Friday, January 11, 2013

Return of the Wrath Lockout System?

There are some people that loved wrath and others that hated it.  It is just the way life is and everyone has their own opinions.  While I am always open for debate and have been known to change my mind on many topics when presented with a good argument for the other side there are two things, in regard to raiding, that I don't think anyone will ever be able to change my mind on that wrath hit dead on balls perfect or damn near to it.  That was raid design, in ulduar at least, and the separate lock outs for 10 and 25.

We will be revisiting the ulduar type of design, or so we are told, with the coming of 5.2 so does that mean that the other great raiding piece of the puzzle from wrath might also make a return some day soon, separate lockouts?

While it is true that I had issues with the separate lock outs here and there and the gear between the two and the different challenges each type had, as they say hindsight is 20/20, and looking back the wrath design was quite good even with as many problems as we might have perceived they had.

During wrath I raided both 25 mainly and 10 mainly.  When we were raiding 25s mainly I would pug 10s on the weekend and when we were raiding 10s I would pug 25s on the weekend.  That is not even mentioning alts and shuffling them in one or the other here or there. 

The design was great.  You had the easy 25 mans that made pugging a dream, or at least as much of a dream as any pug could be, and that was good for community and good for keeping people playing.  It was a great design, sorry, just had to repeat that.

The 10 man guild could pug 25s on weekends and being it was easier they would be guaranteed at least partial success and higher gear to boot which in turn would basically give them heroic 10 gear (25 normal gear) to try and make the 10 mans easier for them.

It was sort of like a create your own difficulty design.  10 man guild stuck on a boss?  Get some 25 man gear and make your life easier or just stick it out and try to be 10 strict, which back in wrath, 10 strict was the real hard mode.  10 strict was brutal and the fact that LK was not downed on 10 strict in heroic mode until well after the buff was 30% and it was out around 8 months is proof of that.

I think bringing back the wrath lock out system would be good for the game.  It would encourage more pugging on the server which could help the community, it would give people more ways to get valor, it would give people more ways to get gear, it will open the doors to make things easier on people, even more so if they keep it like it was in wrath were you can easily carry those bad people in 25s. 

We all remember those pugs were half the DPS were doing less than 5K, many even in the 3K range, and we still downed things.  25s in wrath were basically LFRs you assembled and it was good for the game.  A lot better for the game than the LFRs are now with no organization, no community impact, lesser gear and a feeling of us vs them in your own group doing the content.

Bringing back separate lock outs would be the best thing raiding has seen since, well, wrath.

The difficulty of the raids can be left up to debate if you wish, but the separate lock out, regardless of the difficulties, was a solid idea and one that I believe should make a return.  What do you think, should we have the double lock out system again?

7 comments:

  1. I agree that they should be separate. It just gives more options. I think they should drop the same gear and the difficulty should be equivalent, at least at first. See how it goes for one tier and then make balancing adjustments.

    The thing I dislike even more is the Heroic lockout system. The restrictions are too confusing and they kill pugging. Heroic lockouts should be the same rules as Normal lockouts.

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    1. The heroic lock out system is beyond annoying. I feel the pain there and agree it should be the same as normal, mic and match as you will.

      Back in DS we had two groups in one week go 6/8 heroic but could not continue on either and thanks to that stupid lock out system we could not merge them either. So no finishing it that week. If you are 6/8 you should be allowed to join a 6/8 heroic or not no matter what.

      I dislike the whole toggle heroic on and off too. I wish it would just go activated hard modes like uldaur. That was just better design, let us play it how we want to when we want to.

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    2. Excuse me silly question, but when did the lockouts become the same one?
      :( And did GhostCreeper / Blizzard Gnomes ever really talk about this?
      This is the first time I have ever read that they were different. But in my defense you know me and raiding/instances, haven't done them since Litch King. So, I am really not in the know.

      One thing I am really getting annoyed with the Blizzard Gnomes, is how they think I want to play.

      ...In Blizzard's secret underground lair are the BG's (blizzard gnomes) in a deep round table discussion....

      "Everybody needs to be out in the wilds"

      "The game is about PVP, everyone needs to PVP. So lets force folks (even those who don't pvp) to pvp"

      "Lets monkey with everything. That will piss 'em off"

      "Lets ALWAYS LISTEN to the vocal minority."

      "Our research indicates over 45% are bots. Lets let them stay. If we got cheaters, that's ok, that shows they don't let EULA's control them! Besides, if we got rid of them, our profit will fall!!! Oh noes, can't have that."

      "Jeeze GhostCreeper, we need to make some code room because now we have Cross Realm Zones". "Well, we can just give those raiders just 1 lockout for it all, that will save you some coding room and will really piss off a lot raiders!". "Yeah, it will keep them playing for months more -
      Mu-hahahahahahahaha"

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    3. The pre cata patch, 4.0.1 or 4.0.3 maybe. Around that time is when it happened.

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    4. Thanks Grumpy!

      question - if "Grumpy" is pural, would that be "Grumpii"?

      A Night Elf once shot an arrow into the air... but missed!

      -roo wacky as ever "That's all folks!"

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  2. There's no way to do it. If both raids awarded the same gear, people would gear up too fast and so droprates would have to be nerfed, punishing anyone who didn't run both of them. If 25s award better gear ala Wrath, then that becomes the "real" raid and 10s are just a sideshow. This game already has too much gear discrimination in it anyhow.

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    1. I agree there is way to much gear discrimination in the game as is. It is actually sickeningly out of control. The DPS I can pull at 480 compared to when I was 470 is insane and that first bump from questing and entering heroics at 440 or getting crafted 450s was insane, I am talking a 15K DPS difference from 10 item level points.

      That needs to be fixed too. There is no reason that the gear should scale that insane. Back in wrath I could bring a new character in all naxx/ulduar gear and destroy, I mean totally humiliate someone in full ICC gear. While gear always mattered, that was the last time gear matted less than skill did. Skill should always be the deciding factor in how well someone performs, not gear, and this is why there is so much gear discrimination.

      So with that said, a return to wrath style would also need a return to gear being second in how well someone does. And 25s where always a joke in wrtah, not sure where they became the "real thing" because they dropped higher gear. They were always easier than 10s. It is only now that they drop the same gear that they actually can be harder. No longer to get they the bonus to easy mode with giving away better gear for no reason.

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