120370-attuned-and-unattuned-endgame-content

Page 1, Page 2, Page 3, Page 4, Page 5, Page 6
== Content ==
			
Salutations all, and Happy Holidays to the lot of you.
 
Please allow me a moment to offer a suggestion as to what I would like to see in Wildstar. I am not a professional player, I am not a hardcore raider, I do not run a guild, and I don't spend more than 20hrs a week in the game. I played WoW for over 5 years, did a lot of end game in there with a good guild, and played Wildstar from pre-release till I hit level 50 and the Brick Wall that is Attunement and Raiding.
 
I offer the idea of "Attuned" and "UnAttuned".
 
"Attuned" is endgame of Wildstar as it is. Crazy hard raids, working to get the gems and Key, Copper/Silver/Gold levels for dungeons and raids in order for phat loot to drop...all the BAM WOW that has been highlighted as the core of the endgame for Wildstar.
 
"UnAttuned" is where I believe Wildstar need to branch out into in order to survive. Hardcore raiders are well and good, but they lack one important thing: Numbers. Many hard core players are going to MOBAs because they can do elite competative playing without needing to level and farm gear. The casual and semi-hardcore players that carried WoW for so long are leaving Wildstar because while they enjoy the game and the content (as I did), that Brick Wall of Attunement just shuts them down, and gets them to look somewhere else to spend their time instead of banging their head against a wall JUST to be able to hardcore raid. As a parent and a full time student, i don't have the time to put into that kind of commitment just to enjoy endgame content. I enjoyed ever moment of getting to level 50 with my Engineer, and once I looked into doing Attunement, I quite the game and walked away for 5 months because I didn't have the time or interest in grinding.
 
This is why I suggest "UnAttuned" as an option. Let there be a level of play for those casual and semi-hardcore players who want to do the dungeons and some raids, but can not put the time into grinding out Attunement and 40 man raids/PVP. Get rid of the Bronze/Silver/Gold level of gear for UnAttuned dungeons (as many players dropped from groups the second something went wrong and 'gold' was lost), And expand the end game to allow the casual and semi-Hardcore to have something past level 50 to enjoy.
 
People can play this level of difficulty as they work on Attunement, so they can be familiar with the dungeons and raids before they get 'Attuned' and have the levels of difficulty assigned to them, so even the HardCore players can enjoy the UnAttuned content on their way up to the more difficult level.
 
With something like this in place, Wildstar could not only keep the players they have, but also increase their subscribtion of players as those of us who enjoy the game can participate, without having to sacrifice a work week of hourse to even pretend to be able to raid.
 
Thank you for your time, and may you have a happy New Year.
 
 
EDIT: Adding some clarification, since gear is brought up a lot.
 
Imagine that for endgame gear, you have Item levels from 0-4.
 
Level 0 gear is that gear that you can craft yourself without needing any special recepies. You got your mats, you made your dodads, and now you are better than you were, but don't have uber gear.
 
Level 1 gear is UnAttuned Instance gear. It's better than you can make, but still not world ending. For Unattuned Instances, there is no Medal system. Gear drops, people use it.
 
Level 2 gear is Unattuned Raid Gear. You've ground your way through the instances, practiced you "Don't step in that" dance, and have some sweet toys. You're definitely bad ass.
 
Level 3 gear is Attuned Instance Gear. Before you can get into these instances, you have to do the attunement process (hey, while you're doing Unattuned instances/raids and learning the steps!). The gear in here is super sweet, you have the Medal system so you are rewarded for skill, and You are rocking socks with your leet toys.
 
Level 4 gear is Attuned Raid Gear. This is the Shiznet of Shineys. You've mastered getting gold metals, your DPS is through the roof, and you've found a guild that works like clockwork. It's time to take down the biggest of the bad and get the awesomest of the awesome.
 
This way, there's levels of involvement with the endgame content, and players, no matter what level of dedication they are, can still continue to get that "Feeling of Accomplishment". Without it, people stop playing.
 
Also throwing this out there, as I like the suggestion: Have the Attuned Raids be Faction non-specific. Exiles and Dominion, working together to beat The Bosses. This will allow those who push for the tippity top of the mountain to have company for the Final Showdowns Of Awesomeness.
 
 
With these suggestions, You have endgame content that allows Casual, Mid Range, and 'Hardcore' players things to do, as well as allow the population that makes it to the pinnacle an easier time to fight the big fights without having to force non-'Hardcore' people to rush for the end for something to do, nor make the 'hardcore' people feel as if they spent their time getting leet for nothing since there's not enough people for the fights.
 
Thank you for taking the time to read this. I -really- enjoy Wildstar, and want it to be a fun experiance for everyone.	
----
			
I would be very interested in more things to do in the game outside of raiding as well.
 
More dungeons would be neat, and maybe more dynamic content for all level ranges in all zones, so we have more reasons to re-visit other zones that we spent maybe an hour in while leveling.
 
I don't personally like the idea of unattuned/casual raids, as GA is swiftly reaching that point anyway. Players are getting better the more they play, they are getting their ability points sorted out and unlocking all their amps. Players actually loading their gear with runes is adding a lot to the power level of players, so many many people are getting to the second floor and attuning with ease with the bronze requirement being easily matched.
 
Datascape going to 20 will mean a ton of more people getting in as well to get through content.
 
Drop 4 is adding even more to the power creep, so waiting a few weeks will open up a lot of doors for the semi-hardcore.
 
Giving players gear and making everything super easy is basically playing a console game and rather not in the scope of what makes a game worth playing, and on the point of numbers, MOBAs have entirely different business models for capturing revenue over the traditional subscription of an MMO, so it's a poor comparison.
 
