raid-finder
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QueueSpy, an addon to solve those LFR queue pop blues
UPDATE: Bashiok has clarified to us that this addon was running off of inaccurate information and did not work properly. More importanly, the popup's lack of progress information was intentional. More info here. We've been getting reports that some people are not able to see how many bosses have been cleared when their Looking For Raid queue finally pops. There have been some posts popping up on the official forums, but there has not been an official blue post yet as to whether this is indeed a bug, or an intended change with the recent 5.1 patch. At this time, we believe that it is a bug as we've also been receiving reports that some players are able to see how many bosses are already killed on their queue pops. With that in mind, some players have put their noses to the grindstone and written an addon to help you find out how many of those bosses are defeated if you find yourself with the queue pop bug. It's a quick fix, and it works quite well as a solution to a potentially annoying bug. The addon outputs the boss total to your chat window instead of putting it back into your queue screen, which is actually a really nice work around. The addon is lightweight, and until we hear official word whether or not this is a bug or a feature, this seems to be the way to go. If you find yourself in burning need to know exactly how many bosses are waiting for you in your LFR queue, then you can download this addon over at Curse or WoWInterface. It's quick and easy to install, and requires zero configuration. A special thanks to Stoppableforce for whipping up this addon quickly for everyone to use. Mists of Pandaria is here! The level cap has been raised to 90, many players have returned to Azeroth, and pet battles are taking the world by storm. Keep an eye out for all of the latest news, and check out our comprehensive guide to Mists of Pandaria for everything you'll ever need to know.
Breakfast Topic: Do you PUG?
I have a love/hate relationship with pugging. I'll have a mediocre to wonderful time, random after random, and then one horrific experience makes me quit PUGs for months. I have a thick skin for writing on the internet ... er, let me rephrase that. I now have a thick skin for writing on the internet for over five years. But playing with pick up groups for the same amount of time still hasn't toughened me up. Battlegrounds? No problem. I'm not sure why. The language and verbal attacks are often much worse there, and I know that's why many people stay away. But I guess it's more impersonal there and much more common. Maybe that's why I can handle it so easily. It is definitely much more personal in a 5-man group. That's certain. It's not "you all suck," but "you suck, Laurel." If I'm really not doing well, there are better ways to tell me, obviously. More often, however, the blamer is the one with the problem. "Learn to heal!" -- says the rogue pulling the entire room while the tank is waiting for the casters to regen mana. "[expletive deleted]," he goes on to say. These experiences really bother me and I just can't deal for a while.
A solution to the LFR "problem"
Our very own Olivia Grace recently sat down with Gamebreaker.tv to discuss player complaints about the obligation that many raiders out there feel to run LFR each week, a topic that has been hotly debated in, among other places, this thread on the official forums with the ghastly Zarhym naturally representing Blizzard. In the video, Olivia raises a good point that many people may not immediately realize – the game isn't forcing you to run LFR every week, it is the social pressures of being in a competitive raiding guild, the very nature of which makes it basically mandatory to seek every advantage you can to edge out your competition. And while many players cite a myriad of issues with LFR, few offer any real, workable solutions. I have seen a couple non-workable solutions, however, so let's briefly discuss them.
What item level do I need for Raid Finder?
It's a good question, which has been coming up a lot lately, simply because there's quite a lot of confusion surrounding these numbers. At first, it was stated that the item level for Raid Finder was 463, meaning that a would be raider would have to gear entirely with heroic dungeon items or better. This item level was revised downwards to 460, for the first half of Mogu'shan Vaults, the first Raid Finder instance to open, and this is where the confusion starts. Rumors have abounded that the item level required for the second half of the Mogu'shan Vaults raid finder was 470, so Community Manager Crithto has stepped in to clarify: Crithto The second half of Mogu'shan Vaults is the same as the first half. The required item level players must have is 460. Once Heart of Fear and Terrace of Endless Spring open up, they will have a required item level of 470, with both raid dungeons dropping improved gear. source To recap Raid Finder item levels: First half of Mogushan Vaults: 460 ilevel required Second half of Mogushan Vaults: 460 ilevel required Heart of Fear: 470 ilevel required Terrace of Endless Spring: 470 ilevel required Mists of Pandaria is here! The level cap has been raised to 90, many players have returned to Azeroth, and pet battles are taking the world by storm. Keep an eye out for all of the latest news, and check out our comprehensive guide to Mists of Pandaria for everything you'll ever need to know.
