Should blizzard remove trash timers?

[PapaSmurf]

Found a link to an interesting blog that discusses the merits of removing trash timers out of 25 man content.

http://blessingofkings.blogspot.com/2007/0...h-respawns.html

I have to agree completely with his arguments. Similar to bolty's discussion on removing attunement requirements I think that trash re-spawn timers are arbitrary limits that just get in the way of trying to learn the encounters. What is your opinion?

D

[Kevin]

Found a link to an interesting blog that discusses the merits of removing trash timers out of 25 man content.

http://blessingofkings.blogspot.com/2007/0...h-respawns.html

I have to agree completely with his arguments. Similar to bolty's discussion on removing attunement requirements I think that trash re-spawn timers are arbitrary limits that just get in the way of trying to learn the encounters. What is your opinion?

D

I see his point but I don't look at it quite the same way. Yes I would like more time to work on bosses. I know for us a trash respawn pretty much signals the end of the night. We only raid 2 nights a week for 2 - 4 hours a night (though some night do go to 6) and yeah more time on the bosses would be nice. But to me the trash is part of the boss fight. I do realize that some fights are set-up that way you have to clear the trash every time so if that is what Blizzard wanted that is what they should do. But while it's an arbitrary barrier I don't think that is bad.

I'll quote on part of his blog here

If we didn't have respawns, we could make better use of the time we have available, we could accomplish more. Probably not a whole lot more, but still

This is pretty much true. For us a trash respawn pushed our first lurker kill back a week. Had it not respawned we would have gotten him one raid night earlier as we finally got our strat clicking. But it wouldn't have changed our overall progress. We would have called the raid after we killed him anyway and then next week when we killed him again and poked at Hydross it would have been the same thing.

Trash respawns are part of the skill check in a way. When was the last time we worried about trash respawn in Kara or Gruul? A long time because it doesn't matter once you have the skill. Pretty much after you have killed the boss twice a respawn timer doesn't matter.

And if there was no respawn timer the elite guilds would move faster because they could clear all the trash, especially in a place like SSC where you can kill the trash and stay away from the bosses and then just hold the instance open till they got the crew they wanted and pound down the bosses. Clearing a new instance the first day it gets released would be even more likely. Heck we cleared some SSC trash with just 8-10 people on the day they removed the attunements because we were there after a heroic SV run and grabbed a few more to check it out. We were still mostly just raiding Kara at the time and weren't nearly as geared as we are now. Sure some trash does take the full raid. But not all of it. Remember how we would pre clear ZG trash as soon as we got 5 folks since we knew some people would be joining in later.

I dunno. Yes I get annoyed by trash respawns, and usually I'm all for removing something that annoys me but I don't think I want the timers removed from all the raid trash. There are some places where I want raid trash thinned out some and potentially put on a longer timer. But getting rid of the respawn timer completely, nah.

[PapaSmurf]

And if there was no respawn timer the elite guilds would move faster because they could clear all the trash, especially in a place like SSC where you can kill the trash and stay away from the bosses and then just hold the instance open till they got the crew they wanted and pound down the bosses. Clearing a new instance the first day it gets released would be even more likely. Heck we cleared some SSC trash with just 8-10 people on the day they removed the attunements because we were there after a heroic SV run and grabbed a few more to check it out. We were still mostly just raiding Kara at the time and weren't nearly as geared as we are now. Sure some trash does take the full raid. But not all of it. Remember how we would pre clear ZG trash as soon as we got 5 folks since we knew some people would be joining in later.

I can see your argument here. Perhaps just increasing all trash respawn times to 4 hours would be sufficient. This would mean that you would have to clear trash to a boss once per "night".

[Klaus]

I can see your argument here. Perhaps just increasing all trash respawn times to 4 hours would be sufficient. This would mean that you would have to clear trash to a boss once per "night".

I'd say put them on a 90 minute timer that reset when the boss is engaged. So, if you're actively working a boss, the trash won't repop. But if you're trying to "preclear" an instance for a later crew, it'll come back on you.

[q4m]

If we didn't have respawns, we could make better use of the time we have available, we could accomplish more. Probably not a whole lot more, but still

This is exatly why we'll likely never see the removal of trash that respawns. Blizzard does not necessarily want people to have more attempts at bosses, because we'll beat encounters earlier. Time = Money to them.

Personally, I'd love to see the removal of respawning trash or make the times a lot longer. In many cases if you haven't made decent progress in 4 hours, it's going to take a few weeks more anyway. Some of the most frustrating things in MMO's are the unnucessary time sinks, like respawning trash, in my opinion.