Bringing it back though, I really would be interested in more non-raiding related content to do. Preferably in the form of instances.	
----
			They have already gotten rid of medal locked gear, every medal has a chance to drop anything, the higher the medal  just means more rolls for epics, still not guaranteed, but i havent seen any gold or bust dungeons/adventures, since before the change which was  around the time of drop 2 i beleive, i might be wrong.	
----
			Medal system in dungeons and adventures  with it's challenges is awesome. Don't even think to remove it.	
----
			So basically we need more things to do for unsociable people? I got to DS spending only 9hours a week in GA and attunement is most certainly not a brick wall.	
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
So basically we need more things to do for unsociable people? I got to DS spending only 9hours a week in GA and attunement is most certainly not a brick wall.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
So basically we need more things to do for unsociable people? I got to DS spending only 9hours a week in GA and attunement is most certainly not a brick wall.
----
			
Give more details
 
{| class="blockquote"
This is why I suggest "UnAttuned" as an option. Let there be a level of play for those casual and semi-hardcore players who want to do the dungeons and some raids, but can not put the time into grinding out Attunement and 40 man raids/PVP. Get rid of the Bronze/Silver/Gold level of gear for UnAttuned dungeons (as many players dropped from groups the second something went wrong and 'gold' was lost), And expand the end game to allow the casual and semi-Hardcore to have something past level 50 to enjoy.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Give more details
 
All this says to me is you want adventure level dungeons and raids, which would mean they're literally possible if you roll your face on the keyboard.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
I would be very interested in more things to do in the game outside of raiding as well.
 
More dungeons would be neat, and maybe more dynamic content for all level ranges in all zones, so we have more reasons to re-visit other zones that we spent maybe an hour in while leveling.
 
----
			What about people that can't even roll their face on the keyboards? They need to make it so everyone can enjoy it after all.  ;) Adventures are pretty crazy hard too ya know.	
----
			
Wildstar already has a way to shun away people who can't 'even roll their face on the keyboard': the non-standard MMO combat. You have to actually pay attention to it or you get obliterated even by mooks. In the open world. While levelling. Which is ussually considered the easiest content.
 
In any case, if more players can experience the content, that means you have more players actually playing your game. If they are playing your game, they are spending time on it. Perhaps they'll be having fun. If they are having fun they might get other people to get the game. Or they might play for longer than if they met a roadblock because the developers decided they would catter only to those people who have the leetest rolling faces of them all.	
----
			Just remove attunements completely. There is no good reason for having them.	
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
So basically we need more things to do for unsociable people? I got to DS spending only 9hours a week in GA and attunement is most certainly not a brick wall.
----
			
Please, do not insult our intelligence by implying that people who do group content are sociable. If there's anything we can learn from PvP, raids and every multiplayer game ever is that many people who are playing that content can be vitriolic pustules as far as 'social interaction' is concerned. Not everyone, naturally, but go into a competitive League of Legends match and see how 'nice' and 'helpful' people were until Riot started punishing toxic players a lot more often and a lot harsher.
.
No, solo players are plenty sociable. Many of them only want to be able to play -and- chat with their friends. Because killing things together isn't inherently social: if everyone knows the instance, nobody needs to interact socially with anybody. But talking with people? That's inherently social. It's raw communication. You can tell because you cannot truly speak with someone if you aren't, tautologically, talking with them.
 
So no, soloers and people who dislike groups are not necessarily antisocial. Saying they are is just a gratuitous "I'm gonna throw people who disagree with me on the bag I throw people I find mean and nasty!" attitude.	
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Just remove attunements completely. There is no good reason for having them.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
I'm certainly not opposed to this idea. Just wanted to suggest something that works with what is already in place, instead of removing it outright.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Just remove attunements completely. There is no good reason for having them.
----
			
Skill is not involved at all, Ebp. Attunement is little more than busywork designed to waste the player's time. It's main purpose is to pad the content and limit the ammount of players that are in raids for no good reason. If there was no attuenement, more people would at the very least try the raids. Right now they just see a huge roadblock they have to climb, shrug, and go do something else. Attunement means less potential raiders around.
 
And it's also boring. Nobody reasonable wants to do boring stuff to 'earn' the right to do the fun stuff.	
----
			Can you guys actually define the part that is a roadblock? Is it the adventures, the dungeons or the easy daily stuff you can get done through dailies/r-12/hellrose/random boss groups in your city.	
----
			MMO is about doing a lots of tedious stuff to get something juicy . It's part of your toon's life. Try to get a guild that helps with attunement. :)	
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Skill is not involved at all, Ebp. Attunement is little more than busywork designed to waste the player's time.
{snip}
And it's also boring. Nobody reasonable wants to do boring stuff to 'earn' the right to do the fun stuff.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Can you guys actually define the part that is a roadblock? Is it the adventures, the dungeons or the easy daily stuff you can get done through dailies/r-12/hellrose/random boss groups in your city.
----
			
I'm always somewhat skeptical of the idea behind this.  If the content is boring and not necessary to skillcheck PVE skill, it should be relatively easy to get by if your goal is to do large-group PVE.  If it's a major obstacle to get a group together to do it, I'm not sure how the situation will improve when what you're actually working to achieve (raid attunement) will necessarily require 20 people.  For anyone who has a prayer of raiding, attunement is not a major obstacle.
 
There are a few areas where attunement is actually a legitimate issue:
 
1.  Raid leader logistics.  Attunement is nothing to a good raid player.  Raid leaders need a constant backbench of people who can step into those roles because of single-raid lockouts and the hard-number of raiders (if one or the other was gone, this would no longer be an issue).  Constantly running vet dungeons, world bosses, et al. is a pain if your people are dragging and you're primarily interested in raiding, and it falls on you or an officer to organize and handle it.  A single player should be able to handle his own attunement if he's REALLY adamant about it and then can join a raid guild after, however this falls primarily on guilds to be consistently attuning members, and specifically raid leaders who have to handle it.  It's especially frustrating for them.
 
My suggestion would actually be to remove the single raid lockout, IE letting players run several raids (or unlimited raids and simply limit the amount of gear they can get, rewarding them with a truckload of money or other currency instead if they're clearing bosses they already cleared).  That way, people don't have to be on with just their raiders doing just their raids; people can cross-pollinate in circles and raids together.  It would ease up on scheduling conflicts quite a bit and wouldn't make the attunement process (or even the raiding process) quite so punishing on individual guilds.
 
