Dark Glare

I'll start of by saying this post will be quite full of generalizations. This means that this doesn't apply to every single person and neither it will be completely objective, in fact I would say it will be strongly biased and very subjective. So take everything here with a grain of salt and see it as a voiced opinion based on average observation through time. There are raiders in each group that I will describe that could fit into the other ones but generally I noticed few particular things which I thought I'd share.

Vanilla Raiders
While experience is a very strong point in player skill it doesn't make a good player. Many players who are playing since Vanilla and were raiding then are in comparison to other raiders quite bad today, while others show clear mastery of game from start to end - this is something you can apply to either of the groups but can be particulary attributed to people who were activly raiding in Vanilla already.

The main strength which seems to be lacking in TBC / WotLK induced raiders seems to be willpower. Generally this are people who are reliable and experienced. By reliable I mean that they will be present on majority of the raids regardless of time, difficulty, atmosphere at the time or odds of success. Generally this people have very strong grasp of realism with omnipresent feeling of eternal optimism.

The learning curve in vanilla was quite more controlled which I personally believe made this players less susceptible to weaknesses such as : Burning Out, Boredom, Raid Wipe Resistance, Focus.

What I understand under this definitions are that Vanilla Players seem to burn out alot slower than others, while boredom seems alot more present (especially today) they will tackle it faster by either making themselves busy or ignoring it in hope for better and less boring tommorow.

The biggest difference is the Raid Wipe Resistance and Focus - some, if not majority of this players understand the concept of learning better than others, which means they are prepared to wipe quite alot more to master fights than others. The lack of aids and information routes which are here today lead to better raiding. Even at later stages raiding was innovative as raid leaders had to invent tactics on the go from observation as there was complete lack of information flow beside conventional mouth to mouth discussions. Very few websites had few guides but they were not publicly known.

In average I would say raids were not only longer but also had more focus on teaching players how to play better rather than challenging them. Which then as new tiers of difficulty came out obviously moved from learning to challenge - something which seems to be missing heavily in later expansions. Due to longer raids which could last up to 8 hours, this people generally can focus for longer periods of time while raiding, aswell and make less mistakes when under pressure or frustrated.

However the actual quality I believe depends heavily on how far on the learning curve they came during Vanilla themselves. Players who raided everything including Naxxramas tend to be quite alot better "ironed out" than those who only did minor bits here and there. Regardless of each players who were there and tried raiding on any level in vanilla recieved good foundation to build upon which was then either used or wasted.

TBC Era Raiders
When first fresh raiders popped up they were met with much despise from older and more experienced players and had problems with both fitting in and learning to become better for themselves, however while I think this pushed quite a few people away from raiding at the time it also forced few of them to fight hard to show that they are capable of achieving greatness themselves. Sadly the learning curve was quite steep and they had a hard time doing so naturally which however in the end made them better players if they made it though.

Karazhan 10 Man raid to Gruul's Lair or Magtheridon's Lair which were 25 mans was a big jump which not only was unexpected it killed many guilds and frustrated even the most experienced players which often blamed their failures to the "new guys", even though it wasn't their fault. In the end when encounters were tuned a bit better in placement of the learning curve players started beating more of the content and while attunements were quite painful to organize and manage they were perfect way of making sure people are ready for what is waiting for them in the next tier of raiding. There were lots of issues with attunement but that will be discussed in a future article.

Wonderfully orchestrated instances of SSC (Serpentshrine Caverns) and TK (Tempest Keep - The Eye) really pushed raiders to learn their game better and tactical masterpieces of fights Lady Vashj and Kael'thas really shaped players into proper raiders, especially those who managed to kill them early before the nerfs.

People who managed through those found themselves well prepared for Black Temple and Hyjal Summit aswell with many unique fights and mechanics which we haven't seen before (Gorefiend, RoS) and the survivability battle which was Archimonde really pushed the players to learn not to only kill stuff efficiently but also to survive.

Sunwell was extremely hard and was really meant to be taken on by only the best which all the previous instances have prepared them for extremely well although sadly class stacking prevailed over skill in particular but nevertheless it was a wonderful expansion which made a new set of raiders with different mentality to vanilla ones - Fighters, but with bit less strength when it came to burning out, focus but quite willing to wipe long times still.

WotLK Freshers
When raiding began the first encounters and instances seemed quite ... underwhelming as they were very simple to those who raided before, while they might have been harder for newcomers I don't know the general atmosphere was very happy to be raiding again but then a bit dissapointed. Malygos and the difficulty scaling with drakes offered new mechanics however which were good addition to experience - however the 3 Drakes fights was also one of the better fights and very nicely tuned.

Sadly the fresh players however somehow seemed to get stuck in earlier instances already or never really bothered to try the concepts of more drakes as it seemed just too much hassle. I for one could not understand one's reluctancy to challenge themselves but it seemed that the newest raider trend was to be very passive.

