Emblem of Conquest (Ulduar 25 badge)

[Bigfish]

The hand-out candy epics of the past weren't necesarily a good thing, but it was a nice step in the direction of accessability you get now. Right now though, there is a severe disconnect between heroics and 10-mans, an issue that arises largely from the 7-day lock out on 10-man raids. 1 day would seem a bit more balanced to me, with some changes in loot tables to reflect the farmability.

The build a guild/join a guild argument is exactly the type of situation they had back in vanilla WoW, which holds water to an extent, but in the interest of content-open-to-all, 7 day lock outs aren't helping people see Naxxramas, OS, Maylgos, or soon Ulduar.

[puppychow]

If you clear instances without issues, which I think the majority of raiding guilds currently do, then more people would quit wow as you'd gear up in a matter of days instead of weeks or months. For example on my mage, paladin, and resto shaman I am in 4/5 to 5/5 T7.5 and full naxx25 epics, missing maybe 2-3 pieces (esp caster rings! doh!). Those 2-3 pieces are the only things really keeping me raiding on my mage, I pretty much afk follow on trash while leveling my DK and fight on bosses. If the raid lockout period was simply 3 days I would be farming stuff x3 faster and would have best in slot long ago in every slot and probably have cancelled that account as well.

The issue you are really talking about is that if you get stuck in a raid that failed, there is no recovery until next week. That really does suck. Not sure whats a good way to engineer a fix, since its more a social issue (grouping with people you know/trust) rather than a gameplay issue, but if Blizzard is smart they would come up with some sort of fix that lets people who are saved to failed instances still somehow pug it with others - maybe for bosses they have already killed in any given raid that week, they are ineligble for loot but can still join new fresh pugs. It would also allow people who clear raids quickly to help (or even hire themselves out) others, without getting any item drops.

[zanthor]

I can has yer gold?

[Bigfish]

But that's more an issue of where BiS gear is available, how fast it can be run, and whether blizz is ever going to utilize forward looking gameplay (ie, Working hard to farm current content in anticipation that work is going to yield an advantage at some point in the future.) No one's saying 25 man should be on any different lock out than it is now. The matter is a conflicting issue of the casual goal of 10-man raids with non-casual lock outs.

There is also an issue of gearing speed versus latest content, namely when Ulduar and eventually Icecrown Citadel get released, are players going to have to spend 3-6 months gearing up to even be current with attempting modern content?

See. where I'm sitting, I don't want to farm this crap from here to forever, and if I'm going to have to farm it, I'd like to get it done all at once

[Redbeard]

Ultimately all this 10 man / 25 man accessibility stuff is besides the point.

He plays 5 mans. He doesnt want to raid. Hes run out of meaningful (in that it advances your character) stuff to do in that domain so hes stopping playing.

We should really be talking about how blizzard can allow you to continue to progress your character without chasing gear so that were not all done after 1 or 2 months playing at end game. If the solution to "Where is my character progression beyond level 80?" is "roll an alt"... yikes. =)

I always thought something like the AA system (i think thats what its called) in EQ sounded like fun. I mean, if we're out there grinding dailies and stuff anyways it would be cool to be making your character more powerful. I guess the devs dont like them though... i read a quote that said something to the effect that.. Once they put a system like that in place, they have to start balancing the game assuming people have them.

I dont know, im not a game designer, I dont know what the solution is. I would definitely enjoy some new avenues of character progression though outside of year, bottom line for me.

[Redbeard]

We should really be talking about how blizzard can allow you to continue to progress your character without chasing gear so that were not all done after 1 or 2 months playing at end game. If the solution to "Where is my character progression beyond level 80?" is "roll an alt"... yikes. =)

This is where achievments come in. In the end, its all bragging rights right? Best gear - most accomplishments - whats the difference in the grand scheme?

Achievements dont improve your character. I dont know about you but I box so i dont have to talk to other people hahah so theres nobody to brag to but myself =) I dont play for bragging rights. I play because its fun to me. Saying on day 1 that I cant kill monster x and then on day 10 I can because my character is better is fun to me. ive progressed. Achievements just mean that I still cant kill monster X but I have a title now. Redbeard the Unprogressed lol =P

[Bollwerk]

I really don't understand the reason for the OP's post. I fail to see how Ulduar changes anything from the way things are already setup.

[Bigfish]

If you're not progressing through harder content, "better gear" becomes a moot point, and a "just for looks" reason.

Better gear also lets you progress through similar difficulty content faster.

[Alemi]

Better gear also lets you progress through similar difficulty content faster.

But, what in fact you are doing, is trivalizing the content. Think back to BC when 5 shaman teams, like mine, could farm heroics without a tank. This wasn't intended, but we were geared with the PvP equivilent of Sunwell gear and it made the content trivial, since it was designed for people in quest blues. As Fur said, that's what blizzard is trying to avoid.

While it may sound elitist, I don't want everyone who only want to do 5 mans to have access to the gear I get from raids. The effort, time, and ability put into the raids is considerable, and it's not "fair" to the raiders if people can just farm heroics for days on end and end up with the same gear. This was evident in BC. With that said, I also think this system sucks. I've said it in my guild chat, in trade, and on the forums. Most people do pug raids now, and what's going to happen is that blizzard is going to create a gear gap where those of us who've progressed into Ulduar are going to have 0 motivation to do heroics. This'll lengthen the gear gap between people freshly hitting 80 and make groups harder to find.

It's a double edged sword. There's no ifs and or buts about it.

And to people who complain about gimmicks in raids, that's the nature of raids. It's about the coordination of 10 or 25 people to defeat an encounter using a variety of strategy, but there's absolutely nothing saying a boxer can't do it, and if anything, I have more fun playing multiple characters. I multibox becuase I enjoy having my own team to do what I want, when I want. I also play with a static raiding group (10 man) and am in a casual raiding guild (25 man) and we're all online friends. I just have multiple heads, and most of my guild enjoys it (our resto shaman hates me just because we roll on the same stuff).

But the end line is, if you want the best gear, you have to do the harder content. You can choose not to, but with that choice comes consequences. It's no different than people who want the best PvP gear and don't want to arena (but arena is a whole different story atm).

[Bigfish]

Don't read too much in to that. For the largest part, the statement you're quoting is my disagreement to the notion that achievements carry the same weight as gear progression. I'm not saying people running 5 mans should get access to the same ilvl of content as the current raid-of-the-patch, but at the same time, its completely understandable for someone who relegates themselves to 5-man content to be a bit upset that a new raid dungeon got added, but they're still sitting at the wall they hit months ago. More so, they're stuck either playing catch-up or sitting around in hopes that the next content patch shows them some love.

Now personally, I've got no right to cling to the "but what about the 5-mans argument", as I can throw my 10 guys at Naxx and OS all damn day if I want. But personally, I've been in this exact position before, and it really really sucks, to the point you quit and go play something else.