World Of Warcraft's Raids Get More Flexible

[Steven Bogos]

World Of Warcraft's Raids Get More Flexible

The new "Flexible Raid System" allows raid groups of any size between 10 and 25 players, scaling with difficulty as group size increases.

Like playing World of Warcraft, but don't want to commit to the part-time job that is a full-time raiding guild? Want to raid with your friends but don't want to have to use strangers to fill the gaps when people can't make it? Good news! Provided you have between 10 and 25 friends, the new Flexible Raid system coming in patch 5.4 should be just right for you!

The difficulty level of the Flexible Raid system sits somewhere in-between regular raids and the matchmaking "Raid Finder" system. The new raid difficulty is for any group that has between 10 and 25 members, meaning if you have a regular raiding group of 15 players and two guys can't make it that night, you can still soldier on, as the system will scale the difficulty depending on how many players are in the group.

"To fill this void, we're in the process of developing a new Flexible Raid system, which includes a new difficulty that sits between Raid Finder and Normal difficulty, while still allowing friends, family, or pick-up groups to play together. This difficulty will be available for premade groups of 10-25 players, including any number in between. That means whether you have 11, 14, or 23 friends available for a Raid, they'll all be able to participate."

There is no Item Level restriction on this type of raid, but of course, there's no matchmaking involved so you will have to invite people you know. As for loot, Flexible mode will award loot with an Item Level that falls between Raid Finder and Normal quality, and will use the Raid Finder's "per person" loot system, specialization choices, and bonus rolls, so you won't need to worry about Frank from accounting tagging along on his rogue and stealing that piece of leather armor you've been wanting.

Flexible raids will unlock in wings, similar to Raid Finder, but faster. It's also on a completely separate lockout from Raid Finder and normal raids, so if you are particularly gung-ho about World of Warcraft you can raid three separate instances each week.

The new system should be available for testing on the PTR soon, and will ship with patch 5.4, which is estimated for release sometime in the coming months.

Source: Battle.net [http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/10175200/A_Raid_for_All_Seasons_Flexible_Raid_Preview-6_6_2013]

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[MrMixelPixel]

Let me know when it goes free to play, then we'll talk.

(I really hope it does... I miss WoW.)

 

[TilMorrow]

Let me know when it goes free to play, then we'll talk.

(I really hope it does... I miss WoW.)

I doubt that Blizzard is going to do that any time soon if at all what with all the moolah it still rakes in from just subs and not even taking into account the money they make on their own online store's sales, paid character services and their other games.

OT: Although it sounds like an interesting feature, it is kinda redundant when the people who take up most of your friends list are likely to be from/in your guild already (or on other servers, damned server transfers and emptying servers) and so you should already be set to raid the normal and heroic 10/25 versions of the dungeons (if you have enough people of course). Additionally having the item level lower than normal gear (and having the stats scale appropriately) does seem to be unnecessary as the base difficulty will most likely be on par with 10 man normal (and scale up from there) as I hardly expect them to base it on RF difficulty. What they should really be doing is creating some sort of system that allows people who are in fairly inactive guilds/are not in any guilds and want to raid to create raid groups which can be seen and browsed through by other players in a similar situation so that they may then opt to join in and take part. It would solve the issue of people wanting to run the 10 man normal and up versions of the raids when they are situation where they aren't able. Or alternatively people should just start advertising raid runs in trade chat again. I miss the days of when it was commonplace in Vanilla WoW and it does work well when going after World Bosses.

 

[Helen Jones]

Well, hopefully that means there will be fewer people I have to laugh at when they say they cant do something because their guild has a raid and needs them.

"Sorry man I cant make the wedding, it falls on my guilds raid night." -A real life quote from a pathetic excuse for a human being.

My granddad did not attend his son's/my dad's wedding because he was busy scuba-diving.
I don't even.

OT: If "Flexible mode will award loot with an Item Level that falls between Raid Finder and Normal quality" means what I think it does it makes the whole thing pretty redundant if you're raiding for gear. But I'm not sure I've gotten the meaning there right.

 

[Nimcha]

The whole thing has become so bloated, they might as well just add a solo mode and let people do it on their own.

 

[Coreless]

Its about damn time, people have only been trying to get Blizz to implement this since the Burning Crusade expansion. Being able to adjust the difficulty and challenge according to how many people attend the raid is an absolute no-brainer and should be in every raid/endgame MMO. I can't remember if any other MMOs did this but if WoW is doing it, there is a good chance others will follow and that would be good.

 

[Bernzz]

Well, hopefully that means there will be fewer people I have to laugh at when they say they cant do something because their guild has a raid and needs them.

