We received several feedbacks regarding raid instance lockouts and 10/25 rewards, and we appreciate your opinions and deep interests. We thought that Korean players wish to enjoy the most hardcore contents more flexibly and according to their play styles. Therefore, from the upcoming patch we decided to change the raid instance lockout rules for all KR servers. Raids, as usual, will be reset every 7 days following maintainance checks. However, after 5.1 patch 10 man and 25 man raids will have seperate lockouts.
From now on, players could play raid instances, such as Mogu-Shan Vaults, in both 10 man and 25 man difficulty. Normal and Heroic difficulty raid of same instance will share same lockout as usual. Furthermore, the loots of 25 man raids has been buffed, and will offer higher iLV compared to same 10 man instance. For example, Terrace of the Endless Spring in 25 man difficulty will drop loots with iLV of 504, wile 10 man will drop 496.
We wish that players will further enjoy the contents and gain satisfactory rewards, and decided to offer the system that suits most well with the KR players.
There are two crucial pieces of information to take from this. Firstly, the note that in patch 5.1 10-man and 25-man raids will have seperate lockouts. This has not happened for a long time and when it did I was still raiding! At the very basic level it is a move that essentially doubles the worth of current content; you can raid it twice in one week if you've got the willing players. A smart move and one that is relatively low risk.
The second crucial tidbit is that 25-mans will drop higher item level loot than their 10 man counterparts. This one has potentially massive implications because if this change goes live and across the world, then 10 man content is no longer 'progression' in the strictest sense of the word. It would be a massive boon to current 25 man guilds who have resisted the urge to change to the 10 man format. Blizzard seems keen to reward the extra logistical headaches of 25 man raiding with a quantifiable reward system and it seems i-level is the method to their madness.
Finally, I wonder why Korea (and apparently China) are the first to receive these changes for testing. What is it about this geographical areas that determine them suitable for such a change? Is it because more 10 man guilds exist Stateside and in Europe? Or is the general culture in these Asian countries more accepting of changes that encourage raiding conditions comparable to years gone by? Do Blizzard feel the potential backlash to be possibly more comprehensive in English speaking countries?
It's fun to postulate but I'm not going to go any further than that for now.
No comments:
Post a Comment