Why Have Attunements?

[Bolty]

Why do attunements exist? What is Blizzard's rationale?

Back before The Burning Crusade, the following attunements existed. Correct me if I missed anything:

1) Molten Core - you required a fragment obtained in Blackrock Depths; what originally was a raid instance you had to blow through to get to MC, became 5-man restricted once they added this attunement. I can only imagine how silly destroying the place with 40 people was to get to the raid instance entrance. Once the attunement was in, it was a 5-man quest group to get there.

2) Blackwing Lair - running UBRS and defeating General Drakkisath would get you attuned.

3) Onyxia - running UBRS and defeating General Drakkisath had a *chance* of getting you attuned; originally, only 1 person at a time could get attuned this way, then it was bumped up to a random number, then it was bumped up to everyone.

4) Naxxramas (hi Gort) - either get to Exalted with the Argent Dawn or "pay" to get in by bringing numerous mats to an NPC, mats that were expensive at the time and now are cheap. Basically it kept people out who weren't at least mildly interested in paying a price to see it.

Technically there were other "attunements" in the form of keys, like having to run LBRS a lot to get an UBRS key, or spending a wad of cash (15g) to get a Scholomance key. However, only one person in a party would need these keys to bring everyone else in.

Looking back at these attunements, all I can ask is, were they even necessary? In terms of timesink, sure. But Blizzard learned quickly how much they irritated players. After your 40th UBRS run to get yet another person attuned to Onyxia, you'd have to want to tear your brains out. People complained. A lot. And look at some of the things Blizzard did over time:

A) General Drakkisath's blood drop rate substantially increased.
B) General Drakkisath (and UBRS in general) made substantially easier to beat.
C) Onyxia questlines made easier; could you imagine needing a raid force every time someone wanted to confront Lady Prestor in Stormwind? At first, you did.

Still, attunements in general are a PITA. Want to bring that 3rd alt of yours into Onyxia for some fun? Oh snap, only on step 12 of the Onyxia quest line, never mind.



The general thinking of attunements goes something like this: for players to want to raid instance X, they need to "prove themselves" by being able to do thing Y. Either through a skill check, gear check, or just plain dedication check. And it's cute the first time you go through it. You feel you're making progress on your character getting the attunements nailed down. But it's a barrier to entry for alts, especially when if you're in a raid force it can be harder to find groups to run "lesser" instances and so on.

I argue that attunements in general are just totally unnecessary. They're pointless, and just serve as a way to slow people down and prevent them from seeing possibly unfinished content. That could indeed be the reason they exist, but then they should all be removed over time. Either that, or institute something that players have been asking for for awhile: once one of your characters has been attuned to something, they all should be.

Blizzard continued the mistake into TBC. The horrendous attunement requirements to get into SSC and Tempest Keep completely blocked all but the dedicated raiding guilds from entry. I was one of only two members in my raid group to get attuned to Tempest Keep before the attunement requirements were removed - most members just weren't interested in "the hassle." The combination of heroic 5-man content and 10-man raid content in order to get attuned to 25-man content was poorly managed and put far too much pressure on raiding guilds to work out attunements. Horror stories of tanks and healers burned out on running heroic Shattered Halls abounded, since they'd have to keep running it over and over for the Trials to get their DPS-mates attuned.

Blizzard completely removed the attunement requirements for SSC and TK. They realized eventually how big of a goof-up they made. If anything, if attunements were ever truly required, they should have been on Gruul and Magtheridon. Beat Gruul, you're ready for SSC. Beat Magtheridon, you're ready for Tempest Keep.

The general logic of "if you can beat X, you must be ready for Y" is, as we know, very flawed. A level 70 wearing all greens who is escorted through some instances to get Karazhan keyed is NOT ready for Karazhan, as an example. You could make the argument, however, that if his buddies are so well geared that they can bring that dead weight along with them on the various instances, they can bring him along to Karazhan too. But it misses the general point that attunements are not a good system to provide proper advancement. They exclude people not necessarily on skill, but on time investment and other factors. That can make some sense sometimes, but not when your 3rd alt has to jump through 40 hoops to get somewhere.