Breakfast Topic: Is the raid finder ever 'real' raiding?
When does a player who dips one toe into raiding via the raid finder accumulate so much raid group experience that he becomes a bona fide raider? Is that even something that can happen? I feel fairly confident that a good number of players will say it's not -- but if that's the case, then we'll have to stop putting performance expectations on raid finder players. We've all seen experienced raiders fussing and fuming about other players when they're running the raid finder, as if they expected polished gearing and gameplay from players for whom they refuse to allow it's even possible. Spot the disconnect? The raid finder didn't only allow the so-called unwashed masses to claw their way up into pseudo-raiding. (See that lump in my cheek? That's my tongue.) It also allowed countless tautly stretched raiders to deflate with much relief, tour busing their way through the game's most epic sights and stories and then logging out for the rest of the week to kick back on the couch with a good movie and a homebrew. None of these players suddenly lost the skills and discipline they'd accumulated over years of guild raiding simply by dint of choosing to run the raid finder instead of running with a raid group. Conversely, the players coming into organized raiding via the raid finder are no different from raiders past in their ability to pick up raiding conventions as well as personal and group strategies from repeated exposure to these events. We seem to be coming to the conclusion that the hardcore game is dead. So who's a raider in today's World of Warcraft? To make a final decision, we'd probably have to come to a consensus on what the purpose of the raid finder actually is. Even so, I'm sure we can agree that someone who runs the raid finder once or twice ever simply to see the sights is probably not considered a WoW raider. But what about someone who runs the raid finder regularly every week? Does that change if participation drops to every other week or less? Is being a raider more a matter of mindset, skill, or performance? Do you think we've simply concluded as a community that even regulars of the raid finder are simply not part of the raiding game? Tell us what the view is from your end of the swimming pool.
Raid Finder: Too easy?
There's been a bit of discussion taking place over on the official forums about the ease of the raid finder's first three bosses, released on October 9th in the US. It's no great surprise, really, that this ever-controversial feature is stirring up ire in the forums, with complaints that it's too easy. Blizzard Blue Taepsilum has weighed in, with some interesting ideas on the Raid Finder's difficulty settings. First and foremost, the main issue Blizzard seems to have at the front of their minds is that the Raid Finder, unlike normal and heroic difficulties, is specifically designed for random groups. These are not your well-oiled machine guild groups, your Methods and Vodkas, these are a bunch of players who've probably never met each other before, and probably never will again. Sure you can join the Raid Finder as a group if you want to, but that's not really what it's designed for.
The social aspect of WoW
I always remember sitting in Shattrath. Sometimes for hours, scrolling through trade, seeing the same messages over and over again. "LF1M Shadow Labyrinth, CC." Every so often, the discussion comes back to how grouping tools are ruining World of Warcraft's social aspects. The arguments are usually the same, talking about how before the Dungeon Finder people had to have active guilds or set up groups via trade, how the servers had a sense of community, how you have to get out there and put groups together and make friends in order to play WoW, and how that's lost now. And whenever I see this argument, I remember sitting in Shattath, sometimes for hours, trying to get a group for Shadow Labyrinth. People never really seem to remember those times when they're talking about this. Now, I've made a lot of friends in WoW over the years. Through server x-fers, through tiers of raiding, through old school days of dungeon running. I talk to a lot of these people to this day, and I've raided actively since the days of Molten Core. And yet, when people bemoan the tools that have been added to this game all I can remember is sitting in Shattrath, doing the "LFG Shadow Labyrinth" shuffle, looking at other people also looking for groups. Watching those groups demand that any new DPS have CC (warriors didn't) and that any new tank be an AoE god (warriors weren't) so they didn't have to use that CC they wanted you to have.
