The Lava Lamp

[tim]

At the moment we have two conflicting groups within WoW: raiders and five-manners. Both sides want more content, both sides want viable progression. The raiders are of the opinion that, since organising 25 people is hard, their content should provide better mechanical rewards, and for the most part the five-manners are happy for this to be the case. The conflict comes when both groups are of the opinion that while Blizzard are developing content for one, they are not also developing content for the other. Comparisons can be drawn between the quality of the content (not just the loot, but the design time and effort) in Black Temple and that in Ogri'la.

This seems like an impossible problem to solve; Blizzard have only finite development resources and we have to trust them that developing more, and more exclusive, 25 man raid dungeons is good use of their time. However, of all things the Arena system suggests a solution to this problem. Each new season in the Arena, new gear becomes available at the same price as last season. It's harder to get to the top this season because everyone's kitted out in last season's gear, but losing ten games per week earns you just as many points now as it did then. For a new PVPer, either more gear (in the form of old gear which has a reduced cost) or better gear (in the form of the new season's gear) is available for the same or only slightly more effort.

Arena thus has a relatively static barrier to entry over time. This is completely necessary; if the cost of gear grew over time (for example, if season 2 cost twice what season 1 cost in order to simulate progression) new PVPers would find it impossible to progress and would find it literally impossible to compete at the top levels even in the *next* season.

By comparison, new PVE content has a dramatically higher barrier to entry over time. One cannot simply walk into the Black Temple in 115 blues on patch day. Even if there weren't an attunment process involving The Eye, Serpentshrine Cavern and Mount Hyjal, the bosses are intended to require a lot of game knowledge that can only come through long experience, or other people telling you how to do it, and a relatively good level of gear. The release of new PVE content is only relevant at the top end - people who have currently run out of things to do are looking forward to the next raid instance, whereas people who are (to pick a ridiculous extreme) still wiping in the Scarlet Monastery don't see any difference to their play experience as a result.

Of course, the barriers to entry are lowered over time. Both raid and five-man dungeons are nerfed (slightly or hugely), attunments are dropped, existing gear is buffed and new, available gear (such as the engineering hats) is added, all of which provide a boost to people who haven't made the leap to the next tier of raid content yet. However this process is gradual, informal, and may or may not make a practical difference over time. Magtheridon is undoubtedly "easier" now than he was at release, but not to the extent that season 3 gear is better than season 1 gear. In PVE it is now *slightly easier* to obtain items of the same quality as a year ago. In PVP it is now *slightly harder* to obtain items of clearly superior quality to a year ago.

One might reasonably say, how is this a problem? The person in the Scarlet Monastery doesn't care about Black Temple, and nor does the person keying and gearing themself for Karazhan. Static content which they haven't enjoyed yet still exists for them to experience, so why don't they go and experience it? The answer seems to lie in the player's behaviour. Rational or not, people want gear and they want good gear. They look at available gearing routes and say "well, I could spend this week running Heroic Shattered Halls... which is stunningly hard and provides 115 blue gear, or I could spend the week playing my ten Arena games and doing PVP and have a lot of gear to show for it". This is even more skewed on PVP servers where your survival walking around the world is substantially better enhanced by PVP gear which is not only higher iLevel, but more appropriately itemised for being jumped outside Karazhan. It becomes harder and harder to find level 70 players willing to *start* the "chain" of content that leads to the top of the raid tier, and finding people willing to finish it has always been difficult.

What I propose is not to nerf Arena rewards, buff PVE rewards, nerd PVE content or anything like that. It's to apply a similar philosophy to PVE as is currently being applied to PVP. The following assumptions are made:

a) Five man content is intrinsically easier than twenty-five man content given similar complexity and gear requirements.
b) There exist a significant number of players who demand top-end content which is exclusive and provides superior rewards as a reward for being in the exclusive club.
c) The current model of PVE content while perfectly good on paper, loses out in practice against a competing system (PVP) which offers a reduced barrier to entry for superior quality gear.