2.  People on the World Boss step.  This is brought up, legitimately, as the most annoying step of attunement even after the achievement-tracker that should make it simple.  For me, world bosses are something a mercenary does.  I love them; I join every world boss raid as soon as it's called out.  I'll be attuned on my Stalker the second I hit 50 if things keep up as they are.  However, certain issues make this a pain.  The bosses aren't always up, meaning you have to be patient and actually find the things.  Once you find them, sometimes it's hard to get a group together for the world bosses that aren't 15 or 50, that midrange means people traveling to Farside, Wilderrun, and other places they don't often travel.  It's also the hardest thing for the aforementioned raid leaders to coordinate since a boss may be up or may not be up.  Even if you do, there are still numerous bugs that keep you from earning your title.  We had that happen recently on Doomthorn.
 
In addition to fixing those bugs, the game might benefit from crediting players for killing any world boss after they get the quest (in addition to those they've gotten titles for).  That would ease up on the exclusivity of them, but might be a nightmare to code.  Another might be a way for a level 50 to forcibly spawn a world boss.  If this happens in-world, it might be through an item, but there's no reason that level 50s shouldn't be able to go to a holodeck, whether in Thayd, on housing plots, or even in the open world somewhere, and queue up a raid for a world boss.  Essentially, this would make them a boss-in-a-box.  This might empty out the open world, so it might be best to weigh that against the previous mention of spawning them forcibly in the open world, then weighing the costs and rarity of the items that do that.  It shouldn't be just the purview of guilds, though, world bosses in boxes scaled for 50 (vet world bosses?) might be another thing to do for aspiring 50s that give them that raid feeling without that hardcore raider pain.  It's a good stepping stone or thing to do for casuals, is what I'm saying.
 
3.  People who leveled through PVP.  To my knowledge, PVP does not reward faction rep, needed for the first step.  Solo levelers and dungeon runners (as I understand it, I really love questing so that's how I level) get plenty, so running the solo quests easily knocks out this step.  If it hasn't been corrected already, I think PVP play should also reward faction rep for that stage of attunement.  Their PVE skill gets checked later on, over and over, so checking to make sure they've played enough to understand the LAS and AMPs as if they've never played seems like an undue burden.  If this has been corrected in the meantime, disregard.
 
4.  People with alts.  Re-attuning on an alt is not a problem for a raider in a main raid guild who can fire up a key to clear it or has active attunement always going on.  However, those areas I mentioned before are orders of magnitude more frustrating on alts.  Fixing them individually should help immensely as I've proposed, but actively downgrading things like the world boss step or the rep step for an alt might also help.
 
If you aren't attuning because you don't have enough people you know to even attempt 5-man content and can't put together a PUG for a 20 man world boss, I don't think there's much that can be done to help you that actual raiding won't exacerbate.  It requires a lot more people for a lot stricter time schedules doing much harder and more frustrating content than anything attunement can bring to bear.	
----
			
Something quite easy can be done to help players who find it difficult/frustrating/boring to complete attunement... remove it from the game. It's the simplest solution that will benefit the most people, imo.
 
After app. six years raiding various roles in WoW (MT, healer, RL), which is to say that raiding has long been my favourite part of MMOs, I have not set one foot inside a raid instance in Wildstar. The only reason: Attunement is boring and Carbine must think little of my free time if they hope I'm going to grind through that much (easy) content just for the apparently high distinction of trying a WS raid.
 
Dated, boring, uninspired gate. It's time to learn and remove attunements, Carbine.	
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Something quite easy can be done to help players who find it difficult/frustrating/boring to complete attunement... remove it from the game. It's the simplest solution that will benefit the most people, imo.
 
After app. six years raiding various roles in WoW (MT, healer, RL), which is to say that raiding has long been my favourite part of MMOs, I have not set one foot inside a raid instance in Wildstar. The only reason: Attunement is boring and Carbine must think little of my free time if they hope I'm going to grind through that much (easy) content just for the apparently high distinction of trying a WS raid.
 
Dated, boring, uninspired gate. It's time to learn and remove attunements, Carbine.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
My suggestion would actually be to remove the single raid lockout, IE letting players run several raids (or unlimited raids and simply limit the amount of gear they can get, rewarding them with a truckload of money or other currency instead if they're clearing bosses they already cleared).  That way, people don't have to be on with just their raiders doing just their raids; people can cross-pollinate in circles and raids together.  It would ease up on scheduling conflicts quite a bit and wouldn't make the attunement process (or even the raiding process) quite so punishing on individual guilds.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Wisdom
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
FFXIV has done this recently (or is it that it's coming in a soon patch? Can't remember) - letting players run Coil however many times they want but only giving them a shot at gear once. I quit the game, so I'm not 100% sure how it's being received by the playerbase, but it was something that a lot of people had been asking for and it seems quite helpful. The only downside would be an uptick in people selling clears (which is a huge thing in XIV), but that's not really that big of a deal.
 
Carbine just needs to get rid of the world boss part of the attunement though. Or make me grind up materials that I have to take to the spawn point in the open world, use, and spawn the boss manually.
----
			
People were selling attunement runs not long after launch at least on Pergo and I am sure on other servers too.
 
To be honest without attunement the skill check moves on guilds as opposed to guilds, also makes it easier for players to be attuned on multiple toons to help guilds progress.
 
Comparing Wildstar GA vs Heroic Garrosh I found this below very interesting. Even a year after SOO was released I believe the % completing heroic Garrosh (before the rebranding to Mythic) was under 3%. The main difference came in terms of participation.
 
