Limited Attempts need to go!

By Saffrin on February 5th, 2010

Limited attempts do more harm than good. Why is the mechanic still being used?

First, a congratulations goes out to Paragon and Vodka.

Paragon was the first Euro guild to legitimately kill Lich King (25) on normal mode, and Vodka, the first US guild. Screenshots of their damage meters have been released on MMO-Champion.

Paragon - Lightning's Blade (EU)

Vodka - Alterac Mountains (US)

As can be seen on both damage meters, the fight (on normal difficulty) promotes a well balanced composition. Although classes with strong AoE will reign supreme (and is what you should stack more of during the harder difficulty, especially if there is an enrage), classes with low AoE capability but high single target damage can still be utilized for every phase of the fight. Just don't bring too many of them! Leave your elemental shamans at the door.

Paragon did NOT one-shot the Lich King.

For those not paying attention and thinking that Paragon one-shot the encounter in 25man (mostly thanks to MMO-Champion):

They, like several other high-end raids, used their second alt raid to learn the entire encounter before they used their main raid's lockout. That is far different from killing the boss on their first attempt, as some news sites will state, or a simple observation of a screenshot/kill video may show.

The price of trying to stay competitive is too high.

The price of trying to stay competitive is not something that most high-end guilds will pay for. The idea of running 2 raids is not fun, even for most of those who are currently doing it.

If more 25man guilds went the extra mile and outfitted two raids, we'd likely see far more Lich King kills within this week's raid lockout period. This trend will continue to carry over to hard modes, many of which are also tied to limited attempts. Guilds that don't go the extra distance to run two (or more) raids will simply fall to the way-side in progression.

All it takes is one.

All because one guild does it, anyone who wants to stay competitive will feel pressured into doing the same. As long as the limited attempt mechanic is in place, the guilds that get two times the attempts (or more) will jet ahead of those that only get one. A bigger gap than ever will form between the very top tier and everyone else. All that forming 2 identical raids will do is make this game feel like a job.

Please remove limited attempts Blizzard, they're no longer fun for anyone. I don't think they ever were.

In other (tanking) news.

There's been too much to write in the last few days so I haven't been able to keep up with some of the more important blue posts. I'll glaze over the more recent important ones quickly.

Paladin tanks were nerfed and Death Knight tanks were buffed in order to bring all 4 tanking classes more inline with one another (Source), and Warriors received bonus damage to one of their core tanking abilities, devastate. (Source)

All of these changes are changes in the right direction. Now please give Death Knights better snap threat, and take a closer look at ardent defender, also known as the "Oh, I survived when anyone else would've died!" talent.

9 comments so far. Add yours!

Kinigos February 5th, 2010 at 11:35am

I completely agree, Luci. The days when the fight itself was the challenge were so much more enjoyable and engaging to be a part of. Nowadays trying risky or unconventional strategies is simply too expensive in terms of limited attempts. It almost ensures that after initial kills and videos are released, everyone will follow suit and attempt to copy that approach simply because they know it was successful. When Blizzard feels the need to build in a progressive nerf to an encounter (referring to the 5% incremental buff that the LK encounter will get at some point, up to 35%, I believe) it shows they know full well what they are doing.
Astralis February 5th, 2010 at 1:49pm

I believe the goal in limited attempts was to prevent people from spending (or feeling forced to spend) 6 hours, 7 days per week raiding on new content.

I agree with that, and I think ‘pacing’ what people can and can’t do is a good idea.

However Blizzard has failed, and failed again, and now failed again at creating this mechanic.

First with Algalon was a 1hour attempt timer. I don’t really need to say anything about how poorly thought out this was. I simple D/C or two and you are screwed for the week.

Second was ToGC and Insanity. The 50 attempts was fine in my opinion. The achievement and added loot for Insanity was not.

Finally we have limited attempts, with a shared pool of 4 bosses, two of which were just released and while they may be normal mode they are certainly not ‘easy mode’.

Once again, the idea in limited attempts was to prevent people from bruteforcing raid content with 40+ hour raiding schedules for world firsts. I like this concept. What I don’t like is that the implementation of 20 attempts is basically one raid night. Considering most guilds run a 4 day raiding schedule, if you assume it takes you 1 day to get to the Lich King, you then have however many remaining attempts - basically 1 raiding day to kill him, with 2 days doing nothing. If the number of limited attempts was a more realistic number is regards to a regular raiding week - say… 50 or more (just to use ToC as an example) I think there would be a lot less emphasis on feeling forced to run a second raid.

I like the concept of not raiding 40 hours a week on progression. I don’t like the concept of only being able to raid for 4 or 5.
Astralis February 5th, 2010 at 1:53pm

One other comment. With such a small amount of Limited Attempts, making it so that you cannot even attempt hardmode encounters without downing that boss will create a buffer that is likely to be impossible to overcome. Next week any guild that kills the Lich King this week on 25 will have a vast head start on hardmodes compared to any that do not. And this only further emphasizes the need for a second raid to get as many limited attempts in as possible to learn the fight.
Winchestor February 5th, 2010 at 2:58pm

I think limited attempts is a step in the right direction, but Blizzard could improve on it very easily.

As for me, I would make it say 10-20 attempts a night per account, resetting mid day. This prevents guilds from Brute Forcing it, but keeping intact the time it takes to discuss things between attempts. Along with preventing people from soft brute forcing it with more then one raid on the same account. Yes you could just own more then one account and many people do, but most wont go to that extreme.

People may say, well what about my alt, I want to raid on it still, well you can make the choice. If you’re doing progression, you probably wont be raiding on your alt that night. Along with, if you kill everything in your main raid. Your perfectly fine to Raid on your alt the next day, or even that night if you have attempts left.

Just my two cents. It sucks right now, but what can you do.
Kinigos February 9th, 2010 at 2:23pm

I guess Blizzard heard you, Saffrin.
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