The Question of Naxxramas Difficulty

[Jahreno]

Voted for Random timers as they are sometimes what keeps people on their toes and takes away the dull, repetetive feeling in raiding. Not even playing here but wishing you luck, hopefully you'll have a great release and meniluts and VG finally being Winrar in the speed race.

 

[Brochette]

Your choice, else you satisfy the current top 5 guilds by buffing boss who have no issue recruiting fully geared players, else you kill my guild and other average guild because we struggle to be more than 33 on our raid day and have to deal with people who barely speaks english.
Not allowing world buff would be a great compromise.

 

[Chainsaw]

Yeah lets always cater to the casual audience. EVERYONE has to experience everything and if it's too hard for them then its not up to them to adapt or improve no its the game that is supposed to be easy.

This attitude is what ruined retail wow in the first place where in the end the game was so streamlined and catered to casual players that we had to find refuge on private servers.

You compare a private server which adapts blizzard's vanilla wow with the whole history of wow expansions from TBC until now. This comparison is just not right because it is like comparing a mouse with an elephant.
Also I am not saying everyone has to experience everything, like you suggest, I am trying to make clear that guilds, who still struggle with movement at cthun or do not even have NR gear to kill viscidus after a year, will have a hard time clearing naxx even if it is not tuned. It is clear that all retail vanilla and private server veterans seek for a challenge, but you probably forget that you are not alone on this server.

 

[Slippy]

Remove World Buffs for the first couple of weeks so that bosses aren't zerged down and any remaining issues are identified and fixed. It will also add to the competitive element I think. After that let people play how they want to play.

Supercharging your character with World Buffs is one of the fun parts of Vanilla. A lot of people will get bored quick if we're never allowed to buff for Naxx. Any dps can rip off a tank when fully World Buffed if they just go ham without paying attention to threat. Part of the skill of doing good dps is pushing the limits without ripping. I want to see what a fully buffed raid can accomplish in Naxx and what records will emerge.

Lets face it. If it was decided to permanently disable World Buffs for Naxx there would be calls a few months down the road to enable them anyway. So just do it for the first couple of resets.

Remember that disabling World Buffs permanently also lessens the incentive to run ZG, Ony and even BWL for some. You want guilds still running the other stuff throughout the week to keep the team together and morale high. And what's the point of levelling an alt if my guild has stopped running something like BWL? I'll never be able to gear him up and raid on him so what's the point? Hello raid-logging. The need for head and hearts keeps the world alive. Raidlogging would be even worse since you'd hardly even need to prepare for raids. Just log right outside Naxx and in you go.

Also, don't mess with boss timers. It's way too easy to fuck up. Keep boss hp and damage at Blizz-like values for at least the first few weeks. After that make a decision on whether it deserves a buff or not.

 

[Masil]

Trying to appease the hardcore audience can only end in disaster. Just look at what happened to Everquest.

Most guilds can't clear AQ40 reliably or even at all. Things like consumables or world buffs benefit those players the most. For the top end guilds having 15% more stamina or 10% extra crit means nothing, they can still clear the raid just fine without them, it just makes the fights longer, but for a more casual guild those buffs can be the difference between finally beating a boss they've been struggling with for months or disbanding the guild.
Same thing with buffing the boss' health or abilities. For people who whine about bosses being too easy, who have the mechanics down and can execute them properly, the boss having 50% more hp, or using an ability more often, won't wake any difference. They'll still be able to kill it, it will just take longer, and then next week they'll be back on the forums, again whining that it's still too easy. For everybody else however, even if you're able to kill the boss, the increased length means you'll need more consumables, which makes the fights even harder for those who can't spare the time to farm them.

In the end, the hardcore players will quit, because they'll think the bosses weren't buffed enough, the casual players will quit, because they'll think the bosses were buffed too much, and there'll be nobody left. You can't make everyone happy.
Besides, you don't change horses in the middle of a stream. It's best to just leave everything as is. It's what everybody expects and accepts. If they didn't, they would've never started playing at all. If they wanted custom changes to raids they would not have decided to play on a server that advertises itself as blizzlike.

