Attunements, am i the only one?

[snrofgar]

Is anyone else really annoyed at the amount of attunement quests in BC? kara attune i survived but now my quest log is filling up with the others Tempest keep, Hyjal and Serphentshrine . (well kinda filling up :p) what happened to having hardly any Attunement quests in Pre BC (addmittdly Onyxia was a looongg chain but it wasnt exactly hard) to having lots in BC.
I miss the impromtu ZG , AQ20, AQ40, ONY and MC
(lol @ MC attunement, BWL lair was patheticly easy too) that used to occur, PUG'ing these raids wasnt always the best option but it did occur, i had been in many successful PUG's of Aq20 and even MC.
But now in BC it seems Raiding is up to be a guild event due to the attunement requirements!

My point is, Why do we need so many attunements , i know its to weed out the newbs from the Hardcore players in a raid enviroment , but for those of us who are the "Casual raiders" its a pain :undecided:

[GamerManOneTwo]

There is a scroll that drops off one of the SSC bosses that enables you to attune someone to SSC - and it is expected that there will be a similar scroll for Mt Hyjal - so some people will be able to skip the attunement quests.

These items are in 2.1, of course.

[Arthengel]

Raiding IS a guild event in TBC. I do not see how a PUG can clear Karazhan, Gruul's lair, or anything that follow. Therefore having their attunements will be in guild events as well.

Karazhan attunement is not hard at all, I did BM in a PUG. The rest, you get attuned in raids and heroics. So, no greenies, no "yourtypicalinstanceretards". Your tank should know tanking, healer should know heaing, and dps not slacking. Everybody in blues and purples, and you will be fine.

SSC attunement doesnt even involve a lvl 70 heroic. And to go to SSC, please kill gruul and nightbane. So people can learn TBC raiding before starting to get T5, and do not go into SSC directly with faction reward epics, bypassing content.

[Schift]

Personally the attunements keep people doing raids and such in order. People won't be able to just jump into Hyjal and wipe and then complain it's too hard.

And I thought for SSC you had to go most of the way through Heroic SlavePens? What do you mean it doesn't even involve a lvl 70 heroic? Do you mean that you don't have to do any further ones like The Eye attunement? Anyways, I don't have a problem with them. Mostly their not that hard to do. You can honestly pug every attunement up to SSC which really should be a guild event.

I don't see them being any worse in comparison to pre-TBC. What about UBRS, MC, Onyxia, BWL, etc.. The ones in TBC aren't really any harder IMHO.

I'm actually quite surprised that they didn't make a pre-req. for Gruul's.

[Telmar]

There is a scroll that drops off one of the SSC bosses that enables you to attune someone to SSC - and it is expected that there will be a similar scroll for Mt Hyjal - so some people will be able to skip the attunement quests.

These items are in 2.1, of course.

Shockingly its off vashj.

With regards to attunements, I think they're all reasonable for where they are in the raid game. We stepped into TK for the first time last night, and I can say quite happily that if you cant do the 4 heroics you need for attunement, then do Mag, you wont even manage the trash packs. One of the trash mobs has a full melee de-agro, earthshocks, has a melee reflecting aoe, and 1.2million HP. Thats a similar amount to Onyxia... And it comes as part of a pack of 4 other mobs too.

SSC Attunement is fairly reasonable too. If you cant put out the DPS you need for gruul, then you cant do hydross. If you cant coordinate well enough for nightbane, then you cant do Morogrim, or Karethress.

Basically the attunements are making sure you arent going in there unprepared. I dont see anything wrong with that.

[Arthengel]

Personally the attunements keep people doing raids and such in order. People won't be able to just jump into Hyjal and wipe and then complain it's too hard.

And I thought for SSC you had to go most of the way through Heroic SlavePens? What do you mean it doesn't even involve a lvl 70 heroic? Do you mean that you don't have to do any further ones like The Eye attunement? Anyways, I don't have a problem with them. Mostly their not that hard to do. You can honestly pug every attunement up to SSC which really should be a guild event.

I don't see them being any worse in comparison to pre-TBC. What about UBRS, MC, Onyxia, BWL, etc.. The ones in TBC aren't really any harder IMHO.

I'm actually quite surprised that they didn't make a pre-req. for Gruul's.


By level 70 heroic instance I mean the heroic version of level70 instances like arcatraz, SL, SH, BM, etc... They are tuned to be a bit harder than the heroics of lower level instances. (Tho I found SL heroic a lot easier than pens, but that may be because I memorized every milimeter of SL non heroic, we one shotted everything except a few wipes on vorpil till we figure out a new tactic that one shots him, and a few wipes on murmur for the first time)

[Telmar]

By level 70 heroic instance I mean the heroic version of level70 instances like arcatraz, SL, SH, BM, etc... They are tuned to be a bit harder than the heroics of lower level instances. (Tho I found SL heroic a lot easier than pens, but that may be because I memorized every milimeter of SL non heroic, we one shotted everything except a few wipes on vorpil till we figure out a new tactic that one shots him, and a few wipes on murmur for the first time)

I think he understands what a heroic is. He was asking why you said you didnt need to do any heroics, when you actually need to clear past first boss in heroic Slave pens. SH/SL arent particularly harder than stuff like Slave pens tbh, the only 'difficult' heroics are Durnholde and Black morass. Arc is time consuming, but not particularly hard, as almost everything can be single pulled.

I completed black morass heroic for the first time yesterday on our second ever attempt, this was with a alt shadowpriest from our guild, so even that isnt exactly a huge challenge.

I'd say the lower lvl instances are some of the hardest on heroic mode, if you look at heroic ramparts, or blood furnace (done properly), they're two of the more difficult heroics out there.

Also, how on earth did you wipe on vorpil? :P Its a straight up tank and spank.

[Twoflower]

i think the attunements are ok as they are. They build up nicely as the dungeons get harder, and they are not too much.

Also, it is a certain, what was the word, ah yeah... noobfilter :P

[Astross]

I wish there were more 10/25 man instances that dropped similar loot to karazhan.

I myself am in a casual guild and we almost got karazhan cleared and have downed High King; however, I don't see us doing Mag or SCC for a long time. The skill level required seems to be too high for most of our members.

I wish there were more instances between Kara/Gruul's and Mag/SCC.

Everyone is kinda stuck in Kara with nowhere else to go...seems like there should be more instances to run.

[Telmar]

If you can do high king, then you can do gruul np, just get everyone in some HP gear and fully pot up for it, take no more than 7 healers and you're set. Mags slightly harder and might take you a couple of weeks to learn, but once its on farm, its one-shottable even with a few deaths.

[Xmcdaniel]

The attunements in TBC are ridiculous. I don't have the time to gear up and attune my character for them. When I get to 70 I'll just PvP and farm when I need dough for repairs and what not. But grinding to get faction rep, attunement, tradeskills(not to mention the materials needed for epic items), and epic flying mounts is a silly time sink if you're just playing for fun. What I mean is, what is fun about doing something mindless (grinding AI mobs for the most part) for days and days of played time to get that epic that gives you 15 more spell damage? Sure, you won't "own" as much as the epicced out level 70 on his epic flying mount, but if you have some skill at your class there's a good chance that you could down him. My 65 mage has taken down plenty of higher level characters.

/end of rant...remember, just my perspective. When this game stops being fun I will stop playing it. I don't want to make the game a job so I can "havz all the prplz."

I wish there were more 10/25 man instances that dropped similar loot to karazhan.

I myself am in a casual guild and we almost got karazhan cleared and have downed High King; however, I don't see us doing Mag or SCC for a long time. The skill level required seems to be too high for most of our members.

I wish there were more instances between Kara/Gruul's and Mag/SCC.

Everyone is kinda stuck in Kara with nowhere else to go...seems like there should be more instances to run.

Ah, ah, ah...don't confuse "skill-level" with "amount of time on their hands". And you can be sure that Blizz will come out with content for the casual player.

[Valshenna]

Being attuned for a raid and being prepared for the raid are completely different in most if not all cases--especially in the Burning Crusade. Lets face it--Karazhan is tough, and I'm sure the full-blown 25-man raids are a lot tougher. All things considered, the requirements to get into the instances are a LOT less then the requirements to be successful in those instances. And for the most part, the quests to get attuned involve the same activities that you should be doing to get geared up to be able to succeed in the raids.

