Neue Raid IDs schon mit Patch 4.0.1 – Flexible Lockouts mit dem nächsten Patch für 10/25er Raids

Was erst für Cataclysm angekündigt wurde, kommt nun schon zu Testzwecken mit Patch 4.0.1 auf uns zu: Das flexible Lockout System für 10er und 25er Raids. Was kommt da nun genau auf uns zu? Der Kerngedanke hinter dem neuen System ist, dass kein Spieler mit ein und demselben Char jede ID-Woche den gleichen Raid im 10er und 25er spielen kann. Was den normalen Spielern nette Möglichkeiten auf zusätzliche Loots und Embleme bot, war in High End Gilden am Ende schon Pflicht: Um die Emblemanzahl zu maximieren und um möglichst viel Erfahrung bei den Bossen zu sammeln, wurden sich alle Encounter zunächst im 10er Heroic Raid angeschaut, um anschließend im 25er Heroic möglichst effektiv tryen zu können. Der Dank geht hier ganz klar an den Trycounter in der Eiskronenzitadelle, mit dem Blizzard sich sicherlich keinen Gefallen getan hat und die ambitionierten Spieler ein stückweit zu diesem Schritt gezwungen hat. Nun wird Blizzard auch vor dieses Schlupfloch einen Riegel schieben.

Mit dem neuen, flexiblen, Lockout System ist es mit Patch 4.0.1 dann nicht mehr möglich, den selben Boss im 10er und 25er Raid zu legen. Fortan kann man jeden Boss nur mit einem Raid besiegen. Allerdings kann man jederzeit zwischen der 10er und 25er Version wechseln. Wer also mit seinem 25er Raid nur die ersten 4 Bosse in der Eiskronen Zitadelle besiegt, kann anschließend ab Boss No. 5 im 10er Raid weiterspielen. Wer allerdings alle Bosse im 25er cleart, hat eine Woche frei, da kein zusätzlicher 10er Raid mehr funktioniert. Unterschiede gibt es dann noch zwischen der Normalen und Heroischen Version: Wer heroisch raidet, kann nicht mehr auf den heroischen Schwierigkeitsgrad in einer anderen Raidgrösse wechseln. Wer also 25er Heroic ICC raidet, kann nicht mehr 10er ICC heroic raiden, allerdings wäre der 10er dann noch auf normalen Schwierigkeitsgrad verfügbar (aber wer will das schon?!). So schließt Blizzard geschickt aus, das man sich die Heroic Modes in Zukunft im 10er anschauen und für den 25er üben kann. Zusammengefasst bedeutet das: Wer 25er Heroic raidet, kann kein 10er Heroic mehr raiden, wer 10er Heroic raidet, kann kein 25er Heroic mehr spielen.

Ich bin gespannt, wie das neue Raid ID Lockout System bei den Spielern ankommen wird. Gerade Leute ohne Twinks, die derzeit sowohl 10er als auch 25er Heroic mit ihrem Mainchar spielen, werden dadurch einen Raid die Woche weniger spielen können. Ob das im Sinne von Blizzard ist, dass Leute nun eher ausloggen müssen, weil es nichts mehr zu tun gibt, bzw. sie nicht mehr spielen dürfen? Ich halte das System nach wie vor für fragwürdig.

Almost six months ago we announced that Cataclysm raids were being redesigned to make both raid sizes the same difficulty, drop the same quality of loot, and exist in the same lockout. This evolution in raid philosophy is built on the belief that the size of your raiding group should be a choice based solely on what’s more fun and enjoyable for you, and that you should not have to complete the same raiding content twice in a week to maximize your character’s progression. These systems are the culmination of a great deal of design and player feedback from the last few years. With the release of the 4.0.1 patch, the new Flexible Raid Lock system will debut in Icecrown Citadel and The Ruby Sanctum.

With the Flexible Raid Lock system, instead of being locked to a specific raid size or raid group, each character will have the opportunity to defeat each raid encounter once a week. You could kill Lord Marrowgar and Lady Deathwhisper with a 10-player raid on Wednesday, join a 25-player raid to kill Festergut and Rotface on Thursday, and then lead a completely new 10-player raid to kill The Lich King on Friday. Every raid has a list of encounters associated with the zone. For example, Icecrown Citadel has twelve encounters. After you defeat Lord Marrowgar, you can open up your character’s raid information dialog and see the list of encounters in Icecrown Citadel with Marrowgar marked as defeated. You may no longer fight Lord Marrowgar with any raid size or difficulty until the weekly raid reset for your region occurs.

