I think alot of people will agree with me that WoW has become bias against the regular gamer. The ultimate end game, Black Temple, will only be seen by about 2% of the gaming community. Because you dont have the "badass" gear or you actually have a life and cant devote 6 hours to raiding or make every raid. I have a 70 shammy and ive done ssc/tk many times. Alas, my guild decided I didnt make enough raids and there I go. I think MMO's should make these end game raids more accesible to the average gamer. Let everyone play the WHOLE game.

I'm taking bets against someone will mention welfare during this thread.

Originally posted by yesuconn

 I think MMO's should make these end game raids more accesible to the average gamer. Let everyone play the WHOLE game.

raiding and "solo player" content are 2 entirely different styles of play

WOW has offered raid lite -- 10 man

I have the badass gear.

I got it from running 5 man dungeons.

I think Blizzard did really well in rebalancing this game so that casual gamers could keep parity with raiders. TBC was a marked improvement from the old world in this regard.

Making raids is considerably less fun than washing the dishes. If you are the kind of person that expects it to all be done for you. That someone else should be able to make that time when you yourself cannot be bothered, you shouldn't have much to moan about when you don't get an invite.

Raids suck. Raiders suck. If you are going to raid you need to develop a thick skin for rejection.

If you don't want to get rejected, organise them yourself. It doesn't take 6 hours, it takes the same 30 minutes you spend sitting around online waiting for your invite. Only you aren't sitting around dueling, you are getting a load of blagging whispers and guilt trips from lazy buggers who wouldn't make the same effort for you.

Originally posted by yesuconn

I think alot of people will agree with me that WoW has become bias against the regular gamer. The ultimate end game, Black Temple, will only be seen by about 2% of the gaming community. Because you dont have the "badass" gear or you actually have a life and cant devote 6 hours to raiding or make every raid. I have a 70 shammy and ive done ssc/tk many times. Alas, my guild decided I didnt make enough raids and there I go. I think MMO's should make these end game raids more accesible to the average gamer. Let everyone play the WHOLE game.

Look at it this way.  It's 2% of the players, but Black Temple is probably less than 2% of the game.  That's 2% of the game, for the top 2% of the players.  That leaves 98% of the game to the other 98% of the players.  Seems about right to me.

Im not a "lazy" player and I dont sit around for half an hour waiting for an invite......as i said before i work alot and i also like this game alot. It just seems that "elite" guilds form and they are the ones that get to experience the whole game. I dont see that as fair.....i cant play the whole game because I work too much? I pay the same 15 bucks as the next guy....but as you say the "elite" players (aka live in your moms basment and have limited interactions with other people) get to experience the true end game? Meh i say make it more accesible to everyone. Or does that scare you "elite" players that someone in orgrimmar might be running around in the same gear as you?

Originally posted by yesuconn

 does that scare you "elite" players that someone in orgrimmar might be running around in the same gear as you?

but with you last post,

seems more like a plea for "gimme my epic gear"

most mmos have *time sinks* with rewards for those timesinks

- its got little to do with being elite

Originally posted by yesuconn

as i said before i work alot and i also like this game alot. It just seems that "elite" guilds form and they are the ones that get to experience the whole game. I dont see that as fair.....i cant play the whole game because I work too much? I pay the same 15 bucks as the next guy....but as you say the "elite" players (aka live in your moms basment and have limited interactions with other people) get to experience the true end game? Meh i say make it more accesible to everyone.

You're not missing as much as you think.  I'm not a full blown raider, however I know some and I've done just enough raiding myself to let you in on the dirty little secret that all those guys in purples don't want you to know....looks around nervously....whispers....It's not all that great.

Let me give you a little insite into the "raiders" world.

1)  They spend almost the whole week "preparing" for their raid.  Doing dailies to earn enough gold to get the latest enchants and buying the reagents needed to make pots etc.

2)  Often times there's a lot of bickering and fighting over who gets to go and why and who will get what gear if it drops and who's on top of the DKP chart and so on.

3)  On raid night they'll sometimes wait around for an hour or more for the raid to get started hoping that they'll get a raid invite.  And you can't simply go play the game while you wait because if you're not at the raid launch point ready to go, you won't get an invite.  You ever see a large group of players all standing outside of Kara doing nothing but jumping all over each other?  They're waiting around to see if they get "picked".  It's more pathetic than the kick ball game in 4th grade.