 

[Brochette]

I disagree with Masil, on retail i went up to 4HM without relying on world buff (except for our kill on Loatheb), currently 90% of my guild doesnt bother with song flower, most of them can't deal more than 470 dps even with onyxia buff on 1 min fight ( https://vanilla-twinhead.twinstar.cz/?boss-kill=579244#bosskills_players:0+3+1) , i mean come on we are world buffed, i am doing 427 in bear form.....
World buff doesnt help if most of your guild is casual and dont know perfectly their class, while having all world buff + perfect knowledge of your dps class for every players = short fight = less healer needed = higher and higher dps = even shorter fight= less chance to screw up = you just skip boss mechanic and that's it.

 

[Amoonir]

World buffs help any guild regardless of skill level. I think you mean to say hardcore guilds utilize world buffs to their maximum value while casual don't get as much of a boost. But you can't claim world buffs have 0 effect if you are a casual player. Simply boosting someone's hp can (ZG buff) can help keep players survive that otherwise would have died. The less people die as the encounter progress the more likely you are to succeed.

 

[hammerlock]

Trying to appease the hardcore audience can only end in disaster. Just look at what happened to Everquest.

Most guilds can't clear AQ40 reliably or even at all. Things like consumables or world buffs benefit those players the most. For the top end guilds having 15% more stamina or 10% extra crit means nothing, they can still clear the raid just fine without them, it just makes the fights longer, but for a more casual guild those buffs can be the difference between finally beating a boss they've been struggling with for months or disbanding the guild.
Same thing with buffing the boss' health or abilities. For people who whine about bosses being too easy, who have the mechanics down and can execute them properly, the boss having 50% more hp, or using an ability more often, won't wake any difference. They'll still be able to kill it, it will just take longer, and then next week they'll be back on the forums, again whining that it's still too easy. For everybody else however, even if you're able to kill the boss, the increased length means you'll need more consumables, which makes the fights even harder for those who can't spare the time to farm them.

In the end, the hardcore players will quit, because they'll think the bosses weren't buffed enough, the casual players will quit, because they'll think the bosses were buffed too much, and there'll be nobody left. You can't make everyone happy.
Besides, you don't change horses in the middle of a stream. It's best to just leave everything as is. It's what everybody expects and accepts. If they didn't, they would've never started playing at all. If they wanted custom changes to raids they would not have decided to play on a server that advertises itself as blizzlike.

The proposition isn't to make these bosses so hard that you need flasks + world buffs + hardcore guild talent to be able to clear them. It's to buff them slightly so that they aren't completely steamrolled, and so that there is at least a chance the mechanics are encountered. If you're in a super casual guild with 33 players, then do you really think it's fair that you're able to clear the most difficult content in the entire expansion? Even with a small difficulty increase, casual guilds should eventually be able to clear the content in Naxx after a month or two of farming the gear that they are in fact able to farm. It will be a longer progression period, but these bosses aren't going to be tuned to double HP and damage.

Removing world buffs probably benefits the casual guilds in some ways, because they are less likely to keep their world buffs, and if hardcore guilds are killing the bosses without them, then casual guilds should be able to get there too.

 

[bl4ckc0d3r]

To everyone who is against boosting HP: With 20k raid DPS, Heigan dies before dancing phase. I believe we currently have 3-6 guilds on the server capable of outputting 20k raid DPS over 90 seconds even without world buffs.

And yes, I'm certain that we also we have a few guilds who don't. But what does that mean? Should we tune content for guilds who can't even gather 40 people and whose members hate the idea of using mongoose elixirs for progression raids? Really?



Along with removing all auras upon zoning in, boost health of bosses that have long-timer phase transitions by 50%.

 

[nimeralos]

Also, don't mess with boss timers. It's way too easy to fuck up. Keep boss hp and damage at Blizz-like values for at least the first few weeks. After that make a decision on whether it deserves a buff or not.