What's a good system to control access to raid zones? The raid instances themselves, of course. If you want to argue that attunements keep people out of zones they're not ready for, there's no real harm in letting them in unless you attach some measure of e-peen in being in an exclusionary place. If you're not ready for BWL, Razorgore is going to completely wafflestomp you. If you're not ready for AQ40, the Anubisath Defender packs are going to leave you a bloody smear on the ground. If you're not ready for Tempest Keep, Void Reaver is going to...oh wait, not really, since Void Reaver is about the same difficulty level as Lurker Below in SSC. Which brings up another point about attunements: they don't coincide with the difficulty curves of instances.

You have to defeat Lady Vashj and Kael'thas Sunstrider to walk into Mount Hyjal. Wow, Mount Hyjal has to be pretty brutal then, right? Nope; the first boss is nowhere near as difficult as those two end-bosses, and nowhere near as difficult as some of the earlier bosses of SSC and TK. It's almost "free" loot compared to them. Take Void Reaver as an example of a boss that is out of whack with its original attunement requirement.

Ultimately, the only true point of attunements may be to limit a raider's choice. If all raiders had a choice of raiding SSC, TK, Hyjal, and Black Temple all at once, that's simply too many instances to tackle in a 7-day schedule. Something's got to give, and what will give will be the lower raid instances. Attunements are a way of saying "look, if you can beat SSC and TK, it's about time you stop running them as much and try out Mount Hyjal." But...when pre-TBC raiders had the freedom to go to MC, BWL, AQ40, and Naxx at the same time, what did the slower guilds run? BWL. People are smart enough to figure out where they should be by gear/experience level, and if they're not, a quick night in the higher zone would show them in a harsh fashion. You can't be taking a Karazhan-geared raid into Black Temple and expect much.

So why have attunements? At all? Ever? In my opinion, attunements are one of a number of things Blizzard got wrong in TBC to help destroy the fabric of casual raiding guilds. If you're in a dedicated raiding guild, it's just another bump in the road, yawn - but in a more social guild, attunements cause more trouble than you'd believe.

Could you imagine that in order to play in arena teams, you had to turn in 100 battleground marks from each existing battleground? Arenas are incredible accessible to anyone, anytime. Some attunements are the equivalent however of having to perform that much pvp. (aaagh, my eyes!)

Your thoughts?

-Bolty

P.S. Rumor has it that the next 25-man raid instance to be released before the next expansion, the Sunwell, will not have any attunement requirement. Is Blizzard learning?

[Jester]

Attunements are a bad idea. Get rid of them, and hope they never come back.

-Jester

[LochnarITB]

I have always considered attunement as poorly thought out speed bumps. In order to keep hard core raiders from burning through content and dropping their subscriptions, they made things more frustrating for the "casual" players. People got sick of running things over and over and mad at the lag that might have been lessened if people could choose to play fewer, more enjoyable hours. I think they lost more people by driving away casuals, which I always heard far outnumbered the hardcore, than they would have lost from the hardcore.

[Skandranon]

Attunements are pointless and annoying. I surmise they were intended to prevent the kind of progression we'd see in the latter days of WoW 1.0 (the typical BWL clear, AQ40 clear to Huhuran, +Anub and Razuvious guild). I never really saw the harm in it, though. Allowing guilds to zone in and take out a pinata or two in Naxx really helped broaden the appeal of the place; if Naxx had required C'thun down, I imagine that the (already small) percentage of people who'd ever seen the inside of Naxx would have been cut in half, at least.

A problem that I've had personal experience with, despite being in a top-end guild, is the wrench attunements throw into recruitment. It's not possible for a BT/Hyjal guild to recruit without, in effect, scheduling a guild event to clear boring old content that offers no upgrades. Consequently, we've had to postpone recruitment and turn away qualified applicants because it's just not worth the pain to attune them to content we're doing. In that sense, attunements have even made it hard for the most progressed guilds to get past early content, despite our best efforts to.

Only the most snobbishly elitist guilds in the world support attunement in its current form. It's one of the many ways in which, I agree, Blizzard has made raiding incredibly hostile to casuals in TBC. It's way, way worse than WoW 1.0's 40 man raids ever were.

[mandydax]

This is very well thought out, Bolty. Have you posted it on the Blizz WoW Suggestions forum? I know it sounds futile, and it probably is, but you've already got it all typed out.