Thus, all things considered the attunement requirements are a LOT easier than the raid instances themselves. Having easier attunement req's won't get you very far if the instances themselves aren't easier as well :wink:

[Rex Normal]

I'm quite frustrated with the attunement requirements for Kara as it pretty much shuts out the small casual guilds, like mine. I play with a pretty solid group of 10 players in my guild, the other 20 or so in the guild are friends of friends lowbies etc. Our core group is very good IMO, very good at following directions, very good at their respective classes, very good at managing their aggro and CC, etc. But the problem is, not everyone plays during the week at the same times, or for more than a few hours at a time in some cases. We want to get into Kara, but just getting everyone attuned is just a pain. We finally have 7 people keyed, and a few are about halfway there. But those of us who got our keys already are just waiting on the others to log on run another instance for a fragment, and then two days later, log on run another instance for their fragment etc. it's rediculus.


We can't recruit more players because nobody want's to join a guild that isn't allready running Kara, it's a damn catch 22 and it's going to kill our small guild.

[Aerath]

Somehow, I feel that if you can't find 5 people to do an instance run... you might have a hell of a time finding 10 for Karazhan.

[trudelle]

There are only 2 instances that need to be cleared to get attuned to Kara, the other two key frags just need to be semi-cleared. Actually the Steam Vaults one can be solo'd be rogues and druids, possibly other classes with invis pots and careful planning. With a good group as you claim your guild has, each instance can be cleared up to the key location in an hour or less (some may disagree with Shadow Labs but once everyone understands the instance it can be done quite quickly.

[Rex Normal]

Somehow, I feel that if you can't find 5 people to do an instance run... you might have a hell of a time finding 10 for Karazhan.

We can find 5 people no problem. It's the other 5 (to make up a ten man group) who are dragging their feet. They don't log on regularly so they don't schedule runs to get their keys, or sign up for scheduled key runs if we post them because they have families, jobs, or whatever that prevent them from knowing when they'll be able to play during the week. On the weekends, they have more time to play, but not enough for a power run to all the instances to get their frags. So we are stuck doing a part of their attunements every weekend.

The 5 of us who are more regular and are keyed are extremely bored waiting for the others to get keyed. Heroics are making it a little bareable, but we want to try something bigger, and new, not just the same thing we've done before only harder.

It may not be easy to understand if you play several hours a night how difficult it is to get yourself keyed as a casual player. They login on a wednesday at 9:00 to play for a few hours, sure it may be enough time to run to SV just to get the fragment, but not everyone wants to drop what they are doing just cuz someone just logged in who needs their keyfrag now.

Even if Kara is meant for more structured organized raiding guilds, that's fine, but there's nothing really new for us smaller casual guilds to do together.

[Naedea]

It may not be easy to understand if you play several hours a night how difficult it is to get yourself keyed as a casual player. They login on a wednesday at 9:00 to play for a few hours, sure it may be enough time to run to SV just to get the fragment, but not everyone wants to drop what they are doing just cuz someone just logged in who needs their keyfrag now.

Even if Kara is meant for more structured organized raiding guilds, that's fine, but there's nothing really new for us smaller casual guilds to do together.

I wouldn't count on anyone past your current 5 or so reliables to contribute to the success of raiding. People with flaky playtime, no matter how skilled they are, or how nice they are, won't help you down raid bosses. In order to raid successfully, you'll need to increase your number of solid players somehow. That can mean PUGging up the areas in which you're weak with players like yourself, who are in guilds that are shooting for Karazhan but cannot muster critical mass. It could mean forming an alliance with a guild who's "almost in Karazhan." It could mean merging with a guild whose values match your own, but be exceptionally wary of a culture clash. Your tiny guild's not going to be raiding anytime soon without some leadership to provide motivation and direction.

For what it's worth, I am in the exact same boat right now. Attuned for Karazhan mostly on my own, in a small guild with a few solid regular players, but not enough to make raiding work. No one's leading, no one's recruiting, we group here and there for random instances and heroics, but not everyone is keyed for Karazhan, or for every heroic even. We have a web site which no one uses, and a vent server which a few people use.

[snrofgar]

I hope ZA will be comparable to ZG, ZG was the king of Casual raids imo
- and a note on Pre BC attunements. Ony was not a hard attunement , really just a loonnng chain MC only required half (ish) a BRD run, both these attunes could be finished almost on the same run of BRD, if your at that stage with windsor lol . Now what Instance in BC can key you for 2 raids in 'one' run?

[Telmar]

The attunements in TBC are ridiculous. I don't have the time to gear up and attune my character for them. When I get to 70 I'll just PvP and farm when I need dough for repairs and what not. But grinding to get faction rep, attunement, tradeskills(not to mention the materials needed for epic items), and epic flying mounts is a silly time sink if you're just playing for fun. What I mean is, what is fun about doing something mindless (grinding AI mobs for the most part) for days and days of played time to get that epic that gives you 15 more spell damage? Sure, you won't "own" as much as the epicced out level 70 on his epic flying mount, but if you have some skill at your class there's a good chance that you could down him. My 65 mage has taken down plenty of higher level characters.

/end of rant...remember, just my perspective. When this game stops being fun I will stop playing it. I don't want to make the game a job so I can "havz all the prplz."

Ah, ah, ah...don't confuse "skill-level" with "amount of time on their hands". And you can be sure that Blizz will come out with content for the casual player.

I think you misunderstand why alot of PVEers are concerned about loot...

Its not so we can 'pwn teh n00bs n get all teh prplz'. Its so we're at a higher power level relative to the content (PVE) that we are doing, making DPS requirements less strict and healing less difficult.

Hardcore PVEers don't go 'i want teh epix 4 teh n00b pwnin so i gota grind teh ogres!!!!!! :( :( :(', they just see it as a path to make the gear they need to tackle encounters available to them. At 65, you dont really have much idea of what the attunements involve, and how little time they really take either im afraid.

I don't have the time to gear up and attune my character for them.

Going back to this, if you dont have the time to gear up your char, and do the attunements, then you dont have time to tackle the content that you're getting attuned for, so you dont NEED to do them. I dont see the problem here... You strike me as somewhat confused, which is understandable, as you're not yet 70, so have no experiance of attunements, high level tradeskill mats grinding, or raid instances, all of which you seem very upset by.

The only people that should be complaining about the attunements are those in raiding guilds, but that were behind the levelling curve, so didnt do their attunements with the rest of the guild, meaning they're now stuck PUGging them. I can see them being hard then. Other than that though, you're either in a raiding guild and have the time, and the dedication to do the attunements (gearing up in the process), or you're in a casual guild, and have no NEED for the attunements, as they are very very simple and relatively short compared to the actual raid instances.

Even if Kara is meant for more structured organized raiding guilds, that's fine, but there's nothing really new for us smaller casual guilds to do together.

Erm, how about heroics and 5 mans?

You have a guild of 10 essentially. That means that unless you all have 100% attendance YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO DO KARAZHAN. I cant emphasise this enough. You would need a core of ~20 if their attendance is as sporadic as you claim to be able to reliably field a decent raid group for it on a regular basis. I understand that you want to remain in your 'social guild' but there is nothing saying it has to be small. I raid in a social guild, and we have about 50 hardcore raiders in it. Thats to be able to field a 25 man raid most nights, and even then we occasionally get caught short with a low number of xxx class on some nights.

If you think about it, lets say you're asking 50% attendance from your members (ie they're online for a few hours every other day) you'd need 20 people to be able to get a kara group together. Now i doubt you expect that level of attendance (we expect 60% from ours, so you're online about 4 nights a week minimum - yes, its a social-raiding guild, deal with it) so you'd probably need even more people.

At the moment the attunements are difficult for you, because you're not set up to do the instance. If you had a guild of 20 ppl with 50% attendance (which is realistically what you need) then the attunements are a walk in the park.

Personally I feel the attunements are a great way for blizzard to filter out people that wont be able to achieve anything in the zones, and help smaller guilds structure themselves better so that they improve and can kill something when they do eventually get attuned and zone in.

[morbomage]

As most have said, the attunements are fine, think of it as a chain you have to follow.