 
[–]xachariah 12 points
 	6 hours ago	* 			Skill checks exist and work fine.	In WoW, four months after the release of the final raid of the expansion, only 0.14-0.23% active cap leveled characters had defeated Heroic Garrosh (% varies depending on source). That is roughly equivalent to Wildstar's ~0.3% in 6 months.	Similarly, in WoW, world first H Garrosh occurred 3 weeks after SoO was unlocked while Wildstar's T1 final boss was killed 3 weeks after launch.	That's a perfect skill check in both cases. The bosses were killable almost instantly with perfect play and organization, but almost nobody could kill them even with vastly better gear.	The difference is that WoW raids has 4 difficulty levels with 60% of active population having killed a raid boss, while Wildstar has 1 difficulty level resulting in that 1.3% participation.	Skill checks exist in MMOs, and both WoW and Wildstar are able to do them. The trick is that WoW is able to make those skill checks a gentle slope that gets easier with freely given gear, while Wildstar make the skill checks a sheer cliff that's only surmountable with tons of grinding	
----
			
Manually spawned world bosses would probably be a good idea, I believe. I'm not sure if Carbine placed their long respawn timers because of a fear of them being farmed. Though to be honest I'm not sure if that's actually a problem. Do any of the world bosses drop any way-too-good gear or expensive materials or something of the sort?
 
{| class="blockquote"
 I'm not sure why everyone's anger never centered on raid lockouts even though it is, technically, why it's so hard for attuned players to get together and play or to plan with extra people.  It's also a pretty egregious time sink, worse than attunement, at least.  That seems to be pretty well ignored while people go after flex raiding or banishing attunement, but I think it's the actual source of the pain for raiders and raid guilds.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
FFXIV has done this recently (or is it that it's coming in a soon patch? Can't remember) - letting players run Coil however many times they want but only giving them a shot at gear once. I quit the game, so I'm not 100% sure how it's being received by the playerbase, but it was something that a lot of people had been asking for and it seems quite helpful. The only downside would be an uptick in people selling clears (which is a huge thing in XIV), but that's not really that big of a deal.
 
Carbine just needs to get rid of the world boss part of the attunement though. Or make me grind up materials that I have to take to the spawn point in the open world, use, and spawn the boss manually.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
I know when they released Turns 6-10, they removed the weekly lockout on Turns 1-5. At the time, 6-10 still had lockout. They may have changed that again though, since i quit in the spring.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
I'd agree if every pug was clearing every vet dungeon like it was cake.  I just get the impression that people need the early skill check in Wildstar.  It's not like WoW where, especially these days, raids are part of a long upswing in characters needed instead of a huge difficulty spike.
I just don't see any evidence in game while I'm playing that the components of attunement have been made so redundantly simple that they should be taken as read by every single player in the game.  I can see adjustments being made to help the aforementioned parties that are most aggrieved by it, but I've yet to walk into a group of fresh 50s that never touched a vet dungeon that I think could even one-shot a vet dungeon, much less skip them entirely and walk into a raid.
----
			
Personally I feel that attunement as a "trainer" raid would be better. If the point of attunement is to get people ready for raids, the honestly it doesn't do a very good job. Vet dungeons just aren't big enough to require raid level coordination and worldbosses aren't difficult enough. 
 
I agree that some sort of "skill check" would be good for raiding, but attunement isn't a skill check at all, its just a time sink. My guild is on the first floor of GA and were still working on attuning more people. Among them are people that even after attunement i absolutely know are NOT ready for raiding. They're only there because the guild was willing to put in the time and effort to get them attuned, not because they can work at a raid level. 
 
One of the reasons i liked SWTOR raiding was because the storymode raids ( lowest difficulty) weren't very hard, and provided a nice, easy way to introduce raiding and working in a large group without being as cutthroat as the harder difficulty modes. When i joined there were also 4 max level raids at varying difficulty levels, meaning that in some ways there was a "raid progression" from easier raid level content to harder. Something along that line would be much better as a form of attunement imo, and would remove this silly time sink that doesn't do anything currently other than ensure you have a guild willing to put a few nights a week into doing worldbosses.
 
Anyway, bringing it back to the op's topic, an easymode raid would be more in line with attunement-as-a-gate-to-raiding, freeing up worldbosses and other "attunement" content for solo players and this "unattuned" content.	
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
 
People were selling attunement runs not long after launch at least on Pergo and I am sure on other servers too.
 
To be honest without attunement the skill check moves on guilds as opposed to guilds, also makes it easier for players to be attuned on multiple toons to help guilds progress.
 
Comparing Wildstar GA vs Heroic Garrosh I found this below very interesting. Even a year after SOO was released I believe the % completing heroic Garrosh (before the rebranding to Mythic) was under 3%. The main difference came in terms of participation.
 
 
[–]xachariah 12 points
 6 hours ago * 
Skill checks exist and work fine.
In WoW, four months after the release of the final raid of the expansion, only 0.14-0.23% active cap leveled characters had defeated Heroic Garrosh (% varies depending on source). That is roughly equivalent to Wildstar's ~0.3% in 6 months.
Similarly, in WoW, world first H Garrosh occurred 3 weeks after SoO was unlocked while Wildstar's T1 final boss was killed 3 weeks after launch.
That's a perfect skill check in both cases. The bosses were killable almost instantly with perfect play and organization, but almost nobody could kill them even with vastly better gear.
The difference is that WoW raids has 4 difficulty levels with 60% of active population having killed a raid boss, while Wildstar has 1 difficulty level resulting in that 1.3% participation.
Skill checks exist in MMOs, and both WoW and Wildstar are able to do them. The trick is that WoW is able to make those skill checks a gentle slope that gets easier with freely given gear, while Wildstar make the skill checks a sheer cliff that's only surmountable with tons of grinding
 
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
While I understand where this is coming from, it doesn't necessarily take into account the realities of the game.  The truth is, it's still very hard for players to complete a veteran dungeon in Wildstar.  That's why it keeps popping up as a positive step in the attunement process.  Outside of that, what is there?  Really, the only ones I can see being a justifiable complaint are the reputation grind (it's worse for PVPers, but it still seems odd to get people to play up to 50 and then need to play beyond if they haven't finished their Exile or Dom rep) and the 20 man world bosses (because they're such a hassle to do logistically).  I don't make the jump into saying they're thus unnecessary, since my personal experience is that a LOT of people need a lot of practice before they can step into a raid. 
I mean, look, it's hard enough managing a raiding guild as it is.  I'd rather not foist more load onto raid leaders to know who is and is not experienced enough.  It sounds easy enough to say things like, "Well, if they're not good enough, they'll get removed from the raid."  That's fine, but there are other raiders who would rather not have their time wasted essentially skill checking players at the door.  They have to do that enough already, at least they have one tool where they can say, "You actually can't even raid until you've cleared this content and proved you can at least do it (or know someone who will carry you)."
 
