It's time to make raiding more appealing to people.

[Tawneyturtle]

Hi, I'd like to preface this by saying I've been raiding on the server for almost a year now, cleared Naxx with multiple guilds as I enjoy both progression AND farm, and I've seen countless people burn out from raiding. I think the 2 new raids will help but they won't fix the biggest issues with raiding in vanilla:
- Barrier of entry
- Time requirement
- Extremely low drop rates for desired items

Vanilla was designed to have bosses drop 2 items for 40 players because the devs knew they needed time to create more expansion but still make money from players via monthly subs. This was adressed in TBC first where raids scaled down to 20 people, essentialy twice as much loot for players, then later in Wrath 10 man raids dropped 2 items. 4 times as many items weekly.

1. The issue with the infinite grind: There will never be a TBCTurtle

The people come and go way too quickly on the server in the raiding scene, it's rare to have 1 person raid for more than a couple months, if you've been here for a year you're considered ancient, if you're still here from the time Naxx was cleared you're rarer than Edgemaster's.

2. New raids will give old players a reason to come back...until they realize the loot is worse than the Naxx gear they have had for over a year now.

It's nice to give us alternatives but the end result will be the same: If it's not good, it's not worth doing.

3. Raiding takes a lot of time as it is, adding more raids alone just increases the requirements from people to attend them (especially raid leaders/officers) and speeds up burnout.

We reached the stage where most people only join MC on alts or for Thunderfury, BWL for the trinkets, and AQ40 for just C'thun loot. The rest just raidlog Naxx.

Let's talk about solutions


Option A. Make old raids faster by removing trash or adding skips. Increasing items dropped by bosses by 2. Or increase the drop rates of DESIREABLE items dropped by putting trash tier items on, the trash mobs.

It's a bad joke when dozens of people have spent nearly 2 years raiding BWL to get 1 trinket from a boss and it only drops 2 items. It's not fun, it's not satisfying, it feels predatory and creates stockholm syndrome. Either remove the entirety of Supression room or add a skip that let's you open the gates to Broodlord if you've done a quest, such as kill Nefarian 10 times. AQ40 could also have the Teleport to Twin Emperors enabled after you killed C'thun 10 times, and teleport to C'thun be enabled as soon as you killed C'thun 25 times. Alternatively make garbage items that drop every week like the Corn staff not drop that often, or just add it to the trash's loot table instead, Does anyone really think The Black Book is an item that should even belong in BWL? Black Brood Pauldrons, Gloves of Rapid Evolution, Ring of Blackrock and a few other absolutely awfully understated items could be moved onto trash drop tables.

Option B. Add a token system where each time you kill a boss in a raid you get 1 token, similarly to AQ40 rep items from each boss, and have items be exchanged for these tokens by a neutral vendor.

Most guilds on the server use DKP for best in slot items like Drake Fang Talisman, Neltharion's Tear, Rejuvenating Gem. If we look at that approach, this suggestion is already in the game, manifactured by the players meaning, this would allow guilds that have had REALLY bad streaks with certain items to obtain them. The cost of the items should scale with the item's rarity and of course legendary items would be excluded.

Let me know what you think, and please only reply if you've actively raided on this server before above BWL, Xudo and Msg .

[Xudo]

I actually like the badges idea of TBC and don't like items with 0.01% dropchance.

I think that reason why players raid only couple of months is because

getting T2 or even T3 is as simple as msging any guilds and applying to them, there are 10 guilds on this server that raid naxx and 7 of them have it on farm, the time it took you to write this you could have joined any of them and gotten the gear from it.

Player can skip progression in 5ppl dungeons, zg and MC and just join t3 guild.

If you allow players to skip bosses, then they will spend less time playing.

Fresh server with phases warms up player attention by raid opening schedule. Turtle have philisophy "EXISTING CONTENT STAYS RELEVANT!". So this option is not available.

I have to admit that PvE on Turtle is in great state. As you said, there is 10 guilds which raids naxx.
How many guilds are raiding AV? How many premades are on WSG?
PvP is in much worse state than PvE.

[Balake]

Fresh server with phases warms up player attention by raid opening schedule. Turtle have philisophy "EXISTING CONTENT STAYS RELEVANT!". So this option is not available.

I have to admit that PvE on Turtle is in great state. As you said, there is 10 guilds which raids naxx.
How many guilds are raiding AV? How many premades are on WSG?
PvP is in much worse state than PvE.

There are not 10 guilds which raid naxx... and why you bring up PvP. This is not suffering competition "dont fix pve because pvp also needs fixing" is not a valid argument

and topic if you didnt see is about THE RAIDS BELOW NAXX NOT NAXX IS EVEN MORE REASON TO NOT MENTION IT

and like you said, turtle has philosophy "existing content stays relevant". Remember relevant means not i have to do it. Relevant means I want to do it. And thats his suggestion, make people want to do bwl and aq40.

Make people WANT to do zg by giving bonus loot to zg hard modes. make people WANT to do aq20 by giving it some arcanums like zg but for different specs. and also by fixing the very bugged and very hard 2nd boss fight in aq20.

[Tawneyturtle]

There are not 10 guilds which raid naxx

Tabc
Macro
DT
Hard Knocks
Hydra
Clickers

6 Cleared Naxx

BWG 14/15
Full Sack 13/15
Thunderhorn 12/15
Emerald Dream 14/15

4 progging it

[Tawneyturtle]

I actually like the badges idea of TBC and don't like items with 0.01% dropchance.