1 - 70 Easy enough with a bit of time
Hardest normal dungeons as a fresh 70 (Shattered Halls, Steam Vaults, Alcatraz, Shadow Labs, Black Moras)
Karahzan
Gruul (no attunment required)
Magtheridon (no attunment required)
SSC, Kill nightbane and Gruul
The Eye, Heroic hardest Dungeons Shattered Halls, Steam Vaults, Alcatraz, Shadow Labs and Magtheridon
Mount Hyjal, Kill Lady Vashj and Keal'thas.

Seriously if your in or join a guild that is running SSC, firstly they wont accept you if your gear sucks and do not have Kara attunement (attainable through PuGs) its not a time sink it’s to ensure people do not just waltz into new zones and wasting there time and everyone else’s. Take Naxxramas for example no real attunement required just a bit of gold and time in the AH and your in. How many pugs where running that? None!

If Blizzard where to remove the attunements there would be a torrent of people whining for things to be nerfed, progression in raids is all about taking things slowly and not jumping in at the deep end, imagine 25 people getting to 70 in greens and assorted quest blues and going straight into The Eye? It would be a total waste of time.

I agree with everyone above, attunements are there for a reason as a gear and skill check, just because you can kill someone 5 levels does not mean you could kill Hydros or the Lurker it requires a mixture of skill and gear not only from you but the other 24 people around.

I’m in a guild that has cleared a majority of SSC and the first 2 bosses in TK and we have new member join at least 1 or twice a month along with alts needing to get attuned the instances. If the guilds already attuned and running SSC getting a new member attuned is not a problem as the guild will still be running Gruul and Mag and will most likely clear through Kara to get the alts and casuals/social members attuned.

By the way does any body know of the Attunement for Black Temple?

[Telmar]

Seriously if your in or join a guild that is running SSC, firstly they wont accept you if your gear sucks and do not have Kara attunement (attainable through PuGs) its not a time sink it’s to ensure people do not just waltz into new zones and wasting there time and everyone else’s. Take Naxxramas for example no real attunement required just a bit of gold and time in the AH and your in. How many pugs where running that? None!

I ran one :P But our server is something of an exception, as we had 20+ Naxx guilds at one point.

You make a good point though, keying means that there is a 'noob filter' on these zones. I know if i take on an app with their TK attunement done then a) they are able to do heroics, b) they have killed mag, c) they're dedicated enough to have gone that extra mile.

By the way does any body know of the Attunement for Black Temple?

Yep, you get sent to kill Kaelthas's favorite pet (Alar), and to kill vashj too afaik. Think there was something on world of raids at one point.

[morbomage]

When you say his pet i hope its not like mr biggles in Naxx :p

[Telmar]

*cough* ALAR *cough*

[Xmcdaniel]

At 65, you dont really have much idea of what the attunements involve, and how little time they really take either im afraid.

You strike me as somewhat confused, which is understandable, as you're not yet 70, so have no experiance of attunements, high level tradeskill mats grinding, or raid instances, all of which you seem very upset by.

You speak of this as if it's rocket science...it's not. I'm not confused at all. I just want to see the content. People who have 50 hr a week jobs and families will never get to see that content because they don't have the time to attune themselves, grind mats for high level tradeskills, or raid instances for that matter. You seem to be the one who is confused...this is not a skill issue, it's a time issue...it doesn't take a level 70 character to figure that out.

Why should a casual player be exluded from seeing content? I understand it to a certain extent(as in, the game needs to have challenges), but Blizzard really shoots themselves in the foot when they create most of their new content for a very small subset of players who actually dedicate a huge amount of time to the game. MMO's too often have difficulty with discerning the difference between creating a real challenge for their players as opposed to creating a massive time sink and labeling it as a challenge.

Personally I feel the attunements are a great way for blizzard to filter out people that wont be able to achieve anything in the zones, and help smaller guilds structure themselves better so that they improve and can kill something when they do eventually get attuned and zone in.

You feel that way because you and your guild have the time to attune and gear up for new zones. MOST people do not.

Now I understand that it's unfair for people who raid and spend a lot of time to let a casual player accomplish the same things as them in the game with a lot less effort. However, Blizz needs to consider giving some of the hardcore raid instances the option of being PUG-able raid instances(like Heroic only the other way around) with lesser drops/reward.

[Xmcdaniel]

By the way does any body know of the Attunement for Black Temple?

I don't know about Black Temple, but I'm guessing that most WoW players will never see it based off this:

http://www.theorycrafter.com/images/BCRaids-large.png

[Rex Normal]

I'm not talking about being a successful raiding guild, I'm saying the small guilds are virtualy shut out of all raiding content by means of the attunement requirements. Before BC, we would hit UBRS at least every sunday night, if for no other reason than we enjoyed it. I know there's a gigantic difference between UBRS and Kara, both in scale and difficulty, and we don't have any lofty visions of clearing the place on a weekend, but many of our guildies would like to at least be able to step foot in there.

I'm just talking attunements here, if and when we get in, then we'll talk about raid success.

[Grendo]

Now I understand that it's unfair for people who raid and spend a lot of time to let a casual player accomplish the same things as them in the game with a lot less effort. However, Blizz needs to consider giving some of the hardcore raid instances the option of being PUG-able raid instances(like Heroic only the other way around) with lesser drops/reward.By your arguments, im going to assume you werent around when UBRS was a big deal. My point being, that some instances, do allow for a casual player to see the same content as a raider -- BUT not on the same time table. Its really quite realistic to PuG Kara...in time. Time vs Reward is really a big factor here.

If you spend 400 days playing 2hrs a night you could very well see yourself at the same level someone else that played 200days playing 4hrs a night saw at that same mark. However, you obviously do so at a much slower pace. This is the way UBRS was in many ways.

Theres obviously so many more factors to add in that it would be impossible to give a perfect comparison (ingame friendships, skill, knowledge, sheer luck etc) but as a once hardcore raider, who has turned very casual raider, I still find myself way above the power curve, and thus content, of most other people (guildies and nonguildies) simply by making most of the time I do have available, and understanding that while I may not see even Gruul die until close to the next expansion, I will see it. And it will be just as fun.

As the power curve shifts for the majority on the server, so will the available places for a casual to venture into. While the progression focus is mainly on guilds, a lot can be said for the progression rate of a given server as well. While PuGGing heroics in off hours is futile currently, in 6 months, thats all people will be looking for. Not because Blizzard had to succumb to the 'nownonow' of casual content lovers, but because the majority - casuals - will finally have the time invested and rewards to show for it, to enjoy the new places.

[Valshenna]

I still don't see how anyone can complain that the attunement for Karazhan is too difficult or time consuming. It takes going into three instances, and except for the Shadow Lab, you don't even have to kill any of the bosses! And even in SL, you don't have to kill Murmur to get the fragment. Small guilds aren't shut out by the attunement nearly so much as they are shut out simply by being small.

What I think this whole discussion really boils down to though is the eternal debate between casual versus hardcore gamers. The casuals always want the same gameplay experience as the hard-cores but without the same investment of time. I hate to say it--you get what you pay for. The nice thing about WoW though is that if you aren't willing to spend the time to gain access to what Blizzard has designed for the hardcore types, there's still plenty of content to explore. There's lots of 5-man instances, they will keep adding more, and the heroic option adds a whole other layer of difficulty.

True, not everyone will be able to do everything regardless of their schedule, but can anyone think of a viable way to allow that to happen and still maintain the integrity of the game? My guess is probably not!

[Grendo]

I'm not talking about being a successful raiding guild, I'm saying the small guilds are virtualy shut out of all raiding content by means of the attunement requirements.Oh? What exactly are you shut out of?

Heroics - Nope. Acces is 5man, puggable.
Kara - Nope. Access 5man, puggable.
Gruul - Nope. No access requirements beyond level.
Magtheridon - Nope. No access requirements beyond level.
SSC - Yes, 2 'nope' requirements have to be met.
The Eye - Yes.
Hyjal - Yes, requirement of SSC and the Eye.

So, at worse, as of today, you have available to you 57% of what is currently available, a majority. How is 43% "all raiding content" ? It gets even worse when you compare these numbers fairly.