"Sorry man I cant make the wedding, it falls on my guilds raid night." -A real life quote from a pathetic excuse for a human being.

Yeah, I had a group of friends who were part of a guild that raided on Friday nights. Friday nights being the time a lot of people, y'know, hang out? Have parties? Their constant refusal to go to events because of fucking raids formed my intense loathing of WoW.

 

[marurder]

LOTRO has been doing this for ages.

 

[eberhart]

Except that LOTRO has only 2/3/6/12 versions of "skirmishes", with nothing in-between. They are also offering pathetic level of challenge, with an option to switch to Tier 2 or Tier 3 - which only bumps up stats a little with no significant recognition in terms of rewards. So people were and are farming only Tier 1.

Not to mention constant issues with itemization and challenge:reward, but hey, that's one of their trademarks by now. It is also true about the "normal" group content, but those dungeons, with some random and very limited exceptions, do NOT scale to match the number of players.

 

[Colt47]

The biggest problem with raiding is they still have a difference in loot quality between the normal and the flexible modes. There shouldn't be three to four tiers of raid loot and it makes me scratch my head why they aren't just using the upgrade system and have pre-upgraded versions drop in the higher difficulties. If they want the game to feel accessible, everyone should be able to eventually reach the highest level of raid loot whether they do heroic raiding or not.

 

[Khadhar]

The biggest problem with raiding is they still have a difference in loot quality between the normal and the flexible modes. There shouldn't be three to four tiers of raid loot and it makes me scratch my head why they aren't just using the upgrade system and have pre-upgraded versions drop in the higher difficulties. If they want the game to feel accessible, everyone should be able to eventually reach the highest level of raid loot whether they do heroic raiding or not.

4 tiers? Hah, there's like... eleven. I'll admit it's been a few years and I never raided a whole lot so I may have added more tiers than there are in raid finder but if memory serves there'll now be:

Dungeon
Dungeon Heroic
10-Man Raid Finder
10-Man Heroic Raid Finder
25-Man Raid Finder
25-Man Heroic Raid Finder
Flexible Raid
10-Man Normal
10-Man Normal Heroic
25-Man Normal
25-Man Normal Heroic

I put dungeons in there as it is technically part of endgame, but even without those that's still 9 tiers...

 

[Akexi]

While I get why people are somewhat against this, I honestly really like it. In my personal experience, it was always a pain to fill in those last few spots in a 25 man and in 10 having to rotate people in and out for certain boss fights.

 

[Charli]

Lots of people not really grasping the finer details of this. But that's cool. You don't play at the moment so you sadly have no idea what you're banging on about.

I like this idea. I hope it totally makes LFR redundant ultimately. LFR is a total travesty of what the game has to offer.

But this, Is limited to friends, Real ID friends (Can pull people from other servers as long as you love them), and Server, and allows for an easier schedule with no rigid amount of players. Good step in the right direction.

Just please kill LFR, that's all I ask, easier raids are a good thing but this anonymity protection and douchenozzlry that LFR allows and encourages has utterly drained the Normal/Heroic raiding scene of candidates. I hope more will be willing to run this (It will have better gear) and then realize. 'Hey maybe moving up to normal or heroic might not be so hard with some work!'

It's the kind of thing 10man normals in Wrath encouraged and Raids had never been more popular and run by all.

There are SO MANY on my server who've been pushed off of raiding because of the Cata/Mists difficulty spike. Once proud raiding guilds moved off server or abandoned to casual play. They want to raid, and my guild and one other does offer a 'last tier puggable' 25man on the weekends but... Nothing more than that.

Yeah, I had a group of friends who were part of a guild that raided on Friday nights. Friday nights being the time a lot of people, y'know, hang out? Have parties? Their constant refusal to go to events because of fucking raids formed my intense loathing of WoW.

Your friends had a stupid guild then. All of my raid nights are Monday, Wednesday, Thursday. Weekends are totally out of the question. You can play a bit during the day if you're bored obviously and ACTUALLY have nothing to do, but no schedules.

Dungeon
Dungeon Heroic
10-Man Raid Finder
10-Man Heroic Raid Finder
25-Man Raid Finder
25-Man Heroic Raid Finder
Flexible Raid
10-Man Normal
10-Man Normal Heroic
25-Man Normal
25-Man Normal Heroic

Utterly wrong. Here's what goes on now.