I think that reason why players raid only couple of months is because

getting T2 or even T3 is as simple as msging any guilds and applying to them, there are 10 guilds on this server that raid naxx and 7 of them have it on farm, the time it took you to write this you could have joined any of them and gotten the gear from it.

Player can skip progression in 5ppl dungeons, zg and MC and just join t3 guild.

If you allow players to skip bosses, then they will spend less time playing.

Fresh server with phases warms up player attention by raid opening schedule. Turtle have philisophy "EXISTING CONTENT STAYS RELEVANT!". So this option is not available.

I have to admit that PvE on Turtle is in great state. As you said, there is 10 guilds which raids naxx.
How many guilds are raiding AV? How many premades are on WSG?
PvP is in much worse state than PvE.

There are 10 guilds that are raiding Naxx but most of them have multiple characters in other guilds, theres about 300 people at most who are raiding Naxx out of 7000 and way more people have a pvp ranking above rank 4. PVP on turtle is bad but the devs let it stay bad because it isn't the focus of the server. You should have read the last line in my post btw

[Balake]

There are not 10 guilds which raid naxx

Tabc
Macro
DT
Hard Knocks
Hydra
Clickers

6 Cleared Naxx

BWG 14/15
Full Sack 13/15
Thunderhorn 12/15
Emerald Dream 14/15

4 progging it

A lot of these guilds raiders are just this guy

[Xudo]

If you think that too few people raid, then you should ask OTHERS why they don't raid. It is pointless to ask ones who are raiding about it. They already do this thing. No need to motivate them.

I personally don't raid because I have no time.
Second reason is that raiding is pretty dumb. Doing 5ppl is more fun. You have to use LoS, spell interruptions, slow, deal with lack of rage, control whole pack of mobs.
In the raid as a tank you just stand on a spot and press your rotation button.
As a DPS you stand on a spot and press your frostbolt/shadowbolt button. Is it fun? No.

Inability to get some rare stuff is that discourages existing raiders.
When you join a guild and see guys with 1k DPK while you get 40 from raid. You surely know that you'll get no really rare loot. Only suboptimal stuff which is usually disenchanted.
Thats why I support your idea of badges.

Third reason is your raiding culture. You guys don't allow suboptimal specs.
When I was raidleader on low populated server I didn't allow healing classes to go DPS. Reason was - either you go heal or raid would not happen. I had no luxury to choose which healer suits me from all options.
You have all possible types of healers and I see that you blame priests for being non-dwarf.

In short - stop being a-hole to make raiding more appealing.

[Balake]

If you think that too few people raid, then you should ask OTHERS why they don't raid. It is pointless to ask ones who are raiding about it. They already do this thing. No need to motivate them.

I personally don't raid because I have no time.
Second reason is that raiding is pretty dumb. Doing 5ppl is more fun. You have to use LoS, spell interruptions, slow, deal with lack of rage, control whole pack of mobs.
In the raid as a tank you just stand on a spot and press your rotation button.
As a DPS you stand on a spot and press your frostbolt/shadowbolt button. Is it fun? No.

Inability to get some rare stuff is that discourages existing raiders.
When you join a guild and see guys with 1k DPK while you get 40 from raid. You surely know that you'll get no really rare loot. Only suboptimal stuff which is usually disenchanted.
Thats why I support your idea of badges.

Third reason is your raiding culture. You guys don't allow suboptimal specs.
When I was raidleader on low populated server I didn't allow healing classes to go DPS. Reason was - either you go heal or raid would not happen. I had no luxury to choose which healer suits me from all options.
You have all possible types of healers and I see that you blame priests for being non-dwarf.

In short - stop being a-hole to make raiding more appealing.

Sounds like you are bitter and hate raiding and for that reason you want people to not enjoy it either.
That's the only explanation for this tangent rant.

You never raided here you doofus so why are you talking about the raiding culture. Every guild here allows suboptimal specs with almost no exception including in naxx

[Tawneyturtle]

If you think that too few people raid, then you should ask OTHERS why they don't raid. It is pointless to ask ones who are raiding about it. They already do this thing. No need to motivate them.

I personally don't raid because I have no time.


Inability to get some rare stuff is that discourages existing raiders.
When you join a guild and see guys with 1k DPK while you get 40 from raid. You surely know that you'll get no really rare loot. Only suboptimal stuff which is usually disenchanted.
Thats why I support your idea of badges.

Third reason is your raiding culture. You guys don't allow suboptimal specs.
When I was raidleader on low populated server I didn't allow healing classes to go DPS. Reason was - either you go heal or raid would not happen. I had no luxury to choose which healer suits me from all options.
You have all possible types of healers and I see that you blame priests for being non-dwarf.

In short - stop being a-hole to make raiding more appealing.

1.You have time for 500+ posts on this website but no time for raiding? A raid takes about an hour unless its Naxx or AQ

2. I agree and it's encouraging people to fixate on items to the point of quitting the moment they get it after years of waiting.

3. The culture you're looking for exists, Hard Knocks Society is what you're looking for, although because of their attitude being very open, their spots are quite full.

[Jaccob]

I would probably re-word the batch system suggestion into:
improve or add additional personal progression systems, like raid reputations that we already have.

