Raid Structure

You may have noticed that the only other blog I follow at the moment is Totalbiscuit’s Blog Plz. You may also have noticed, if you’re incredibly observant, that he also has a post about Raid Structure. Well I was the one who inspired him to write that, so here’s my very own post about said topic.

You can’t deny that there is a difference. Admittedly Classic WoW had a lot of long raids too, however since I missed out on of those, I am completely unqualified to talk about their length and structure. A quick blast through for achievements doesn’t count, that took barely any time at all. However, in the Burning Crusade, each tier of raiding was broken up into at least two raids. Tier 4 was dominated by Karazhan, but there was of course Gruul’s Lair and Magtheridon’s Lair as well. Tiers 5 and 6 demonstrate what I’m on about better, each tier contains two full length raids. Compare that to now. Tier 7 is similar to Tier 4; one dominating full length raid with two single boss raids in the form of Malygos and Sartharion. Tier 8, however, is completely dominated with the colossal Ulduar. Strangely, when you look back on it, the structure of each tier is quite varied, yet the Wrath raiding content lost all of my interest way before most of TBC’s, with the obvious exception of Karazhan; I was glad to get out of there. So, why is this so? I visited Serpentshrine Caverns and Tempest Keep quite often during the time between Mount Hyjal and Black Temple, yet I don’t believe I’ve had a desire to set foot in Naxxramas on my main since Ulduar’s release.

There are plenty of potential reasons for this, however in this post I will focus on what I feel are the main possibilities, and I will go about this by comparing Wrath raids with the time I felt the happiest in raiding, Tiers 5 and 6. The first possibility in this case is the subject of variation.

Going to the same raid dungeon, every week, to do the same bosses. Five months of that can get a bit taxing really. The only variation inside the dungeon itself is the winged structure. However, due to its incredibly dumbed down nature, it took no time at all to get through it all in a week, and eventually it could all be done in one raid night. Ok, it does mix things up slightly, but as for proper variation? That’d be like saying that a restaurant with one set menu is varied since they allow you to have the dessert first. Yes, it’s slightly different to normal, but in the end it’s still just the same stuff round the wrong way. If you want to get to Kel’Thuzard you still have to do all the other wings first. Ulduar is different, yet still strangely similar. There are optional bosses, and you can choose which order to take down the Keepers in, but it still isn’t properly varied; and generally you’ll end up defeating the optional bosses anyway since someone is bound to moan if you don’t. It’s like the set menu again, only you can choose to skip the garlic bread even though it’s thrown in for free. It’s varied to a degree but you’ll still end up doing everything anyway. But you could say that raiding has always been this way, there’s never been a truly non-linear raid, but it’s only now that I’m noticing that. For me it’s probably only come to light because of it being mixed up with all the other factors.

One of those other factors is the much debated 10 and 25 mans. The option to go to the same place, not once but twice a week, just with a few less mates. Sticking with the menu analogy, it’s like having lunch and dinner from the same set menu, except the lunch is a little bit smaller. Evidently if you do what is virtually the same place twice as often, you will burn out twice as fast; and after you are burnt out and ready to move on, there’s nowhere else to go. It’s the choice between farming the same place or doing without. And judging by the sheer number of ‘goodbye’ threads on the forums I believe that’s what a lot of players did. The same happened with Ulduar. Four months of that place appears to have been enough for some players too. It pretty much is for me anyway.

Another issue that I will cover is the length of Ulduar. It’s long, very long, and I don’t see why it needed to be. The sheer number of unavoidable bosses makes reaching the end a very lengthy and tedious affair, particularly when the first bosses have been nerfed into the ground; it might save a bit of time but it all feels so dreary. I’m sure that the devs at Blizzard could have been a little more inventive with the structure. One thought I had about how it could have been done bears some resemblance to Maraudon’s structure. Why not separate the first twelve bosses into two separate raid dungeons, next to each other, then using either an attunement quest similar to the one to gain access to Mount Hyjal or the one for Malygos to grant access to a smaller dungeon comprising of the last bosses. This way you gain the two split raid style of TBC, allowing raiders to work on one location at a time, essentially increasing the number of ‘set menus’ to two. I feel that this would grant a lot more variation than currently exists.

There are a large number of other possible methods of making raids more interesting, and I hope Blizz are utilising some of them in the coming raids. It’s in their best interests to make their content last as long as possible to give themselves more time to develop the next lot. A quick for instance, how about a Karazhan Opera event style boss? Maybe not with the separate loot tables, but a randomised encounter would add extra variation to a raid dungeon. It worked for daily quests, and is even in the new 5 man, so maybe something for raids?

I’m sure that there are a number of other issues relating to the situation that I could bring up, but thus far I haven’t thought of them and anyway this post has gone on long enough. Maybe I’ll make a part two if I think of enough to mention. In the meantime, if anyone is actually reading this, feel free to post some comments about how you feel about the comparison between TBC and Wrath raiding and if there’s enough good stuff I might write a response to them later.