Raid CD reset - 2x a week on TW/KR realms

[Fridmarr]

It means we either give up a day of progression, or a reset worth of gear - or add a raid day and just consume the content that much faster.

And I see having those choices as a good thing because guilds are naturally different.

[Hrobertgar]

Things like being up against a brick wall of a boss that you are clearly not ready for. Instead of being demoralized for a few days (and watching your attendance drop quickly) being able to reset and improve our gear would have been great.

I would think that LFR having a shorter boss lockout would address this issue nicely. It provides a shroter lockout to build gear more quickly as well as an opportunity to experience the content and learn the fights so you can progress on normal mode later. A casual guild could form up and queue in LFR, and even if they needed a few PuGs to fill out, the nerf to LFR should allow such groups to proceed anyways.

However, if this twice a week lockout gets forced on T13 on top of the LFR option then I will definitely be in the disapointed camp. Having twice weekly lockouts affect T13 regular/heroic content would basically provide only a small benefit to casuals who can use LFR anyways, whilst screwing over the experience of the hardcore raiders - why do that?

Not having it apply to T13 regular/heroic would still give the top guilds their competition for server/world firsts, and still allow casual guilds to gear up using LFR or T11/T12 twice weekly lockouts.

[mavfin]

casuals who can use LFR anyways

LFR is 25-man only, so, 10-man normal is my initial content, not LFR. I like the flexibility of having 2 locks a week if needed.

LFR is pug content, not casual 10-man guild content, in my view.

[Fridmarr]

Things like being up against a brick wall of a boss that you are clearly not ready for. Instead of being demoralized for a few days (and watching your attendance drop quickly) being able to reset and improve our gear would have been great.

I would think that LFR having a shorter boss lockout would address this issue nicely. It provides a shroter lockout to build gear more quickly as well as an opportunity to experience the content and learn the fights so you can progress on normal mode later. A casual guild could form up and queue in LFR, and even if they needed a few PuGs to fill out, the nerf to LFR should allow such groups to proceed anyways.

However, if this twice a week lockout gets forced on T13 on top of the LFR option then I will definitely be in the disapointed camp. Having twice weekly lockouts affect T13 regular/heroic content would basically provide only a small benefit to casuals who can use LFR anyways, whilst screwing over the experience of the hardcore raiders - why do that?

Not having it apply to T13 regular/heroic would still give the top guilds their competition for server/world firsts, and still allow casual guilds to gear up using LFR or T11/T12 twice weekly lockouts.

But then I'm farming lower level gear, in nerfed content, and losing control over our raid loot system. If casuals can simply use LFR anyway then hardcore raiders can simply opt to not reset their lockout anyways, we could play that all argument all day long.

[Hrobertgar]

You should be able to group up into a normal 10m raid and join LFR (jsut like a premade BG), picking up 15 pugs as mostly dps. The LFR level sounds nerfed enough that most ppl with a pulse can get through it, granting twice a week drops from each boss. Yes, the PuGs may also get loots, but if the boss lockout depend only on receiving loot, rather than beating the boss, you can just queue up again and again until most of the raid has gotten their two weekly drops. After destroing LFR a few times, everyone should be ready for a normal weekly 10m raid difficulty and lockout.

Say on night #1 you do LFR and only half your raid gets loot. On night #2 you could do LFR again and sure only the other half would be clear for loot, but thats why you farm stuff. After a few days ppl start clearing their boss lockouts and are eligible for loot again. It sounds like potentially someone could do LFR like 4+ times in a week just to get loot from a given boss like twice. Given such a scenario, it is not required to also run normal T13 twice a week.

[Fridmarr]

You should be able to group up into a normal 10m raid and join LFR (jsut like a premade BG), picking up 15 pugs as mostly dps. The LFR level sounds nerfed enough that most ppl with a pulse can get through it, granting twice a week drops from each boss. Yes, the PuGs may also get loots, but if the boss lockout depend only on receiving loot, rather than beating the boss, you can just queue up again and again until most of the raid has gotten their two weekly drops. After destroing LFR a few times, everyone should be ready for a normal weekly 10m raid difficulty and lockout.

Say on night #1 you do LFR and only half your raid gets loot. On night #2 you could do LFR again and sure only the other half would be clear for loot, but thats why you farm stuff. After a few days ppl start clearing their boss lockouts and are eligible for loot again. It sounds like potentially someone could do LFR like 4+ times in a week just to get loot from a given boss like twice. Given such a scenario, it is not required to also run normal T13 twice a week.

Yeah, suggesting that a 10 man guild grabbing 15 pugs is somehow a better solution than some other guild simply not resetting their lockout is pretty crazy. With a new lockout no one has to change a single thing, it's a new choice. Forcing groups into the LFR system as a way of somehow acquiring the benefits that a second lockout provides, is a pretty crappy deal.

[mavfin]

With a new lockout no one has to change a single thing, it's a new choice. Forcing groups into the LFR system as a way of somehow acquiring the benefits that a second lockout provides, is a pretty crappy deal.

Especially when the 'other guild' can just *not use* the other available lockout if they don't want it.\

If I wanted 60% pugs in my raid, I'd use LFR, but otherwise, no thanks.