I think that the biggest problems are:
Long raid times
No motivation if u know that u will not be getting items for multiple raids
Burden of farming xyz gold for consumes

[Chronoslicer]

Badges would work, but I would implement them in conjunction with increased loot rates, say instead of a boss dropping 2 pieces of loot for 40 players, a boss would drop 6 - 8 pieces and everyone would receive a badge or some type of cool sounding token that can be turned in for gear at some mysterious vendor, once you have enough of them. For me, I'd say killing 10 raid bosses should be enough to get sufficient bad luck credits for a piece of gear

[Galidon]

I like idea of badges. If someone get T3 piece od gear he have no chance to get T1 piece after becouse he already have better Item and yet we have transmog system so IT would be nice idea to be able to buy some tier piece for badges. Lets say there are 10 bosses in RAID so 10 to 20 badges for one piece of tier. Every raid will lead to something, there will be no "unlucky" RAID becouse all players will win just by playing and doing their best as it should be, not by luck.

[Allwynd01]

I have been playing WoW since 2006 and I have NEVER raided. In February was the first time in all these years and thousands of hours where I finally reached level 60 for the first time in Vanilla and the first time the level cap in any WoW version.

I have a friend who is a heavy raider, some kind of officer on a raiding guild here and he explains all the specifics to me on that:

- how you need to spend like 30-60 minutes before to collect some buffs
- collect some consumables
- whatnot
- spend about 100g before the single raid

And who knows what else.

After I heard all those things, I realized "I don't want to deal with this crap, if I can't just go in as I am, then I don't want to waste my time and 4+ hours every time, it's just not worth it". And I will probably enjoy the game like I've always did - just leveling for the 823475837538457th time, enjoying the zones, the music, doing some dungeons on the side, hit 60 and quit again.


I'd say raiding is definitely too difficult and complex, at least for me and I would not deal with it. I don't even care for the gear that I could get, I'd be more interested in experiencing the raids and learning the mechanics than spending 1 hour, 100g and whatnot just to prepare for a stupid raid.

That's just my opinion, maybe others don't share it and are laughing at me, I don't care, I've found my niche and enjoyment in MMORPGs in the leveling process and seeing how my character gets stronger and reaching the level cap marks the end of the game for me and that's fine with me.

[Chronoslicer]

I have been playing WoW since 2006 and I have NEVER raided. In February was the first time in all these years and thousands of hours where I finally reached level 60 for the first time in Vanilla and the first time the level cap in any WoW version.

I have a friend who is a heavy raider, some kind of officer on a raiding guild here and he explains all the specifics to me on that:

- how you need to spend like 30-60 minutes before to collect some buffs
- collect some consumables
- whatnot
- spend about 100g before the single raid

And who knows what else.

After I heard all those things, I realized "I don't want to deal with this crap, if I can't just go in as I am, then I don't want to waste my time and 4+ hours every time, it's just not worth it". And I will probably enjoy the game like I've always did - just leveling for the 823475837538457th time, enjoying the zones, the music, doing some dungeons on the side, hit 60 and quit again.


I'd say raiding is definitely too difficult and complex, at least for me and I would not deal with it. I don't even care for the gear that I could get, I'd be more interested in experiencing the raids and learning the mechanics than spending 1 hour, 100g and whatnot just to prepare for a stupid raid.

That's just my opinion, maybe others don't share it and are laughing at me, I don't care, I've found my niche and enjoyment in MMORPGs in the leveling process and seeing how my character gets stronger and reaching the level cap marks the end of the game for me and that's fine with me.

There are some guilds that run through the raids raw (non mandatory consumables, or world buffs) but they are few and far between

Although at its core, there really isn't a need for consumables, or world buffs, acquiring them should feel less forced, more fun, and be obtainable through naturally playing the game, without making it too redundant.

That being said, if you are having fun not raiding, more power to you!

[Bayanni]

I hate to agree with Xudo but he is right on the aspect of elitist attitudes hurting the raiding scene. In early TWoW days most of the raiding guilds made a point to say "We aren't TABC" with the implication being "We aren't assholes". Macrochelys and Traveler/Doom Turtles both operated on that mantra in the beginning, and their shifts recently have spawned more "We aren't assholes" raid guilds to pop up and begin progression anew. Whether you think they're "asshole" guilds or not is entirely public opinion that I don't necessarily agree with, but the world chatter speaks for itself.

Each of these transitions saw a number of people quit entirely. This hastens burnout by not creating an enjoyable raiding environment.

When your raids are boiled down to "get gear" and any social or fun aspects are stripped away, what incentive is there for someone to stick around? Why raid anything at all that doesn't have gear you want? Or worse, why raid at all when your BiS means there's no reason to ever enter the instance again? This is an MMO, and the "multiplayer" aspect is where a lot of the long-term fun comes from. Ask any of the really old guard why they're still here and I'll bet that's what they say.

I quit macro because that's all it became for me, just a gear grind. I didn't enjoy the hard turn the culture took or how it was carried out, then I was told I couldn't even go for any of the gear I wanted, either MS or OS, so I went my own way. No hard feelings, no animosity, just a total loss of any reason to stay. I was about to quit entirely before I was invited to join another raid team with friends, and I'm still raiding with them even though I don't need a single thing from their raids.

You want your attendance to perk up? Tokens won't solve it and will just be a bandage when you need stiches and antiseptic. They'll help, just not enough.