Another key change is that if you join someone else’s raid in progress, you are no longer locked to that raid after merely zoning in. Your raid status will only change when a boss is defeated, at which point it will be updated to reflect the state of the instance in which you are currently participating. So, let’s say you have killed the first four bosses of Icecrown Citadel, and you then join a raid that has defeated the first four encounters, as well as Festergut and Rotface. The dialog that displays upon entering Icecrown Citadel will show that the raid has defeated 6 of 12 encounters. If you help them defeat Professor Putricide, then you would be marked as having defeated not only Professor Putricide for the week, but also Festergut and Rotface. If instead after joining the raid you then proceeded to wipe ten times to Professor Putricide, you could leave the raid with only the first four bosses marked as completed.

To help communicate to players which bosses are dead in the raid leader’s raid, there is new functionality to link in chat a list of the encounters the raid has defeated. So before you join a raid, you can see what they’ve already defeated. If a raid leader advertises in chat that she needs another healer for an 8/12 Icecrown Citadel run, you can see precisely which bosses are still available to fight. If you were only looking for that one item from Queen Lana’thel that never drops for you and this raid already defeated her, you will know not to join that raid.

Let’s look at another example of the Flexible Raid Lock system. A guild schedules three nights for 25-player Icecrown Citadel raiding on Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday. On Wednesday, the raid defeats Lord Marrowgar, Lady Deathwhisper, Icecrown Gunship Battle, and Saurfang. On Thursday, five people cancel their raid attendance due to real life emergencies. The raid leader knows that if he cancels Thursday raiding, there’s little chance they’ll have enough time on Saturday to defeat the other eight bosses in Icecrown Citadel. So he splits the remaining 20 Thursday raiders into two 10-player raids. Each new raid enters Icecrown Citadel and defeats Rotface, Festergut, Blood Council, and Valithria Dreamwalker. The next Saturday with all 25 players online, they reform as a 25-player raid and enter Icecrown Citadel once more. Only Professor Putricide, Queen Lana’thel, Sindragosa, and The Lich King remain. After a tough fight, the Lich King falls and everybody celebrates. Without the Flexible Raid Lock system the entire raid probably would have missed out on a night of raiding, and likely would not have reached the Lich King.

While players can freely move between raids of different sizes in normal difficulty, there are some additional rules for Heroic difficulty. If a 10- or 25-player raid defeats a boss on Heroic difficulty, then those players may now only raid additional Heroic encounters with that specific raid. If your Heroic 25-player raid defeats the first four bosses of Icecrown Citadel on Heroic, then they may not split up into two 10-player raids and continue to fight in Heroic difficulty. You may also not join someone else’s raid if they have defeated a Heroic encounter.

But let’s say you are a member of a Heroic raid in Icecrown Citadel, and after killing Lord Marrowgar on Heroic you have Internet connection issues that prevent you from raiding for two nights. During those two nights, the rest of the raid kills everything. Without the Flexible Raid Lock system, you would be done with raiding Icecrown Citadel for the week. Ouch. With the Flexible Raid Lock system, you can join someone else’s raid as long as they are doing Normal difficulty. This would at least give you the opportunity to earn your Justice Points for the week. If this raid attempted to switch to Heroic difficulty for Icecrown Gunship Battle with you in the raid, the raid leader would receive an error message stating that she cannot change to Heroic, because someone in the raid (i.e., you) is already locked to a different Heroic instance.

All of the new Cataclysm raids will feature the Flexible Raid Lock and Dynamic Difficulty systems, and when the Cataclysm occurs the other Wrath of the Lich King raids will also have these features. It’s important to note that this system doesn’t affect Heroic dungeons, they will work as they always have. We look forward to feedback for this new system after 4.0.1 is released. As a reminder, Icecrown Citadel and The Ruby Sanctum are the only two raids that support the Flexible Raid Lock until the Cataclysm occurs.

Update
One piece of clarification on questions being asked so far, although we’re still compiling feedback and will work to answer some of the questions and clear up any confusion we can.

The loot system in Icecrown and Ruby Sanctum is not changing. This implementation of the new flex raid lock is only that, a new implementation of the raid lockout system we’ll be using in Cataclysm. This does not change the separation of 10 and 25 in ICC, and does not change the item drops or achievements.