The proposed system works like this:

Significant endgame content is divided explicitly into seasons, each one coming with a major content patch. To fit with the entertainingly overblown style of WoW, we'll call them Ages. Each new Age brings with it new content for the available play styles - explicitly bringing content for all of them so that there can be no accusations of favouritism. Let's start with an illustration of the hypothetical Age 1, the release of Burning Crusade.

Age 1 includes the following endgame content:

* "Level 70 Dungeons": The level 70 five-man dungeons from the instance groups that the players have had access to while levelling 60-70. These include Shattered Halls, Steamvaults, Shadow Labyrinth and Black Morass. These dungeons are a easily completeable by skilled players in levelling gear, and will pose a significant challenge to unskilled players until they have acquired better level 70 gear. These instances drop iLevel 115 blue gear and do not drop epics or primal nethers.
* "Advanced Dungeons": Five-man "Advanced" versions of the instances the players had a chance to visit while levelling 60-70 (Hellfire Ramparts, Blood Furnace, Slave Pens, Underbog, Mana Tombs, Auchenai Crypts, Sethekk Halls and Old Hillsbrad). These Advanced dungeons are available via a difficulty selector and have been tuned to be of the same difficulty as the Level 70 Dungeons. These instances also drop iLevel 115 blue gear. The Advanced setting has no effect on Level 70 dungeons. Between the Level 70 dungeons and the Advanced dungeons, complete matching eight-piece "sets" of gear (without set bonuses) are available for each class. These gear sets look like recoloured Tier 2 gear.
* "Tempest Keep": Three five-man dungeons accessible only by flying mount. These dungeons are notably harder than the other five-man instances. Skilled players will find them challenging in levelling gear. Less skilled players will have to spent time acquiring some endgame blue gear from the Level 70 and Advanced dungeons before attempting them. The Tempest Keep instances drop iLevel 115 blues. In Tempest Keep the players can acquire newly modelled item sets for their class such as "Bold Armour" and "Oblivion Raiment" as well as weapons carefully itemised for specific roles.
* "Heroic Dungeons": These ten-man dungeons are retuned versions of the Level 70, Advanced and Tempest Keep dungeons. Access to Heroic dungeons requires Revered reputation with the appropriate faction. These dungeons are significantly harder than Tempest Keep. Skilled players will need to collect some endgame blue gear before attempting them and will need to spend a little time learning the instance. Less skilled players will need to collect a lot of blue gear and spend a lot of time learning the instance. Additionally, the ten-man requirement makes forming groups more difficult and coordination during fights more complex. Heroic dungeons drop low-quality epics (iLevel 110), Badges of Justice and epic jewels. These instances have a one-day lockout timer to prevent players farming them.
* "Karazhan": This 25-man, ten-boss raid dungeon requires an attunment quest chain accessed through Level 70 Dungeons (but not Heroic or Tempest Keep dungeons). The instance is significantly harder than Heroic instances, although the first couple of bosses are not too complex. Experienced raiders will be able to make significant early progress but should expect to spend some time gearing up in the first half and in Heroic dungeons before completing it. Players new to the raid game should expect to spend some time gearing up and learning basic skills in five- and ten-man content before attempting Karazhan. Karazhan drops good-quality epics (iLevel 120, and 125 from the final boss) including the "Tier 4" item set. Karazhan does not drop Badges of Justice or Primal Nethers. This instance has a one-week lockout timer. Raiders who defeat the final boss of Karazhan will receive a special title. In addition, the first group to down the final boss of the instance on each server will receive a special, unique reward.
* "Gruul's Lair" and "Magtheridon's Lair": These 25-man raid instances contain only one or two bosses and a small amount of trash. The instances require similar gear to the second half of Karazhan, but are notably more complex than any individual fight there. These instances drop iLevel 125 epics including the remaining pieces of the "Tier 4" item set and are on a one-week lockout timer. Raiders who defeat the final boss of these instances will receive a special title.
* "Arena Season 1": Players compete in rated Arena matches in order to maintain and improve their Arena rating. Season 1 Arena weapons have a minimum rating requirement of 1600 (or higher) to ensure that people cannot trivially "farm" for them without attempting to compete. Season 1 Arena gear is epic quality (iLevel 115) and optimally itemised for PVP. At the end of Season 1, the top-rated team on each server will receive a special, unique reward. Very highly-rated teams will receive a special title.
* "Battlegrounds": Players complete in open Battleground games to earn honour. Season 1 Honour gear is blue quality (iLevel 115) and optimally itemised for PVP. Selected epic quality gear (iLevel 105) which matches the appearance of the Season 1 Arena gear is also available at a significantly higher cost in honour.