[Sinrek]

1.You have time for 500+ posts on this website but no time for raiding? A raid takes about an hour unless its Naxx or AQ

KEK Double Joo

[Kairion]

Removing Trash from raids is in my opinion a bad idea overall. Trash serves as vital time used for trashtalking, mentally preparing for the next boss and bonding with guildies. Having shortcuts available also means no raid would ever do the trash again, since most guilds will have at least 1-2 veteran members (or get them extremely quickly)

There is some assanine stuff like BWL gauntlet and construct quarter, but if you get used to dealing with these (like a established raid should) they aren't that big of a deal.

The only trash that is downright removable is the Ouro/Cthun trash since its so awful, every single raid skips them with savespotting. At that point might as well remove it. In that case i would much rather prefer the trash being mandatory but easier to handle.

But then again, i raid because i enjoy raiding not because i wanna tick checkboxes in my bis list.


The token system i find downright frightening. We are on Turtle where you have no timelimit until the next expansion voids all your achievements. So there is no rush to completing your gear. Tokens by their design give each raid a finite shelflife. because after X amount of Ids you will always have enouh tokens to buy all the gear you want. And you clearly know that tokesns make loot feel less special. otherwise you wouldn't have excluded legendaries from the token system.

I'd much rather see more (slightly weaker) alternative items added to the big chase items like DFT, so you can equip your character without missing much power, but not rewarding a "free" Kiss of the spider to any melee in the guild that did anub for a couple of weeks.

What i however regard as a big frustrating factor with raiding in general is the requirements to ones wallet. As a active raidtank all my time in the game is spent raiding or preparing for raids, even if i want to, i can barely help out my guildies in a dungeon without straining my raidsupplies. And i am an established raider who got all his prequests enchants and alts sorted out. Many newer raiders simply can not afford the same consumbles i go trough.

I think raidconumes are the biggest unnecessary frust factor when raiding. And i'd love to see their usage be a little less painful to the out of raid experience of raiders.

[Greese]

I don't like the idea of altering existing raids.

I do agree that some future content can be made that is suited to a broader player base, while other can be more of your traditional raids with multiple bosses, trash, etc.

Make "micro" raids in the vein of Onyxia's lair.

I think Thoradin's Wall would be a good candidate. Could have the ghost of Thoradin be corrupted and have to be cleansed. Could make it more of a fresh 60 style encounter with loot similar in power to dungeon set 2.

Timbermaw Hold is another great candidate. Despite their best efforts the corruption of Firewater has infiltrated the Hold via the treachery of a couple bosses. Enter the hold in a 10 man raid, go past the friendly Timbermaw defenders and eliminate the traitors and their followers. Gear would be similar to UBRS.

Silithus Hive single boss 10 man raids. Easy enough. Take a beefed up version of the mini-bosses from The Calling and put them in an instanced raid at the end of each hive in Silithus. Have them drop gear similar in quality to the Abyssal Lord summons. Perhaps adding a new 3 piece set per class (one piece from each boss). Trinket+Neck+Relic/Range preferred.

[Tawneyturtle]

Let's take on the new problems people mentioned:

Raids being too 'elitist' and not allow 'meme specs' and consumables being costly.

I agree with the 2nd part. I made my own post about it. But the devs don't raid anymore so they can't really relate and the only thing they look for are the auction house prices which have been steadily growing, so maybe in due time that will get adressed.

Let's talk about Elitism. What is elitism? To me, Elitism is being told I can't play a class for which hasn't met the aproval of the guild, let that be DPS shaman, arms warrior, sub rogue, ret paladin etc.

Is this really the case? Let's explore.

DPS Shaman: The server's best guild, TABC, has an enhancement shaman in the core Naxx team and had him there for years.
Retribution: Tabc also has 2 full time Ret palas, SUPPORT Ret palas, providing buffs for the melee and casters with weapon weaving.
PVP specs like Sub, Arms and Elemental I can't think of any guilds supporting.
Hard Knocks has 2 Spell rets, Clickers has an enha shaman and Prot pala tank.

I think the harsh truth is that MANY 'meme' specs are supported... it's usually the players themselves aren't supported due to them lacking in skills or efforts. I think the only 2 guilds who have a strict no memes policy are Macro and Doom Turtles. Out of 10 Naxx raiding guilds on the server. So while elitism exists, it exists in 2/10 guilds.

[Greese]

Let's take on the new problems people mentioned:

Raids being too 'elitist' and not allow 'meme specs' and consumables being costly.

I agree with the 2nd part. I made my own post about it. But the devs don't raid anymore so they can't really relate and the only thing they look for are the auction house prices which have been steadily growing, so maybe in due time that will get adressed.

Let's talk about Elitism. What is elitism? To me, Elitism is being told I can't play a class for which hasn't met the aproval of the guild, let that be DPS shaman, arms warrior, sub rogue, ret paladin etc.

Is this really the case? Let's explore.

DPS Shaman: The server's best guild, TABC, has an enhancement shaman in the core Naxx team and had him there for years.
Retribution: Tabc also has 2 full time Ret palas, SUPPORT Ret palas, providing buffs for the melee and casters with weapon weaving.
PVP specs like Sub, Arms and Elemental I can't think of any guilds supporting.
Hard Knocks has 2 Spell rets, Clickers has an enha shaman and Prot pala tank.