I totally agree. When I was on my old server, I wasn't in a raiding guild, and to even field a full 5-man from my guild was nearly unheard of. We'd practically declare it a holiday for posterity's sake. Pre-TBC, I raided LBRS and UBRS, Scholo and Strat (when they were still 10-mans) with various PUGs, but that was it. I got attuned to MC and Onyxia, but never went to either. I hit my first 60 on Terenas about 5 minutes before midnight when TBC came out, so I never got to see any of that content on my current server. If it weren't for Lurkers, I might not have found out that there were attunement requirements for Kara. I didn't even know what SSC was the first time it mentioned. I'm really glad they removed the requirements for SSC and TK. I'd never have gotten to see SSC (got in on a Lurker Below kill last weekend) if the requirements weren't removed. It's just too much trouble for me, especially with my unusual schedule. It's not that I'm underskilled or undergeared to get in, but the effort of finding people who are keyed for the Heroics and then completing those quest is arduous at best, and nigh impossible, and I'm in a great guild with fantastic players who bend over backwards to help its members. I can't imagine if I were still on my old server. I probably would have quit playing for the frustration of it all. (Also, if I had continued on my old server to get keyed for Kara, I probably never would have gotten to go because raid PUGs are hell.)

[lfd]

The only truly "broken" attunement currently in the game - not counting having to get Revered on your alts to gain access to heroics - is the Hyjal one. The Black Temple attunement is fine, really, all silliness in requiring you to complete a 5-man questline in Shadowmoon Valley aside; kill Fathom-Lord Karathress, kill Al'ar, kill Rage Winterchill. None of those bosses are particularly hard to learn and beat, compared to Vashj and Kael. There would be many, many more guilds poking away at the first few bosses of Black Temple (Naxx-style) if that last stage didn't require attunement to Hyjal.

Unfortunately, V&K are the end bosses of two instances that feature the most appalling "lol one shot" trash and uninspired boss fights (would it really hurt to take a million or two hitpoints off Morogrim?). No end-instance boss has any business having respawning trash before him, either - Kael's trash should stay down until soft reset. That alone would give guilds a better shot at learning him instead of the 4-or-5-good-attempts-before-we-reclear joy.

So, er, yeah. They already got rid of two broken attunements in 2.0 BC; the one they introduced in 2.1 for Black Temple isn't too bad in and of itself, so all that remains is to get rid of the only other 2.0 attunement - that for Hyjal - or else tweak it in some way, which I guess they are doing in a roundabout way by adjusting Kael'thas again. It would be a shame for people not to have to bother with Kael completely, as it's by far the best-designed (after phase 1, and without the trash) fight pre-BT in the game, and it's wonderful when you finally do beat it.

[oldmandennis]

I think part of the theory is that the hyjal/BT attunements protect a bunch of loot piniata's.

[Artega]

I think part of the theory is that the hyjal/BT attunements protect a bunch of loot piniata's.

Kinda like how the old TK attunement protected Lootreaver:)

[Selby]

3) Onyxia - running UBRS and defeating General Drakkisath had a *chance* of getting you attuned; originally, only 1 person at a time could get attuned this way, then it was bumped up to a random number, then it was bumped up to everyone.

Alliance had it easy ;-) For the horde that stupid 14 part chain quest where you had to go hunt world dragons on each continent in addition to running UBRS endlessly to get the blood (after you had already gone through it several times for the beginning portions). It took me almost a month of running UBRS 1-2 times a night 4-5 nights a week with various guildmates to get it done (and to get enough others in the guild to get keyed to actually be able to run...).

Attunements that are simple ala MC, no problem. Ones that make me want to break out the eye spoons like the UBRS key, Ony, Scholo key, etc can all die please.

[Kevin]

Alliance had it easy ;-) For the horde that stupid 14 part chain quest where you had to go hunt world dragons on each continent in addition to running UBRS endlessly to get the blood (after you had already gone through it several times for the beginning portions). It took me almost a month of running UBRS 1-2 times a night 4-5 nights a week with various guildmates to get it done (and to get enough others in the guild to get keyed to actually be able to run...).