Age 2 is expected to appear as development time allow, some time after the most advanced groups have cleared the available content, but before the majority have done so. Age 2 includes the following new and changed content:

* Level 70, Advanced and Tempest Keep dungeons will be unchanged.
* Heroic dungeons will be unchanged.
* "5-man Heroic Dungeons": These five-man dungeons are retuned versions of the Heroic dungeons. They will have similar gear requirements and drop the same gear as the 10-man Heroic dungeons. However, each boss will drop only 1 item instead of 2. Because of the reduced group size, some encounters may have to be simplified and fights and groups will require less coordination. One-day lockout.
* Karazhan, Gruul and Magtheridon are unchanged.
* "10-man Karazhan": This ten-man dungeon is a retuned version of Karazhan. The dungeon will have similar gear requirements and drop the same gear as Karazhan. However, each boss will only drop 2 items instead of 4 and the special title for completing the instance is not available. Because of the reduction in group size, some encounters will need to be slightly or substantially redesigned. Experienced raiders of 25-man Karazhan can expect to have an easier time in 10-man Karazhan due to the reduced complexity, allowing them to fill in gear gaps. One-week lockout.
* "10-man Gruul's Lair" and "10-man Magtheridon": Like 10-man Karazhan, these instances are retuned for 10-man groups and drop the same loot, but half as much. One-week lockout.
* "Serpentshrine Cavern" and "The Eye": These 25-man raid instances contain a total of ten bosses. They are a step above 25-man Karazhan in terms of gear requirements and complexity of encounters. Inexperienced raiders who have not spent some time acquiring gear from Karazhan and Gruul/Magtheridon will struggle in these dungeons. These dungeons drop high quality epics (iLevel 130, and 135 from the final bosses of each dungeon) including the "Tier 5" item set. One-week lockout. Raiders who defeat the final bosses of both these instances will receive a special title. In addition, the first group to down both bosses on each server will receive a special, unique reward.
* "Arena Season 2": Players compete in rated Arena matches in order to maintain and improve their Arena rating. Ratings from Season 1 are reset to the default at the start of Season 2, and players can carry only a limited number of points over from Season 1. Season 2 Arena weapons have a minimum rating requirement of 1600 (or higher). Season 2 Arena gear is epic quality (iLevel 125) and optimally itemised for PVP. Season 1 gear is also available at a significant discount, and with no rating requirement. At the end of Season 2, the top-rated team on each server will receive a special, unique reward. Very highly-rated teams will receive a special title.
* "Battlegrounds": Season 2 Honour gear is unchanged at blue quality, but new iLevel 115 epics items are available matching the appearance of Season 2 Arena gear.

Age 3 follows on in a similar vein:

* Level 70, Advanced and Tempest Keep dungeons are unchanged.
* 10-man Heroic and 5-man Heroic dungeons are unchanged.
* 25-man Karazhan, Gruul and Magtheridon are unchanged.
* 10-man Karazhan, Gruul and Magtheridon are unchanged.
* "5-man Karazhan", "5-man Gruul" and "5-man Magtheridon": These dungeons are further reduced in group size and encounter complexity, continuing to drop the same loot but half as much again. Because of the overall reduction in group size, some or all encounters will have to be substantially redesigned to take into account less roles available and less strict requirements on classes present. One-day lockout.
* "10-man Serpentshrine Cavern" and "10-man The Eye": These dungeons are retuned in a similar manner to 10-man Karazhan, requiring less players and with less complex fights. One-week lockout.
* "Black Temple" and "Mount Hyjal": 25-man raid dungeons that are even more difficult than 25-man SSC and Eye. These dungeons drop iLevel 140 and 145 epic items, and are only suitable for experienced raiders heavily geared from earlier instances. One-week lockout.
* "Arena Season 3": Reset in the same way as the start of Season 2. Similar reward structure with iLevel 135 gear available. Season 2 gear is available at a substantial discount.
* "Battlegrounds": Epic gear rises to iLevel 125. Season 1 gear is now available for purchase through honour.