I think the harsh truth is that MANY 'meme' specs are supported... it's usually the players themselves aren't supported due to them lacking in skills or efforts. I think the only 2 guilds who have a strict no memes policy are Macro and Doom Turtles. Out of 10 Naxx raiding guilds on the server. So while elitism exists, it exists in 2/10 guilds.

I agree that "elitism" isn't really class elitism anymore, it is skill elitism. I think Turtle has done a great job at making every spec worth having at least one of in a raid environment. The problem is that there are a lot of "noob" players on Turtle. It is one of the more charming aspects of the server to me. People are just having fun and aren't meta slaves (for the most part). My previous post suggested adding "baby steps" raid content. The gear would be below MC/ZG, but the skill/gear requirement to complete them would be below pre-raid bis as well. The encounters would be relatively short (think Onyxia). It would give new players a taste of raiding, once they have a taste some will continue further into MC/ZG/AQ20 and then from there, expanding the pool of raiders. Just my .02

[Tawneyturtle]

I think the "noob" players on Turtle should start by joining a guild that's not a Naxx farm guild. Join a progression guild and work your way up, that's how everyone does it. You can't expect a guild that had Naxx on farm for a year to cater to a brand new player. New players' only reason for not joining raids isn't some guy telling him he's doing 150 less DPS than what he sims for, it's them seeing that to get this one Purple Sword they need to accumulate enough points to beat the 20 other players ahead of them.

[Bayanni]

I'm going to drop a brick again. I apologize in advance.


You're the first person in this thread to mention not allowing meme specs and that wasn't, at least for me, what elitism means or how it affects raid teams. Elitism is an unwelcome atmosphere propagated by a bias towards hierarchical modes of thought. Elitist guilds tend to have a "this way or no way" attitude and very little room for "fun". I'm not saying this is wrong intrinsically, but it obviously biases raid attendees towards a certain mode of thought, and that mode is "Get Mine". These are the people that will bring maxed out consumes, run the best possible dps/healer/tank class/race combo, and only show up for a chance at loot they need. They don't care about what loot others get, ultimately. They care about their loot and nothing else. Once they've gotten everything they need from MC/BWL/Ony/AQ40, they'll stop showing and feel there's no problem at all in doing so.

Not every elitist guild is this full-on. It's a spectrum with one end being "elitist" where the speed runners and meter jockeys are from, and the other being "fun" where people who want to enjoy the content for what it is reside. A good raiding guild will have a healthy mix and have a philosophy that welcomes both. A guild that does not will burn out faster and have more trouble holding onto raiders. Too much "fun" and you won't clear content, leading people to get annoyed at not being able to experience everything there is to see. Too "elitist" and people don't get to enjoy what they're doing and instead treat it like a job they're clocking in for.

Eventually, the lifecycle of what content is available will lead to everyone burning out and a server dying. It's happened on every single server in every MMO I've ever played. New content to explore extends this lifespan and TWoW offers enough here and there for the "fun" people to stick around and enjoy, but the "elitist" groups who only want the best possible gear in their inventory as fast as possible aren't interested.

If your guild is suffering attendance, it isn't all because of how loot RNG works. It's unlikely this is any of their first experience with WoW; if they really hated how the loot system worked I doubt so many would have raided in the first place. I'd look to other factors and even if people are not saying something you agree with, the fact that several people gave the same answer obviously means there's some substance to it.


EDIT: For the record, I do think the loot system is not implemented well, I just disagree with some of your reasoning on why.

[Tawneyturtle]

When your raids are boiled down to "get gear" and any social or fun aspects are stripped away, what incentive is there for someone to stick around? Why raid anything at all that doesn't have gear you want? Or worse, why raid at all when your BiS means there's no reason to ever enter the instance again? This is an MMO, and the "multiplayer" aspect is where a lot of the long-term fun comes from. Ask any of the really old guard why they're still here and I'll bet that's what they say.

I quit macro because that's all it became for me, just a gear grind. I didn't enjoy the hard turn the culture took or how it was carried out, then I was told I couldn't even go for any of the gear I wanted, either MS or OS, so I went my own way. No hard feelings, no animosity, just a total loss of any reason to stay. I was about to quit entirely before I was invited to join another raid team with friends, and I'm still raiding with them even though I don't need a single thing from their raids.

You want your attendance to perk up? Tokens won't solve it and will just be a bandage when you need stiches and antiseptic. They'll help, just not enough.

I agree with you, but humans aren't meant to do the same exact routine every single week forever, letting them get the items quicker let's them not worry about them and focus on the group or the gameplay more.

Let's use another topic to explain my reasoning: If you ask any vanilla player, what is their fav dungeon in the game? The most common answer is the Scarlet Monastery series of dungeons. What makes the Scarlet Monastery that interesting? The zone? The story? The Bladestorm axe? I think it's not one aspect: it's All of it.

People will clear the dungeon at early 30s and level up all the way till 40 and still come back to the dungeon. But once they got all the items they needed, they don't come back. Despite liking the dungeon, doing it so much takes it's toll on people and they move on. They don't move on by quitting, they move on by doing other things in the game. What can we derive from this?