Attunements that are simple ala MC, no problem. Ones that make me want to break out the eye spoons like the UBRS key, Ony, Scholo key, etc can all die please.

Did you do it when you had to go back to Dustwallow after each dragon kill before you could get the next one or after they changed it so you could do the first three then go back and get the quest for the next one? I was lucky enough that I started it the patch after they changed it so you could the first 3 all at once, but I knew people who had to do it the more hellish way...

And of course the horde one started with having to 5 man all of LBRS. Even with a good group that still took hours. Then you got to play hunt the Rexxar (at least now you don't have to that anymore since he is in Outlands, I forget who it was you have to talk to but I started the chain on a toon after TBC and that part was a lot simpler). And yeah how many UBRS runs? You had to kill Rend then get back to Org then get blood (after hunting Rexxar down again of course).

I did the Ony line 3 times alliance side and 2 twice horde side pre TBC and yeah I felt the horde version was much suckier, but both sides had major suckitude to it. I remember ninjing blood once on an alliance run. Felt like an ass cause I knew the deal but clicked wrong or something (loot was different back then I don't recall exactly what bonehead move I did). The group wasn't mad at me though and since I ran that place another 30 some odd times just trying to get my draconian deflector I made up for it anyway, but I felt like a heel for a while after that.


But I'm not a fan of attunements. I can live with something like the BWL and MC ones, you can get new people attuned fast and it gives you excuses to go to some of those places on your alts or goof off and reminisce about how different the instance used to be or how you had issues with this or that before you got all the gear you have now, or just underman it for a bit of a challenge (4 manning Rend with only a piece or 2 of ZG/AQ20/MC gear per person so mostly in end game blues still was a blast of course so was 8 manning Mandokir in that same gearing level).

I'm also OK with stuff like the key to Arcatraz or Shattered Halls. Shattered Halls you can solo (at least horde side since you can get the guards to kill the Fel Reaver for you) and in both cases only one person in the group needs the key though a wipe in Arc with only one key holder that always goes AFK when they die isn't all that fun. But those lines have other rewards you generally want anyway, even if it's just the rep from the quests.

But if there weren't anymore attunements to do ever again, I'd be alright with it too. Or the whole if you do it once on a server all your alts on that server are good. You can do the quests for rep/other rewards if you want but you are attuned on that alt. It was nice to not need to be attuned for Mags tonight for example because we had at least 4 alts in there on our learning night (we did Lurker below after getting Gruul on farm) so we would have better class balance. If there were a long attument process we may have had to call the raid or at least would have called it earlier due to frustrations and not made the progress we made. Sure the alts weren't geared the best but they were geared well enough to get us what we needed to learn the stuff.

[mistique]

Agree, Attunments SUCK.

I currently have 4 lv 70's and another almost there.........try attuning them to Kara, it's anoying.
Elixier Spec, have to run OHB to get into BM to complete.......i suppose it's worth it.

If Blizzard realy REALY want attunments then it should be a realm global......ie one character dies it the rest are keyed as well.

Mist

[Zarathustra]

The original attunements for Molten Core and Blackwing Lair were due to a change in design philsophy. They had originally intended people to trounce through those easy "5-man" instances in order to get to the raid. The entrances to the Molten Core, Blackwing Lair, and Naxxramas were in Blackrock Depths, Blackrock Spire, and Stratholme, respectively.

The reason they were put in was as a way of bypassing the superfluous content in the case of the first two. Makes sense, right?

As for Onyxia, I have to say I loved the quest chain. In fact I wish we had more of the like. They made a mistake in limiting the number of blood vials that'd drop off of Drakkisath, to be sure. But when you actually completed the chain and received your Drakefire Amulet, you felt a sense of accomplishment. You now had access to Onyxia, the big, bad, black dragon. It was something that created an air of excitement in the game that is not felt with Magtheridon.

As for the idea of having "easy" bosses that people should have access to... wasn't that always the way Blizzard has structured their raid encounters? You have some big challenge, and then part of the reward is access to a few easier bosses. Down Vael? Awesome... now you've got Broodlord and the Drakes to make some easy loot. Originally get attunement to the Eye in Tempest Keep? Go smash Loot Reaver! Now we've got a situation where after you defeat Kael and Vashj, you get the reward of a handful of easy bosses in Hyjal and the Black Temple.