So there's a lot to this.  There's a good argument for making a way to make the world bosses summonable instead of timed, so that they can be more easily worked for attunement.  There are arguments to be made for making world bosses veteran and/or making them more worthwhile for people to do after attunement (to repopulate the people who want to do it).  Really, I think this is where we need to go.
 
I just can't say bits of attunement should be removed yet; my experience in random queues is that the large majority of people simply are not ready for that to happen.
 
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
The issue is that the raiding population is not growing, at best it is stagnant.  Attunement is at least a part of the problem, it is a barrier to both new players and alts.  You are right that removing attunement places the burden on the guild leadership to screen, but right now the attunement places the burden on the guild as well as the leadership if you are struggling with attendance, both in terms of getting people attuned and having raids be cancelled because of low attendance.
 
There are good arguments for doing a lot of things.  Any changes will require work, and for me outright removal is preferrable as that appears to be the least amount of work (and certainly eliminates any future adjustments).  I would also be fine with just adventure/dungeon bronze (I was a proponent of keeping silver, with the adjustments, as it was the only skill check), especially with the changes to gearing in drop 4.  The attunement is a big mountain, with a bunch of busywork bloat, that people are just passing on, which is unfortunate since raiding is really some of the best content available.
----
			
I am a little confused reading this thread, because the OP was basing his suggestion at least partially on the way things were 5 months ago, and not the way they are now (or the way they'll be after Drop 4).
 
Maybe we should step back and look at the components of attunement and figure out what's actually harder than it should be.  As I understand it, you need:
 
- World boss kills
- Silver/Gold on Vet adventures
- Completion (Bronze) on Vet dungeons
- Faction
 
Taking these a piece at a time...
 
Issues with world boss kills:
- Contested (they're not always up for a guild/group working on attunement)
- Achievements don't always apply to people in the fight.
 
Issues with Vet Adventures:
- Getting silver/gold on most adventures requires "gaming the system".  For example, on vet WotW, the group probably has to hold back and leave totems in enemy hands until all optional objectives have been completed.  Malgrave Trail suffers from similar problems with its medal requirements.
 
Issues with Faction:
- Players who level up via PvP or skip quests as they level have a hard time meeting faction requirements.
 
When I think about it, these are the only mechanical issues I can think of with the system as it stands.  Whether this constitutes a "brick wall" or not depends on the person and their mindset, but if we're going to talk about fixing/changing the game, it seems like it would be easier simply to target these issues than to try and introduce a bunch of different tiers of content.
 
Although, I do agree with Vic about raid lockouts being too restrictive right now.	
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
 
Issues with Vet Adventures:
- Getting silver/gold on most adventures requires "gaming the system".  For example, on vet WotW, the group probably has to hold back and leave totems in enemy hands until all optional objectives have been completed.  Malgrave Trail suffers from similar problems with its medal requirements.
 
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
I'm not discounting that, however, I don't think that, fundamentally, making raids available for people to run without content is necessarily going to lead to a larger raiding population.  I think that, to accept that premise as read, you have to assume that people are not okay with the things in the attunement process being a precursor to raiding.  Thus that the only reason people aren't raiding is that they don't want to run the quests in the series, the faction rep, vet adventures, vet dungeons, and world bosses.  If this is true, removing the attunement means that, realistically, people will be required to gear up through endless adventure and dungeon runs anyway or try to walk into GA with fresh 50 gear.  I think that the real issue is that people actually do just want to walk into GA; that's not going to end with a larger viable raiding population.  That's going to end here on the forums with the raids being inaccessibly hard, the gear grind being too lengthy, et al.  In essence, there is no solution here that will be viable until the raids come down to the level of the players.  I don't feel that's an acceptable answer.
And that's only if it actually works.  There's every chance that removing attunement won't encourage anyone to gear for it because they just aren't interested in large group content and won't see the idea that they don't have to do world bosses as any better than having to gear for and learn the fights.  I simply made the recommendations I made because I think that they solve the problems, you get 20 man content that people can consume easily, and that may encourage people to grind that gear for the next step (especially if they're grinding it that way anyway).  Attacking the lockout system will probably help with the roster boss better than anything else Carbine can rationally bring to bear.
----
			
I don't actually agree with the OP at all. Creating yet another tier of second-class citizens by separating raiders into "Attuned" and "Not Attuned" is not going to be good for this game. It has too many ways to be a second-class citizen already. The only real value that attunement provides is to raiding guild leaders, and they could get the exact same value from simply attaching a title to confirm that the character has got the "Access Granted: Genetic Archives" achievement. The title could be something like "Caretaker Approved", and you could be required to display it or send in a screenshot as a requirement for admission into the guild. Problem solved.
 
As for the idea that attunement is there to keep players who just aren't ready out of raids for their own good, that's just the height of arrogance. If my chums and I aren't ready, then we go in and get our asses handed to us when we try it out. Just like if I take my level 20 character into Malgrave--which, by the way, the game does allow me to do. It warns me that I'm way underlevel, asks me if I'm OK with a horrible meaningless death, and then shrugs and lets me through when I say "bring it on".
 
But frankly, attunement isn't terribly relevant to the overall health of the game or to its viability in the future. What IS relevant is that the game's developers continue to insist--in the face of clear evidence to the contrary--that a game model that funnels everyone into a "Learn To Raid, Cupcake" endgame is financially viable.
 