To buff content after the release is not a good practice. The race is already over, and the newer guilds would feel themselves cheated by the older guilds who cleared the nerfed version.

To everyone who is against boosting HP: With 20k raid DPS, Heigan dies before dancing phase. I believe we currently have 3-6 guilds on the server capable of outputting 20k raid DPS over 90 seconds even without world buffs.

Along with removing all auras upon zoning in, boost health of bosses that have long-timer phase transitions by 50%.

Heigan without dance, like Rag without sons. Would be a pity.

I think, buff stats (timers/whatever) to the hell and then nerf if needed, because why not? Would anyone really cry/quit if they can't clear Naxx in one ID? Would it be that difficult to nerf things later if you see all but a couple of guilds struggling too much?


Anyway, remember that there will always be those who support and those who oppose. Look at the poll, but listen to your heart...

 

[epix]

im not going to use the vote function here because i dont know if i want invisible or timer changes.
it doesnt say anything about beeing harder or weaker, just invisible or timers, so i cant say much about that.

anyway i want naxx hard, not easy. that's my vote

 

[nimeralos]

i dont know if i want invisible or timer changes.
it doesnt say anything about beeing harder or weaker, just invisible or timers, so i cant say much about that.

Stop being such a mathematician man, they do mean invisible/timers changes that would make Naxx harder Can be read in the post too.

 

[fetmosaren]

Remove worldbuffs for 3 weeks so we can have a nice and Fair race in the bosskills, then enable Them so we can have some fun in doing speedkills. I honestly think this is the best compromise.

 

[varth]

I'm fine with no world buffs for first month. NOTHING else changed besides that.

 

[Rammeth]

I think changing timers in a way that it ensures mechanics arnt skipped will mean clears at a decent speed will still happen without ruining the experience, people are saying about skipping the heigan dance, if you changed it so the first one happened at 60 seconds then the rest at 90 seconds it wouldnt affect the fight difficulty too much but means people wont be able to brute force it.

 

[Meckieh]

Myself, and the vast majority of this server, never cleared Naxxramas in Vanilla, and for a lot of us the sole reason we started on Vanilla private server(s) is cause we want to clear Naxx. I want to experience Naxxramas in its full glory the first time I enter it here; I want to look at the awesome loot, I want to zoom my camera all the way in and explore the beautiful instance that is Naxxramas, I want to experience the boss mechanics, I want to focus on performing well, I want my guild to have a good time when we're progressing through "new" content...

What will ruin literally all of this? World buffs...

The thought of insta-logging after the first Anub-kill to save precious time on buffs... The thought of Guildmate10 dying (thus losing buffs) early to trash and being a sarcastic whiny bitch about it on Discord/in raidchat for an hour... The thought of having to play overly cautious and safe on trash to avoid losing buffs... The thought of a raid not playing as an entity on progression but instead 40 people trying everything to keep their buffs...

But Meck you can just choose not to get the buffs??? Sure, I can, but I am a competitive person; the competition and the urge to improve numbers is what motivates me to keep raiding. If I have the option to do X amount of more DPS/healing by grabbing worldbuff Y, then I will always go for it, because I strive to perform my best. I might not enjoy the ride there (I dont think many people enjoy spending 2 hours prior to raid summoning themselves around the world), but it'll always be worth it if it's an option.

Take that option away from me and others who share the same mindset as me, and let us enjoy progressing in Naxxramas without having those damn buffs in the back of our heads. And then give us that option back after a certain period of time, so we can resume pushing this game to its limits.

Buffing Naxxramas a little? Why not. As long as it's not Warmane-values that turn certain classes/specs into garbage and makes the game feel completely different, which it won't be with the proposed values (10% - 50% increase of health, as well as 5% - 25% damage). If you want to piss less people off (which is generally a good idea), gradually nerf it untill it reaches blizzlike values. Or if it just happens to be in a very good state with the buffs, leave it be.