4)  If they don't get "picked" they're expected to leave that character near the entrace to the raid on the off chance that someone will have to drop from the raid and someone else will be invited in.  If you're not ready and waiting, you won't go and not only that but you'll be asked to explain why you weren't just waiting around to go.  Now you can if you want sometimes log off that character and play an alt as long as you keep listening on Ventrilo or something else so if something should come up you can immediately drop whatever you are doing and switch to your main, so no going on instance runs or grouping up or anything else that might make the raid wait.

5)  Depending on the group, you will spend an awful lot of time mowing down trash mobs for little to no loot for the chance to kill the boss with the nice loot.  For the next 15 mins the raid leader will explain the boss fight to anyone who doesn't know what their job is and there's almost always at least 1 person who doesn't know.  Should anyone fail to do their job well on the boss, most likely it will result in a wipe of the raid group and another 30 minutes to regroup, rebuff and listen the raid leader AGAIN explain the boss fight emphasizing the part that just got screwed up so you can take another shot at it.  When you finally do manage to kill a boss, about half the time something drops that no one really wants because they either already have something better, it's of a type they can't use or they are waiting for something better to drop and don't want to use their DKP points.

6)  At the end of the night, if you're lucky you have managed to save a pot or 2 for the next raid encounter, only had maybe a 20 or 30g repair bill and perhaps actually replaced a blue with a purple who's stats are only slightly better than what you had already.  And when I say a pot or 2, I'm not talking about a super mana pot that can be picked up for a gold or 2, I'm talking about those ones on the AH that sell for like 5 or 10g apiece or something like that. Yeah, you're expected to have those if you want to be a hard core raider otherwise you risking being humiliated because your damage is so poor or your healing so weak that someone will swear you must be sleeping half the raid.

So before you start lamenting that you can't play the whole game, you need to actually talk to someone who does play the whole game and ask them if I'm lying that it's not all it's cracked up to be.  Why do you think there are so many posts all the time from raiders saying that end-game sucks?  It's not because they don't like the purples, it's because those purples don't come about easily.  Oh you can get purples alright, but I'm not talking about just any purple, I'm talking about the ones with the killer stats on them.  Believe me when I tell you that the person worked damned hard to get that purple. 

Unless of course you like your games to be more like work than fun?

Blizzard got it 1/2 right with the "standard" dungeons and the "heroic" dungeons.

That way, the standard ones are easy enough where everyone can run them and complete them, but the heroic versions take skill, coordination, and a higher gear level. By completing these heroic dungeons, you get better rewards.

The reputation grind to unlock the heroic mode is a little too much IMO.

The questions is, why haven't they done the same for raiding? Have standard and heroic difficulty settings for raids.

The standard raids are much easier then the current ones, but the gear levels are much more comparable to the heroic 5-person dungeons.

Put Tier 4,5,6 gear into the 3 tiers of "standard" raids and put the Tier 7,8,9 in the "heroic" raids.

This way, everyone has a much better chance of at least seeing and experiencing the content, but the "hardcore" raiders who possess the dedication, skill, coordination, and effort to do the "heroic" raids end up with the greatest rewards.

It'd be a PERFECT opportunity to bring back some of the older raids too. Make "heroic" versions of MC, BWL, AQ40, and NAX for groups of 25 level 70 characters. Even bring back heroic versions of ZG and AQ20 for groups of 10 level 70 characters.

Or even take out the Tiered gear from the standard raids, just put in the non-Tiered armor and weapons, and save the better stuff, the Tiered gear for the Heroic raids.

Anything that get's more people playing and logging in is a bonus. Anything that let's people enjoy content is a good thing. Sure, when someone asks "So has your guild killed Illidan?" You can say "Yes, but only on standard difficulty."

Or balance the gear so that the highest Tier raid on Standard difficulty gears and prepares you for the lowest Tier raid on Heroic difficulty. Re-using content is fine, and if anything going through standard Raid Tier 1-3 then going back through on Heroic Tier 1-3 is much better and less mind-numbing then hitting the same raid week in, week out for months, then FINALLY moving up the next Tier.

What do ya'll think? Casual raiding with less powerful rewards for non-hardcore players who want to raid and see the content and turn the raids we have in now into the "heroic" ones for the uber-guilds who want (and deserve) the best PvE gear.

Originally posted by heerobya

Casual raiding with less powerful rewards for non-hardcore players who want to raid and see the content and turn the raids we have in now into the "heroic" ones for the uber-guilds who want (and deserve) the best PvE gear.

theres plenty of people that would appreciate old raid content being worthwhile again

2.4 will be eliminating some attunement reqs for BC raid content

www.wowwiki.com/Patch_2.4.0

don't suck at WoW and you would see end game content.It is bad enough with how easy they made it with BC.