WoW Archivist: A raid exploit compendium, part 2
WoW Archivist explores the secrets of World of Warcraft's past. What did the game look like years ago? Who is etched into WoW's history? What secrets does the game still hold? If you missed last week's Archivist, I recounted some of WoW's earliest raid exploits. Guilds have been pushing for ways to make raids easier since Molten Core went live, whether for the glory of a first kill or simple convenience. This week, I'll continue our tour through this sordid side of raiding with more recent exploits. Many of them ended with suspensions. Shadow Word: World First In her heyday, Serpentshrine Cavern's Lady Vashj was considered one of the hardest raid bosses that the game had ever seen. In March 2007, more than two months since Serpentshrine went live with the release of The Burning Crusade, EU guild Nihilum posted screenshots of Vashj's loot and claimed the world-first kill. Nihilum was the dominant progression guild at the time, earning 20 world firsts throughout the expansion -- more than three times that of their closest competitor. There was only one problem: An ex-member named Lewt claimed that Nihilum exploited a bug to kill Vashj. As with Razorgore and other bosses, the mechanism seemed to revolve around that troublesome spell Divine Intervention. Using the spell despawned the pillars that are connected to Vashj's health, leaving her with 1 HP. Lewt popped a Soulstone and killed her with Shadow Word: Death. He even provided a screenshot to prove it. He also went on to badmouth the guild about exploits in Blackwing Lair, gold buying practices, and even an unlikely situation where an officer was paying the guild leader's real-life bills.
Blizzard clarifies the raid finder's role in gearing progression
Blizzard blue Taepsilum posted today on the EU forums regarding the role of the raid finder as a key part of the gearing ladder. It has been regularly mentioned how the raid finder in Cataclysm became a vital part of gear progression, offering items that were an upgrade from Firelands normal gear and -- with procs and set bonuses accounted for, as well as the half-tier increase in item level for drops from Spine and Madness -- upgrades from Firelands heroic gear. I posted a while back about the purpose of the raid finder and how while it was intended as a means for folks who didn't have access to a raid team to see content, it became a rung on the gearing ladder. Well, it seems that Blizzard is taking steps to change that. Matt Rossi posted earlier with more information on the loot changes, and Taepsilum's post only serves to add weight to the notion that the raid finder will be adapted to serve its intended purpose. This shift was mentioned yesterday on the Q&A with the Devs at Gamescom, but it bears repeating for all the raid finder naysayers out there. When Blizzard knows millions of players will see content, it makes it easier for them to justify allocating resources to it. It's really hard for Blizzard to justify putting the huge resources to design a raid into something a fraction of players will experience. WoW Insider had a message direct from Lead Encounter Designer Ion Hazzikostas in which he restated this point: The existence of LFR justifies the creation of more raid content for casual and hardcore players alike. See Taepsilum's post after the break.
Reminder: Raid finder loot rules change applies even to guild runs
CM Watcher clarified the way loot is going to work in the raid finder going forward, and it may be a surprise for those of us who are used to forming all-guild runs to try and farm up set pieces for the bonuses. You won't be able to use any other loot system for bosses than the new LFR roll system, even in a preformed group. Watcher - The new LFR roll system Posted by Ichi It would be useful if we could form a guild group and set our own loot rules, essentially the same process we use in norm/heroic. Within LFR, boss loot is handled on a per-player basis using the new system, regardless whether you queued as a full group or used the matchmaking features. You should still be able to change the loot method you use to handle any drops from the non-boss creatures in the instance if you are a full premade, but the boss system is hardcoded. source If you're used to forming groups to funnel gear to a specific player or players, you won't be able to do that with the raid finder any longer. Even in a completely premade raid group, the loot system will work as it does for people using the matchmaking tool to form a random group. Everyone's chance to get loot is independent of anyone else; you can't trade an item that dropped for you, and you'll only get drops that are useful to your current spec. It's open warfare between Alliance and Horde in Mists of Pandaria, World of Warcraft's next expansion. Jump into five new levels with new talents and class mechanics, try the new monk class, and create a pandaren character to ally with either Horde or Alliance. Look for expansion basics in our Mists FAQ, or dig into our spring press event coverage for more details!