- Most 'casual' raiding guilds are in kara...this gives you a 100% ratio of access compared to the majority of raiders in todays' environment.
- Most semi-hardcore guilds are just now finishing Gruul, giving you still 100% access ratio compared to them.
-Hardcore guilds are mostly in SSC with few exceptions, giving you a 75% access to what they are doing, while spending 20% of the time investment.

..from a numbers perspective it actually looks like the hardcores are the ones that are getting cheated time vs. access wise (since we arent counting success or epixx). Perhaps you're simply exaggerating a tad?

[larissa]

You speak of this as if it's rocket science...it's not. I'm not confused at all. I just want to see the content. People who have 50 hr a week jobs and families will never get to see that content because they don't have the time to attune themselves, grind mats for high level tradeskills, or raid instances for that matter. You seem to be the one who is confused...this is not a skill issue, it's a time issue...it doesn't take a level 70 character to figure that out.

Why should a casual player be exluded from seeing content? I understand it to a certain extent(as in, the game needs to have challenges), but Blizzard really shoots themselves in the foot when they create most of their new content for a very small subset of players who actually dedicate a huge amount of time to the game. MMO's too often have difficulty with discerning the difference between creating a real challenge for their players as opposed to creating a massive time sink and labeling it as a challenge.

What confuses me about this argument is ... if the player does not have the time to go through a five-person instance or two a week, how are they ever going to manage getting into a Karazhan or 25-person raid? The 'quick' ones, Gruul and Magtheridon I understand as having no attunements to them. The ones that require some actual time commitment do.

I've seen a lot of people complain about the Karazhan attunement. Is it really that annoying and difficult? It's what, a soloable quest, some running around, and four 5-person instance runs? Even if you only do one a night, that's 4 nights to get attuned, running through instances you would be running through anyway. Unless you feel that someone who just reached level 70 should be able to walk into Karazhan, waltz through it and get their shiny new epics?

If you're in a guild that wants to get everyone attuned, then they are going to have to take a couple of hours out of their night to help the rest of their guildmates. Isn't that the point of a guild in the first place, to aid your fellow guild-members? Or are we back to 'I want phat lewtz now'?

My guild is small and casual. I'm one of the ones online the most, and being the only healer in it puts a lot of demands on me. It's taken me a while, but I'm fully geared, attuned to Karazhan, got all my heroic keys. I've made friends outside the guild, and given timing, could put together a solid group to go to Karazhan with, even if it's not exclusively guildmates.

The idea behind attunements is to guide you through content, and as a way to pace the game. To succeed in Karazhan/Heroics, you need to gear yourself up through the level 70 five-person instances. The attunement guides you through that. Karazhan and Heroics start gearing you up for the 25-person raids. Gruul and Magtheriden add to helping you gear up for Serpentshrine and the Eye, which in turn gear you up for Mount Hyjal and the Black Temple. So you would be doing these things already. So why not make it a bit more interesting by giving you a _purpose_ to going to these instances, rather than just a constant gear grind?

You feel that way because you and your guild have the time to attune and gear up for new zones. MOST people do not.

Now I understand that it's unfair for people who raid and spend a lot of time to let a casual player accomplish the same things as them in the game with a lot less effort. However, Blizz needs to consider giving some of the hardcore raid instances the option of being PUG-able raid instances(like Heroic only the other way around) with lesser drops/reward.

As to the time thing, I highly debate that. Attunement and gearing up, for the most part, is done in five-person instance/heroics. It will take more overall time, but even just one instance a week will see you gearing up and attuning eventually. If your goal is to get to Karazhan, then devote what little time you have to getting there.

To be a bit bitter myself, the option your looking for is called Legacy Raid Content. I never got a chance to go to any of the raids before the expansion came out. I can go there now, but the content is trivialized for the most part, and trying to find a goodly number of people to go back to them is difficult at best. I also personally dislike the entire Heroics idea in the first place, but I can see why it was done, to save on development time from having to create new Heroic-equivalent instances. But it seems silly to go back to all these instances you've already been through. It's hard enough to justify in your head about repeatedly going to an instance at your level, but it just really breaks the 'story' going back to say Heroic Mana Tombs. Didn't we already deal with this Shaffar guy already?

I would love to see the end game raids too, in fact I'm champing at the bit to go to Mount Hyjal. From what I've heard, it sounds amazing. But I doubt I'll see much beyond Karazhan, except maybe the odd venture into Gruul's or Magtheridon's Lair. But how would you suggest a basic-level raid go? Easier content? It's not the content that's the problem, it's the time people have to invest in it, and finding enough people to go. But that would change the entire dynamics of the raid.

One thing I think that keeps a lot of people playing the game is the desire to see that end-game. To be one of those to see and defeat Illidan. If people could do that on 'easy-mode' in a few weeks ... what's left to do? Most 'casual' gamers will feel they have 'beaten' the game, and move on.