 

[Solanis]

I can't see the poll options to vote for, is it bcz I'm on Android?

 

[Spazztastic]

ye thats exactly why solanis, I can never vote from my phone

 

[tristan]

My thoughts:

1. Disable all world buffs for the first month of progression, except for the EPL PvP one.
This will encourage a healthy competition for the first kills, as well as world PvP. Removing all buff auras upon entering the instance (and re applying the zone EPL one after that), as many suggested before, is a good way to do it.
After the first month, allow the buffs, so the competitive guilds can go back to their precious competition for high numbers.

2. Buff boss base stats (HP, Damage) slightly, but don't change anything else.
I think that the mechanics of the fights are already challenging enough to learn for an average player. Changing the timers of abilities, either invisible or fixed, will only give the server the fame of contradicting itself, by promoting a "blizzlike" experience which will be far from blizzlike: it will turn all fights into "custom fights".
We all know that it is impossible to replicate the full blizzlike progression as it was back then, but what we can do is to replicate the blizzlike "experience"; go to the "new" content and discovering challenging encounters. Let's face it, we are in the year 2017, with so many years of knowledge and theorycrafting, even without world buffs a fully AQ geared group can kill Patchwerk in around half the enrage timer. A group of average players without world buffs but fully geared will most likely still clear the whole instance with enough effort.
Buffing the HP and Damage stats slightly will make the encounters challenging enough so you cannot skip mechanics because of being fully geared, and still give you the taste of how that fight is supposed to be. Changing the timers will completely screw that.

So my votes are:
- Remove world buffs upon zoning into Naxxramas (but allow them later on)
- I am not against changing monster stats (but slightly, please do it very carefully, test this a lot and preferably with a whole guild group)
- I am against making invisible changes
- I am against making changes to fixed timers

 

[Sarei]

The problem is, everyone thinks Naxxramas is 5x harder then any raid before and just freak out when they see a word "buffed", when in fact it's not at all. All bosses are easier then C'Thun with the exception of probably only Ghotik and Kel'Thuzad.

Given that several guilds struggle to kill Cthun on a regular basis and need help from other guilds (and even those runs are not always getting full) and the massive amount of consumables, gear and tanks needed for some bosses (e.g. loatheb, sapphiron, 4hm), those in here who promote a harder naxx should take a look outside their own small cosmos.

My guild on Feenix killed 10 bosses in Naxx after just few weeks, but we NEVER killed C'Thun.. Their Naxx was buffed, bosses had a lot more health and warriors actually had to tank in tanking, not fury gear like here. Also, we weren't some bigdick guild, way more casual then hardcore. Everyone was in a mix of 20man/MC/BWL/AQ40 gear, half people didn't use consumable and we didn't have much knowledge, RL had to guide us through every fight to the last details. I personally didn't know a single thing about Naxx when I first stepped foot inside, learned everything on the fly. Our raiding core setup was bad as well - way too many healers, never more then 2-3 fury warriors and warlocks and 4-5 hunters. Everyone here will be full BiS pre-Naxx geared, with BiS or at least decent raid setup, full consumable and full knowledge of everything, what to do and where to be in every exact moment in every fight. They would wreck that Naxxramas we were raiding as well, but if you add 100% Blizzlike scripts on top of all that.. well, add 1 and 1 yourself.
I'm looking forward to Naxxramas because it's the only raid I found not to be boring and tedious from my Feenix experience, but if it turns out to be just another brainafk gearfarm run, probably wont be interested for long.

 

[SashaYudin]

What a great community and service from our Game Masters and Developers of Kronos. I personally believe in permanently not allowing world buffs when entering naxx and yes, I think harder this private server and its Naxxramus debut should be more difficult than retail, I believe many of the communities here on Kronos would love this.

 

[Chainsaw]

The problem is, everyone thinks Naxxramas is 5x harder then any raid before and just freak out when they see a word "buffed", when in fact it's not at all. All bosses are easier then C'Thun with the exception of probably only Ghotik and Kel'Thuzad.