Scenarios (3man Random Teams) Blue Gear
Heroic Scenarios (3man Structured Teams) Blue gear, random chance at lesser Purple
Normal Dungeon (5man Random Teams) Blue Gear
Heroic Dungeon (5man Random/Structured Teams) Higher iLevel Blue gear
Challenge Mode Dungeon (5man Structured Team, Extremely difficult) Mount and Glamour Armor Reward
LFR (25 'Raid' Only, Random Team, Extremely Easy) Low iLevel Purple Gear
Normal (10 or 25 'Raid', Structured, Mildly Difficult) Standard ilevel Purple Gear, Chance at slightly high iLevel
HEROIC (10 or 25 'Raid', Structured, Very Difficult) High ilevel Purple Gear, Chance at best items in game.

This is it now. You'll notice in between LFR and Normal there is now a slight gap in ability.

LFR's can be slept through. I'm not joking please observe: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFWh9aY4pas

Normals however require Vent/Mumble/TS, planning, structured times and very competent players.


There's a niche, some want some challenge without asking that much of them.

 

[Camarilla]

The biggest problem with raiding is they still have a difference in loot quality between the normal and the flexible modes. There shouldn't be three to four tiers of raid loot and it makes me scratch my head why they aren't just using the upgrade system and have pre-upgraded versions drop in the higher difficulties. If they want the game to feel accessible, everyone should be able to eventually reach the highest level of raid loot whether they do heroic raiding or not.

4 tiers? Hah, there's like... eleven. I'll admit it's been a few years and I never raided a whole lot so I may have added more tiers than there are in raid finder but if memory serves there'll now be:

Dungeon
Dungeon Heroic
10-Man Raid Finder
10-Man Heroic Raid Finder
25-Man Raid Finder
25-Man Heroic Raid Finder
Flexible Raid
10-Man Normal
10-Man Normal Heroic
25-Man Normal
25-Man Normal Heroic

I put dungeons in there as it is technically part of endgame, but even without those that's still 9 tiers...

Raid Finder is only 25 man now, and only has one difficulty (easier than normal mode). Also, 10 man and 25 man are no longer deemed seperate tiers because they share lockouts, so the only raid tiers now are (from easiest to hardest) LFR-Flex-Normal-Heroic.

In terms of dungeons, they've added challenge modes which are harder than heroic dungeons, timed with medals for fast completion, and also downgrade your gear to a set item level.

 

[Mr F.]

Well, hopefully that means there will be fewer people I have to laugh at when they say they cant do something because their guild has a raid and needs them.

"Sorry man I cant make the wedding, it falls on my guilds raid night." -A real life quote from a pathetic excuse for a human being.

Its strange how much WoW gets defended. Just about every ex player I know hates the game and still wants to go back to it, just a little bit. Hell, the only player I know who STILL plays it... Is not level capped because he just uses the game as a glorified chat room.

I hate WoW. The amount of time and money that game has stolen from me is phenomenal. If I had spent that time playing the Piano... Jeesus.

The things I skipped. Nothing like a wedding. But when I was 18, split between my ex-fiance and World of Warcraft, I had almost no time for actual life.

OT: Dunno what I think about the above. I was a raider back in the day, its not that hard to find a sensible raiding guild. I did like the LFG system when it was first released but imo, WoW died with Cataclysm.

 

[VanQ]

Well, that's actually really nice. It's almost enough to make me go back. Almost, but not quite. Not because of the game or anything, just that it's still impossible for me to meet a regular raid schedule between work and Uni. I do miss the days that I could. I really enjoyed raiding. Doubt I'll ever be able to again though.

 

[Waaghpowa]

This is going to be really good, all things considered. My guild is mostly focused on 10 man, and we're doing heroic mode as well, but sometimes it feels like we're leaving people out because of the size restriction.

We don't have the people to do 25 man raids simply because we consider ourselves a "casual" guild. People can't make our raid times due to work, family etc. This flexibility should be good as it lets us add a couple extra people to the raid, without the obligation of following size constraints and give them an opportunity to play.

 

[Fordo]

Not sure how I feel about this change. I remember before WoW came out how my 6 other IRL friends and myself who wanted to play WoW were trying to scheme up how best we could RAID together for the multitude of dungeons that were 5-man affairs. We would have welcomed greater difficulty if we could have had all 7 of us working on a dungeon like Deadmines or SM.

On the other hand, A lot of what I liked about early WoW, and what made it stand out was the tediousness disguised as difficulty (or maybe it goes the other way around). Admit it, even when you had 40 people with you running UBRS or running through BRD to MC, someone pulled a mob just right and wiped the whole group. The herding cats mantra was something that made communication and coordination important (to say nothing of gear).

Now I'm going on way too long about this topic this is really just a little change to a game that has gone trough thousands of little changes over the years morphing it from one thing to another. In a lot of ways, WoW at its core was meeting up with your friends, and adventuring with thousands of like-minded nerds for PvP or PvE jollies... that's still there, but it's a different formula.

TLDR? My cat's breath smells like cat poop