Most people playing the game aren't hardcore raiders and never will be. The real way to stabilize the game is to provide a viable endgame for the people who show up and pay to be here just like raiders and rated BGers but who spend most of their play time playing solo; or with a spouse/friend; or with a small group of friends that can field a full team sometimes but not reliably. That's the majority of people playing the game. They may get together with similarly small groups to enter raid instances once in a while and get slammed around while they see if it's enough fun to make a more serious effort worthwhile, but that's as far into raids as most of them will ever go. 
 
And before the pack of wild skeech descends to howl about how that's not what this game IS, we were all told that there would be endgame paths for a range of playstyles. Veteran shiphands, just FYI, are not that path. Nor are veteran dungeons. Nor is anything else that exists to train you how to do the stuff where the REAL challenges and prizes are.
 
I thought the developers learned this lesson from what happened at launch, but I guess they didn't because reports from the PTR indicate that Veteran Shiphands are: 1) intended to be training for new 50s who just aren't "ready" for Veteran Dungeons at all, and 2) don't feed into the new Glory system.
 
So that's a big middle finger headed towards the majority of the game's paying customers when Drop 4 comes out. I would've thought that Carbine learned not to do that with what happened at launch, but I guess not. I suppose the game will probably survive it, but if it doesn't I certainly won't be blaming NCSoft for it.	
----
			As much as i like ws, carbine is giving me a lot of reasons to leave the game.	
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
I thought the developers learned this lesson from what happened at launch, but I guess they didn't because reports from the PTR indicate that Veteran Shiphands are: 1) intended to be training for new 50s who just aren't "ready" for Veteran Dungeons at all, and 2) don't feed into the new Glory system.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Issues with Vet Adventures:
- Getting silver/gold on most adventures requires "gaming the system".  For example, on vet WotW, the group probably has to hold back and leave totems in enemy hands until all optional objectives have been completed.  Malgrave Trail suffers from similar problems with its medal requirements.
----
			
Yea, I don't buy the skill check argument for a second. The majority of the attunement has nothing to do with skill or raids (rep grind, quests, adventures, world bosses... as someone stated, only the dungeon runs are comparable and in many cases people will just be carried by better players/guildies). Another point is that just completing an attunement doesn't make you raid-ready, only raiding does that. I raided WoW for months before I really started to excel at my roles, and frequently excelling also included research and experimentation. Then there are the players who just plain suck at raiding and most likely always will. Why run them through a boring attunement process just so they can realize they're not good or don't like raiding, then quit?
 
Other than taking personal responsibility to ensure you're up to snuff, the burden of ensuring raiders are raid-ready is on one group only: The raid leaders. That's it. It's not up to Carbine to vet players, it's not up to Carbine to tell a RL who's good enough to be in their raid. Very simple, really. If raiders who are "not prepared" want to raid, LET THEM. If raiders who are skilled and experienced want to raid without leaping  a bunch of tedious hurdles, LET THEM.
 
This is Wildstar, not *cupcake* e-sports.
 
As to making things "easier" by removing attunement, some of you folks need to learn the distinction between challenge and quality of life. Raiding is obviously a significant drain on Carbine's assets, particularly moving forward, and they'd better make that time count for their community,. and not only for the percentage of players who enjoy/suck it up for flimsy and cumbersome (in context of guild management) content gates.
 
I'm currently on Bronze Dungeons, after having to grind rep (punishment for choosing to level in PVP to about 35), and running a bunch of tear-inducing adventures that are on par with the easiest gaming I've ever been exposed to. So in order to try, again, to simply try a Wildstar raid, I now have to try to find/organize a bunch of dungeon runs with my ailing faction, or join a guild I'm not sure I want to be in to get carried, and then log frequently/cross my fingers for a series of boring world boss fights. Conclusion: I will not be raiding in Wildstar solely because of attunements.	
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Its Silver and they have been changed significantly since launch.  WotW does not require the "gaming" it used to.  Kill stuff, complete both objectives, don't die too much and you'll get gold.
 
I believe we did all 4 silver adventures for a guy's alt last weekend in less than 2 hours.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
My recent experience is different from yours.  We run, on average, about 2 vet WotWs a week.  We go in, we fight the other team, we take totems, we win.  More often than not, we get bronze.  Why?
 
The answer is that we're usually too fast - for example we capture all the totems and then the objective pops up to capture totems.  Or something similar.  We go in and we play efficiently, and the instance penalizes us for it.
 
Don't get me wrong - we'll do what we have to do to get people attuned when the time comes.  But I would argue that the medal requirement for adventures simply needs to be dropped to bronze altogether, unless the medals are actually going to start being awarded for skill and efficiency.  How medals should be won probably merits its own thread.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
The answer is that we're usually too fast - for example we capture all the totems and then the objective pops up to capture totems.  Or something similar.  We go in and we play efficiently, and the instance penalizes us for it.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Unless you're planting all 5 of you at different totems and capturing them all at once when you're 1 totem from the next objective that shouldn't be possible.  IF that's what you're doing you're simply doing it wrong and need to learn the adventure.  Knowing that the objectives come at 4 and between 7-10 totems (I think that's what it is?) and waiting until the objective shows up (5s maaaaybe) isn't gaming the system its understanding the adventure mechanics.  That being said CRB certainly isn't above buggy content so if its taking forever for the objectives to show up after hitting the totem count then that's something else.  Although I haven't seen that for months.
 
- Are you killing enough enemy npcs?  (you said team, you know its not actually player right?)
 
- Are you dieing a bunch? 
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
There's a much longer time delay on the objectives than 5 seconds.  Perhaps that is the main problem - we roll through the totems one at a time, but we'll be at 6-7 totems completed before the first objective shows up most of the time.
 
And no, we don't die.
 
The last two runs we did, the groups finished with every totem down in 12 minutes.
 