Anyway, I've rambled too much. Just my thoughts in the end. Experience and desires vary from person to person. If it's something you really want to see, then decide if it's worth the time you invest to do it, and then go out there and make it happen.

~~~Larissa

[Rex Normal]

So basicly what everyone is saying the attunements to kara are good because they keep my puny little guild from deminishing the accomplishments of all the other guilds who have it on farm status.

[Telmar]

No, they keep your 'puny little guild' out of an instance THEY WILL NOT BE ABLE TO DO if they cant get the coordination to do a basic attunement questline.

It limits the amount of 'omg nerf attumen he's too hard' whine that blizzard will get, which can only be a good thing.

The idea behind attunements is to guide you through content, and as a way to pace the game. To succeed in Karazhan/Heroics, you need to gear yourself up through the level 70 five-person instances.

This says it very clearly. It means that you're prepared for the next content that you meet, as to even enter it, you have to have done XX and XX, which means you'll have the gear you got while doing them, and the experiance you need to get anywhere in the instance you were attuning for.

If you havent managed to do the KZ attunement, then you havent got the gear, or the experiance to actually achieve anything inside. I know its harsh, but its true. A single BM, Arc, SV, SL run and you can be attuned. At that point you probably still wont have the gear to get anywhere, but at least you'll have some understanding of what lies ahead of you in terms of boss abilities and the dedication you'll need to get past them.

Attunements are a good thing, because they prevent people who are not ready, throwing themselves into a raid instance in the hope of 'epix' while not learning anything about the game. The attunement quests guide you through the learning you need to get anywhere inside the raid instances. I'll say it again.

If you cant get the organisation, and the dedication to do the SHORT attunement quest, then you have no reason to go inside the instance.

You wont have the gear. You wont have the experiance. You wont have the dedication. You'll be out of your depth, and then we have to hear your whineing about how its too hard.

[swaldman]

Aye. Karazhan attunement is not difficult. It's something that, if you're not in a hurry, you'll accomplish quite naturally anyway by running the 5-mans that you (hopefully) enjoy running for other reasons.

If you can't clear shadow lab, and if you can't beat Black Morass, then you have no hope in Karazhan anyway. I'm not saying that they're designed to keep you out of Kara if you're not good enough (though that may be the case), but rather that if you're good enough for Karazhan then they are not a big deal.

[CorinthianSC]

So basicly what everyone is saying the attunements to kara are good because they keep my puny little guild from deminishing the accomplishments of all the other guilds who have it on farm status.

No, we're saying the attunement isn't difficult, and if you can't manage it then you're not going to be successful in Karazhan. Seriously, you only need to clear two 5-mans, the rest aren't even half runs. The Steamvaults fragment is in the first room, and the Arc frag is after the first boss.

If running Shadow Labs, Black Morass, and parts of Steamvaults and Arcatraz are too hardcore for your guild, then what exactly do you expect to do in Karazhan?

[DraedynLei]

If running Shadow Labs, Black Morass, and parts of Steamvaults and Arcatraz are too hardcore for your guild, then what exactly do you expect to do in Karazhan?

QFT. Seriously, my previous guild didn't do squat and I was still able to get kara attuned in 2 days. It isn't hard at all. Honestly, if people are complaining about how difficult Kara attunement is, they shouldn't step foot in kara. It's much less forgiving than CoT. It's harsh I know but I liken it to the gateway classes I had in engineering. The drop out rate was over 30% because the classes specifically designed to weed out those who weren't ready to take the next step. If everyone gets an easy pass than you'll just get a ton of people QQing about how hard kara is, and it really isn't. It takes a while to learn, but with a good raid leader, and a raid that listens, it's totally pugable.

[Rex Normal]

Nobody is listening. I have been attuned for months now, I know how easy it is. Several other guildies have been attuned for months as well. Quit trying to tell me how easy it is because I know. But getting 5 casual players to get themselves attuned is hard even if they are skilled enough to clear SL in 1.5 hours. Quit assuming you know anything about me or my guild based on how often we play.

you guys seriously are just so full of yourselves that you truely beleive that Skill = time invested. While it is true that those who spend more time playing may get better simply by the virtue of their continual playtime, it is just as true that some "Zomg I needz purplez" 14 year old in a guild who doesn't know jack can get themselves attuned in a day and fail just as easily and QQ just as much as you are assuming that I would once I realize how difficult Kara is.

The few in my guild who haven't attuned themselves yet haven't done so because they like to log in, check the AH, craft a few things do a quest or two and then log on the weekdays. On the weekends they run an instance if that's what's going on, but aren't so invested that they'll go on a power run to all 4 instances to get their key in a day. They might do one part of their key quest per weekend. The issue isn't that they can't do it, the issue is that they just don't see spending their time obsessing about a single thing. Once they are finally attuned, they will (and want to) run kara with us on the weekends.

Now the assumption here is that because someone logs in only does a few quests and logs out that they must suck at WoW and could never be successful in Kara. This simply isn't true. The reason this guild was formed was because we all worked very well together when we get the time on the weekends to play together. Even tho we may not have the time to invest in 4 kara runs in a week doesn't mean that we would fail miserably. We may not be able to clear the whole place before the weekly reset, but it would only because of our time restrictions, not because of our skill restrictions. Should we really have to have hurdles placed in front of us just so that we don't enter kara because we'll never have time to fully clear the place before it resets?

And do you realize that you are using contradictory statements; kara attunement is easy for those who have time to do it, kara attunement is hard to keep noobs out of the instance who'll complain about how hard kara is. which is it, is it easy or is it hard?

The fact of the matter is, Kara attunement is nothing but a time sink.
- Completing kara attunement says nothing of your skill at the game, just that you have the time to run all over the place getting silly things put together to enter an instance.
- Gear doesn't have anything to do with it either because the quests can be completed by a lvl 70 in greens who just gets summoned to an instance to pick up the fragments.
- Dedication? Come on, with the example above, it doesn't take much dedication for someone in a larger guild to let guildies clear for them up until the keyfrag so they can fill a slot in Kara.

I'm not speaking of any of the other instances here, I don't care if I never see Mag, SSC, or TBT in a year. I'm talking about how the current PvE curve of this game has gone from easy leveling from 60 to 70, easy short instances, to "you need to spend at least 5 hours playtime 5 days a week with no less than 10 other people investing the same ammount of time to get anything further out of PvE"

(and don't talk to me about heroics, I've already said, there's nothing new and exciting about running the same instances I've already completed only harder for weeks on end just so I can turn in 30 tokens for another epic, I don't care about epics that much)

[Summoned]

I'm not speaking of any of the other instances here, I don't care if I never see Mag, SSC, or TBT in a year. I'm talking about how the current PvE curve of this game has gone from easy leveling from 60 to 70, easy short instances, to "you need to spend at least 5 hours playtime 5 days a week with no less than 10 other people investing the same ammount of time to get anything further out of PvE"
You have no idea how wrong you are. The guild I am in right now raids maybe 2 nights a week, 4 hours a night at most, we have most of Karazhan cleared already. Maybe you need to set up a better schedule with the rest of the guild.

If you are not all logged in at the same time at least once in a while, it's not really a guild, just people unavailable to join guilds.

[swaldman]

The few in my guild who haven't attuned themselves yet haven't done so because they like to log in, check the AH, craft a few things do a quest or two and then log on the weekdays. On the weekends they run an instance if that's what's going on, but aren't so invested that they'll go on a power run to all 4 instances to get their key in a day. They might do one part of their key quest per weekend. The issue isn't that they can't do it, the issue is that they just don't see spending their time obsessing about a single thing. Once they are finally attuned, they will (and want to) run kara with us on the weekends.

So what's the problem?


Now the assumption here is that because someone logs in only does a few quests and logs out that they must suck at WoW and could never be successful in Kara. This simply isn't true.

Indeed it isn't. I don't really understand the problem here. Are you saying that your guild-mates don't have the time to run instances to get attuned? Well then they won't have time to run kara either...
Or are you saying that you'd like them to be able to skip the attunement because you and they want to run karazhan *now*, rather than in a few weeks now? I can understand that, but I guess it's not fundamentally any different to wanting to be able to skip levels 45-60 because they are boring... that's the way the game is designed.
I don't really understand why the attunement process is a big problem, it may just mean that you have to wait a week or three if you want to run with those particular people (who will probably need to run some 5-mans anyway for the gear to survive in karazhan).

Should we really have to have hurdles placed in front of us just so that we don't enter kara because we'll never have time to fully clear the place before it resets?

No, and there are no such hurdles.


- Completing kara attunement says nothing of your skill at the game, just that you have the time to run all over the place getting silly things put together to enter an instance.

Well, it does say that you have the skill to complete Shadow Lab and Black Morass (plus others, but those seem to be the problematic ones). Hopefully these don't present any difficulty for your guild, but they are a problem for many players.


- Gear doesn't have anything to do with it either because the quests can be completed by a lvl 70 in greens who just gets summoned to an instance to pick up the fragments.

Heh. True, but it's hardly the intent.


I'm not speaking of any of the other instances here, I don't care if I never see Mag, SSC, or TBT in a year. I'm talking about how the current PvE curve of this game has gone from easy leveling from 60 to 70, easy short instances, to "you need to spend at least 5 hours playtime 5 days a week with no less than 10 other people investing the same ammount of time to get anything further out of PvE"

Why? There's a logical disconnect here; you're jumping from "you have to run instances to attune" to "you have to play a certain amount per week". Of course you need to be online for a few hours at a time to run those instances - but you'll have to be online for a few hours at a time for karazhan anyway.

[JaTal]

I'm talking about how the current PvE curve of this game has gone from easy leveling from 60 to 70, easy short instances, to "you need to spend at least 5 hours playtime 5 days a week with no less than 10 other people investing the same ammount of time to get anything further out of PvE

It sounds to me, from your previous posts, like you are getting attuned, but because you are small and casual it is taking longer than you want.

I’m not sure what you want.

To be able to enter Kara right now? You know it’s harder, if you are having a hard time getting 5 more people to even get attuned. Are they going to be geared?

