Breakfast Topic: Is attunement a necessary evil?
by Dan O'Halloran 
Aug 28th 2007 at 8:00AM
Seriously. Look at that Burning Crusade attunement chart. Is all the hoop jumping really necessary for players who just want to see content? How much worse is it going to get for Sunwell Plateau? Or Wrath instances?
I think players shouldn't have to navigate a chart more complicated than the U.S. Tax Code to see new places, kill new things and parade around in the new found loot like drunken Wildhammer dwaves discovering a new flight path.
What do you think? Is attunement a way to reward dedicated players or a road block to slow down the general populace that is ravenously consuming content faster than the devs can create it?
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Breakfast topics
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Memzer Aug 28th 2007 8:10AM
Attunement doesn't matter much when we can all save up a few points and get our:
http://www.mmo-champion.com/index.php?topic=728.msg7206
Raziel Aug 28th 2007 8:10AM
I see it, personally, as a way to to almost weed out more dedicated players and reward them with the "high end content".
In no way do I agree with it, but that'd what I believe these attunement chains try to accomplish. They also act as diversions from the main goal to keep these dedicated players bashing their head against the wall until they break through to the content. More play time. More money for blizz.
Also.. I think Blizz is noting that too extreme of a chain just keeps people from even trying. Didn't the req. for CoT: Hyjal require an actual kill of Lady Vashj and Kel'thas before it was lowered to just have access? ... ... unless I'm mistaken which I have an odd feeling I am.
xcb Aug 28th 2007 8:10AM
As a level 59 Paladin with about 28 days /played in total who spends too much time trying to corner the heavy hide market and not enough time questing, that chart makes it quite obvious to me that I'll never see those places.
Now you'll excuse me. I've Ironfeather Sets to sell.
babamucha Aug 28th 2007 10:49PM
Players with new expansion enabled should unlock all the old ones, except the new ones.
rhadagast Aug 28th 2007 8:13AM
When there is attunement, you know that the people you are with were not just nursed through, an effort had to occur for them to reach this.
The opposite of that is how long do I have to grind to maybe see something new.
A balance needs to be struck somewhere along the way. If it is just 5-mans/10mans to get into the deeper stuff, that is not bad. If it is 30 of them, that gets to be an issue.
Short form: Attunement good, 3 months of attunement bad.
Lykaon Aug 28th 2007 8:18AM
I agree that it's all about the level of attunement. An attunement like what we had to do to go to MC isn't bad. It's just one BRD run.
BWL was just one UBRS run.
Karazhan is a beast though, and others are even worse.
Some attunement is good, too much is bad.
Also, I agree that old dungeons should unlock once you hit a certain level. I was asked to heal MC on my pally the other day and my reply had to be "LOL. I'm a BE. I'm not even attuned."
Yah. If my guild wants to hit up Ony for old times sakes, I'm left out just because I rolled a race that Blizzard didn't even introduce until after Ony was no longer important.
Pallimoon Aug 28th 2007 11:46AM
To be honest I think attunements should be around. I think it was stupid to remove the SSC and TK attunement, because I think if you can't kill Gruul, you're not ready for SSC and if you can't kill Magthoridon you are definetly not ready for TK. I don't find the TK quest as much work as people are saying, I'm still just raiding Kara and I have almost done the TK attunement, and I don't expect to go there before I kill magthoridon anyways
Radagust Aug 28th 2007 8:23AM
attunement screens out the noobs. it's def necessary.
Louk Aug 28th 2007 8:27AM
Necessary. The Kara attune really isn't that bad - not nearly as bad as Onyxia. But it also ensures that people running "higher content" at least have a chance at having decent gear going in. Who else is annoyed by people who burn to 70, get powered through attunements and then start raiding right away?
Ehiz Aug 28th 2007 8:34AM
I hate attunements. The heroics is easy. But we got shadow priest who leveled up to 70 just recently and only has the lvl 40 riding mount. He is more interested in doing arena than anything but his gear is mostly greens. The money he did make was to buy cloth to get the entire FSW set. And yet he can not possible get Kara attuned without dropping 1400 gold because you have to go to the Arc. I believe this to be a sham. I know gold is pretty easy to make now and days but still you should not be forced to pay an extortion to be attuned for any instance.
Addie Aug 28th 2007 8:38AM
Isn't that chart outdated since they removed the attunements for Serpentshire and Tempest Keep? What's really required to get to Hyjal now?