I don't see what the big deal is with attunements, to be perfectly honest. In some cases they've been fun in the past. In others, they were time consuming, but had some sense of accomplishment. Granted, I'm one of those people who did his Trials of the Naruu when they still meant something.

[Warlock]

I quite like attunements. A quest, a bit of story, a step on the road to challenging the next great evil. All part of disguising the grind. That doesn't mean the implementation is always perfect.

[Artega]

I quite like attunements. A quest, a bit of story, a step on the road to challenging the next great evil. All part of disguising the grind. That doesn't mean the implementation is always perfect.

Except the story has been butchered by Metzen so they could introduce space squids zipping around in dimension-hopping starships. Among other things.

[Taelas]

I'd prefer to get rid of them.

Sure, it's an accomplishment, but when you've done it three times...

Especially when you have to pull others through the same questlines.:unsure:

[oldmandennis]

The original attunements for Molten Core and Blackwing Lair were due to a change in design philsophy. They had originally intended people to trounce through those easy "5-man" instances in order to get to the raid. The entrances to the Molten Core, Blackwing Lair, and Naxxramas were in Blackrock Depths, Blackrock Spire, and Stratholme, respectively.

The reason they were put in was as a way of bypassing the superfluous content in the case of the first two. Makes sense, right?

Nah, the BWL/MC attunements were put in because they started to put restrictions on the numbers in regular instances. Those attunements allowed you to warp directly to the dungeon, otherwise it would be impossible to get into a 40 man dungeon if the gateway only allowed 5 people.

Personally, I don't mind then attunements so much. For the most part, if you can't get them done, you probably don't really belong in the dungeon they are guarding. And I ran a crap ton of heroic pens back when you needed it for SSC.

I think that account-wide attunement and backflagging (like the vashj/kael scrolls) would cut down on the complaining. Also, I think the major attunements should go on the 1 shot encounters like Mag, and the long instances should be more relaxed.

Except the story has been butchered by Metzen so they could introduce space squids zipping around in dimension-hopping starships. Among other things.

As much as I agree with you, I don't think it's helpful to bring it up every time the story is mentioned.

[Concillian]

Kinda like how the old TK attunement protected Lootreaver:)

Loot reaver, in current 'no attunement required' form provides as much of an impedence to raiding as attunements.

He's easy loot, but guilds spend considerable effort farming just him and miss out on learning time in their progression instances. Yeah, a guild that kills Gruul has a decent shot at VR, but once they get VR, there's literally nothing else they can do there. 1 hour for 1 kill and little else is generally not a great return in a limited time schedule.

He has become his own attunement. Casual guilds are stalling at him because he takes focus from SSC, where those guilds really belong.

If guilds want to do that, that's fine. They now have the option. I don't see it as a big problem.

[lfd]

Yeah, a guild that kills Gruul has a decent shot at VR, but once they get VR, there's literally nothing else they can do there. 1 hour for 1 kill and little else is generally not a great return in a limited time schedule.

He has become his own attunement. Casual guilds are stalling at him because he takes focus from SSC, where those guilds really belong.

Hmm, SSC/TK are pitched at the same level - sure, Kael is (considerably) harder than Vashj, but Al'ar and Solarian aren't significantly harder than Leotheras or Karathress.

I currently have 4 lv 70's and another almost there.........try attuning them to Kara, it's anoying.
Elixier Spec, have to run OHB to get into BM to complete.......i suppose it's worth it.

While I think it's odd that they removed the SSC and TK attunements yet left the Karazhan attunement in, once again it's not the attunement itself that bugs me so much as the fact that, unless I'm a druid, I have to pay 1000g to get in due to the flying mount requirement on Arcatraz. Yes, money grows daily on trees in BC, but it sure adds up when you have to equip each of your alts with a slow flyer just to get into the only puggable raid instance currently in-game.

On the subject of the alchemy specialisations, I discussed it with some people who'd already done it and complained about the poor drop rate of the black morass items... and decided to go for the transmute specialisation quest, which is a single 100% quest item drop from Botanica, and then immediately fork out the gold to respec to Elixir mastery. Expensive, but worth the pain of never having to set foot in the Black Morass again. Well, until I need to attune those alts to Karazhan. Blast. Still, maybe Zul'Aman will solve that problem, too.

