Thursday, May 07, 2009

The New Immortal

I posted before about the Immortal Achievement. I did like the idea of Immortal, and have great respect for those who got it, but in practice it was too stressful and just wasn't fun.

So what of the new Immortal: Conqueror of Ulduar?

It definitely isn't as impressive a feat as the old Immortal. But I think that in practice, it's going to be a lot closer to my ideal of "a side-effect of playing perfectly, rather than a goal that is worked towards in and of itself."

Last night was a rather mediocre raid night with a lot of wipes on Mimiron. But we did pick up a flawless Ignis and a flawless Freya1, marking the first two fights for the Achievement. It wasn't something we were explicitly trying for, but it was just a great bonus for doing the fight well. As well, it's only week three or so, so that hopefully gives us a long time to work towards the entire Achievement.

We don't have to play 100% perfectly for the entire instance, but this Achievement rewards striving for perfection, even if you only reach those heights occasionally. At this point, I'm really happy with the new version of Immortal.

1 Technically, Freya wasn't flawless. Several people got too eager and managed to blow themselves up after Freya was defeated. But it still counted for the Achievement.

11 comments:

  1. Personally I think Blizz screwed up badly with this title.

    Really, what they should have done is had the current 'Immortal' achievement award 'Conqueror of Naxxramas' or whatever. Immortal should have been linked to a meta-achievement, which with 3.0 would have only required the current achievement. 3.1 should have added the new Ulduar version as a second requirement, and whenever a new 3.x raid is added, another requirement should be added to the meta. That way you know that people with the Immortal titles are the absolute peak of the PvE game.

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  2. I am not surprised that Blizzard made it easier (more reasonable?) than the previous version. I see achievements as an added bonus to experiencing the story. Ok, something to show off too. But I think Blizz is following a `carrot 'n' stick' approach.

    First, they make the achievement hard to get (often for reasons unrelated to skill etc). Then they tone it down a bit and replace the hardest earned achievements with others. That way, those that did not get the first version of the achievement try to get the easier one. And those that seek those achievements that show `umberness' go for the new, harder ones. And the show goes on...

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  3. Is it really any harder? I am at work so I can't view what bosses need to be defeated without any deaths, but to me it doesn't seem any harder then the Naxx one.

    Maybe I am wrong, just doesn't seem easier. Take for example if the Immortal title in Naxx 25 you only had to kill the Construct Quarter and the Frost Wing to get the achievement. I bet the same amount of people would have the title.

    Good read btw

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  4. WTFSpaghetti, The Ulduar Immortal easier than the Naxx one. You don't have to defeat all the bosses flawlessly in the same run. You can do it over different weeks. It still has to be a kill with no deaths on the first pull.

    Like we got Ignis and Freya this week. We need to get the remaining 11 bosses eventually.

    Lance, I don't think this is the standard case of Blizzard nerfing the game to make things more accessible. The Immortal titles was meant to be a elite achievement that was not achievable by everyone. But it was making the game less fun for a lot of people attempting it. Look at the comments on my previous post.

    Now Algalon and Hard-modes fill the elite achievements niche.

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  5. I think it's the same thing, but in Ulduar. The achievement mentions "...at any point during that raid lockout period". It looks like they just re-worded the Immortal some, but it still has to be done in 1 pass.

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  6. Nope. I have 2 bosses checked off, which came after numerous wipes on Mimiron. It's on a per-boss basis.

    Seriously, you can check my Achievements on Armory.

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  7. 1. Rohan is right I have it checked in mine also.

    2. While Immortal was very difficult, sometimes good fortune dependent and not much fun to pursue I am not at all sure I would call it "the absolute peak of the PvE game".

    3. As I recall, Immortal only required you to be present at KT on a clean Raid ID son if you had a cooperative guild or were buying a title it was easier if not it was harder.

    4. If Ulduar followed the same rules as Naxx for Immortal it would be HORRENDOUS.

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  8. I like the new immortal requirement much better than the naxx one. The naxx immortal runs were too stressful to the point of taking away fun.

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  9. I do agree that's a nice improvement, but we still have arguments over people wanting to do achievements and people who don't.

    Take Flame Leviathan, for example. I got the 10man credit for a flawless kill, but on 25man we're always doing hard modes. Half the raid wants to keep pushing hard modes, and the other half wants to just do it with 0 towers one week so we can get the achievement credit.

    For the most part I think Blizzard did a good job with tying achievements to "a side-effect of playing perfectly," but there are still too many that require you to be there just for the achievement (Crazy Cat Lady, Nine Lives, Deforestation, Disarmed, Getting Back to Nature, Lumberjacked, etc)

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  10. Ahhhhh

    I see, thanks for info =D

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  11. Off topic: Just a hunch, maybe its the new "meme" in the blogosphere it seems, but is BoK retiring? It's the first blog I started reading and lead me to my maturation as a Warcraft player. I hope it's just busy RL issues that have caused the couple week delay.

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