Determination
I really like the Determination buff in Raid Finder. Every time you wipe, you get an extra 5% buff that stacks up to 50%, until the boss dies.
I don't know if it causes less turnover in raids. People still seem to leave almost randomly.
However, I think it has greatly improved the atmosphere in Raid Finder. The buff gives hope that the next attempt will go better, or that eventually we will overpower the boss. There seems to be far less acrimony and finger-pointing on failed attempts.
Last year, I proposed PvE Handicapping. In some ways, Determination is an attempt at that, using wipes to determine the handicap.
Queues
I wonder if it is time to consolidate the Raid Finder queues. Currently you have to pick which wing you want to attempt. That means that there are 7-8 separate queues right now. If you pick the wing that no one else wants right at that moment, your wait might be much greater than normal. You could have things like 4 healers in one queue, and 2 healers in a different queue, and that would be enough to actually kick off one raid if only they were in the same queue.
If you look at the Dungeon Finder, everyone is thrown into the same queue for a random dungeon, shortening queue times as much as possible.
And a lot of the time, you don't care which Raid Finder wing you actually get, so long as you get an instance with bosses that you haven't done that week. As well, in 5.3, we will get the ability to choose which spec we get loot for. That means you may as well sign up with your preferred raiding spec for everything, and change your "loot spec" on a boss-by-boss basis.
Of course, the logic involved in a consolidated Raid Finder would be more involved than that of the Dungeon Finder. You would have to avoid putting people in a raid which only contains bosses they have already killed.
I still think it would result in better performance. You can look at the current system as a worst case scenario of the consolidated system, if you assume that you manually sign up primarily for wings you have not done yet.
I think perhaps the consolidated queue by tier or sub-tier. If you could queue for all of T14, or all of T15, or just specific ones if you're gunning for specific loot (like LFD). There are nights where I just don't care which raid I go into, because I can get loot from pretty well all of them. I just want a shorter queue.
ReplyDeleteWhat about the scenario where you want to queue for a particular LFR that you have already done, so that you can burn multiple coins for a particular boss in one week? I did this for ToES when trying to get the Sha-touched weapon.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if the problem of people leaving randomly in raids is due to Blizz encouraging LFR raids vs. heroic 5-mans.
ReplyDeleteRaids have always taken longer than 5-mans (with the exception of single boss raids, such as Magtheridon), but perhaps a lot of newer LFR people aren't prepared for the time commitment.
Unless they allow you to get loot from raid finder multiple times in a week, making the instance random is a horrid idea. Having to eat a deserter debuff because you got stuck into an instance you couldn't get loot from would drive me to distraction and I doubt that I'd be the only one in that boat.
ReplyDeleteAs for determination, I doubt it has much effect on whether or not people leave or stay. That seems to be more a product of everyone else in the raid, rather than the number of wipes involved. I've seen groups stick out multiple wipes without folks leaving, and I've seen groups where nearly a third the raid left after a single wipe.
I really can't see the point, as people gear up they are going to want increasingly want specific bosses and wings.
ReplyDeleteDetermination should hang around, if they wiped x times on the first boss they are going to be wiping later on.
I have seen a fair bit of using the determination buff to gauge fail. "Omg 4 stacks" new player drops group.
Imo LFR is fine as it is. I go in with a list of the loot I want so I dont want to go through lots of bosses I dont want/need. If I want random just for valor I prefer to do LFD which is much faster and less hassle.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure I'd like the option to merge all the ques. I rather like the ability to que within 3 bosses if there's something I want.
ReplyDeleteThat said I do wish there was an option for 'Fresh Only'. Sometimes it really sucks zoning in on the last boss when I need something off the first. Hell, early in tier you can get stuck needing the first boss to unlock the next wing of the raid.