Intro
So im aware there are already many posts complaining about the P4 lookout cadense and much of that discussion has become quite toxic. So to try and alleviate the more emotional arguments I thought it would be helpful to ground the discussion in fact by looking at, and comparing with, the previous phases content so far. So first lets look at breaking down the end game content for each phase:
For the purposes of comparison im going to round 3 day lockouts to 3.5 days, or half a week, to make the math simple.
Phase 1 - Blackfathom Deeps
Blackfathom Deeps contained 7 bosses on a twice a week lookout. Giving us 14 bosses a week. Blackfathom Deeps had an approximate clear time of about 30 mins, so the total raid time per week was 1 hour.
Raiding summary: 14 Bosses at 1 hour(s) playtime per week.
Outside of raiding, there was very little else to do in phase 1. You had Warsong Gultch battleground, the Ashenvale PvP event and the ability to reach rank 3 on the PvP side, with nothing extra on the PvE side.
Phase 2 - Gnomeregan
Gnomeregan contained one less boss than its predecessor at a total of 6, but continued the twice weekly lockout. At an only slightly longer clear time of around 45 minutes however, it ended up feeling very similar to what players were familiar with during phase 1.
Raiding summary: 12 Bosses at 1.5 hour(s) playtime per week.
Similar to phase 1, phase 2 didnt bring any new content at endgame for PvE outside of the raid. PvP players enjoyed the new Stranglethorn Vale Blood Moon event, the opening of the Arathi Basin battleground and the increase in rank up to 5.
Phase 3 - Sunken Temple
Back to 7 bosses total, Sunken Temple increased its boss count by one over the previous phase. New to this phase however, Sunken Temple now used the classic whole week lockout for the raid as it stepped up from 10 to 20 players. The raid also had an interesting start, getting nerfed several times, before clear times settled to an average of about 1.5 hours post nerf. The increased clear time compared to its predecessors being primarily attributed to the much higher amout of trash mobs needing to be cleared before each boss encounter.
Raiding summary: 7 Bosses at 1.5 hour(s) playtime per week.
Phase 3 finally provided some new pieces of PvE content in the form of incursions, which unfortunately did not resonate well with the playerbase, and Wild Offerings to incentivise end game dungeons. In addition, the higher level cap of phase 3 allowed players to start getting their teeth into some of classic WoWâs original end game activities in PvE, such as beginning the various rep grinds (Thorium Brotherhood, Argent Dawn, Timbermaw Hold, Hydraxian Waterlords), maxing out their professions and chosing profession specializations, and beginning preperations for molten core by gathering fire resistance gear. Then on top of this for the PvP side, we had a refresh of the Stranglethorn Blood Moon event and another increase in ranking for PvP players up to rank 7.
Phase 4 - Molten Core+
Newly announced, the refreshed Molten Core will contain all 11 original bosses, plus we are recieving Onyxia, Azuregos and Kazzak as single boss lair instances. Alongside the new announcement, we learned that these instances will be moving to twice weekly lockout of previous phases instead of carrying on phase 3âs more traditional weekly lockouts.
Clear times. Now this is the only speculation in this post but there is simply no concrete information to go on other than tweets and assumtions. Due to the new raid having extra difficulties, twice the number of bosses as Sunken Temple and an amount of travel to get around the 3 lair bosses, Im going to assume that the average clear time of a full sweep will likely settle around 4 hours. This is due to several of Aggrends tweets in reply to people unhappy with Sunken Temple being nerfed indicating the level 60 raids would satisfy that demand for difficulty and taking into consideration previous raid clear times. If there is twice the amount of bosses as Sunken Temple, twice the clear time plus some extra for travel and increased difficulty seems fair.
Raiding summary: 28 Bosses at (estimated) 8 hour(s) playtime per week.
Next phase will be the first phase at the original end game level opening up everything the classic game had to offer at end game. Long dungeons full of powerful loot, huge crafting projects needing rare materials and even more factions to increase your reputation with (cenarion circle, etc.). On top of this we have a brand new repeatable daily dungeon rewards system, the hint of a brand new dungeon in ashenvale, a new PvE timed event in the Burning Steppes, and potentially more. PvP players can go all the way to the maximum rank and Alterac Valley will be available to battle in. It is by far the most content outside of raiding we have had so far.
Raiding breakdown
So what does this information show us? Well the first noticable thing is that the total âburdenâ of time per week across all phases so far (one to three) has been pretty similar at between 0.5 and 1.5 hours. This is low, and has made arranging set times for raids easy for both guilds AND pick up groups. It also indicates that while phase 3 has felt more content dry to some, its not really down to time spent raiding as you actually raided less (albeit marginally) in previous phases. You did, however, clear more bosses in prior phases, getting the same amount of loot just spread accross more baddies to fight.
However looking forward at phase 4, this looks to be hugely increased with not only twice as many bosses (with higher difficulty options), but also twice the amount of lockouts. Thats not just doubled compared to the previous phases, its doubled twice (effectively quadrupling). This means that the time required for organised raiders to set aside has likely ballooned to an amount that will require many guilds and groups to schedule extra raid days that many members may not be able to make, fracturing established playgroups. For any player to remain âoptimalâ now, you will likely need to be playing the game at least 4 days a week just to prep for and clear all raid content. Whether you agree or not about the new lockouts, its undeniable that it will be encouraging a much more dedicated and hardcore approach to the game.
Outside of Raiding
Raiding is obviously the primary end game focus for many players and rightly so, but it isnt the entirety of content available to players in any given phase. Looking at what other content was available to players across Season of Discovery, most phases had very little else in the way of PvE content other than the raid. At 60, this simply isnt the case and in fact there is so much to do that if you want to do it on top of raiding, your likely not going to be able to play or do anything else in your free time (assuming you have a full time job). For some this may be a choice their willing to make, and thats great, but the devs have repeatadly stated they want Season of Discovery to be accessible, they even addressed this in the announcement by giving people a week to level before the raid opens. This current cadence on raid lockout on top of so much auxilary content makes phase 4 far from accessible, and that is without even touching on PvE content.
Conclusion
So I think its clear that their was an issue with content in phase 2 and 3. Phase 1 was new and interesting and that combined with it being the shortest got us through. for the following two phases, players have been trailing off because unless you enjoy PvP, you were basically raid logging. Now in phase 4, Blizzard have addressed this but done so in two different ways at once, swinging the pendulum all the way from too little to too much in one go. They have quadrupled raid content at the same time as adding extra PvE content outside raiding, and done so on the same phase where vanilla end game content also kicks in.
Personally I feel that the time restricted content âburdenâ is too high, but the overall amount of content is very good. With a continued 7 day lockout, you would easily solve the content issues of previous phases as outlined by the summaries above, whilst also not forcing players to do nothing but play WoW lest they be penalised by falling behind.