Scarlet Monastery bosses drop 1 item for 5 players. That's a 20% chance for you winning the item if everyone needs. If your group is 2 melee 1 caster 1 healer and 1 tank, and you're the melee, thats a 33% chance of you winning the Ravager. Compare that to Black Wing Lair: Bosses drop 2 items, for 40 players. That is a 0.8% chance of you getting the item if all 40 players want it, but of course this is a hyperbole. Realistically at most about 10 people will want the item, so it's a 10% chance you win it. Or is it? Bosses have far wider loot tables than Scarlet Monastery bosses. Most bosses in SM drop up to 3 items, raid bosses have over dozens.

Another difference being, you can run Scarlet Monastery unlimited times a day, (hard limit is 5 lockouts per hour, so 5x24 120 attempts daily.) While a raid can be done once every 7 days.

There are people who have ran raids for over a year or more and haven't received the item they wanted, is this ok because the game will never progress past this expansion? And if so, how come that universally 0 people have complained about Nefarian and Onyxia dropping 2 heads and Rag dropping 2 T2 pants as well as Onyxia dropping 4 T2 helmets?

TLDR: Let me summarize: People like playing the game but not getting any items makes most people not want to play for anything other than the community, but if there are people in the community who raid for items and they leave, the people who stayed for them will also leave, causing a chain reaction. Just because right now we have many guilds raiding doesn't mean the athmosphere is good or healthy, if anything I'd advocate that it's unhealthy to make a guy raid for over 50 weeks to obtain 1 item, and more often than not, they will be absolutely burnt out by the time they obtain it. Almost Nobody plays Wow just for 1 of it's aspects, it's a combination of things.

[Tawneyturtle]

I'm going to drop a brick again. I apologize in advance.


>They don't care about what loot others get, ultimately. They care about their loot and nothing else. Once they've gotten everything they need from MC/BWL/Ony/AQ40, they'll stop showing and feel there's no problem at all in doing so.



Not every elitist guild is this full-on. It's a spectrum with one end being "elitist" where the speed runners and meter jockeys are from, and the other being "fun" where people who want to enjoy the content for what it is reside. A good raiding guild will have a healthy mix and have a philosophy that welcomes both. A guild that does not will burn out faster and have more trouble holding onto raiders. Too much "fun" and you won't clear content, leading people to get annoyed at not being able to experience everything there is to see. Too "elitist" and people don't get to enjoy what they're doing and instead treat it like a job they're clocking in for.

Eventually, the lifecycle of what content is available will lead to everyone burning out and a server dying. It's happened on every single server in every MMO I've ever played. New content to explore extends this lifespan and TWoW offers enough here and there for the "fun" people to stick around and enjoy, but the "elitist" groups who only want the best possible gear in their inventory as fast as possible aren't interested.

If your guild is suffering attendance, it isn't all because of how loot RNG works. It's unlikely this is any of their first experience with WoW; if they really hated how the loot system worked I doubt so many would have raided in the first place. I'd look to other factors and even if people are not saying something you agree with, the fact that several people gave the same answer obviously means there's some substance to it.

>EDIT: For the record, I do think the loot system is not implemented well, I just disagree with some of your reasoning on why.

You're seeing it the same way as me but you're looking at the end result and not the process. No one starts raiding by expecting everything for themselves, the mindset you describe is usually after months and months of seeing other people come and go with items, seeing almost everyone get their last item piece and quit.

You think of this is a pre planned selfish intention. I'm thinking it's the result of Sunk Cost and Mobile Gacha loot mechanics doing permanent damage to people's psychies, and it causes them to turn into loot goblins who burn out after finally getting their items.

I can't think of 1 guild on turtle that doesn't suffer from people coming and going. The people who stay the longest are those who gear up alts. People like Zaas who has a BiS character and still raids every week are 1 in a million. Just because we get new people to replace them, who themselves will eventually burn out, isn't a healthy attitude. It's the description of a toxic work environment.

I'm open to suggestions, the 2 I mentioned were just the simplest solutions that came to my mind. It's a hell lot better than what other private servers do by letting people buy gear with real money.

[Bayanni]

You're sooooo close to the logical endpoint I was trying to point out.

You're kind of just rephrasing a lot of what I was saying, but yes, people will leave once they have their fill of loot. That said, I'm still raiding BWL and haven't needed a single drop for months. Why? The people are fun. There's at least 5 other people in the raid group I know are in the same boat. We don't raid it for gear, and I can't speak for all of them but I don't raid it for the content at this point either. I raid it for the group, the people.

It's an MMO, interaction between people online is the core of the entire experience and what retail wow removed more and more of in every expansion (Group/Raid Finder? Flying mounts? etc.) contributing to the dumpster fire it is today. If you're not interacting and just running the same content for the 100th time, are you even enjoying yourself? If I spent 200 hours of my life trying and failing to get a single item in a video game, I'd rather stop playing and do anything else. I enjoy just sitting on a porch more than running an instance that many times, even Stratholme and that's my favorite by a long shot. I'd rather spend time yelling at my jackass neighbor for letting his dog squat a fat one on my yard than do something as monotonous as raiding BWL yet again for no other reason than to hope that finally, this time, I'll see a Drama-Fang Talisman and maybe win a roll against 15 other grognards stuck in the same loop as me. Some of them will burn out, because they're only here for the loot, not the experience.

However, if I'm having fun because the people I'm with are enjoyable thanks to a low-stress environment where we get to do dumb stuff and kick back, I'll keep going regardless. I won't really care too much if I win the roll because it's a good time; better enjoyment for the hours spent than something else over the same period. It's why, despite having everything I want from BWL, I'm still going. When you can get your raiders to enjoy what they're doing more than what they're getting, you'll get more to stick around too.

