Raid Easier in WoW Patch 4.3

[Greg Tito]

Raid Easier in WoW Patch 4.3

The Raid Finder tool makes grouping a cinch, and the encounters will be easier too.

If you've ever raided with a pick-up group in World of Warcraft, you know that people on the whole are dumb. The reason why raiding takes up so much time is that guilds need to coordinate battle plans and practice encounters for hours and sometimes days and weeks before beating even the easiest bosses. For a group of players that just got together five minutes ago, most raid content in WoW will kick them to the curb. Blizzard is always trying to get more WoW players to enjoy the high-level content the team produces, so that's why lead producer J. Allen Brack will implement the Raid Finder tool in Patch 4.3. Not only will this feature automatically place you in a 25-man group set to raid, but Blizzard is setting the difficulty for raids formed by the tool to be easier than what is currently available - hopefully ensuring that players won't get discouraged by seeing that terrible angel of death fifteen times on the first encounter.

"We really want [the tool] to be a way for players to get into and experience the highest level of raid content," said Brack in our interview [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/112981-Wow-Producer-Discusses-Killing-Deathwing-Raid-Finder-and-Everything-Patch-4-3]. "Right now, we have some PUGs [Pick Up Groups] that are able to work where it's a very manual process for players to [group up]. They're probably not able to do the highest level of content but there's something that they want to do.

"What if we, instead of having players kind of struggle to get this group together so that they can experience a content level behind, what if we just create a system that allows players to auto match-make and automatically facilitates them getting into the most recent content at a different difficulty level."

Players who enjoy the dungeon finder first seen in patch 3.3 of Wrath of the Lich King will find the raid finder familiar. "The idea behind this is that it is very similar to the dungeon finder we have now except that it is for raids," he said. "It is cross-server [and] we will do some auto match making very similar to how it is looking for dungeon. There are special rules associated with how [the Raid Finder] is going to work: the first one is that the raid finder is going to be for 25 person only, it's not a way for you to have 10 person raids, it's only for 25 person."

Raid difficulties are currently in four tiers - normal 10 man, heroic 10 man, normal 25 man, heroic 25 man - but raids formed using the tool would be on a new as yet unnamed difficulty level. "We haven't figured out exactly what it's going to be called but there will be a difficulty level easier than normal mode," Brack said. You'll end up having this raid finder mode then you'll have your normal mode and your heroic mode. The normal and heroic modes are exactly what they are today."

Because everything will be easier and Blizzard doesn't want to devalue the current raid rewards, you won't be able to earn phat lootz when using the tool. "There will be restrictions as well for players: you won't be able to get your achievements done, you won't be able to get your titles or your mounts or your awards in that way as if you complete them on normal/heroic," Brack said. To compensate, "We'll have special achievements that are specifically for looking for raids tier of difficulty."

The whole point is to make as much content available to as many players as possible. "We're trying to make this at some same level of frictionless entry where you can go on and experience Deathwing content and immediately get on and enjoy that content," said Brack.

For a dedicated WoW-player that could never find the time to develop the relationships needed to get into a raiding guild and who therefore never saw the most epic raid content, the raid finder sounds great. But I can see the people who do raid every night being upset that Blizzard is ruining the game. What do you think? Will you use the raid finder tool?

For more details on Patch 4.3, head over to the full interview with WoW lead producer, J. Allen Brack. [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/112981-Wow-Producer-Discusses-Killing-Deathwing-Raid-Finder-and-Everything-Patch-4-3]

Permalink

 

[Lyri]

I gave up on wow because I found the content to be much too boring and easily over come. The only reason I logged on was to complete a run and then I wouldn't show up for a week.

I'm glad more people can get to see the content but I don't see why it's necessary to be honest.

 

[Kungfu_Teddybear]

At least this will get rid of idiots in trade going "Link achievement and Item Level!!" That really pissed me off. Just because you don't have the achievement doesn't mean you don't know what you're doing. Same goes for Ilvl, it doesn't make up a players skill, sure a high ilvl helps but PuG's always seem to want the highest possible instead of just the required ilvl.

Not that I really care because I've given up on WoW, I was getting bored through WotLK and then Cata completely bored the shit out of me.

 

[weker]

WoW community has killed the game for me, what used to feel like achievement for doing dungeons NO ONE CARES ABOUT its just their grind of the day, sadly the plague from wows addons has also poisoned Rift to my grave disappointment. Secret World and Star Wars are the only games I have highest hopes for atm, GW2 does look amazing as well, but I mean come on every myth and legend is real is Secret World THATS AMAZING.