Gamescom Raid Q&A with the Devs: Nerfs, the raid finder and more
You may have spotted Monday's post on how to design a raid, which was the first half of the Gamescom 2012 Raids and Dungeons round table with Ion Hazzikostas and John Lagrave. The second half of the Round Table was a Q&A session in which many interesting questions were asked, shedding light on some hot issues as well as simply providing a little more insight into the Blizzard Encounter Design Team's creative processes. Again, these aren't verbatim quotations from Ion and John, as I simply can't write that fast, but the overall statements are accurate representations of their responses. Are there any encounters Blizzard have had to alter or leave out due to technical constraints? There was a boss leading up to the Lich King who you had to heal (Valithria Dreamwalker), and that was a huge challenge for their existing technology. If you think about it, Ion explained, up to that point, every healing spell in the game was designed to be cast on a friendly target, that is to say, a player. So the devs were faced with the task of reworking every healing spell in the game. They didn't want players to only be able to use certain spells on her, as that would have been bad, so they redid every healing spell. The technical team changed the game's design so that the boss basically became a raid team member. Ion and John explained that it's all about working out creative ways to implement the designers' ideas.
What is the purpose of the Raid Finder?
There has been a recent thread on the EU forums getting quite some blue attention that's discussing the purpose of the raid finder, including some hefty criticisms of it, as you'd expect for any newer feature. I don't have the space to put all the blue posts in this article, but this is what the Wowhead blue tracker is made for. This thread made me sit up and think about what in fact the real purpose of this game feature was. A rung on the gearing ladder The raid finder, when it first appeared, was famously exploited for gear by guilds -- and indeed, it still is, although within the rules. Gone are the days of the glitches exploited by Paragon, landing themselves a ban. But those issues aside, the raid finder has become very much a step on the gearing ladder for any new character, and guilds put this to good use when gearing up their colleagues, going into the raid finder as a group or with several people all on the same token. So if a guild member had a new priest to gear up, a guild might join as a party of paladins, priests and warlocks to get that new priest several rolls on token drops, as the tokens could be passed between players. Offering as it does not only higher item level gear than heroic dungeons but also tier pieces and the associated set bonuses, the raid finder was a valuable source of easily obtained upgrades for a new character. And so as it progressed, more and more players came into it that were cheating the item level requirements, making the fights longer and the rage more ragey. Do you remember the start of the raid finder? When the instances were new? How polite and excited people were to see the new boss mechanics! It was actually fun then.
Would playing on sheer vanity work as raiding incentive?
I have a confession to make. There were a few reason why, back in vanilla, I decided to get into raiding. First, I discovered after hitting 60 on my druid that there was really very, very little to do once you'd hit level 60. Second, I had some friends who told me I would have a spot in their raids if I managed to get a Horde alt to 60. But the third reason was the secret reason, one I kept to myself and didn't tell anyone, even though it was pretty much the most important reason of all, to me. I really, really, really wanted the pretty gear. I didn't really like the look of the Devout set; I thought it was kind of boring. I didn't really care for most of the green gear while leveling. But the first time I saw a priest running around in full Prophecy, I knew that I wanted that because it was pretty. The first time I saw Benediction, I wanted it more than anything else in the world -- not because of the stats, not because of the set bonuses, not because it would make me super-powerful, but because it would make my character look really neat.