Take away the attunement requirements, and what do you gain (assuming the difficulty stays the same), you still have to do most of the same runs to get geared up.

In my opinion Kara is a step up from heroics, but it doesn’t take 5 hours of playtime 5 days a week to do.

I’m in a casual raiding guild. (But larger than yours) We are just starting Kara, it’s challenging, but fun, and so far has been worth the work we had to do to get there.

[DraedynLei]

And do you realize that you are using contradictory statements; kara attunement is easy for those who have time to do it, kara attunement is hard to keep noobs out of the instance who'll complain about how hard kara is. which is it, is it easy or is it hard?

You missed the point entirely I'm afraid. It's easy, which is why if you can't do it, you don't belong in kara. Why is that so hard to understand? You do two or three quests, and then do 4 instances. Say you take a day and do the quests and then do an instance a day maybe once every other day. Even for a casual player, that should be relatively easy. You say your guild members don't like to focus on one thing, then may I suggest that raiding isn't for them. Because thats 10 people (for kara) focused on one thing. And if they can't focus on attunement for a week or two on their own, well... Coordinating schedules for 3-5 hrs at a time on a particular day might be too much of a commitment. There's nothing wrong with that. We all play the game in our own way.

Also I do not think time = skill necessarily but honestly, practice does equal skill. There's no way that a hardcore raiding group that has kara on farm is less skilled than a bunch of casuals who are just learning it. It's about repetition. The same way you and your friends are obviously skilled at SL to clear it in 1.5 hrs compared to some PuG with bad coordination that takes 3 hrs to clear it. No one has it out for you. No one is saying you suck. Get over it.

And if its a problem with scheduling or not enough guild members, thats not a game issue, thats a guild issue. Make alliances, merge, recruit. Part of the game is the social aspect of it. I mean my guild does two full kara groups weekly but we can't field a 25 man raid to do Gruuls because we lack enough properly geared healers. Doesn't mean I'll go QQing about it. We'll keep recruiting and eventually we'll have enough.

[Rex Normal]

Well, maybe I'm frustrated at the fact that I was attuned a week after I hit 70, and here I am ready for Kara but i have to wait for those dragging their feet to get themselves attuned as well. Maybe I just don't understand the logic behind making 10 people (minimum) do a lengthy chain quest to get themselves attuned when the attunement process does not seem to equal being ready for kara. Maybe you all are right, maybe it is meant to be a deterrant to keep those people I am waiting on from wasting their time on an instance they won't have the time to complete. Maybe I should just abandon the friendships I've built playing with people I enjoy playing with and join a bigger more capable guild just so I can get access to content I'm ready for.

[Grendo]

Now you're getting it. ;)

Maybe I just don't understand the logic behind making 10 people (minimum) do a lengthy chain quest to get themselves attuned when the attunement process does not seem to equal being ready for kara.Its not a deterrant, or a conspiracy against casual gamers. Many casual gamers *are* raiding.

Its perfectly logical. If you need time to do 5mans to do Kara (time -> 5mans -> Kara) but you (you=your guild) dont have time, you simply cant expect progression.


You would have gotten much farther in this thread and found a lot more sympathy if you didn't try to blame the system for your guilds shortcomings in its ability to raid. Probably even more if you then didn't fail in an attempt to blame the people trying to help you.

Without even looking at other options (alliances are excellent for this, theres thousands of players out there in small guilds just like yours, especially since the guild crash TBC caused) you decided to blame 'the man' without justification. Im all for sticking it to said man, but at least have a leg to stand on.

Bad monkey.

[larissa]

Nobody is listening. I have been attuned for months now, I know how easy it is. Several other guildies have been attuned for months as well. Quit trying to tell me how easy it is because I know. But getting 5 casual players to get themselves attuned is hard even if they are skilled enough to clear SL in 1.5 hours. Quit assuming you know anything about me or my guild based on how often we play.

The comments made by most, at least by me, were directed to those in general. There are more people that just you with complaints about the attunements.

you guys seriously are just so full of yourselves that you truely beleive that Skill = time invested. While it is true that those who spend more time playing may get better simply by the virtue of their continual playtime, it is just as true that some "Zomg I needz purplez" 14 year old in a guild who doesn't know jack can get themselves attuned in a day and fail just as easily and QQ just as much as you are assuming that I would once I realize how difficult Kara is.

The few in my guild who haven't attuned themselves yet haven't done so because they like to log in, check the AH, craft a few things do a quest or two and then log on the weekdays. On the weekends they run an instance if that's what's going on, but aren't so invested that they'll go on a power run to all 4 instances to get their key in a day. They might do one part of their key quest per weekend. The issue isn't that they can't do it, the issue is that they just don't see spending their time obsessing about a single thing. Once they are finally attuned, they will (and want to) run kara with us on the weekends.

Sorry, but your casuals want to run Karazhan, but aren't willing to put a little effort into getting there? What obsessing is there to do? It's four instance runs. If you are as casual and ungeared as you seem to suggest, and can still run Shadow Labyrinth in under 2 hours, I fail to see what the problem is. You're complaining about an attunement process that will take your guild about 6 hours total game time (less, actually, as Black Morass is about 45 minutes tops, I believe)? If all your guild wants to do is run Karazhan and not bother with the 5-person instances, then you need to find out why your 3-5 casuals aren't doing anything to get your guild there. Even if it's just one instance a week, you're looking at getting everyone attuned in a month. If getting attunement isn't as important to these casuals as doing a couple of quests and farming or whatever they do on the weekends, why is that? Are you sure they have a desire to run Karazhan?

Now the assumption here is that because someone logs in only does a few quests and logs out that they must suck at WoW and could never be successful in Kara. This simply isn't true. The reason this guild was formed was because we all worked very well together when we get the time on the weekends to play together. Even tho we may not have the time to invest in 4 kara runs in a week doesn't mean that we would fail miserably. We may not be able to clear the whole place before the weekly reset, but it would only because of our time restrictions, not because of our skill restrictions. Should we really have to have hurdles placed in front of us just so that we don't enter kara because we'll never have time to fully clear the place before it resets?

I agree, just because someone doesn't have a lot of time to play the game, doesn't mean that they don't know how to play. But the point some of us are trying to make is that Karazhan will require some time investment. Sure, you could just spend a couple of hours a week and have fun doing it, more power to you. But if you can't even organize a 5-person instance run each weekend, how do you propose to get the 10 people you will need for Karazhan. It's nothing to do with attunement, it's to do with your guild. You could be the top 10 skilled players in the world, but you're not going to get anywhere if you're not going to put in some effort.

And do you realize that you are using contradictory statements; kara attunement is easy for those who have time to do it, kara attunement is hard to keep noobs out of the instance who'll complain about how hard kara is. which is it, is it easy or is it hard?

I believe the majority are stating that the actual attunement process is easy, and is useful in co-ordinating your groups and give your guild an understanding of different types of bosses and encounters, so you can get a feel for what you will face in Karazhan, which is _hard_.

Karazhan is not the new UBRS, which everyone seems to laugh at and call a cake walk. (I don't particularly agree, my first couple of goes in there at 60 just before the expansion were challenging for me). The attunement process is a guide, as I said. Otherwise you'll have guilds of people who just turned 70 in quest greens just skipping on to Karazhan, then crying out for nerfs because 'it's too hard'.

The fact of the matter is, Kara attunement is nothing but a time sink.
- Completing kara attunement says nothing of your skill at the game, just that you have the time to run all over the place getting silly things put together to enter an instance.
- Gear doesn't have anything to do with it either because the quests can be completed by a lvl 70 in greens who just gets summoned to an instance to pick up the fragments.
- Dedication? Come on, with the example above, it doesn't take much dedication for someone in a larger guild to let guildies clear for them up until the keyfrag so they can fill a slot in Kara.

Okay ... so if it's so easy, then what is your guild's difficulty in doing it?

1) You have to complete two instances, and make your way into two others. It is not just "running all over the place". It does takes some skill to fight your way to Murmur in Shadow Labyrinth, to clear your way to the fragment in Steamvaults, to clear the tightly packed room with the first boss in Arcatraz, and to successfully win Black Morass. You can't have one of those bobbing birds hitting a button over and over and expect to win your way through.
2) Gear has nothing to do with getting the key fragments. Gear has to do with being successful in Karazhan. Why is this hard to understand? You don't think you could be successful in Heroics in auction house greens, do you? Then why do you believe you can win through Karazhan with the same set up?
3) If it's not a question of dedication, then why haven't your 5 or so attuned people cleared to the shard, then gotten them for your casuals? Why can't your casuals dedicate the time that they would in Karazhan to getting themselves ready for Karazhan?

I'm not speaking of any of the other instances here, I don't care if I never see Mag, SSC, or TBT in a year. I'm talking about how the current PvE curve of this game has gone from easy leveling from 60 to 70, easy short instances, to "you need to spend at least 5 hours playtime 5 days a week with no less than 10 other people investing the same ammount of time to get anything further out of PvE"

(and don't talk to me about heroics, I've already said, there's nothing new and exciting about running the same instances I've already completed only harder for weeks on end just so I can turn in 30 tokens for another epic, I don't care about epics that much)

We're not saying you need to spend 5 hours a night, 5 days a week to get anywhere in Karazhan. What we are saying is that if your guild can't manage to schedule the time to even get one key fragment for attunement, we just can't see how you're going to manage to get everyone you're going to need to even get into Karazhan, much less find any success. Karazhan is not a walk in the park. It's not a 'gee, I have a spare hour, lets raid Kara' kind of instance. It will take time to learn the encounters, to co-ordinate your group. With such a limited timeframe you have to work with, I can't see how you won't grow more frustrated when you actually do get into Karazhan with your current guild make-up.

And the unfortunate fact is, high end-game content is raid instances. They require 10 or more people to be successful at. It's the way they were designed and intended. Heroics give an option to those who can't manage the requirements for Karazhan. The new quest areas give another option.

In the end, you know the people you're guilded with. If you are all truly wanting to get into Karazhan, then you will find a way to do it.

