in hand with that is that the tiers need to have a similar number of encounters to ensure a smooth difficulty curve within the tier. You can't do that with these puny seven or eight boss tiers.
Homeschool Feb 10th 2012 6:36PM
The amount of end-game content was severely deficient this expansion. That's supposedly because they redid the world, but that seems odd since you'd expect the patch tiers to correct that a bit, and it was actually the reverse.
Numbers wise:
Classic - 7 raids, 58 bosses, with from 1 to 15 and an average of ~8 bosses per raid.
Burning Crusade - 8 raids, 45 bosses, with from 1 to 12 and an average of ~6 bosses per raid.
Wrath of the Lich King - 9 raids, 57 bosses, with from 1 to 15 and an average of ~6 bosses per raid.
Cataclysm - 6 raids, 31 bosses, with from 2 to 8 and an average of ~5 bosses per raid.
Of them all, Cataclysm has ended up furthest from their goal of more raids with less bosses each. (Though they did get the "less bosses" part.) We ended up with about half the bosses of each previous iteration. Even though Wrath updated Naxxramas and Onyxia, accounting for 16 of the 57 bosses, it still had significantly more raid content than Cataclysm, and even offered close to the same amount of new raid content as Burning Crusade.
Had we received Abyysal Maw and War of the Ancients, things would have been much better, but if wishes were fishes, we'd be living in Vashj'ir.
cyclopsfar Feb 10th 2012 5:50PM
Why do I have a feeling you'd complain more loudly at the changes that would be needed so the majority of raiders could actually beat heroic modes consistently? Isn't the point of heroic modes that it's not something everyone will finish?