Concluding the series of blog posts about raiding, we got some interesting new information about raids and loots in Warlords.
Once again, they're iterating hard on the raiding game. We've known the basic structure of the new raiding dynamic since Blizzcon, but what I find interesting is the revelation about loot.
Raid Finder has always been "quasi-raiding." In Dragon Soul, a lot of fights were either mechanically changed or maybe just tuned so forgivingly that one could ignore major fight mechanics (like Zon'ozz's beach ball or spinning Deathwing during the Spine fight.) We've seen a bit more of that in Mists as well. Really, the experience of a tight-knit raiding group progressing through a raid is hugely different from that of a raid finder group.
This is, of course, subjective, but guild groups tend to foster a far greater amount of camaraderie as you make very gradual progress through the raid. Raid Finder is sold on the expectation that you will complete the wing you start, even if there might be a few wipes (frankly, I think it could be tuned even more forgivingly, as even months later, one can still find raids that still struggle on fights like Nazgrim.)
We don't really know much about how tuning of raid finder raids might change in the future, but we did get some big news on loot. And there's good news and bad news for LFR-raiders.
Good News!
They will be roughly doubling the drop rate of loot in LFR. Blizzard sees LFR as a way to see the content quickly, which is fine, but when you find yourself running Last Stand of the Zandalari over and over and over and never seeing that axe drop, the "quick and easy" descriptor starts to feel inappropriate.
Bad News!
You will no longer be able to get tier sets, special trinkets (not exactly sure what specifically will designate a trinket as something special) or even gear that looks like the normal-and-up gear from LFR. LFR gear will now have unique models instead of just unique colors.
However, you can spin this as good news. The reason behind this change is actually not to punish LFR players (though they certainly would like people to try organized raiding if they can,) but rather to make sure that higher-end players don't feel obligated to run LFR to fill out their tier set or get that one trinket has such a powerful effect that even at a lower iLevel it's still a must-have.
Looking Forward:
I imagine that a lot of LFR-only players might be very unhappy with this, but I think there is hope: Flex Mode (which will be the new normal) should provide a fairly accessible style of raiding (it's touted as being akin to Wrath's 10-man normal, which was my favorite style and era of raiding.) My guild is a flex-mode type of guild, but I think he main reason we haven't been able to do much with the mode is that a lot of our guild hasn't been running LFR, and with flex coming in at the end of the expansion, many of our players were not really geared to jump into SoO flex. But with this easier difficulty available from the start, coupled with a more-robust version of the Group Finder (what is currently the "Other Raids" window,) this could provide a quick-and-easy type of raiding that might mitigate some of the headaches of LFR.)
It remains to be seen.
No comments:
Post a Comment