[Dantriges]

We still have the possible burnout issue and well I think that we get the usual amount of drama similar to the time when 10 mans were on a different lockout. People wanting to go twice, setup important peopel only wanting to go once, people who want other guildies to go twice, people feeling compelled to go twice to keep up, people feeling second fiddle when they don´t raid with the guys who do better etc. Add in some "What we are doing the same Boss again, how are supposed to progress if we only farm the first few bosses?" against "It´s loot we need to improve."

It will probably work better for smaller guilds with a more uniform opinion. There will be more pressure on tanks for showing up twice, so you don´t have to extend the raid roster and run into issues when you are done farming and switch into a weely schedule.

And well if you don´t offer the whole deal of using both IDs a week, your outside appeal will as will your server rating, resulting in problems recruiting.

[Fridmarr]

And well if you don´t offer the whole deal of using both IDs a week, your outside appeal will as will your server rating, resulting in problems recruiting.

I think burnout is a concern, but I think it's somewhat overstated here. Most guilds are already not raiding 7 days a week (or even half that) with bosses still up. So it's not particularly clear to me why they would dramatically change their schedule. Players tend to find the best guild they can, that fits their schedule. After this much time, I'd be somewhat surprised if there was this mass exodus towards guilds who plan on farming both lockouts every week. I'm sure it'll happen to some degree, I'm just not convinced that it will be enough to make it a bad concept.

[Levantine]

As long as it doesn't hit during our current raid times I won't mind. If it does, I'll probably quit raiding since I basically can't commit to any other schedule at this point in time.

[halabar]

The biggest advantage if it was applied to T13 is that it would all 10 man guilds to run overlapping 10 man groups, where you don't have the bidies for 2 complelty different groups.

The factoring in of LFR depends a lot upon the success rate of LFR, which is quite uncertain atm.

[Hrobertgar]

A twice weekly T13 reset would not exist in a vacuum. I am making a utilitarian arguement here.

LFR primarily benefits casuals. It allows them to gear up and to see content. It presents little short term harm to progression raiders. It will force them to run it a few extra times during the first few weeks only, but it may help them learn fight mechanics. Benefit to casuals is clearly worth potential short term minor harm to hardcore raiders.

Twice weekly lockout on T11 and T12 farm content primarily benefits casuals. It allows them to gear up and to see content they may not have seen. It presents no harm to progression raiders once T13 is out as those raiders won't be running that content anyways. It may also make some Blizz designers feel better that people are continuing to experience content that they worked so hard on.

Twice weekly lockout on T13 progression content harms progression raiders for little MARGINAL benefit to casuals. Progression raiders face a choice of raiding twice (a massive additional time commitment) or giving up a chance at advancement from continuing the lockout or loot from a second run. Yes it would give the casuals a benefit of gearing up faster, BUT in a world in which casuals would ALREADY would have access to LFR and twice weekly T11 & T12, that marginal benefit is vastly outweighed by the harm to progression raiders.

Are you so selfish that you would ask the progression guilds to basically slave away for weeks so you could get a minor convenience in raid scheduling on top of LFR and twice T11 & T12? REALLY?

But then I'm farming lower level gear, in nerfed content

Actually, I find this to be a specious arguement. If lower level LFR gear and nerfed bosses are so bad, then by extension Hardmode is the only true content and people would be ashamed to run normal mode.

and losing control over our raid loot system

Then use twice weekly T12 (and T12 heroic) to farm gear in between weekly T13 runs and stay out of LFR.

[Hrobertgar]

The biggest advantage if it was applied to T13 is that it would all 10 man guilds to run overlapping 10 man groups, where you don't have the bodies for 2 complelty different groups.

My arguement is that some of those smaller guilds (or more fluid raid groups) could farm T12 and T12-hm, just as many groups waited a week or so before doing much in Firelands. I mean the benefit to a casual raid group to farm 1 or 2 T13-normals bosses twice a week is modest compared with the harm to progression raiders.

Casual raiders would still be able to run T13 once per week for gear and experience and still accumulate VPs for gear (now easy to cap) and also be able to RAPIDLY farm T12 and T12-hm for gear. In such an environment twice weekly progression lockouts do more net harm than good, and should not be implemented.

[mavfin]

Are you so selfish that you would ask the progression guilds to basically slave away for weeks so you could get a minor convenience in raid scheduling on top of LFR and twice T11 & T12? REALLY?

Hey, if it's too much work, no one's *forcing* you to use that 2nd raid lock that we will find convenient when running *10-man* content. You think it's OK to just dismiss me into 25-man pug LFR, when I want to run guild 10-man content, so you don't have to run a lockout *that you can ignore if you want anyway?* REALLY?

See, we can go back and forth with this all day. You're trying to limit my choices, and you're acting like you wouldn't have the choice to not use the lockout. You would. It would be *your choice* to use or not use an extra lockout. Oh, and if it's 'slaving away' you're doing it wrong. It's supposed to be fun.

[Levantine]

But the choice you're giving him is "You can choose to be a hardcore raider, or not."