 

[Cowabungaa]

Hmmm, I don't know. These tools might let more people see all the content, but at the same time it really destroys the community on an individual server. I remember times when even the Alliance, or at least the top tier, felt like a single solid group. Same with Horde, especially on smaller servers. That made PvP really fun, I loved playing Wintergrasp on my old server Bladefist. Those things are vanishing, kinda takes the Massive out of MMO if you ask me.

I'm glad more people can get to see the content but I don't see why it's necessary to be honest.

Because some people want to see what Blizzard has crafted, some people want to see it for the environments, atmosphere, story, etc. WoW is not just a loot-fest.

 

[Panzervaughn]

Being the maintank of A-team in my 25man guild which is understaffed and currently trying to run tw10mans, I probably would ever use it, but i can see it being very helpful for the 7 people of Bteam that are showing up ready to raid, but cant.

If you can have 9 guildies, and Q for a quick replacement healer in the middle of the night, instead of having to bail because no other guildies are still around, it could also be incredibly helpful.

TDLR: I wont touch it because im an elitist shit. But I fully endorse its usefullness to my cohorts.

 

[Lyri]

Because some people want to see what Blizzard has crafted, some people want to see it for the environments, atmosphere, story, etc. WoW is not just a loot-fest.

Majority of which is not in raids, not even close. Why would people use a system that bands them together and dumps them in a raid instance if they're looking for environmental stimuli?
I don't follow your train of thought given the context of discussion.

At least this will get rid of idiots in trade going "Link achievement and Item Level!!" That really pissed me off. Just because you don't have the achievement doesn't mean you don't know what you're doing. Same goes for Ilvl, it doesn't make up a players skill, sure a high ilvl helps but PuG's always seem to want the highest possible instead of just the required ilvl.

Not that I really care because I've given up on WoW, I was getting bored through WotLK and then Cata completely bored the shit out of me.

To be fair I haven't seen the achievement linking thing done ever since cata rolled out.

 

[2xDouble]

Now all it needs is an app that tabulates your builds and gear and produces your chance of victory... then roll against that chance to automatically give the group dungeon rewards or failure. It could even tell you which healer rolled the lowest so you can ***** at them for not healing enough. Such a time saver!

heh.

Actually this sounds like a neat idea.

 

[RanD00M]

Oh god. I was thinking about checking WoW out again after quitting in '09, and this is the final nail in the coffin for me.
A friend of mine said that raiding had finally become a challenge again in Cata, and with these news all I can say is fuck it all.

 

[Kungfu_Teddybear]

To be fair I haven't seen the achievement linking thing done ever since cata rolled out.

Some people were still doing it on my realm before I quit. Even for just trash runs ¬.¬

 

[scw55]

If people want to raid, they join a guild. They build up social connections. Build up teamwork. Build trust. It's a magical thing. You raid. Did I mention that?

Why would anyone use this? So they can join a raid group with people they don't care about and vice versa?

You can argue some players "don't have time to join a guild and raid". Well, why don't you find a guild that accomodates your needs? There's a guild for pretty much anything in WoW.

Blizzard keep making stupid mistakes to cater for the imaginary fraction of the playerbase.

I hope they're enjoying the ride down their slippery slope.


I miss in old WoW where players were happy never seeing certain combat because they weren't good enough or didn't mind waiting patiently intill their guild got there. The players who weren't patient or happy where goddamn guild hoppers and saw it anyway due to the epic-guild ladder. The nostalgia rose-tinted glasses argument could be applied here, and would die instantly.

If you want a randomer for your guild's 10man run what's wrong with having someone in a capital city spamming trade? I can't imagine anyone who'd guildless who's thrive off waiting all day long in the raid finder looking for a group. I remember pugging on my druid in WOTLK. I wanted to rip my eyes out. This tool will only make people depressed more quickly.

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

The whole draw of progressing through an instance for me back when I raided was the fact that you got to see the next boss and experience it. I didnt really care for the loot.

This kind of ruins it really as it would take no effort just to blitz through the 'super easy' mode dungeon and see everything.

One of the biggest things I remember from wow was seeing inside naxxramas and AQ40 and exploring them and getting further in, same with BT and Sunwell.

