We addressed our views on dungeon difficulty several weeks ago, and in the interim many players have asked for us to comment on raid difficulty.

I chose to use the word "progress" in the title for this blog quite intentionally. We think progression is the key to players having fun. When groups stop making progress, the members get frustrated. When individuals feel like they are stuck, that?s when they start to lose interest. I don?t think it strictly has to do with the flow of loot being shut off. A big part of it is the sense that as you climb up that mountain, you are getting closer and closer to the summit instead of just sliding back down to base camp at the end of each day.

Let?s consider two extremes. If you complete the raid content very quickly and have Sinestra on farm and everyone has acquired their best in slot items, then you?re probably ready to take a break from raiding. If you worked really hard to get to that point, as many of the current ?finished? guilds did, then you?re probably pretty happy about resting until Firelands becomes available. However, if that break point happens too soon, too easily, for too many guilds, then the raiding game can feel empty. Players run out of content before they are ready to run out of content, if that makes sense. Now let?s consider the other extreme, where a guild just has no realistic chance of ever beating a boss. This can be particularly demoralizing if it?s the first boss, but it can happen at any time. That guild might not feel like they are making progress. Many guilds are willing to put in a few weeks trying to master a new encounter, but if it gets to the point where they are wiping for months, there?s a good chance they?ll start to see burnout and thinning ranks. The sweet spot in raid balance for us to hit is that everyone feels like they can still make progress. Content that is too hard or too easy doesn?t meet that goal.

Raid encounters, to some extent, nerf themselves. This is because every week, the raid members acquire more and more gear. Secondarily, the community acquires more and more knowledge and experience, which translates into better videos, strategy guides, or even UI mods, as well as just more players who have experienced the encounters firsthand. Each week that you are able to kill any bosses, your group?s gear improves overall, through Valor points if nothing else. When Firelands is available, everyone?s gear will quickly take a step up in quality. This will give you an even better chance to beat those bosses that are blocking you now. We wouldn?t be surprised to see some guilds try the first few Firelands bosses one night, while using the next night to go back to get the head and chests from Nef and Cho?gall in order to complete their set bonuses, that is until acquiring new set bonuses becomes feasible. On some bosses, though, better armor and weapons may not be enough because some mechanics just can?t easily be outgeared. To mitigate that problem, our tendency is to nerf content over time just to make sure a wide variety of players see it. The trailblazers get to see the fights before anyone else, but we don?t lock the dungeon door behind them.

Having said all of that, there are some encounters that still need adjustment. Heroic 10-player modes can often be the hardest to balance, because those groups just don?t have access to the sheer number of tools in one group that the larger raids have. You?ve probably seen some hotfixes go out recently and we might make more adjustments in 4.1. We?ll continue to monitor progress and make adjustments when we feel the time is right.

Overall, we are pretty happy with our current raid balance. Most guilds that are trying seem to be making some progress. On some realms, we?re seeing pickup groups for at least the earlier bosses, which seems appropriate for where we are in the content cycle. The Heroic versions are particularly challenging, though even in that case, there is a gradient with easier and very difficult bosses. For those of you who feel like you are stuck on progression, we?d like to hear more about why. Are you trying to PUG the encounters? Do you have a very casual guild with a lot of different players each night? Is the problem that you?re undergeared or that the mechanics are too unforgiving? What are the mechanics that are really hard for raid leadership to explain or even understand? Are your tanks exploding, or are your healers running out of mana, or are you failing the berserk timers? We have data on all of this, but it?s useful to hear it from your point of view as well. Remember, our goal is that you beat the fight because you understood the mechanics and executed your tanking, DPS, and healing around those constraints. If you?re just kind of powering through a boss ability or phase that you don?t really understand, then it?s going to be a lot harder for you. As always, feedback on which encounters you are enjoying and which ones you never want to see again is also appreciated, though we?ve gotten a lot of that already, and are designing your Firelands foes with that in mind.

P.S. I am as excited about the Firelands encounters as I am about the current ones. We can?t wait for you to wipe to them, er... see them.

Greg ?Ghostcrawler? Street is the lead systems designer of World of Warcraft. He wipes to the elevator boss.