If they made it any easier they may as well just add a command to [load <equipment> to inventory.

But even if Kara was on super easy mode for the "casual gamer" wouldn't it still require X amount of people to get together for Y amount of time. Where X and Y are identical for it on normal mode? If the number of players is less, then all you have is a regular instance, and there are plenty of those to go around. If the amount of time is less than I could agree that its POSSIBLE to appeal to casuals, but a 30 minute raid? The loot should be equivalent to that.

I guess they can speed through the content then? Thats fun... once.

i am avarage Joe. I quited WoW just few days ago. why? my paladin has prety full epix in all 3 biulds. ( 5 man heroics, badges,craftables, kara, some grull), And i cant get anything better, or if i can, i cant be arsed do 15 heroics sp, and get that damn belt.

And in the end..... FOR WHAT? THE POINT OF IT? I already can tank heroics with no cc... i can out heal even crapies tank in heroic, and i can do insane dps ( even as paladin). I dont need better gear.

And the thing is, i work 5-6ays per waek, about 10 avarage. And i finish prety late so moust all giulds are raiding earlyer. And on mine days off, i cant be arsed to go to 25man raid, and even if i will go, only thing i will get is aliitle bit of DKP, where comparing to athers is nothing. So basicly, on avarege ssc/tk raid we spend about 4hours. And after 4h i go with empy hands every single time....

BTW outside raiding there is nothing to do at all.... Bearcare pvp is not for me, 4 battleground maps, so boring and not interesting, where moust of times you get ganked, or you gank someone.

So WoW really need to do something about it, statistic are : 70% quit WoW after Kara ( and you dont need to be rocket sientis to understand that)

So WoW, as much as i love warcraft lore, i wount stay in this magical world, sorry...

p.s. you say get an alt and get him to 70, okay and whats then? i will get him geared after zounds of hours of game, and end up as orggimar grunt, like my paladin? no ty, i choose LIFE....

It is not the difficulty.

It is the extreme need for scheduling so many people. It is just not fun. That is why I will never go into raiding. If only 2% of the players are into raiding, then may be only 2% of the content should be gear towards that.

They should also have instance "lite" that can be done with 2 people instead of 5. There are multiple times that we have to end a run because a party member has to pull out.

I have to say that in my opinion, the lack of interest in raiding is a combination of meager rewards and inaccessibility. WoW has done much to ease the transition from 5-man into raids, but it's still too much. As the above poster said, most people quit after Kara, because it's simply too much trouble to get that many people together. I think the days of "raid or die" are behind us, and 10-man raids are where it's at. I know I would be FAR more interested if I was considered more than just a number on a spreadsheet.

<modedit>

This isnt my plea for more gear, it isnt "gimme epix!!". I honestly would like to at least experience some of the end game that most people dont get to, thats all. as far as "not sucking at wow" I have a pretty geared shaman and i dont suck, I just work alot so those "elite" raiding guilds dont keep me around for long, for the sole reason I cant be there for every raid and wait around for an invite. I agree some of the raiding is retarted. Sitting around, waiting for an invite or anything like that is stupid.

Now, as I would like to experience the end game, as some have said that im "lazy" or making a desperate plea for loot, I say to you: Find me 25 more people with the same schedule as me and Ill be glad to raid with them and get the full effect of the game.

I very much like the idea of a normal raid and heroic raid, yes let the hardcore players get their better loot, but let everyone actually experience the game and the story. So what if the gear isnt as good, I just want to get some of that experience.

As far as patch 2.4 looks like blizz is considering some of the less hardcore raiders and taking away attunements and its one step towards letting the regular joe experience the game fully.

The truth is when you find your self scheduling your days around raid times its time to leave that guild.. you and that guild are just not compatible.

Find a guild thats fits more with your time table.. sure you might not progress as fast the [uber guild] who raid every night and even kick ppl if they miss a raid (those guilds do exist),

Get into a guild or even make your own.. I once was co-founder of [Weekend warriors] on bloodfeather some time ago because as the name suggested I could only rely spend my time raiding on weekends, we grow to a point where running ZG (this was pre TBC) was a weekly activity as well as taking down some of the world boss and dragons.

Kara and ZA are 10man raids.. there is no reason you cannot PUG it, a long time ago we had a 15man UBRS and that was always PUG, they have made raiding easy enough as it is, we dont need to make it easier because a select few cannot be botherd to make the effort.