The danger of assuming personal experiences to be universal
Whether or not you can believe it, there are players right now who have not finished regular Dragon Soul. Some of them raid less often, some of them started later, some of them lost players, and some of them just raid more slowly than you. And yes, you may be a better raider or have a better raid group than they do, a more skilled collection of people. You also might have a better class comp or have gotten lucky on a few occasions when they didn't. Some groups lost key players at the worst possible time, had real-life issues to contend with, or simply started later than everyone else. Why do I bring this up? This forum thread on the EU forums, where Draztal ( who is rapidly becoming one of my favorite CMs) is constantly forced to deal with a mindset that does not seem to understand that each raiding group's experience is personal to that group and cannot always be extended to the game or all its players as a whole. Now, not every poster in that thread has that issue; there are some good ones in there, and you should read it. But it's a mindset I see over and over again. The game is large, and no two raid groups have the same experience playing it. Some raid groups loved tier 11; others were bored or hated the fights. Some raids had fun in Firelands; others found it repetitive or disliked the zone's tendency to be all one color. (I still say Bastion of Twilight had exactly the same problem, but that was alleviated by its being one of three raids at launch.) Some folks have enjoyed Dragon Soul; others dislike the mechanics or the use of Wyrmrest art assets. Having these differences of opinion is a fine thing and can be good for the game and its community -- when you acknowledge that they exist, and when you realize that your own strongly held opinion about the raid finder, heroic modes in raiding, or the superiority of this fight or that fight is rooted in personal experience to some extent and that experience will never be shared with everyone. That goes for things you love and things you hate equally.
Does World of Warcraft need to be more difficult?
The above video is a bit lengthy, but it's well worth the watch simply because it does raise a few valid points along the line. And lest you think this is yet another player whining about the endless hardcore vs. casual debate, it's not -- this is simply a player who is incredibly passionate about the game we all play. In that passion, he's decided to talk about the direction that raiding in WoW has taken and how it has gone downhill, in his opinion. On the one hand, he has a point. There is a stark difference between the feel of raiding back in the days of vanilla, The Burning Crusade, and now. There's a stark difference in numbers, which any graph can illustrate. More and more people can complete raids now from one degree or another, which leaves people barreling through content at light speed and doesn't really give that same feeling that raiding had in years past. On the other, is changing the difficulty in WoW really the way to accomplish that goal? I don't think so.
The headspace of switching roles
It's about as easy to switch your role in World of Warcraft as it has ever been in the history of the game. With dual spec, you can have two ready to go. With the justice/valor system and heroic Hour of Twilight dungeons, you can have a passable off-spec set in a few days. The problem nowadays isn't gear, and it isn't having to go respec to do it. The problem is ingrained habits, and that problem can be the hardest to overcome. It's certainly far from impossible, though. The first thing you have to do when switching from tanking or healing to DPS or vice versa is abandon how you approached the job. You're not doing that job anymore. When I first went DPS in Firelands, it took me two weeks to get myself to stop trying to intercept mobs running for the healers or other DPSers and getting myself killed. That was because no one was healing me -- not because they didn't care, but because they had no idea I was about to get aggro on Firelands trash. Why would they? I wasn't a tank. It's not that they didn't appreciate it; it's that they had no way of anticipating I was going to do it.
Expanding Endgame Choices: How Mists of Pandaria changes everything
In the past year, even before Mists of Pandaria went into beta, we've been seeing an expansion of options for players in World of Warcraft that have broadened our idea of endgame content. Endgame content can be described at its most basic as stuff we do when we're at max level, and patch 4.3 added not only the Raid Finder (which is absolutely endgame content) but also transmogrification (which is content for everyone). It revitalizes older content that was once endgame; it gives players from the level 17 twink to the 70 running BC raids to the new level 85 something to do that in no way actually amplifies a character's power in any way. It breaks with the mold of what we think endgame content is supposed to do. Mists is bringing more of this. From the Pet Battle system, to a mass of hundreds of new daily quests and a removal of the limit on daily quests, to specifics such as being able to level up your own farm and improved Raid Finder support for each new tier of raiding, what we're seeing is an emphasis on broad content -- things people who play for six to 10 hours a day can do but which are also accessible in smaller bites for people with far more limited play time. You can hit up the buffet, do some Pet Battles, run some dungeons, or work on a reputation, or you can pick one aspect of the game and work on it. Do you really want to develop your fishing? Are you completely disinterested in anything but PvP? You can go as deep or as wide as you wish. As someone who has no interest in Pet Battles, fishing, or having my own farm, I think this is fantastic.