[oldmandennis]

All the arguments the guy makes could be made for eliminating trash completely. Heck, why not just line a bunch of ports up in shat that take you directly to whichever boss you feel like fighting? We all have guilds that move at different speeds, and that would maximize learning time for everybody.

2hr repops mean that pretty much you have to clear trash at most twice per night. I find that fair. Supposedly the Kael trash is different, but I haven't seen that.

I think they should add a bit of rep to the trash to take the sting out of repops though. Maybe 25 per mob, with 50 for the bog lords.

[Skandranon]

All the arguments the guy makes could be made for eliminating trash completely. Heck, why not just line a bunch of ports up in shat that take you directly to whichever boss you feel like fighting? We all have guilds that move at different speeds, and that would maximize learning time for everybody.

I agree. Trash is currently fine. That said, Naxx trash never respawned and I enjoyed that too. It could go either way, really.

2hr repops mean that pretty much you have to clear trash at most twice per night. I find that fair. Supposedly the Kael trash is different, but I haven't seen that.

The problem with trash, when there's trash, isn't that it respawns too quickly or takes too long to clear, just that some trash takes too much focus. Kael's trash has been nerfed in 2.2, but in 2.1, Centurions Arcane Volleyed for 9k/second to anything in melee range and Battle Mages had a 21,000 point Frost attack piggybacked on every melee hit. That was just excessive, and it's been corrected. You could blow through it in fifteen minutes if you executed perfectly, but a few small errors would mean that you'd wipe to it, and that's not what trash should do. Trash shouldn't require boss-level focus.

[Icebird]

I think by now everyone has their opinion on what constitutes "good" trash clear and "bad" trash clears.

In the "good category" I would include Attumen, Hydross, Fathom-Lord Karathress. Of the trash clears I've personally experienced, the Ouro-C'thun march stands out as the worst. My guild never killed C'thun and one of the reasons was difficulty motivating people to spend a couple of hours killing trash mobs just to get to the boss.

I think BWL is an example where the balance between trash packs and bosses was just about right. You could hit two bosses right away before running into any significant trash packs, then you had the gauntlet before the Broodlord. The technician packs took a bit of learning, but once they were down, you got two easy bosses as a reward.

My current guild is working on Lady Vashj at the moment, and its very nice to not have to factor in respawn timers into our calculations.

I think Gurgthock from Elitist Jerks felt that 15 minutes of trash clearing before a boss was about the right balance, and I'm inclined to agree. I think question of respawn timers depends entirely on the time and difficulty required to kill the trash; if its a short, straightforward clear (Attumen) I don't mind. If it's long and dangerous (like the rumours I've heard about Kael'Thas trash...) I want it to stay dead.

Chris

[Zarathustra]

This is exatly why we'll likely never see the removal of trash that respawns. Blizzard does not necessarily want people to have more attempts at bosses, because we'll beat encounters earlier. Time = Money to them.

Yes, we can see from the breakneck speed that most guilds are downing Illidan that it's a necessary time sink.

[oldmandennis]

Yes, we can see from the breakneck speed that most guilds are downing Illidan that it's a necessary time sink.

Cause we aren't 5-6 months away from the next top level content?

[--Pete]

Hi,

My post is completely off topic. It is to ask you to please break up your signature graphics into multiple lines. Two of those character graphics force me to run the brouser full screen and center the text in order to read your posts. Three mean that I have to scroll back and forth. Since your posts are of great quality, I try to read them all, but (combined with my messed up eyes), the effort is getting to me. So, please?

--Pete

[Kevin]

Hi,
My post is completely off topic. It is to ask you to please break up your signature graphics into multiple lines. Two of those character graphics force me to run the brouser full screen and center the text in order to read your posts. Three mean that I have to scroll back and forth. Since your posts are of great quality, I try to read them all, but (combined with my messed up eyes), the effort is getting to me. So, please?

--Pete

Heh, I had actually stacked them that way intentionally so that it wouldn't cause as much vertical scroll, but I didn't see what it did to anything lower than 1024x768 resolution. But I have no problem changing it. I've been debating just removing the graphics and going with something smaller anyway.

But for now I'll gladly multi line it for you.

[--Pete]

Hi,

Heh, I had actually stacked them that way intentionally so that it wouldn't cause as much vertical scroll, but I didn't see what it did to anything lower than 1024x768 resolution. But I have no problem changing it. I've been debating just removing the graphics and going with something smaller anyway.

But for now I'll gladly multi line it for you.

Many thanks,

--Pete