Tridus Aug 28th 2007 8:42AM
When people talk about attunements, there's lots of talk about "dedication" and "screening out noobs". People forget two very important facts about attunements:
1. They weren't in the original game. They were only added after the fact to Molten Core because instance population caps were added. Since only 10 people could be in BRD, your entire 40 person raid couldn't charge to Molten Core's entrance anymore. Hence, a very simple attunement quest to take a shortcut directly into Molten Core. BWL had one for the exact same reason. AQ40 didn't have one at all. Only Naxx actually had one, and that seemed more focused on making people grind Argent Dawn rep then anything else.
2. See Naxx. Most of the attunements in BC were actually rep grinds. Those don't "screen out noobs". They don't reward hardcore raiders. They just waste everyones time.
Karazhan attunement was fine. Gruul and Magtheridon didn't have one. SSC required a rep grind. Tempest Keep required two rep grinds.
Remind me again why I should have to grind Sha'tar and Honor Hold rep if my guild needs my Mage alt to sheep some trash on the way to Al'ar simply due to real life keeping our other Mages busy one day? What does mindlessly farming Mechannar (which any PUG can do) do to prepare me for raiding? What does doing it for the second or god forbid third time accomplish except wasting my time?
You'll notice how Blizzard removed the attunements that required rep grinds (SSC, Tempest Keep), but not the ones that didn't (Karazhan, Hyjal). There's a reason for that.
BiggusGeekus Aug 28th 2007 8:45AM
When you reach maximum level in the game, better equipment becomes the new level. But most people don't realize this. They don't want to "waste" their time getting (for example) Tier X gear and try to skip to Tier X+1.
The result is dozens of attempts where they respec for different instances and buy materials for enchantments and gems to tailor their characters for particular bosses. If you're at the very end of the game (a moving goalpost) that's sort of expected. But for something like Kara?
That's what's good about keys. They force the players to realize that if they don't have the gear to open the front door, things will only get worse once they step inside. This hurts hardcore players who have to close their eyes and pray everyone is actually ready and it hurts casuals who waste what little time they have to play on content they simply aren't ready for.
Now what happens is that guilds will help lesser geared players through the key requirements. Four of the best in the guild will help a 5th who just hit maximum level. To that I can only say: Blizzard warned you and you didn't listen.
Personally? I think they should have some kind of gear evaluation code. Something that checks the item level of each slot. If you don't measure up, you don't get in.
killerDJMW Aug 28th 2007 8:45AM
For Hyjal, you still need a kill of Lady Vashj and Kel'thas. They removed attunments to SSC and The Eye.
Abruzzi Aug 28th 2007 8:51AM
for me is just bullshit that attunements are rewards for dedicated players... every player pays the same amount and have the same right to see high end content without wasting time. Dedicated players should know that the general population will just 'see' the content.. clear this new content is another conversation. How many guilds went to SSC after they removed the attunement? And how many of them killed the bosses? High end players will do their job, kill the bosses and loot. Normal players will just try. Leave them alone. :)
Ryan Aug 28th 2007 8:50AM
Attunements should really only be done once per account. Having to grind your attunement on every single alt is just plain annoying.
chinchin Aug 28th 2007 9:07AM
agree with #1 ... instance attunements now is pvp..
no one runs instances anymore because people can just do pvp to get t5 equivalents.. once u got the gear u just roll into ssc tk a well geared nooblick who cant play his class..
case in point the shadow priest who finds its too difficult to drop 1000 gold to buy a flying mount... just do your quests and you get 1000 gold easily instead, you have pvp players on pve servers doing absolutely nothing pvp...
leave them on a pvp server and balance up the population on pve servers
Razhlok Aug 28th 2007 1:24PM
I think the attunements they currently have are fine. The previous attunements for SSC and TK didn't fit that well. SSC required you to kill Gruul (that's fair enough) and Nightbane. Killing Nightbane, a 10-man boss, shouldn't be a requirement for a guild to enter a 25-man raid. The TK attunement was completely ridiculous, defeating Shattered Halls, Steamvaults, Shadow Labyrinth and Arcatraz all in heroic mode and then killing Magetheridon. It made it too hard to attune new people to the guild.
There should be 3 seperate layers of group content in this game: 5-mans, 10-mans and 25-mans and they should all be, for the most part, independant of each other.
Zghuk Aug 28th 2007 9:00AM
attunements... hmpf... bad for twinks!
Jancith Aug 28th 2007 9:12AM
The Kz attunement is incredibly simple - pugs finish it all the time even on my short-bus server.
The only other attunment left is that you have to finish SSC to go to Mt. Hyjal. That chart is not accurate.
So...what's the big deal?