How the Raid Finder changed Warcraft lore
I know what you're thinking: What's the Raid Finder got to do with Warcraft lore, of all things? I hadn't really given it much thought, either. Generally speaking, Warcraft lore is a wholly separate animal from game mechanics. After all, the endless carrying of flags in Warsong Gulch doesn't exactly tell a compelling story, and returning to the same dungeon repeatedly to kill the same bosses over and over doesn't really make sense from a lore perspective, either. When the Raid Finder was introduced, there were plenty of people curious about how it would turn out and far more who were excited about the possibilities of the feature. Along with cross-realm raiding, the Raid Finder has entirely changed the face of raiding as we know it. Much like the downsize from 40-man to 25-man with the release of The Burning Crusade expansion, the Raid Finder revolutionized raiding and changed it into something that far more easily accessible for players who don't necessarily have the time to dedicate to regular raiding. This isn't to say that the Raid Finder is a magical solution to everything, however.
The Lawbringer: Autonomous systems deal with customer service problems
Pop law abounds in The Lawbringer, your weekly dose of WoW, the law, video games and the MMO genre. Mathew McCurley takes you through the world running parallel to the games we love and enjoy, full of rules, regulations, and esoteroic topics that slip through the cracks. At the beginning of March, Blizzard laid off 600 positions from the company in many departments, many of which came from the customer service and community side of the company. The official response and reasoning for the layoffs is internal restructuring of much of the way World of Warcraft's customer support is handled. Restructuring could mean a lot of things, after all, so the vagueness of what was happening threw people off. I surmised that one of the reasons for the sudden downsizing of customer support had to do with the development of new, better, and more automated tools that perform many of the mundane repair or restore jobs customer service was previously responsible for. Staffed for a new subscription number and armed with a more stable infrastructure, account recovery tools, and now the automatic item restore feature, the Blizzard customer service team was able to shed personnel and keep expected services active.
Addon Spotlight: Mists of Pandaria Beta UI upgrades
Each week, WoW Insider's Mathew McCurley brings you a fresh look at reader-submitted UIs as well as Addon Spotlight, which focuses on the backbone of the WoW gameplay experience: the user interface. Everything from bags to bars, buttons to DPS meters and beyond -- your addons folder will never be the same. As one of the fortunate few with a Mists of Pandaria beta invite at this time, I have been excitedly snapping screenshots of some of the UI changes coming in the next expansion. While we still have not yet seen the Pet Battle system interface, arguably the biggest UI reveal this go-around, there are still a few tweaks to the game that are deserving of being pointed out. More quality of life improvements than anything, the changes to WoW so far in the Mists beta have been straightforward and welcome additions. I figured that since this is the beta process that we as a community can provide some feedback even if you haven't had a chance to see these tools in action. Since the tools are mostly quality-of-life improvements and not "boots on the ground," experience-dependent changes, these changes are something we can discuss and hopefully make better before the launch. Since this is the beta, things can and will change dramatically. This is only a quick look at some of the features and changes coming in Mists of Pandaria. As new features open up, like the aforementioned Pet Battles, I will be more than happy to show them to you. If you are in the Mists of Pandaria beta and want to help me out with some UI testing and screenshots or you're an addon developer looking to talk about your new Mists of Pandaria addons in the works, send me an email at mat@wowinsider.com.