~~~Larissa

[zzzzzzz]

Well, maybe I'm frustrated at the fact that I was attuned a week after I hit 70, and here I am ready for Kara but i have to wait for those dragging their feet to get themselves attuned as well. Maybe I just don't understand the logic behind making 10 people (minimum) do a lengthy chain quest to get themselves attuned when the attunement process does not seem to equal being ready for kara. Maybe you all are right, maybe it is meant to be a deterrant to keep those people I am waiting on from wasting their time on an instance they won't have the time to complete. Maybe I should just abandon the friendships I've built playing with people I enjoy playing with and join a bigger more capable guild just so I can get access to content I'm ready for.

This is what I ended up doing. I do however still hunt with my friends on the two off days of raiding. My old guild was almost like yours, I had all my heroic keys was well equipped and ready to do Kara and beyond. It was either get frusterated and quit WoW or join a guild that wants to see more content like myself.

You really don't have to leave all your friends in the dust. Most raids leave open nights for you to do what ever you wish. I can say that I am glad I made this decision as I am having more fun now then I had in the past. When you feel like you have seen enough and get a bit burnt out on the raiding you can always go back to your smaller slower paced guild.

[Rex Normal]

Now you're getting it. ;)

You would have gotten much farther in this thread and found a lot more sympathy if you didn't try to blame the system for your guilds shortcomings in its ability to raid. Probably even more if you then didn't fail in an attempt to blame the people trying to help you.

Again, our ability to raid isn't being tested here. Even tho I don't agree, I understand everyone's points, I just don't think I'm able to get my point across because of assumptions being made about me and my situation and my inability to get them across to you all.

I don't feel like Bliz is out to get me and my smaller guild, I think we've just been overlooked when they designed the PvE progression. Oh well I guess.

Anyway I could go on and on but I'll just admit that I've been beaten by TKO because I just don't have the stamina to continue repeating myself in different ways to get my point across.

[DraedynLei]

Ultimately I concede that blizz did not make end game content accessible to most casuals. That's just the design philosophy they went with. Solo PvEs have quests, 5mans and even kara to some extent. But it's hard to get a group of true casuals geared and organized enough to do 25 man raids.

I had to leave my first guild in order to raid. It's what I wanted to do with my time in the game. Everyone else was progressing way to slow and so we started to grow apart. I still keep in touch with my old friends from that guild but ultimately we just wanted different things in terms of our game experience. It's sad, I know, but that's how the game goes sometimes. People have left our casual raid guild to go to more hardcore raid guilds. Just cause you join a new guild doesn't mean you have to abandon your friendships. That's what friend lists are for right? If I had stayed I would have been a lot more unhappy.

I hope things work out for you whatever you decide to do.

[Summoned]

I don't feel like Bliz is out to get me and my smaller guild, I think we've just been overlooked when they designed the PvE progression. Oh well I guess.
I really do not understand this complaint. There are definitely other stuff to do. For example, do you have the epic flying mount yet? Professions to 375/375? Crafted epics? All rep at exalted? Collected every single grey item in the game? Etc. There's a lot of pve stuff you could do without raiding, and the truth of the matter is that half of your current guild is not going to be raiding unless they decide to (this would involve setting up ~4 hours of time for WoW on two days every week, also probably 1-2 hours every once in a while to get some repair money).

If you want to raid and they do not, then you will have to find some other people to raid with. It really is not possible to say "I want to raid, but I can't," only "I'd like to raid, but I've got better things to do, so no thanks."

[CorinthianSC]

you guys seriously are just so full of yourselves that you truely beleive that Skill = time invested. While it is true that those who spend more time playing may get better simply by the virtue of their continual playtime, it is just as true that some "Zomg I needz purplez" 14 year old in a guild who doesn't know jack can get themselves attuned in a day and fail just as easily and QQ just as much as you are assuming that I would once I realize how difficult Kara is.

The few in my guild who haven't attuned themselves yet haven't done so because they like to log in, check the AH, craft a few things do a quest or two and then log on the weekdays. On the weekends they run an instance if that's what's going on, but aren't so invested that they'll go on a power run to all 4 instances to get their key in a day. They might do one part of their key quest per weekend. The issue isn't that they can't do it, the issue is that they just don't see spending their time obsessing about a single thing. Once they are finally attuned, they will (and want to) run kara with us on the weekends.

Now the assumption here is that because someone logs in only does a few quests and logs out that they must suck at WoW and could never be successful in Kara. This simply isn't true.

I never said it was skill, and you need to check your attitude.

You know the process is easy, you have people who have completed it. You have members who log in on weekends to do 5-mans... So I fail to see ANY good reason why you can't get these guys keyed in a week or two.

If your guild can't get your guys keyed, then you are simply disorganized. If you are disorganized, you will not do well in Kara. Even ignoring attunement, I forsee you having trouble getting 10 people of the proper classes together long enough to do anything useful.

If you can't organize 5 people for some partial instance runs just to get keyed, you have no hope organizing 10 people for a difficult instance. It's not player skill that holds you back. Get your people organized. It's just that simple.

[JudgeDredd]

My take on this is that Rex Normal is frustrated (and rightly so) about not being able to see the insides of Kara yet. I think his frustration may be a little misdirected at the attunement process instead of at his other guild members that aren't keyed yet though.

I also think the reason given about "if you can't organize ten people to get keyed then you don't belong in kara" doesn't really apply here since it sounds like they can get ten people online during the weekends, and they think they have the skill, they just want to get their shot at the content.

The only solutions available seem to be to either lean on your non-keyed members to finish their attunement or join another guild (which doesn't really sound like a real solution given that you value the friendships with your current guild members).

[CorinthianSC]

I also think the reason given about "if you can't organize ten people to get keyed then you don't belong in kara" doesn't really apply here since it sounds like they can get ten people online during the weekends, and they think they have the skill, they just want to get their shot at the content.

If they can get 10 people online during the weekends, and they run 5-mans for fun, then keying should be happening as they do their normal routine anyway. They're already running the zones needed.

[Schift]

Here's my understanding of the whole situation:

Rex Normal is one of 5 people in his guild who get on more frequently and do 5-mans together and possibly even some heroics. Lets call these 5 people in his guild "Group A."

There are another 5 friends in his guild who sometimes log on during the week for a very short time and do a quest or two and perhaps some crafting. These 5 can log on during the weekend at the same time as Group A for a few hours. Lets call this "Group B."

Group A is Karazhan attuned and has been for quite some time. Group B still has quests and other things they want to do with their limited play time and have not gotten attuned for Karazhan yet (no clue if they've even started).

Group A has been doing the 5 mans and aren't interested in doing heroics because they are the "same" as the regular 5 man content. This group is now wanting to see something new and frustrated with the fact that they cannot do this on the weekends when both groups are together because the "attunement" is holding Group B back.

Bottom line is that you will be able to get the Karazhan attunement done for your guild if all of this is correct. It's a matter of time and a matter of committing to helping group B out on weekends until they are also attuned. If this is somehow not a possibility, then you will probably never even have time to clear the first boss in Karazhan and definitely no more than that. Just give it some time and even your guild will be able to all be attuned for Kara.

Attunements are generally a smaller time/gear/organization/skill requirement than the thing you are getting attuned for. If any guild cannot get their members attuned for any of those reasons, they will not be able to do the respective instance. If your guild can have time to play around with Kara on the weekends, you will be able to fulfill the requirements for Group B.

[moopy]

Attunements are generally a smaller time/gear/organization/skill requirement than the thing you are getting attuned for. If any guild cannot get their members attuned for any of those reasons, they will not be able to do the respective instance. If your guild can have time to play around with Kara on the weekends, you will be able to fulfill the requirements for Group B.

Precisely. Reducing the already reasonable attunement requirement because people are whining up a storm isn't going to help. The attunements are always easier than the instance that you're attuning for, in terms of gear, skill and commitment to learn. In fact, reducing or negating the attunement would be entirely counter-productive. If the chorus of keening yelps caused by the need to attune is irritating, imagine how it would be if the people who QQ because they can't attune actually got in there.. "Waaa, it's too hard, nerf it plix kthxbai!"