This is just the final casual nail in the coffin. I don't play WOW now expect to pvp occasionally. The game really is dying and these ideas are why.

I don't think Blizzard really figured out what people found exciting about their game in Vanilla and TBC...

 

[Polarity27]

Hmmm... I think I'm their target audience for this. Casual player, not great at it, play at really odd hours where there are few people on, never get to see raid content until someone makes a "retro run" guild group the next patch or expansion in.

I might use this tool, since the loot and achievements are secondary to the exploration and lore for me-- I hate seeing most of a storyline in solo play and then having the end of it be in some raid somewhere that I might never see. My worry, though, is that it turns into the mess that dungeon finder is right now, where people get pissy and drop group if there's so much as a single wipe. It would be nice to have something for newbies/casuals that's not overrun by impatient people who don't want to deal with a casual player or a new tank or what have you.

 

[KeyMaster45]

Because everything will be easier and Blizzard doesn't want to devalue the current raid rewards, you won't be able to earn phat lootz when using the tool. "There will be restrictions as well for players: you won't be able to get your achievements done, you won't be able to get your titles or your mounts or your awards in that way as if you complete them on normal/heroic," Brack said. To compensate, "We'll have special achievements that are specifically for looking for raids tier of difficulty."

So what the hell is the point of the system other than just a tourist's version of raiding? I can tell them right now the people who spend time on raids are typically anything but casual. It's great that they want to make the raid content accessable to more people. After all raids are where they wrap up their major plot lines and it kinda sucks to do all the quests in an expansion only to hit that point where you're told "To see the end of this story please raid". However, if you remove incentive for players who actually raid to use the dungeon finder what you're going to end up with is it quickly becoming unusable due to high queue times once everyone has all their special "Raid finder" specific achievements.

I honestly don't have a problem with idea of the system, hell I would have loved an easier way to find pugs when I was playing. What I do have a problem with is their concern for devaluing content, as I think it's ultimately going to there to be too little incentive for enough players to use the system to the point where it could be effective. Even if it is cross server it's still going to be trying to build 25 man teams. That's still a fuck ton of people, no it's not your old school 40 mans, but 25 people to coordinate is still nothing to sneeze at. Unless they put the raid difficulties at "lolwut?" easy mode I don't see this system being successful at all. I believe they would be better off if they had the system recruit people for 10 man pugs rather than 25.

 

[ThreeKneeNick]

I raided for some time back when i was actively playing in TBC. It was an altogether difficult experience but a very unique one. Making everything easier is practical, no question about it, but i guess im an idealist for thinking that there are SOME things in a multiplayer environment that should be the culmination of teamwork and dedication and shouldn't be disposable. They are going to destroy the genre.

 

[Clive Howlitzer]

I always thought raids were some of the most annoying and stupid content in MMOs. I always used to get to the end of a story arc in DDO only to find the conclusion was always a raid, very frustrating.
I am cool with all content being doable solo or at most, with a 4 person party.

 

[Jumwa]

I always thought raids were some of the most annoying and stupid content in MMOs. I always used to get to the end of a story arc in DDO only to find the conclusion was always a raid, very frustrating.
I am cool with all content being doable solo or at most, with a 4 person party.

I've given up the notion of being interested in running group content anymore. Unless a MMO offers me a way to experience all or the bulk of content in solo or duo (with my partner) then I just don't have any interest. I don't have the time to dedicate to throwing together groups, scheduling my life around running dungeons and such.

I did that stuff, it was an energy-vampire. I didn't even have time to play other games that I was eager to experience. Never again if I can help it.

 

[tharglet]

I always thought raids were some of the most annoying and stupid content in MMOs. I always used to get to the end of a story arc in DDO only to find the conclusion was always a raid, very frustrating.
I am cool with all content being doable solo or at most, with a 4 person party.

The raids I did in DDO... you really weren't missing much. I really liked the Stormreach marketplace and the Tangleroot Gorge as the instances were fun and mainly coherent. Seem to remember I liked Three Barrel Cove too.
A lot of DDO though felt very thrown together, and I do NOT want to play Pipes or Lights Out in middle of a dungeon, especially so if it's a raid.

That raid with the Lights Out games in the middle can go burn for all I care lol. And the last boss where there's the puzzle and pots on the floor. Yer, I like puzzles, but I prefer for them to make some damn sense, or make an inbuilt minigame system to kill time between dungeons.