Quazimortal posted:

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Isn't it nice that they are putting all of this idiot's posts in a single spot so we never have to read his crap again?

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Elaok posted:

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i honestly don't know why this post was made?

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steveC91 posted:

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The way I read it !

Dear customers that have left, please come back.
My job is on the line.

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Arunne posted:

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Thank God he came here and explained raid progression for us. I have been confused for years on how that works.

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Quazimortal posted:

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Arunne posted:

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Thank God he came here and explained raid progression for us. I have been confused for years on how that works.

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You actually read it? For shame!

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LadyGodiva. posted:

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The post is kinda interesting because it seems like they know that progression is way down from WotLK... and yet they ask why even though they say they already have the numbers. The questions seem patronizing - Why don't they simply ask 'tell us why you fail?'

They also seem to be unconcerned with the amount of people that completely dropped out of raiding or interest in it.

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TruthyID posted:

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I don't think the new approach is good for business but it's good for all the insecure little boys that are making, and playing, this game.

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LadyGodiva. posted:

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They also seem to be unconcerned with the amount of people that completely dropped out of raiding or interest in it.

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Voqar posted:

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I don't think interest went anywhere, they just bumped the curve significantly. There is no entry level raiding in cata (except BH which isn't even really a raid, just like VoA never really was a real raid). Casual raiding went from being very accessible to utterly crushed in cata.

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Azure-TheBlueOne posted:

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I'm so glad you're here to tell everyone how we're actually experiencing the game, Korrigan. I think you would fit right in with the current development team at Blizzard, maybe you should send them your resume?

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Azure-TheBlueOne posted:

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I remember the sentiments on this forum being quite a bit different when WoTLK was released and Naxx was the redone entry dungeon.

You realize, of course, that Cata has been out 4.5 months now?

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Azure-TheBlueOne posted:

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I will add that, at the time WoTLK released, we were all talking about how Naxx had about 3% of the population who had experienced it. So Blizzard re set it up as the premier entry raiding dungeon, and it worked quite well for that. Most players were glad about actually getting to experience the content, and some raiders complained. I remember several groups of people on this forum breaking into it in the first few months WoTLK released, and the complaints about raiding on this forum were quite a bit lower ime. I think perhaps it's you who is misremembering things, as all through WoTLK, it was considered to be opening the game up to casual raiders.

This expansion, not so much.

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Azure-TheBlueOne posted:

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I remember the sentiments on this forum being quite a bit different when WoTLK was released and Naxx was the redone entry dungeon.

You realize, of course, that Cata has been out 4.5 months now?


Edit: I will add that, at the time WoTLK released, we were all talking about how Naxx had about 3% of the population who had experienced it. So Blizzard re set it up as the premier entry raiding dungeon, and it worked quite well for that. Most players were glad about actually getting to experience the content, and some raiders complained. I remember several groups of people on this forum breaking into it in the first few months WoTLK released, and the complaints about raiding on this forum were quite a bit lower ime. I think perhaps it's you who is misremembering things, as all through WoTLK, it was considered to be opening the game up to casual raiders by a majority of players.

This expansion, not so much.

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Sprawl-zero1eye- posted:

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Yep being able to clear Naxx on my "casual family" guild was awesome and fun. Wiping repeatedly in today's dungeons is not fun. People can say we suck, and we probably do, but we are playing a game to have fun... what happened to the fun?!

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Azure-TheBlueOne posted:

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I'm so glad you're here to tell everyone how we're actually experiencing the game, Korrigan. I think you would fit right in with the current development team at Blizzard, maybe you should send them your resume?

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Quazimortal posted:

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I hope he doesn't stop responding personally, it's fun watching the train wreck of Korrigan. The funniest part is he's not even trolling, he really believes the crap he posts.

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-Peo- posted:

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Damn how do you get your head through the door? You ego is overtaking the National Debt.

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JBomberxx posted:

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Maybe it's just me... But heroics take too long for me to do on weekdays now(and it feels like I get very little for my time spent), and I would prefer to spend weekends raiding. In wrath I could easily do both, but now I'm stuck maybe running a couple fail heroics on weekends usually.

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