Not everyone raids for e-peen so they can stand around stroking their massive ZOMFGEPIXX in major cities. Some raid because raids are exciting and challenging, especially while you're learning. There's a reason why the higher-end content is there, and tuned the way it is.

[Astross]

I got my Karazhan attument all through pugs, I was one of the first people to hit lvl 70 in my guild and not many people were available to help with Karazhan attunements. So I just made my own groups...started whispering every priest and warrior asking them if they wanted to heal/tank...and always got a group together....It's really not that hard, you just got to put forth the effort.

[zDust]

If the problem is the 5 people who don't have time to get attuned take the 5 you have and make the group into a raid... Then enter kara...

You will do just as well as if you had the 5 others that don't have the time (or comitment) to run a few 5 mans...

You were complaining about the "progression" in pve... Lets say you got into kara without running any 5 mans... would you really want to do kara with 1/2 green items?? even just running the 4 instances to get attuned won't get you geared to down the first boss... Also if you don't think heroics have anything for you, you may want to take a look at the epics off the last bosses. Now, I understand you're not all "omg want purple gear" but in the interest of "progression" better gear = more progression...

[moopy]

I got my Karazhan attument all through pugs, I was one of the first people to hit lvl 70 in my guild and not many people were available to help with Karazhan attunements. So I just made my own groups...started whispering every priest and warrior asking them if they wanted to heal/tank...and always got a group together....It's really not that hard, you just got to put forth the effort.

Yep, and the attunement isn't anything special, just a load of non-heroic 5-mans which can be PUGged. My shammy alt is attuned to kara too, even though she's never been there. Most of the steps just sort of happened, while I was doing instances anyway. If you can't manage what is really one of the least onerous attunements so far, you should really forget about Kara itself- as you're clearly not in an ideal position to contribute anything once inside- gotta love ROFLstomper epic sponges. If getting to the end of SL for a fragement (probably the longest of the attunement instances) is too much organisation and effort for you, your little legs will ache from trekking all the way through Medivh's charming abode.

[Wintrow]

One should do Karahzan simply for being able to do the chair dance thing :grin:

You know, 9 chairs, 10 people
music starts on vent
ppl run around table
music stops
ppl try and sit down on chair
one remains
loser sits down and occupies a chair so that the rest can resume w 8 chairs and 9 ppl
...

Seen a vid of a guild doing this in Karahzan :tongue:

Loved it

[Qwertius]

@ Rex Normal

We understand that YOU and few others can do Kara.

But YOU never will be able to get anywhere in Kara with the 5 other people in your guild that have not been able to attune in 2 months time.

You basically have to options:

/invite 5-10 more people

OR

/gquit


and /gquit might be the best for you. IT DOES NOT MEAN GIVING UP YOUR FRIENDS. Just make a /ourgang chat channel.. make them all join.. Add al to friends list. You CAN be in a more active guild and still play the same amount of time with your old friends who play only 2 hours a day. ITS NOT that you play with them any more if I have to believe you they are hardly online anyway since you and the other attunent members are bored most of the time since they are not online..

So get out out, go raiding with other people, and then you can always go instancing or questing with the old gane whenever they are online... That;s what Friendlists are for. And to be honest your 'guild' doesn;t really feel like a guild anyway , it acts like a loose group of friends.......


good luck

[clevins]

Er, Q... The Rex Normal was a hypothetical... But I agree with your point...

The thing is, if you have people who are logging in with limited time and, instead of doing attunement steps they're doing a quest or 2 or farming to craft items, then they're NOT interested in getting attuned. The only part of the kara attunement that takes more than an hour or so is the Shadow Lab run... the runs to the 2nd and 3rd fragments are partial runs and easy, and BM is an hour with a good group.

Part of being in a guild is having people who broadly share goals. If one part of a guild wants to progress into Kara and beyond while another part wants to mess about crafting, you don't really have one guild - you have two. No, the crafters/questers should not be forced into attuning if they don't want to - but they should consider not just their goals but those of the group of people they are a part of. Communication is important - those 2 groups should just talk about what they all want and how they can move forward. If they can't because their goals are just too divergent, then move on and keep things friendly

[Arthengel]

If there is even an issue on Karazhan attunement, don't start raiding. attunement is only the beginning and harder stuff awatis in Karazhan and beyond. If you cant kill murmur+aeonus+kalitresh+whatever (dont remember what was required lol) in two months, you will not kill maiden in six months. and each attempt will bring a 50g repair bill. better go and level another class/race, and enjoy the other aspects of the game. If you were a melee, than be a caster, etc, etc... Or craft your epics, or do arena.

Dont take me wrong, I am not happy with what I wrote above. There are many aspects of this game that blizzard can not balance IMO. And it got so big that they can not help it themselves. In pvp, battles end in mere seconds, natural gameplay doesnt increase your gold, but decrease it. You have to grind to make gold. Epic flying mount is 5k gold and I still didnt find a reason why blizz made it so high.

As for raiding, the only thing keeps me going is to play and see how the lore unfolds. And the way it is designed makes me sad for those who wont be doing it. This is not right, but this is the way the game is designed.

[Imraath]

Heh, funny... I feel that the Kara attunement is a little too easy. We've got the numbers for Kara in my guild, but most of those that have their attunement are undergeared for the raid. Needless to say, if we go in, it's a wipefest. And now they're too concerned about when the next raid is to go and run some of the 70s content to gear up :(

[Schift]

Heh, funny... I feel that the Kara attunement is a little too easy. We've got the numbers for Kara in my guild, but most of those that have their attunement are undergeared for the raid. Needless to say, if we go in, it's a wipefest. And now they're too concerned about when the next raid is to go and run some of the 70s content to gear up :(

Noobs! Chastise them and set required stats per class that they have to fulfill to be able to raid! j/k

That's a good point though. It is quite easy to get a very poor player through the attunement process, especially with the help of a guild. Maybe they should make the attunements harder? Nah, all in all I think that it's pretty good the way it is.

[Telmar]

Chastise them and set required stats per class that they have to fulfill to be able to raid! j/k

I dont see why you wouldnt, its hardly fair for the lazy ones to expect the ones that have worked hard to carry them through is it?

[Kokolums]

I think there might be a need to separate casuals and hardcores into different servers. The casual server might put the "daily" flag on all the instances, but the rep gain per run is a lot better to balance it out. Where is the advantage in playing hardcore then? On a hardcore server, you can reach endgame faster than on a casual, for those who like to shoot for being the first to reach content.

[Telmar]

Its happening anyhow, due to server migrations.

The server I play on is 'hardcore'. We have 3 Guilds killing Kaelthas and one getting world firsts on Bosses in Hyjal. We have ~10 guilds in SSC and TK, and if your guild isnt farming Gruul and Mag, you're seen as 'casuals'. Its a very elitist attitude thats prevelant on there, and to be honest, its helping to attract the sort of players the guilds on the server want.

As the third place guild on alliance side, we have the luxury of being able to be a bit more community minded than the top two, while still pushing for hardcore level progression. We've just had two raid guilds migrate en-masse to our server too, so our pool of applicants to recruit from is constantly growing as smaller guilds fall apart due to the pressure to get results, and others form and merge.

[morbomage]

I agree with Telmar it is already happening, although we havnt got anyone that is upto Kael'thas we have about 5 guilds for each faction upto the 5th Boss in SSC, Vashj downed by most of us and progressing in TK very nicely. Cross realm transfers are happening daily to our server, both people coming in (Harcore Players) and people leaving (Casuals Leaving)

Im not saying its a good thing im not a big fan of segratation but it does make progression a lot easier.

[Underling]

The only thing I see as a problem with so much attunement is the fact that should you lvl to 70 a some later date, after the first/second wave of levellers did all the attunements together, you'll have it hard to find groups for attunement quests, since most players won't be interested in repeating those runs again

[Schift]

True, but people are always levelling to 70 and new players are joining, and casual players going more towards raiding and guilds help, and... basically there will always be a pool of people wanting to get attuned. It will slow down, but there are plenty of options still.