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Raid vs Non-Raid??
Wolfen333
Member Posts: 20
First off I have a level 60 warrior and many many alts, most of which are lvls 30-40. Or that is I used to have those characters as I cancelled my account. Why? simple, I hate raiding. I am not against there being raids in the game, since you do have to have choice for people. The problem is that there is no choice at 60, if you want any sort of progression once you hit 60 then you need to raid.
I've seen many people say that the reason so many raid dungeons have been added since release and zero non-raid content is because the raid game was lacking at release and the developers were only trying to balance things out. I believe blizzard used this excuse first then a lot of raiders keep repeating it. The real problem with this is that if you think about it a little you realize that it holds no water, why? Let's see;
Well if they were trying to balance raid and non-raid content they would have added raid content to the lvl 1-59 game and none to the 60+ game, since it is the lvl 1-59 game that was not balanced raid vs. non-raid wise. The end game (60+) was already skewed to the raiders, and here's why;
At release the game had BRS, Stratholme, Scholomance as non-raid instances and MC and Onyxia as raid instances. Now if we take a look at those in detail we see that it takes far longer to complete MC and Ony than it takes to complete BRS, Strath, Scholo combined, due only to the fact however that the raids have lockout timers, without which people would see that the raids don't take that long to finish. They then added 60+ raid instance after 60+ raid instance after 60+ raid instance in which you keep progressing with better loot in each. Each raid instance is it's own new complete content.
Now let's look at the so-called non-raid end game instances. First off, each individual non-raid instance is not complete content on it's own. The non-raid armor sets are spread out over the 3 different instances and are all the same level of difficulty, there is no progression for the non-raider. Hence the non-raid endgame instances are really just 1 content.
Now should I mention the fact that even Blizzard says that BRS, Strath and Scholo are not end game instances? Yes it's true, look here http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/basics/worlddungeons.html and compare to here http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/basics/raidarea.html . Notice how the raid instances are all listed as levels 60+ and the non-raid are all levels 55-60 Dire Maul, levels 57+ Sholo, levels 58-60 Strath and level 58+ BRS. Also keep in mind that the loot that drops from these non-raid instances are levels 52-63 blues. Heck even these new Dungeon 2 sets are level 52-63.
So how does adding 60+ raid instance after 60+ raid instance after 60+ end game instance balance out the raid vs. non-raid game?
Now I loved the game from levels 1-59 but i've seen too many people (not on this forum but on the official wow forum) try to rationalize the fixation on constant new raid dungeons since release and nothing for anyone else, and unfortunately I can no longer post on the official wow forum due to having an expired account.
Comments
You still have ZG and AQ, both are 20 man instances. Also, you can now get teir 1.5 sets and a number of quests have been added that allow casual players to acquire epic items. The epic drop rate has been increased in instances, like Strat.
I agree that MC can take a few hours for some, but Onyxia shouldn't take more than 30 minutes.
I believe that scaling instances like Strat and BRD recently was an initial move by Blizzard to address the 'non-raider' issues. Notes from the web-site indicate that more 5-10 man instances will be added in the future, and with the expansion.
Ico
Oh, cruel fate, to be thusly boned. Ask not for whom the bone bones. It bones for thee.
ZG and AQ20 are both still raids and neither are pugable, you need to be in a raiding guild to do them. For them to be pugable as opposed to raidable you would need to remove the raid timers.
BTW I am a non-raider, not a casual player.
Also there is no tier 1.5 sets, they are Dungeon 2 sets also called Tier 0.5 sets because they are still sub-par compared to MC gear. Do you realize that they nerfed the original Tier 0 sets so that when the Tier 0.5 sets came out they would seem like an upgrade? And adding new quests for these already out-dated sub par Tier 0.5 items in the same old dungeons (Strath, Scholo, BRS) is not new content.
For the casual player it may be about time, but for the non-raider it's not about time. I don't care if a raid only takes 30 mins, it's still a raid. I do not like raids.
Scaling the instances down to 5 man IMO was great, though the majority of people (from what I've read) think it was a horrible move and it has only excacerbated the problem.