Incidentally, the "loot pinata" view of early Hyjal and BT bosses is a little unfair - they just happen to be much, much easier to learn (even with the slog of the trash in Hyjal per attempt) than Kael is. No matter how big an epeen you wave at them, they don't just fall over, but any group that can kill Kael is not going to take that long to learn them because not every fight can be a 20-minutes-plus 5-phase epic.

[Skandranon]

Incidentally, the "loot pinata" view of early Hyjal and BT bosses is a little unfair - they just happen to be much, much easier to learn (even with the slog of the trash in Hyjal per attempt) than Kael is. No matter how big an epeen you wave at them, they don't just fall over, but any group that can kill Kael is not going to take that long to learn them because not every fight can be a 20-minutes-plus 5-phase epic.

Well, Rage Winterchill really IS a pinata on the Loot Reaver level. Any boss you can one-shot blind qualifies, in my book. Granted, it's no Kael, but quite a few guilds just one-shot Rage the very first time they see him, something that almost certainly wasn't true for VR or Lurker. And while it'll be harder for casuals to learn, it's certainly something they could get in a week or two of tries at most (mainly spent dying to trash).

I wholeheartedly agree, however, that past Rage, loot pinata is a very relative term. Anetheron definitely requires some learning, has a moderate gear check, and has execution requirements that, at the least, equal the more difficult encounters in SSC/TK, and Kaz'rogal's entire encounter from wave 1 is a DPS race that essentially checks the amount of time spent farming old instances. For that matter, Naj'entus is kind of a "Tier 5" check, in that you need to have good healing/dps gear with high stamina, which is approximately how T5 is itemized.

All of that, in my opinion, makes the case even more convincing for lifting all attunement requirements immediately. It isn't even like Naxx, where a raid group that had never been in AQ40 could easily clear the entire spider wing plus Noth and Razuvious and even Heigan. Anyone who hasn't killed Kael is going to get over Anetheron and Naj'entus only with some difficulty, and they're going to hit stone walls at Kaz'rogal and, at the very latest, the Bloodboil-Reliquary-Gorefiend trio in BT (Naj'entus will be wall-like enough to groups equipped only in Karazhan purples and instance blues).

[oldmandennis]

1 hour for 1 kill and little else is generally not a great return in a limited time schedule.

He has become his own attunement.

1 hour to VR is incredibly optimistic for that sort of guild - you have to kill 2 bosses worth of trash to get to him. Of course, that only strengthens your point.

Hmm, SSC/TK are pitched at the same level - sure, Kael is (considerably) harder than Vashj, but Al'ar and Solarian aren't significantly harder than Leotheras or Karathress.
While I think it's odd that they removed the SSC and TK attunements yet left the Karazhan attunement in, once again it's not the attunement itself that bugs me so much as the fact that, unless I'm a druid, I have to pay 1000g to get in due to the flying mount requirement on Arcatraz. Yes, money grows daily on trees in BC, but it sure adds up when you have to equip each of your alts with a slow flyer just to get into the only puggable raid instance currently in-game.

Well the Solarian encounter hasn't really worked right. AFIK nobody has really spent any time with her on the PTR - and you don't know if the final version will be as difficult as they wanted, or if they are just sort of giving up on her at this point. Al'ar is significantly harder then Hydross or Lurker. So the beginning and end bosses of TK are harder then their SSC counterparts, and the other two TK ones have problems (broken and confirmed pinata).

I don't see how it's possible to be more then 100g short of 1k from questing 60->70, and I have 3 70's. Everybody I have talked to who is in that situation has admitted to taking gold from their alt for their main's epic flyer - you can hardly blame that on blizzard.

It isn't even like Naxx, where a raid group that had never been in AQ40 could easily clear the entire spider wing plus Noth and Razuvious and even Heigan.

I don't find this to be true at all. Personally my guild was pretty close to killing C'thun, but certainly wasn't "easily" clearing anything there. Maybe if you had a good reroll guild they could do that if they spent most of their time in Naxx - we were really trying to finish C'thun.