[Balake]

There's no need to increase the drop rate of the very wanted stuff because players must always have a carrot on a stick to aim for, for me since the purpose is making raids fun, there are many approaches to it, and all of these approaches must be tackled simultaneously by the devs.

1- Cut down on the prep time. Prep time for raids in an MMO is essential, there must always be some work people do as "rite of passage".
Examples of rites of passage include attunements which are generally fun (onyxia one gets frustrating because its out of the way in some steps and hard to find a group, solo attunements are good, as well as attunements that you can get by default while you do other stuff you enjoy like brd lava runs). Imo there's no need to remove attunements.

Another example is preraid bis gear. Most of the guilds I've seen require warriors to get LHH/Titanics and locks to get Bloodvine before stepping into AQ40. Add to that enchanting all of their stuff and it can get quiet expensive. The problem with that is not that these crafted items are too strong, frankly they are not overbudget, they just use their budget smartly by focusing 100% on offensive stats. The thing at fault is dungeon/zg/aq20 gear being too weak and outdated in design. Most of it being clowny garbage with spirit and intellect for no reason. It's fine for these crafted items to be the best pre-raid but the difference from them to the 2nd best shouldn't be as big as it is right now. Buff the dungeon loot that already exists, or add new stuff in the upcoming Karazhan and Emerald Dream raids (we still don't know how long till these come out)

The third example of rites of passage is the most toxic one, and that's the repeat grind that you have to do over and over every week. Farming for your most basic consumes, farming for your protection potions to not get oneshot 10 seconds into the boss fight, and then on top of that farming very niche shit that is sadly too important to pass (ROIDS, Zanzas). Consumables in my opinion should have a spot as strong buffs to use on the open world. You can get class buffs in a raid, or you can use consumes in their stead in the open world. The point I'm trying to lead to is, for example buff mark of the wild by about as much strength and agi as consumes would give anyway, then make them not stack.

2- Cut down on the dead time during the raid. Buffing spells especially priests cost way too much mana, and oranges are still frankly underpowered (should be 4% in my opinion). Remove some of the annoying trash where its just kill, rez, rebuff, drink, repeat. The 3 packs before bug trio could be just 2 packs, the 5 packs before sartura could be just 3-4 packs. The 8-ish packs before huhuran could be just 5 packs and really nobody would protest this change.

3- Change all the dead drops into something that at least has the potential to be useful. All of that spirit and mp5 gear is dead, it's NOT part of vanilla's charm to have bad items, that was a failure by the devs. They wanted everything to fill a specific role no matter how niche it is, and they failed with these items that fill NO ROLE whatsoever. Buff them, but if you insist on adhering to stat budgets that were flawed in the first place then remove them altogether.

[Bayanni]

No one starts raiding by expecting everything for themselves

Oh yes they do

Everyone is selfish, the only question is to what degree. It is this innate nature that leads to the varying degrees of the mindset I was describing.

Look at Macrochelys. Back when it was just a few raiding guilds (4?), they were initially raiding together with TABC through AQ40 into Naxx. However, the TABC mindset caused a schism that led to most of the macros raiding in TABC to leave. Draehja was 4/9 T3 and a planned 4hm tank when he left. Others followed. Ornstein kept going with them, as examples. I left a little later during their 4hm attempts for the same stuff. They turned the raids into a chore rather than something to enjoy. Their leadership at the time didn't help matters and affected some decisions more than others, but it all came down to "TABC is a bunch of dicks so we're leaving" as the common thread. Macro flourished afterward and set the server record for fastest Naxx clears, first guild to clear it in a day, etc.

However, on their way to the top Macro did some things old TABC was accused of doing. This led to a number of people leaving them too and joining other guilds or quitting altogether. It's happened in every "serious" progression guild on every server I've ever been on. On Feenix I was in the guild that first cleared naxx. Whole thing instantly spiraled and everyone quit raiding the moment they got that one epic they were waiting on. Nost raiding was going that way, but the server shut down before my guild could tank there. Kronos, same story. Even my retail raid guild died out when everything became all about grinding and not about playing a video game. I've seen it so many times and it will keep happening to every single guild that goes full-on into the "parse above all" mentality.

Of course every guild loses members. People don't know themselves and reach for guilds they think are aligned with what they want, but often find that isn't the case. People also are differently self-oriented, meaning they crave those pixels to varying degrees compared to other things like social interaction. It's not pre-planned, it's instinctual. Look at sports. You see many athletes on top teams with any real loyalty to their team colors? They'll jump ship for a fatter paycheck and never look back. "Get Mine" isn't some new phenomena; it's older than computers.

You are right though, it is toxic, so don't encourage it. Making the loot easier to get will just churn the unhealthy ones through faster and you'll be left in an even worse situation with less numbers consistently.

[Bayanni]

3- Change all the dead drops into something that at least has the potential to be useful. All of that spirit and mp5 gear is dead, it's NOT part of vanilla's charm to have bad items, that was a failure by the devs. They wanted everything to fill a specific role no matter how niche it is, and they failed with these items that fill NO ROLE whatsoever. Buff them, but if you insist on adhering to stat budgets that were flawed in the first place then remove them altogether.

I support this fully and without reservation. If I see another damn handbag drop from Gluth I'll camp goldshire for a week straight.