Originally posted by Pappy13

 

Originally posted by yesuconn

as i said before i work alot and i also like this game alot. It just seems that "elite" guilds form and they are the ones that get to experience the whole game. I dont see that as fair.....i cant play the whole game because I work too much? I pay the same 15 bucks as the next guy....but as you say the "elite" players (aka live in your moms basment and have limited interactions with other people) get to experience the true end game? Meh i say make it more accesible to everyone.

You're not missing as much as you think.  I'm not a full blown raider, however I know some and I've done just enough raiding myself to let you in on the dirty little secret that all those guys in purples don't want you to know....looks around nervously....whispers....It's not all that great.

 

Let me give you a little insite into the "raiders" world.

1)  They spend almost the whole week "preparing" for their raid.  Doing dailies to earn enough gold to get the latest enchants and buying the reagents needed to make pots etc.

2)  Often times there's a lot of bickering and fighting over who gets to go and why and who will get what gear if it drops and who's on top of the DKP chart and so on.

3)  On raid night they'll sometimes wait around for an hour or more for the raid to get started hoping that they'll get a raid invite.  And you can't simply go play the game while you wait because if you're not at the raid launch point ready to go, you won't get an invite.  You ever see a large group of players all standing outside of Kara doing nothing but jumping all over each other?  They're waiting around to see if they get "picked".  It's more pathetic than the kick ball game in 4th grade.

4)  If they don't get "picked" they're expected to leave that character near the entrace to the raid on the off chance that someone will have to drop from the raid and someone else will be invited in.  If you're not ready and waiting, you won't go and not only that but you'll be asked to explain why you weren't just waiting around to go.  Now you can if you want sometimes log off that character and play an alt as long as you keep listening on Ventrilo or something else so if something should come up you can immediately drop whatever you are doing and switch to your main, so no going on instance runs or grouping up or anything else that might make the raid wait.

5)  Depending on the group, you will spend an awful lot of time mowing down trash mobs for little to no loot for the chance to kill the boss with the nice loot.  For the next 15 mins the raid leader will explain the boss fight to anyone who doesn't know what their job is and there's almost always at least 1 person who doesn't know.  Should anyone fail to do their job well on the boss, most likely it will result in a wipe of the raid group and another 30 minutes to regroup, rebuff and listen the raid leader AGAIN explain the boss fight emphasizing the part that just got screwed up so you can take another shot at it.  When you finally do manage to kill a boss, about half the time something drops that no one really wants because they either already have something better, it's of a type they can't use or they are waiting for something better to drop and don't want to use their DKP points.

6)  At the end of the night, if you're lucky you have managed to save a pot or 2 for the next raid encounter, only had maybe a 20 or 30g repair bill and perhaps actually replaced a blue with a purple who's stats are only slightly better than what you had already.  And when I say a pot or 2, I'm not talking about a super mana pot that can be picked up for a gold or 2, I'm talking about those ones on the AH that sell for like 5 or 10g apiece or something like that. Yeah, you're expected to have those if you want to be a hard core raider otherwise you risking being humiliated because your damage is so poor or your healing so weak that someone will swear you must be sleeping half the raid.

So before you start lamenting that you can't play the whole game, you need to actually talk to someone who does play the whole game and ask them if I'm lying that it's not all it's cracked up to be.  Why do you think there are so many posts all the time from raiders saying that end-game sucks?  It's not because they don't like the purples, it's because those purples don't come about easily.  Oh you can get purples alright, but I'm not talking about just any purple, I'm talking about the ones with the killer stats on them.  Believe me when I tell you that the person worked damned hard to get that purple. 

Unless of course you like your games to be more like work than fun?

LOL so true. Yup raiding suxx for reason. Raiding does not equal to work its something much worse than work. The time/work spent does not worth the reward gained.

Originally posted by yesuconn

Find me 25 more people with the same schedule as me and Ill be glad to raid with them and get the full effect of the game.

things that may help are

transferring to a different server and/or  joining a better guild that is more in-synch with your play times

for me, the Raid endgame content is *not* worth the time spent  -- for ALL mmos

Originally posted by coffee

Kara and ZA are 10man raids.. there is no reason you cannot PUG it, a long time ago we had a 15man UBRS and that was always PUG, they have made raiding easy enough as it is, we dont need to make it easier because a select few cannot be botherd to make the effort.

I would not called 98% of their customers "a select few". They should cater to most of their customers.

They *have* made the game easier (less elite mobs in the non-instance world, faster leveling) and see how many more customers they have gained.