And no offense, knowing when the objectives will come and waiting for it isn't "understanding the mechanics".  If the adventure can't keep up with a group of players that's good enough to move quickly, then it's broken.  I know my guildies aren't rocking the best gear either, so I'm quite sure that there's a lot of folks having trouble with this as well.
 
Ironically, the problem would be solved if the vet mode had the same number of totems as the normal mode does.
 
Again though, this is probably better left as a discussion for a different thread (in the right part of the forums).
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Just remove attunements completely. There is no good reason for having them.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Maby the reason is too brick wall all the lazy, Unsocial, or even bad players?
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
That being said if you have to wait longer to get an objective to show up... just do it.  You brought up WotW as a barrier to attunement and can't even be bothered to wait for the adventure to allow you to get silver or gold?
 
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Snipe
----
			Why isn't the attunement just Veteran Dungeons and thats it?	
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
You're missing the point (and being kind of rude besides - are you normally this rude?).  The point is that the requirement as it currently stands relies on a mechanic which is neither obvious nor intuitive to players.  It requires players to modify the way that they're playing, and in many cases purposely slow down or handicap themselves, in order to meet a set of arbitrary objectives which they likely won't have any foreknowledge about.
 
You need to remember that the vast majority of players do not come read the forums and will likely not go searching for "how do I get gold on WotW".  Nor will they really want to change how they're playing in order to make a requirement, even if they do.  I was pointing this out specifically as an example of a place where the requirements cause problems for people who want to pursue attunement and start raiding organically (the way that most people actually play) - they add to that "brick wall" feeling that is being discussed here.
 
I respect that you haven't run into this problem yourself but I am here to tell you that it is happening and it is a problem.  And this is just one example of problems with the medal system causing pain for players who just want to get into raiding.  It is up to you if you want to believe it or not, but I'd appreciate it if you weren't so rude and condescending in your responses.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
So do I correctly understand you to be taking the position that you view it as a real problem on the path to raiding that people pursuing attunement are already so OP prior to ever setting foot in a raid that they can blow through Vet WotW faster than the game's objectives keep up with them?
 
Or is the problem that the people who are carrying them through are that OP, in which case the attunement process is being circumvented and becomes literally meaningless?
----
			Unattuned Endgame = Find a Guild and get attuned. I guarantee you if you ask around in your capital city you'll find one. There's really no excuse at all for being Guildless at level 50. All you have to do is ask politely in zone chat and boom. It's not very hard. The hard part is finding one you love to stick around with, but even that is just trial and error.	
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Unattuned Endgame = Find a Guild and get attuned.
----
			This is not that game. This is not the place where easy-modes of the same content is going to exist.	
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
[...] played Wildstar from pre-release till I hit level 50 and the Brick Wall that is Attunement and Raiding.
 
[...] I enjoyed ever moment of getting to level 50 with my Engineer, and once I looked into doing Attunement, I quite the game and walked away for 5 months because I didn't have the time or interest in grinding.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Which parts of the attunement caused you the most issues? How do they compare now to the steps required back in July?
 
Also, the overall comments in the post are actually something we are looking into. We really like the challenge that vet dungeons and the raids can give to players. However, we can do a much better job of ramping players up into that content. On the 1.2.0 PTR (up now, go try things! Feedback plug!), Protogames Academy is a step in that direction.
 
In the future we would also like to create additional stair-step-style content like that, and are working on some plans to encourage it more.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Which parts of the attunement caused you the most issues? How do they compare now to the steps required back in July?
 
Also, the overall comments in the post are actually something we are looking into. We really like the challenge that vet dungeons and the raids can give to players. However, we can do a much better job of ramping players up into that content. On the 1.2.0 PTR (up now, go try things! Feedback plug!), Protogames Academy is a step in that direction.
 
In the future we would also like to create additional stair-step-style content like that, and are working on some plans to encourage it more.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
 
It's easy to balance. For example, when balancing a new dungeon, grab 5 people in the office that consider themselves "casual" wildstar players. Have them run through the content. They should be able to complete the dungeon not knowing anything about it, in a couple hours for the first run through. If they can't, simply adjust telegraph casting time and damage of enemy specials until they can. At that point, it's good for release.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
I just picked up my key as a full on PVP 1800 warrior. Ran through the Attunement..... Exalted already/.
As of yesteday. Completed 2 vet adventures on silver. Completed all vet dungeons on silver. Killed all world bosses. 
I've found the attunement process super easy compared to what users used to say. It will have taken me all of 2 days to complete it now. 
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Reading this statement the first thought that came up was "That's what normal mode is supposed to be".
 
Is the problem just that there's not a level 50 version of normal mode for anything other than SSM?  Or are you saying that attunement should require normal mode rather than veteran mode?
 
I ask this because the game already has an easy/hard switch.  It's just that everyone is fixated on the hard mode, either because of attunement or because of the level.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
The timeframe he is referring to required silver medals on each veteran dungeon. This has since been lowered to bronze.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
It's easy to balance. For example, when balancing a new dungeon, grab 5 people in the office that consider themselves "casual" wildstar players. Have them run through the content. They should be able to complete the dungeon not knowing anything about it, in a couple hours for the first run through. If they can't, simply adjust telegraph casting time and damage of enemy specials until they can. At that point, it's good for release.
----
			
While leveling you learn what your skills do and the most basic mechanics.
 
While in adventures you learn to be social as they need coordination. Not amazing gaming skillllzzz, but coordination from the group. The group has to know what to do when to do and when not. This is the step where you try to find players at the same step as you if you don't have some ppl to pull you through already in which case these adventures will be passed in indeed 1-2 hours, but they won't teach you a single thing. When you think about it adventures might be the first reason for you to join a guild...JOIN A GUILD IN AN MMO..CAN YOU IMAGINE!??!?!?
 
I agree world bosses have no function whatsoever..for the lulz? I've seen people say that they've been weeks at this step. Every single day I still see zone chat in illium forming a group to hunt those miserable things around the game world. Again I have to think from experience it's not the game at fault, but the players laziness. Log in -> yell in zone chat LFG WB's -> nobody answers in 1 minute -> logout. CARBONE IMA STUCK! This step took me about 5-6 hours divided for different days to complete. I agree it was 5-6 hours for nothing gained tho, but no game is purrfect.
 