And so on. As the new expansion approaches and development resources sufficient for new 25-man dungeons become scarce, retooling old instances can still continue.

iLevels given may seem over-specific, but are included simply to indicate the comparitive intended level of gear progression at that point. 125 might be 123, all the numbers might be reduced by 5, etc.
_________________
"Now I'm really confused. You're looking for someone who has a flaming head but also doesn't have a flaming head?"

[tim]

Objections:

Q) Won't retuning or redesigning the instances for a smaller number of players use a lot of development time?
A) Yes it will, but I would hazard it will use a lot less than the development of an entire new dungeon for a particular group size (for example, Zul'Aman).

Q) Why rehash old content when you could design new content?
A) Because for the people who didn't have access to it before, it *is* new content. Not only that, but it's new content with no art requirements at all... making it win/win.

Q) Why should 5-man have the same rewards as 25-man?
A) Because by the time those rewards have been made available, the 25-manners have access to much better gear. The 5-manners *will* have put less work in than the 25-manners (due to simplified organisation, etc) but it will be impossible for them to reach the level of 25-man gear without joining a 25-man raid.

Q) But this makes it easier for people who aren't in large raid guilds to get gear!
A) Yes, that's the idea. People who don't want to raid win. People who want to raid but aren't in a raid guild yet win, and even people who are in a raid guild win by having access to a pool of much better-geared recruits.

Q) An entirely new 10-man dungeon provides content for 10-man groups and 25-man groups, but a rehashed 25-man-into-10-man only provides content for 10-man groups. What's up with that?
A) On the release of a new Age, the 10-man group gets new content from the retuned old dungeon, whereas the 25-man group gets new content from the newly released new dungeon.

Q) WoW needs an elite core of players to inspire others/impress others/lord it.
A) It would still have one. Killing (say) Illidan soon after Black Temple went live would be as impressive a feat here as it would under the old system. The 25-man raiders are going to have no respect for people who killed 5-man Illidan, and the 5-man people either don't care or are happy to accept their "lowly" role. The only people that lose out are the raid scrubs who are two tiers behind in progression and like to lord it over the five-manners. The Arena has already pretty much killed this group anyway.

Q) Won't people stop raiding 25-man entirely with this system?
A) There's no reason to believe that. It may be that with equivalent gear available (eventually) through 5-man and PVP systems, only those who genuinely want to raid end up raiding. Their dedication is rewarded by being the first to see new content and get the new gear, access to special titles and the chance at "world firsts" and "server firsts". If it turns out that in the absense of exclusive privileged access to the best gear and the most high-profile content (signature Warcraft bosses, etc) the raid game dies, that saves Blizzard the bother of having to develop (complex) 25-man content in the future.

Q) Why is the best available PVE gear better than the best available PVP gear during an Age?
A) Balance on PVP servers, primarily. Since PVP gear is (much) better itemised for PVP, raiders would stand little chance against PVPers in world PVP with similar iLevel gear.

Q) Titles are lame.
A) Okay. I think so too, and I much prefer the more complex or involved reward systems in City of Heroes and Lord Of The Rings: Online. Titles seem to be Blizzard's non-mechanical reward of choice so I used them too. Feel free to substitute a public Hall of Fame, mounts, pets, tabards, +1% XP, +1% Rep, or my favourite, a permanent +5% size increase, instead. Whatever you feel (other than tiered gear) ought to separate the elite from those who come after them.

