The recent results that shown that most players belong to the same spectrum while a smaller leech group intrudes them made me wonder how could Blizzard design raid content that support learning but doesn't support leeching.
The key feature of the raid encounters is "void zone", something that you shouldn't stand in. They can be fire, falling rock, belly of a Garalon, a hole below Elegon or anything. The main problem with the current design is that these void zones are either binary (you don't stand in them or die) or not your problem.
If the void zone is binary, it is extremely unwelcoming to new players and casuals since their worth in the raid is zero, as they are dead. Someone could be 80% as good as the best player on Patchwerk, but you can only be 100% or 0 now. So better players can do nothing than wipe and wipe until the new one learns the "dance". Or they can just disband the raid apply to a guild where people "can play".
If the void zone is not binary, it's "heal ffs". The damage dealers typically ignore it and whine if the healers fail to keep them alive. Content which is designed to weaker skilled players therefore become faceroll. LFR Megaera is Patchwerk. There is no middle ground. Until players are not oneshotted, they have little reason to care about void zones, so lower content has little learning value.
Let me propose a new design that allows the same content being newbie and hardcore friendly. All we need is to change void zones from damaging to stunning, CC-ing, taking away or placing DPS/HPS debuffs. The whirlwinds of Wind Lord Mel'jarak are a good example. There should only be unavoidable and tank damage to heal, void zones are not damaging anyone. If you stand in them, you are stopped from doing your job. If you ignore void zones, your DPS/HPS will suffer from it.
The difficulty of the raid can be adjusted by changing the necessary DPS to kill the boss before enrage and HPS to keep the raid up from unavoidable damage. The very same raid could serve as LFR and heroic, there is just higher DPS/HPS need in the latter. While the LFR version is doable if the average raid member is spending 1/3 of his time stunned, being stunned is not fun, so it motivates players to don't ignore the void zone. With this design you could not only learn the moves in LFR/normal, but your log is equal to HC logs. I mean if you did X DPS in LFR, it means you can do X DPS in heroic, and if X is enough, you are good for heroic raiding.
Currently playing "well" in LFR decreases your DPS as it forces you to move. The one who stands in the fire can beat you on the meters. The new design would change the damage done field of the meter into a universal "goodness" meter, as your damage depends on not standing in the voidzones. Adding an official damage meter would increase the learning value of LFR and dungeons and this could be completed by changing ilvl demands to DPS/HPS demands. The progression would be:
The key feature of the raid encounters is "void zone", something that you shouldn't stand in. They can be fire, falling rock, belly of a Garalon, a hole below Elegon or anything. The main problem with the current design is that these void zones are either binary (you don't stand in them or die) or not your problem.
If the void zone is binary, it is extremely unwelcoming to new players and casuals since their worth in the raid is zero, as they are dead. Someone could be 80% as good as the best player on Patchwerk, but you can only be 100% or 0 now. So better players can do nothing than wipe and wipe until the new one learns the "dance". Or they can just disband the raid apply to a guild where people "can play".
If the void zone is not binary, it's "heal ffs". The damage dealers typically ignore it and whine if the healers fail to keep them alive. Content which is designed to weaker skilled players therefore become faceroll. LFR Megaera is Patchwerk. There is no middle ground. Until players are not oneshotted, they have little reason to care about void zones, so lower content has little learning value.
Let me propose a new design that allows the same content being newbie and hardcore friendly. All we need is to change void zones from damaging to stunning, CC-ing, taking away or placing DPS/HPS debuffs. The whirlwinds of Wind Lord Mel'jarak are a good example. There should only be unavoidable and tank damage to heal, void zones are not damaging anyone. If you stand in them, you are stopped from doing your job. If you ignore void zones, your DPS/HPS will suffer from it.
The difficulty of the raid can be adjusted by changing the necessary DPS to kill the boss before enrage and HPS to keep the raid up from unavoidable damage. The very same raid could serve as LFR and heroic, there is just higher DPS/HPS need in the latter. While the LFR version is doable if the average raid member is spending 1/3 of his time stunned, being stunned is not fun, so it motivates players to don't ignore the void zone. With this design you could not only learn the moves in LFR/normal, but your log is equal to HC logs. I mean if you did X DPS in LFR, it means you can do X DPS in heroic, and if X is enough, you are good for heroic raiding.
Currently playing "well" in LFR decreases your DPS as it forces you to move. The one who stands in the fire can beat you on the meters. The new design would change the damage done field of the meter into a universal "goodness" meter, as your damage depends on not standing in the voidzones. Adding an official damage meter would increase the learning value of LFR and dungeons and this could be completed by changing ilvl demands to DPS/HPS demands. The progression would be:
- Top level normal dungeon: anyone who has max level character can enter and the bosses don't enrage at all. But there is an achievement for doing X DPS on the endbosses who have voidzones. For healers it is to keep everyone over 50% all time, for tanks it is to avoid aggro loss (which happens if you are thrown away by some void zones).
- Heroic dungeons are available for those who have this achievement. The bosses are still lenient. However if you reach Y DPS, you earn an achievement to be earned.
- LFR is available for those who have this achievement from HC dungeons. As there are multiple healers, they are also ranked by healing done. The bosses have lenient enrages, but if your DPS/HPS on all bosses of the raids reaches 90% of what's needed on a normal raid, you get an achievement.
- This achievement would be a certificate that you can show to recruiting normal mode guilds. While you still need both gear and experience, you can prove that you learned the bosses and provide reasonable DPS for your gear. In normal modes you could earn the final level of the achievement if for all bosses your DPS/HPS reaches 90% of the heroic raid demands.
- With this achievement the HC guild can safely recruit you. While you won't top their meters, they can be sure that you need improvement mostly in gear as you have mastered the movement.
0 comments:
Post a Comment