My thinking about Alex normal/savage. Issue IMHO inside

[Ibi]

It isn't raiding in particular. It is all their content that should create incentive. Raiding just happens to be the subject at hand.

But even in 2.x, raiding already had as many incentives as any other activity in the game, especially relative to its participation, and it still wasn't attracting a large segment of the population. There has to come a point where you accept that no matter what incentive you provide, there are some people that you're never going to get to engage in the content, particularly if it's too far beyond their skill level.

Also, I can't be bothered to dig up the quote, but I specifically remember that one of the developers stating that if it wasn't for LFR there is no way they could justify developing raids on the scale they are at now, something to think about. It's a win win for almost everyone involved.

Ion Hazzikostas (Lead Encounter Designer):

LFR justifies the creation of more raid content when millions of players are able to see content. Only a few thousand people actually saw Kel'thuzad, but millions saw Deathwing. The reason Mists of Pandaria is starting with 18 bosses and adding larger raid tiers than we have had previously is because many players are going to see the raids through LFR.

Hopefully the same philosophy should apply here, and the fact that hundreds of thousands are seeing Alexander should allow them to provide bigger, more varied raids in the future. Hopefully.

[Rin_Kuroi]

Hopefully the same philosophy should apply here, and the fact that hundreds of thousands are seeing Alexander should allow them to provide bigger, more varied raids in the future. Hopefully.

I'm 100% okay with alex nm as it stands now. A lot of people in my fc who never raided before are now doing alex nm. It's a big win imo. My real beef is with savage. Specially, the massive wall at a3s. They need to figure out some way to keep all three tiers of people happy. I want to say SE should forget about the hardcore world first players. It might be a bit unfair but the midcore raider's shouldn't be left out in the cold. They are the ones who actually attract new raiders to the scene.

[Ibi]

I'm 100% okay with alex nm as it stands now. A lot of people in my fc who never raided before are now doing alex nm. It's a big win imo. My real beef is with savage. Specially, the massive wall at a3s.

Alexander Normal starts in a good place. Alexander Savage finishes in... if not a good place for most people, probably not a bad place for the toughest fight of a raid tier (from what I'm told, at any rate. A soul crushing 0.5% A3S wipe is as far as I've seen personally). The problem is getting from point A to point B.

They need to figure out some way to keep all three tiers of people happy.

They could stick with a two-tier raiding system if the raids were longer. Rather than two big steps up from A4 to A1S and A2S to A3S, they could have a much more gradual gradient over the course of, say, eight normal bosses and eight savage bosses.

That would probably be a more satisfying alternative, for almost everyone, to adding a third difficulty of the same raid.