Q) Why do the five-man dungeons have reduced lockout timers? That way five-man groups can accumulate gear much faster!
A) Exactly. This allows advanced raid groups to gear up for their content more quickly and conveniently and allows raiders who want to join the bleeding edge to put time in now to get there before the next Age arrives.

Q) You can't retune a 25-man encounter to a 5-man encounter.
A) You can't exactly replicate the structure and quality of every large group encounter with a small group. Some players find the "epic" feel of large numbers of players present to be valuable, but those players will have large group content available to them. Some encounters require certain quantites of certain roles (two, three, four tanks, etc) and these would need to be redesigned for 10- or 5-man play. However, replicating the exact nature of the encounter is less important than including content at all. If a player wants to experience the full complexity of a 25-man encounter, that encounter will still always be available to them. Players who can't or won't do that can experience a redesigned, less complex version along similar lines later on. However, the flavour of the fight and if necessary exhaustive learning of the fight can be retained. Along fight with many phases will be much quicker to learn with a small group, but still extremely demanding by comparison to a tank and spank.

Some examples:

Moroes: What's actually tactically significant in the Moroes fight is that he has adds which need to be contained, either through effective crowd control or well-coordinated tanking. However, what's actually memorable about the fight is the way he gouges the tank and ganks people, or vanishes and garrottes. These mechanics can be easily replicated in five man, with the inclusion of perhaps one or two adds which need to be contained or killed.

Wizard of Oz: This encounter is demanding on group composition, requiring: a) A warlock or hunter to chain fear Roar, b) A mage, warlock or shaman to chain fire Strawman, c) a free body to kite Tinhead around, d) someone spare to stop Tito from ganking a healer and e) everyone left to dps Dorothee down ASAP. With some redesign the essential flavour of this encounter can be preserved with less demanding composition. For example, rather than having to chain fear Roar, the first Fear effect applied to him could nerf his damage output by 90%, or fear him for a consistent 1 minute. This would require the presence of a warlock, hunter, priest, warrior or leatherworker with Drums of Panic. Even [Flash Bomb]s could be used to control him. Likewise, the dazed debuff on Strawman could be lengthened to the extent that a rogue with fast weapons with Fiery Weapon on them could effectively control him, or the players could take it in turns to Ez-Thro Dynamite.

Al'ar: Significant features of this fight are his Ragnaros-like I-nuke-you-if-no-one-is-near, summoning of adds, necessary mobility due to patches of fire, and the use of multiple tanks to avoid debuffs. In a 5-man context, it is possible to retain all of these elements without substantial redesign. For example, there is no need for the adds to require tanking as long as prompt and skilled action on the part of the dps is required. Making sure someone stays in melee range is still reasonable and could be tuned to be more demanding (requiring speed buffs, for example from potions) since there are not five tanks available. Tank swapping after a debuff is also perfectly possible, especially if the boss deals (or is made to deal) primarily magical damage from spells against which tanking classes are not as significant. "Tank" swapping via dps classes carefully managing aggro to eat debuffs can be made to be more challenging, especially in the presence of adds and dangerous areas of ground.

Kael'thas: Nothing in this fight explicitly demands the presence of a particular size or composition of party as long as his abilities (and those of the advisors) are tuned to account for it. The group would be required to bring a character capable of using each of the ability-deflecting items and potentially miss out on one or two of them.
_________________
"Now I'm really confused. You're looking for someone who has a flaming head but also doesn't have a flaming head?"

[tim]

Disclaimer: My Arena rating is atrocious. Take a look. I am a terrible PVPer. However, the quality of the Merciless Gladiator's Shield Wall is so high that not losing my ten games/week while practising Shield Bashing would be a lot like forgetting to bring healing potions to the raid.

You might think "You have a low Arena rating, so you like easy mode epics, and you just want easy mode epics from raiding too to go with your easy mode Arena epics". Ehh... maybe. But to be honest I'd rather get better gear by going to harder instances than losing ten games/week. You'd have to nerf PVE pretty hard to make wiping ten times a week profitable. I don't want to see that.
_________________
"Now I'm really confused. You're looking for someone who has a flaming head but also doesn't have a flaming head?"