Originally posted by nariusseldon

 

Originally posted by coffee

Kara and ZA are 10man raids.. there is no reason you cannot PUG it, a long time ago we had a 15man UBRS and that was always PUG, they have made raiding easy enough as it is, we dont need to make it easier because a select few cannot be botherd to make the effort.

 

I would not called 98% of their customers "a select few". They should cater to most of their customers.

They *have* made the game easier (less elite mobs in the non-instance world, faster leveling) and see how many more customers they have gained.

The 2% that the OP was referring to was those who have visited Black Temple.  Certainly a lot higher percentage of people have gone to Kara.  I'd say it's more like 50% and a heck of a lot of the remaining 50% have not gone just because they don't have a character at max level.  Kara is pretty much accessible by anyone no matter how casual you are and yes it can be PUG'd, just don't expect a PUG group to finish it.  But down a boss or 2?  Certainly possible especially if someone in the group is familiar with the instance and can explain what to do to those that don't know.

Originally posted by Pappy13

Originally posted by nariusseldon

 

Originally posted by coffee

Kara and ZA are 10man raids.. there is no reason you cannot PUG it, a long time ago we had a 15man UBRS and that was always PUG, they have made raiding easy enough as it is, we dont need to make it easier because a select few cannot be botherd to make the effort.

 

I would not called 98% of their customers "a select few". They should cater to most of their customers.

They *have* made the game easier (less elite mobs in the non-instance world, faster leveling) and see how many more customers they have gained.

The 2% that the OP was referring to was those who have visited Black Temple.  Certainly a lot higher percentage of people have gone to Kara.  I'd say it's more like 50% and a heck of a lot of the remaining 50% have not gone just because they don't have a character at max level.  Kara is pretty much accessible by anyone no matter how casual you are and yes it can be PUG'd, just don't expect a PUG group to finish it.  But down a boss or 2?  Certainly possible especially if someone in the group is familiar with the instance and can explain what to do to those that don't know.

I'm not sure how it is post bc. i remember pre bc blizzard saying only like 10% of players reach end game, and only 10% of those players actually get gear from end game content.

Catering to 1% is kinda stupid. But i guess its worked for them.

I personally think raiding is kinda lame. I liked asherons call where raiding wasnt limited, the quests were actually fun, and for some reason it didnt take 20 guys pounding on one piece of trash for 6 hours to finish it....

Originally posted by Nadia

 

Originally posted by yesuconn

 I think MMO's should make these end game raids more accesible to the average gamer. Let everyone play the WHOLE game.

no mmo has ever done that

 

 

raiding and "solo player" content are 2 entirely different styles of play

 

WOW has offered raid lite -- 10 man

 

Sorry to say you are wrong, but you are! EQ the father of raiding "NEVER" made you have to have said gear to enjoy a raid. All that was ever need in EQ and still to this day is the man power and the level requirment.

Originally posted by Povey151

 

Originally posted by Pappy13

Originally posted by nariusseldon

I would not called 98% of their customers "a select few". They should cater to most of their customers.

The 2% that the OP was referring to was those who have visited Black Temple.  Certainly a lot higher percentage of people have gone to Kara.  I'd say it's more like 50% and a heck of a lot of the remaining 50% have not gone just because they don't have a character at max level. 

 

I'm not sure how it is post bc. i remember pre bc blizzard saying only like 10% of players reach end game, and only 10% of those players actually get gear from end game content.

Catering to 1% is kinda stupid. But i guess its worked for them.

Could you please clarify this?  What was Blizzard referring to because obviously they weren't talking about making it to level 60.  Most of the characters on the servers just prior to BC were lvl 60.  Well over half I would say.  Now if they were talking about making it thru Naxx, then I'd say that sounds about right.  But then if they are talking about Naxx, how is it that only 10% of the players there actually get gear from there?  Where else would it have come from?  PreBC I don't think there was any better gear then from Naxx so why wouldn't there gear come from there if they were going thru it?  Your numbers don't add up.  Sounds like Blizzard was saying that 10% of the player population get's it gear from raiding at the highest levels.  I would believe that.

Blizzard is in no way shape or form catering to 1% of the players.  There's no way they would continue to get the subs they do that way.  The fact of the matter is that Blizzard caters to the masses.

The amount of US and European level 70 players that have killed atleast 1 boss in Black Temple is close to 10%.

And with the removal of attunement to BT in 2.4 that amount will surely go above 10%.

Raiding is extremely simple and you can find a multitude of casual guilds doing the low end raids to fit nearly any time schedule.