Posted by iTZKooPA on Thursday, November 5th, 2009 - 9 Comments
Tags: blue, bornakk, boss per boss, hard mode, icecrown, icecrown citadel, icecrown difficulty design, normal mode, patch 3.3, raiding difficulty
Blizzard first chopped up the difficulty settings of World of Warcraft in vanilla WoW with optional bosses, or new loot tables for killing a boss in a certain way - effectively the first hard mode before that label came to be. The idea was taken a step further in The Burning Crusade with the introduction of Heroic Mode dungeons for every 5-man instance. Wrath has made as much an impact on the perception of difficulty with the introduction of certain achievements, numerous hard mode bosses and the recent quadrupling of Trial of the Crusader (10/25-man normal and heroic).
I’m sorry but running the same raid four separate times in a week isn’t fun for anyone. Quad running ToC was an unintended side effect - that Blizzard had to see coming - but may go away in the near future, according to Bornakk. The news came by way of Bornakk’s announcement that our assault on Icecrown Citadel will feature a new difficulty design philosophy.
“In the upcoming patch we are adding a new feature to the Icecrown raid instance that allows the raid leader to change the instance’s difficulty setting on a boss per boss basis (emphasis mine). The way the raid leader chooses to switch is the same as now, by right-clicking on the character portrait.”
Bornakk detailed the new technique a bit further, explaining that it only becomes available after the Lich King has been defeated on normal mode, and there is no heroic version of trash, only bosses. The blue fell short of callingToC’s method a mistake, claiming that the size of IC lead to a different direction, but Ulduar’s design was picked on.
“We didn’t want to use the Trial of the Crusader method, and have four versions on a raid of this size. We felt the Ulduar method of having to know a certain trick to do on the boss was difficult to communicate and tied too heavily to achievements” he continued.
Bornakk closed the update by saying ToC may change to the new technique, one would assume that it would depend on how successful it does in IC. However, “Ulduar and Naxxramas will likely never change.”
I wasn’t a fan of the quad running method at all, but Ulduar’s “tricks” reminded me of Zelda’s boss fights, undefeatable unless you know exactly what to do. Something that I will always cherish.
Related Posts: 3.3: Icecrown Citadel Boss List, (Some) Achievements Revealed, 3.3: Icecrown Citadel To Feature “Gated” Content Release, Emblems of Triumph to Become Base Drop in 3.3 Dungeons, 3.3: Icecrown Citadel To Feature Difficulty Toggle, Modern Raiding: Wasted Potential?,
By Shuoven on Thursday, November 5th, 2009 at 1:44 pm
Second!!! lol
By Vallestra on Thursday, November 5th, 2009 at 1:53 pm
I like the “thinking” that’s involved in unlocking Ulduar’s hardmodes. It’s my favorite instance in Wrath so far and from what I’ve done of IC on the PTR, it’s probably going to stay my favorite.
By Nilrog on Thursday, November 5th, 2009 at 2:51 pm
Just to clarify, he didn’t mean the tricks involved with beating the bosses, he meant the tricks that are involved with activating them (pressing the button, talking to keepers, etc) that people may not realize beforehand.
The first thing I stated is something to cherish, but the second…? Would just be a pain for most people.
By Pegraath on Thursday, November 5th, 2009 at 6:34 pm
I quite like the hard mode way in Ulduar, and there’s the thing that if you can’t do Hard mode, you won’t be able to open Hard mode. For example, on XT if you don’t have the DPS to take down the Heart in time to activate Hard mode, you won’t have the dps to beat his enrage timer. Had this happen when a couple of unlucky shots took out our top dpsers after we’d activated hard mode.
You need to be good at the encounter to activate hard mode, and that means having done it many times. Razorscale, yawn. Razorscale hard mode is fun. Popping Heroism early rather than when it’s optimal for simply downing the boss (eg to burn a boss through her enraged final 30%), makes it entertaining.
Personally I preferred Naxx over Ulduar as it seemed to hang together better (but then again it would, being version 2 of the instance). Ulduar is more of a challenge than Naxx ever was (apart from explaining to people how to survive Thaddius without wiping us), but the “story” is such a mess.
It needed more moments like Sif’s interruption of Thorim at the start of the Thorim encounter (”My lord, they are here to slay you…”), and more of an introduction of the other Keepers during questing and Heroics. Hodir and Thorim got fleshed out but Mim and Freya were a couple of quests outside of Ulduar.
By Furyhunter on Thursday, November 5th, 2009 at 9:44 pm
I don’t like the “unbeatable unless you know all” bosses idea. I hate sitting through an explanation so I can beat a boss without failing once.
Failure makes the game all that more enjoyable. It allows you to assess your mistakes and the general battle at hand, and develop a plan of your own - not on some silly raiding guide. Why people insist on having these bosses with absolutely no hint on even how to fight it befuddles me. Blizzard should make the bosses difficult, yes, but at least give a pointer or a hint in the middle of the fight as to what to do - much like Zelda bosses. This article doesn’t describe them properly.
By grandobsidian on Thursday, November 5th, 2009 at 10:36 pm
That sounds cool, but Zelda had a different methodology where it was as much a puzzle as a fight. I think people might be deprived of that experience hence the “WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING YOU IDIOT” moments. Really, tank and spanks and DPS races are not that fun. When a fight makes me think a little bit it fun. I get that its not cool having to explain everyfight and they should be a bit more straight forward but simply having the game tell you what to do is too easy and even “the classic boss” method requires some thought or a player guide. With 3 different roles and 10/25 people the fight has to be harder than “hit him…now. Dodge. repeat” It makes sense for a fight to take several tries but it shouldn’t be quite so insane and precise as some fights. I’m not sure if im getting my point across but it’ll do.
By Urziel on Friday, November 6th, 2009 at 1:42 pm
I remember the first time we raided Ulduar as a guild. I kept telling everyone not to talk to the Lorekeeper so we wouldn’t activate FL’s Hardmodes (wanted to make sure everyone was familiar enough with the vehicles and fighting GL normally first) But someone did it anyway and we had to trudge the entire Iron Concorse to get the towers. On the upside everyone got a crash course in vehicle operation.
By Xplosion on Friday, November 6th, 2009 at 3:09 pm
First of all, there is no Razorscale hard mode, just like Auryiya there is an intense achievement to get, but they don’t have hard modes… Secondly, I loved how most Ulduar hard modes were activated, hodir was one exception I didn’t care for, if you have a smart raid who utilizes there buffs you can do it, but fights like Iron council were highly entertaining, I’ve always loved the fights with multiple bosses (Moroes,high king mulgar, illidari council, and perhaps the best multiple boss fight kael thas in TK) These fights are the ones I really think test raid coordination! And that’s by far my favorite thing about raiding, coming together as a team! So will I like ICC’s new way of hard modes, maybe, but I’m hoping that they atleast change the aspect of the fight if you decide to do hard mode, not just up the damage they deal and health and armor they have, make it a more complex fight rather then just buffing the boss…
By cocopuff on Saturday, November 7th, 2009 at 11:24 am
i like the TOC method easy way to turn of and turn on the hard mode ya killing the same boss over and over is redundent but so is doing the same daily over and over for months i really dont mind the redundency