[Tawneyturtle]

I'm not sure if your worldview where everyone but you is a selfish elitist is accurate but that could be a hyperbole on your end. I got my items from MC but I still join every now and then, had I not be doing 2x AQ40s and 2x BWLs and 2x Naxxes I'd probably do more MCs too. But I have to keep doing the BWLs and AQ40s cause for 1 guild I'm helping cause most people like you said have bailed after getting items and for the other guild I'm gearing my main with them. 1 of the 2 naxxes I join to help and the other I join for gear and parsing and because it's fun.

There are loot goblins out there but not everyone is a loot goblin. If I didn't *need* to do 5 out of 6 raids for my or my guilds progression, I'd do other raids for fun, had they took less time.

[Bayanni]

I think you're missing my point.

I'm not saying everyone is either entirely selfish or entirely not. It's why I specifically chose the word "spectrum". It means to classify something on a position on a scale between two extreme or opposite points, those points being "fun" and "elitist". I'm on this spectrum, at no point am I trying to imply I'm not. I've been saying I got what I wanted but I stuck around for the fun. If I'm not mistaken, the entire point of your thread is to keep people raiding for more lockouts than they are currently. I'm stating, as plainly as I can, why I stick around and why I feel others do not.

If you're raiding for fun, great! 1/40 down. Now get the others to do that and you'll have a long-term team. Convert the loot goblins into what you are now. You seem to think you became what you were by acquiring your gear, right? If so, then keep pushing for loot tokens and other means of making gear more likely to acquire. If not, then why? Answer that honestly, to yourself, and you'll know how to solve the core issue. All of my responses have been trying to walk you through how I answered exactly that question for myself and demonstrating the results. I hope they help.

[Tawneyturtle]

No, I think the loot goblins are a lost cause, they will keep playing until they have 8/8 characters BiS then quit.

What we CAN do however, is try to have the carrot on the stick as Balake put it, a bit closer or have more than 1 carrot, so the people who dislike vanilla loot system or see it as an insurmountable wall see it as a lesser one.

[Xudo]

What i however regard as a big frustrating factor with raiding in general is the requirements to ones wallet. As a active raidtank all my time in the game is spent raiding or preparing for raids, even if i want to, i can barely help out my guildies in a dungeon without straining my raidsupplies. And i am an established raider who got all his prequests enchants and alts sorted out. Many newer raiders simply can not afford the same consumbles i go trough.

I think raidconumes are the biggest unnecessary frust factor when raiding. And i'd love to see their usage be a little less painful to the out of raid experience of raiders.

Thats good point. Consumable farming is most tedious activity, which is unrelated to raiding at all.

It is natural to get all possible consumables to prepare for raid. Thats why consumables should not stack with eachother by design. for example in TBC way (guardian+battle elixirs).

I also like the idea to combine doing 5ppl dungeons with preparing for raid. Like turning scourgestones for consumables.
Though, if you are t2/t3 tank, why your guildmates are ever need to go 5ppl dungeons? They could just go BWL.

The token system i find downright frightening. We are on Turtle where you have no timelimit until the next expansion voids all your achievements. So there is no rush to completing your gear. Tokens by their design give each raid a finite shelflife. because after X amount of Ids you will always have enouh tokens to buy all the gear you want. And you clearly know that tokesns make loot feel less special. otherwise you wouldn't have excluded legendaries from the token system.

There is no timelimit, but there is some flow of new players who joins in queue for some specific item. If item drops less often than new players join, then amount of people wanting specific item increases over time.
What is wrong with granting most wanted items to everyone? It is not about giving this item in first raid.
IIRC BWL resets every week. So every year has 52-53 cooldowns. Assume you get 1 token from raid. Amount of raid tokens could be 20 or 30 for DFT. Half of the year raiding.

[Tawneyturtle]

Exactly there's no time limit, why shouldn't we give new players a chance to catch up to old players? In almost every expansion there are catch-up mechanics so new players don't have to wait for months and months until they can start queuing BGs or get into Naxx?

I think a lot of new ppl hit 60 and see most ppl are in full epics and can't bring themselves to queue for BGs with 2-3k hp and don't feel like waiting months to join Naxx farm guilds. Let's create a system that allows for raiders to catch up as well as hunt down the last few epics they need. A Badge system that gives you 1-2 Badges each raid where tier pieces can be exchanged for as little as 3-5 pieces and high item level items can go for 10-20. I'd say make Naxxramas not included in this and instead increase the items every last wing boss drops by 1. That'd be Maexna, Loatheb, Thaddius and 4hm and KT.

[Xudo]

In almost every expansion there are catch-up mechanics so new players don't have to wait for months and months until they can start queuing BGs or get into Naxx?

While I agree on badges system, I don't agree on catchup mechanics introduced in WoTLK.
It is wrong that players of 60 lvl with different tiers of gear are mixed in one bracket. But it is not an excuse to allow to skip raids entirely.

Turtle is designed for leveling, slow and steady journey. Providing catchup mechanics is like allowing people to skip leveling by some help of higher level character.

Basic world of warcraft 1.12 has like 30 dungeons and only 1 top tier raid. It is just waste of content to encourage players to play only 1 raid out of whole game.

[Tawneyturtle]

Look at it this way: If people wouldn't NEED to do BWL/AQ40 for that 1-2 elusive items, they'd have more time to do other content that's fun and they do it for fun, not for items.