My guild on Feenix killed 10 bosses in Naxx after just few weeks, but we NEVER killed C'Thun.. Their Naxx was buffed, bosses had a lot more health and warriors actually had to tank in tanking, not fury gear like here. Also, we weren't some bigdick guild, way more casual then hardcore. Everyone was in a mix of 20man/MC/BWL/AQ40 gear, half people didn't use consumable and we didn't have much knowledge, RL had to guide us through every fight to the last details. I personally didn't know a single thing about Naxx when I first stepped foot inside, learned everything on the fly. Our raiding core setup was bad as well - way too many healers, never more then 2-3 fury warriors and warlocks and 4-5 hunters. Everyone here will be full BiS pre-Naxx geared, with BiS or at least decent raid setup, full consumable and full knowledge of everything, what to do and where to be in every exact moment in every fight. They would wreck that Naxxramas we were raiding as well, but if you add 100% Blizzlike scripts on top of all that.. well, add 1 and 1 yourself.
I'm looking forward to Naxxramas because it's the only raid I found not to be boring and tedious from my Feenix experience, but if it turns out to be just another brainafk gearfarm run, probably wont be interested for long.

What makes people struggle is memorizing multiple mechanics and executing the counter strategies properly. On Cthun people have problems standing out of range of each other even with ctw (/ctw scale 100) and looking at the BIG RED EYE and run away in time to avoid getting roasted by the dark glare (even if boss mod timers tell you when the event is roughly going to happen. Some do not even consider getting nature resist gear if their boss strategy relies on them using it.
In general naxx bosses aren't that hard, you are right, but they contain lots of more important mechanics you have to look at. You brought up the example of Kel'thuzad being hard and that is for his different abilites. You have to care for your range to others. You have to move out of voidzones and reposition so you don't link others with the ice block thingy. Imho from the difficulty level this is comparable to C'thun. For some other bosses like Loatheb, for instance, you need massive consumable preparation (not everyone is able to farm 500g+ per hour and just buy consumables from the AH) and if you wipe a bit on him, it will be very expensive for the average player. On Razuvious, for instance, all casters need to take care of his shout and on top of that you need several skilled priests to do the mind control right. See the heigan dance. How can you expect people who cannot position themselves on cthun to do this movement right? Naxx needs coordination of every individual in different proportions and from my experiences as a class leader (not only on Kronos) I am 100% certain that naxx will NOT be as easy for a major group of players as everybody advertizes here.
I am not advocating a steamroll naxx and I am personally gladly accept the vote results, but whenever we talk about tuning naxx, we should look at a realistic picture of how raiding is going on Kronos, and that does mean not to see it only from a Onslaught, Risen, Vanguard and Synced perspective.

 

[Topmong]

Heigan dance is a lot easier to coordinate for the mongs than C'thun or KT because they don't have to do any brainwork themselves, you can just mark one trustworthy fella and tell everyone to stack on/follow him. Loatheb also doesn't require individuals to farm "500g an hour", unless they drastically increase the hp/timers. Just a major healing potion or two, a healthstone and some bandages can get you plenty of ticks in, much longer if you bring multiple shadowpriests.

 

[Oidd]

Good guilds will clear Naxx in any case. Better make it challenging to give them the fun they would expect (first run, server first kill, speed runs).

Not_that_good guilds will indeed struggle because many of their raiders are used to the mentality stand_in_fire_but_bis_gear_enough that has worked so far, may not easily work in naxx fights at start. They will have to try that bit more (which is good).

I don't agree that every guild and every player should necessarily be able to clear Naxx without any effort, though i do understand the concerns of Chainsaw and Brochette.

 

[Sarei]

Yea I understand that Chainsaw, but what I'm saying is that my guild was 3 tiers below Synced, Onslaught, Vanguard and we killed 10 bosses in 2-3 weeks in BUFFED Naxx with half as much gear and terrible setups with next to none preparation before entering the instance