This concerned me deeply as I knew that you need to rely on new generation raiders to fill your spots in raids too and I was worried of severe quality drop in case this would come to be true. I was pleasently surprised by Ulduar though which proved to break all my fears as it was just what we needed, wonderful raid, amazing instance, well tuned encounters and new interesting and challenging hardmode concept. Well placed, and new players while very unprepared from their shaky passing in 3.0 had to really learn their game when going through Ulduar however the early nerfs kinda diminished the required play quality which was slightly disappointing but nevertheless overall a huge thumbs up to Blizzard on Ulduar.

Then ToC came ... the horror. Wonderful concept, horribly bad execution. Normal modes being so ridicilously easy full instance can be pugged. Players decided to skip Ulduar completely and just farm ToC and go from bad Naxxramas players to really bad ToC players as ... they skipped the learning curve of Ulduar which was the only instance so far in WotLK which made you learn extra things thus making you improve yourself (as often they only did Naxxramas and skipped Sartharion with more drakes or Malygos completely).

I could not understand why this was done but if nothing else it made easier to bring up alts to raiding level (however dropping viability of new recruits to almost non-exsistent as most seemed to be very clueless) and ToC Hardmodes especially Anub'arak proved masterpiece of a fight once more which was fresh and nice but raiding 4 modes - 10,25,10HM,25HM proved to be a really bad concept and was luckily scrapped for ICC.

Icecrown Citadel was very interesting and wonderful instance to go through the first time however the virtual blocking to prolong content and limited tries on normal bosses from start was really frustrating. Having fully open instance with limited hardmodes or bigger gear requirements for hardmodes to be done would have been a better move I think. But I can understand partially why it was done the way it was done. However it also lead to stagnation and stagnation means drop of quality and quitting from individuals - mainly the freshers. And sadly the freshers also not only lacked skill (if they skipped Ulduar or everything even), they also lacked focus beyond first 2-3 hours in a raid, were not reliably showing up for raids, and avoided the wipe raids if they could as wiping more than couple of times seemed to be effecting them bad and got them bored easily. So very few players from the new generation actually had the chance to become good players, and the number would be even lower if the effort wasn't put into "raising" few players by attempting to teach them the mechanics, dynamics and everything else slowly and painfully.

While I think Wrath of the Lich King is amazing expansion and move forward I believe the learning curve and quality of raiders overall from it is very subpar compared to previous expansions.

So what do you think? Have you noticed the same phenomenon, or something different alltogether? Do you think its an issue that is isolated to few realms or more worldwide? Share your ideas and comments on the discussion of the thread

I would say your comments over all are well founded. I would say as a player in the TBC era you had to work damn hard for gear, learn fights, and were lucky to get into a stable guild. I think as a new player I was lucky to encounter nice players who were willing to help you to improve and also to teach you independence on how to become a better player, instead of just telling you what to do, and that their view point was 100% correct.
I would say the worse thing about the current expansion as it has created many players who have an inflated sense in their own abilities and that because they have some 264 level gear they know 100% was they are doing. Sadly I find most of them clueless, not able to understand the mechanics of their own class and lack any creativity, and to be full of misconceptions. I feel this would be reduced drastically if they had to go through each bit of content before hitting ICC.

Sadly most raiders are more interested in personal dps (20% buff has created an even bigger god complex) and actually seem negative towards 25 man guilds thinking that we are somehow less skilled players because we focus on 25. Believe me, most TBC raiders treated a 5 man heroic as a mini raid, and worked our way through the content and would relish 10 man content if we had the time and would achieve really well in 10 man content if not for our focus on 25s.

However it is great to see new people come into a guild and learn the importance of team work over personal glory, and be in a learning environment where they do not need to put up with some rude fool. So where the apparent quality in raiders may appear to have decreased, you are actually finding a greater pool of players who are willing to learn, enjoy, and kill pretend internet monsters. Those players will be dragged and learn to enjoy all the content in the expansion due to other players chasing achievements, and when you think back to the old content, of having to run and gear people up through attunements, this expansion allows for guilds to fill thier ranks quickly and continue to do what we all love to do; 25 man content.

This is true, alot bigger pool of players to choose from does help somewhat in having easier time filling up ranks and pushing on than it was before. This however makes me wonder what they'll come up with in Cataclysm as raiding is getting overhaul. Wonder if attunements will make it back or some other things.

One way I could see attunements being brought back is through Guild Achievement system, where whole guild gets attuned when its done rather than on invididual basis, that way new players wouldn't need to get attuned if they join the guild but lose it in case they join another which hasn't done the content already.

Which should bring the learning curve back somewhat if they force people to do all content at least once, even if they offer gear superior to it in badges. Which in turn should leave the pool size the same but make players better.

We will see.