As for adding more 5-10 mans in the expansion...well look at it this way... the game has been out for 17 months now, thats 17 months of subscription fees from the raiders and non-raiders alike, yet the only non-raid content released was Dire Maul (the level 55-60 dungeon) and that was over a year ago and was not real progression, yes the loot there is generally better than from the others but not much. So basically %100 of the player base has paid their monthly subscription fees to give the raiders (%8 percent of the player base according to Blizz at Blizzcon) more and more content and better and better loot that far outstrips anything a non-raider can acquire. But the non-raider has to wait for the expansion, which they have to pay for on top of their monthly subscription, to get new content? Keep in mind that the new content from levels 61-70 will be there for both the raiders and non-raiders, but then you will hit the level 70 cap and once again we will be in the same boat as we are now with the raid only mindset. Why do I say that? Because the lead designer has said it himself.
Like I've already said, great game levels 1-59, but horrible game level 60+, and in this game you spend about 3-5 months (on a casual basis) to get to 60 and then 1+years at level cap.
If you have any questions please ask. I have moved on to WoW from eq and no longer have any desire to play a dead game. Thank you. (posted by another selling his account in EQ1)
http://www.radiolinknet.com/downloads/empcourt040906.zip
listen to this, and see if it makes sence or not. you're the judge.
.5 tier sets, yeah right.
I much prefer solo to 5 man groups. It's simply a preference, it's a playstyle.
34 are still living at home with their parents -- a roughly 100 percent
increase in the past 20 years. No wonder WoW is doing so well.
Lol, that's just ignorant.
Like the OP says, he/she isn't a casual player, just not a raider. Raiding doesn't equate to more time played.
Ico
Oh, cruel fate, to be thusly boned. Ask not for whom the bone bones. It bones for thee.
flyn444 just ignore IcoGames, he's just another what they call fanboi, he defends the game he loves so much with useless execuses such as, blizzard introduced casual quests and 0.5 tier sets.
now let me clear something for you, these quests they introduced are in no way casual friendly, nor their tasks are casual, you have to farm money in order to buy items required to complete these quests, then do some very long walking, each quest takes no less than 100 gold, and requires alot and alot of walking and instance running, it's true that they are 5 man, but heck, paying 100-300 gold per quest and doing long runs isn't casual friendly at all, since it requires farming like crazy to obtain the money.
so basically IcoGames, if you want to defend the game and claim that it's casual friendly beyond lvl 60, you have to bring me a solid proof, because all of your claims are invalid and are totally wrong, and are not casual friendly. and as flynn444 said, pardon me, but you're the ignorant one.
you know the truth, but you still spit out lies, because you are what they call, a fanboi :}
Lol Ob1sr, I know it must hurt, but try again. ^_^
Flynn, Ill disagree again with your assumptions.
You can choose to devout 'lots of free time' raiding, but a raid schedule doesn't necessitate (or mandate) it. Many guilds, such as mine, arrange several raid events each week. The schedule is adjusted according to player availability and requests. If an event can't be finished within an allotted time, we'll spread the raid over more than one evening. Blizzard designed the epic instances so that they could be done over an extended period.
There are a number of options for players to obtain epic items, most players just choose to ignore them.
Ico
Oh, cruel fate, to be thusly boned. Ask not for whom the bone bones. It bones for thee.
And on loot - sure, there are many ways to get items with the purple color signifying 'epic' in WOW terms - but it's not about item color, it's about getting comprable gear. Raiding gives the best gear period, the new quests give items that are way behind raid gear, and other alternatives just don't stack up, plus every method involves huge blocks of boring time (yay, grind out 500 gold). Raiders don't want to admit this because it hurts thier egos to admit they win PVP fights because of their gear and not because they're actually better, but it's clearly true to anyone who's actually looked into the gear availible.
I quit wow when it became obvious to me both that they were focusing on raids (which I can't stand to play in) and had given up on making enjoyable content. What prompted me to actually turn off my account billing was a very fun evening of PVP, where I wandered the world having some crazy fights in a variety of spots from Darkshire to Orgrimmar. The problem was the brutal aftermath of the evening, when I found that I didn't make my rank up for the week because I spent time having fun instead of grinding battlegrounds.
Why would I want to pay money to a company that's designing a game that punishes me for having fun? I couldn't answer that question, so I had to stop.
Well, I do think it'll take an army of warcraft players to get a starcraft weapon (Yup you can get them). Yeah it's tough and raiding can be unorganized but, nothing can be done for it unless people get more players in the game.
Professor Hubert Farnsworth - That question is less stupid but, you asked it in a profoundly stupid way.