And so we come to the dungeon phase. Now you hopefully have some friends in the game or have joined a guild fitting for you. If you haven't you have failed the game called MMO. I did the attunement also in the first month the game was out. I was always ok with the silver requirement, but as stated above the itemization having a 4x rng per drop made it frustrating as even if you pulled through the dungeons again and again you didn't have it any easier cause you gained no gear from them. Only gold runs dropped the good stuff then etc.. So they changed the itemization in a huge way with static rune slot amounts and more varied choice in runes. I can't even imagine how much better this change made the attunement. They also made dungeons drops work differently so you could get the best loots of the dungeon even without any medal whatsoever. They also dropped the instance requirement to bronze which can be pulled through by a group of five that has never seen the dungeon before if they have an hour for STL, KV an SC and 2-3 hours for SSM. The problem I see in this post is the attitude that everyone should be able to ace everything without a hitch.
 
There are games that give the chance to the same gear/content for players that play 2 hours in a week and for people that play at least 2 hours a day in average. I mean "you play more, you get better, you get more" has to make sense or it becomes hello kitty adventures very fast. The hello kitty adventures that many MMO's in todays market are.	
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
...
They also dropped the instance requirement to bronze which can be pulled through by a group of five that has never seen the dungeon before if they have an hour for STL, KV an SC and 2-3 hours for SSM.
...
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
No, it can't, and that's one of the problems.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
No, it can't, and that's one of the problems.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Which dungeons and which parts of them are you struggling with?
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
I simply cannot fathom how one could kill all world bosses in under 2 days. o.o; I guess unless you're playing 24/7...
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
My guild could clear vet adventures with ease. Dungeons were a different story. Even normal mode dungeons could be problematic. The last guild run we did (back when we could muster five players) was a normal KV. It took us well over an hour because the three DPS couldn't survive the first waves of buzzsaws. Needless to say, those three weren't too optimistic about their chances on vet. The only vet dungeon the guild tried was STL. I'm wasn't there at the start, so I can't say how long they spent. I came in at the end when someone had to leave. We never got Stormtalon to the eye phase. I think one person other than me from that group is still playing.
 
I know it can be done. I got first-time gos on vet STL & KV as healer with PUGs. I finished SC as DPS on my second attempt (I died right of the bat to the final boss and his lasers). I'm currently 0/1 for SSM (we stalled at the fire boss).
 
The trouble is balancing the difficulty for the uber players while not making it insurmountable for the average Joe.
----
			The Buzz-saws are easy, just look at where they are coming from and not at your character. Look for the gaps and follow them. If you've ever played a semi old-school video game in your life it's very easy to pick up the motions.	
----
			
Don't take my word for it but... I think the most likely issue with buzzsaws for new players is the camera, you want to be against the wall nearly but the camera isn't very friendly in that situation.It could just be that the dodging is unforgiving to them on top of the DoT attached (If I remember right there was a DoT, can't remember anymore been awhile since I was hit by one).
 
 
{| class="blockquote"
From what I've seen, it's the gimmicks in each dungeon (buzzsaws in KV, lasers in SC & fire walls in SSM) that cause the most trouble.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
...
The only hard part in any of these dungeons are the interrupts, if you're having trouble it's a basic lack of understanding on how vital being able to solo interrupt (and at times cc break) can be.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
From what I've seen, it's the gimmicks in each dungeon (buzzsaws in KV, lasers in SC & fire walls in SSM) that cause the most trouble.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
I ask this because the game already has an easy/hard switch.  It's just that everyone is fixated on the hard mode, either because of attunement or because of the level.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
From what I've seen, it's the gimmicks in each dungeon (buzzsaws in KV, lasers in SC & fire walls in SSM) that cause the most trouble.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
I love those aspects of the game. They just need to be more forgiving of mistakes... across the board.
 
No gimmick should one shot you in a 5 man dungeon.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
All the bosses are up almost all the time, it's more so a question of how much effort are you willing to put in. SW/Aggregor/Hell Bowl/R-12 all count so a typical character you've casually played with will start off at least 40-80% (since you encounter most of these while doing exile rep) of the way done and then you'll just have to pick up a few extra bosses out of the large bunch that are always up.
----
			As far as I know, the last time I actually did the world bosses (which I stated was 2 weeks ago) people were still doing hellrose, r12, SW, etc. and if they needed it you could get a group together while the entire map was lit up with bosses that are up. To be fair though it's possible we're playing two very different games, WS with a guild and WS without one.I ask people to help kill WBs if I need them for attunenment and if one like aggregor is coming up usually people will mention it in chat. In the end it helps a lot.As far as hell rose bowl, it's near R-12 and it's actually up as I speak (at least on entity).	
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
I question your assertion of "all the time". I've only seen Aggregor up once over the past month during my playtime - luckily was able to get in a group to kill him. Never saw this Hell Bowl active and I always seem to be around when there is absolutely nothing going on in the R-12 area (I've basically given up on ever getting that rep). While I was leveling, we saw maybe six world bosses wandering around, but we only managed to catch groups killing them for two of those bosses.
 
I can only assume your playing some completely different game from me.
 
[edit] To throw my two cents in about dungeons - I'd really hate to see any of them nerfed. I've enjoyed every single normal mode I've done (though I haven't been able to get queues to pop for all of them) and am very much looking forward to the challenges of the veteran modes.
----
			Personally I think Skullcano lasers move too fast.  If you're not on the inside track for skullcano you kinda get screwed over against them.	
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Personally I think Skullcano lasers move too fast.  If you're not on the inside track for skullcano you kinda get screwed over against them.
----
			Other than identifying the laser to jump, I really see nothing hard here. You jump and in other cases you jump while moving.	
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
To be fair though it's possible we're playing two very different games, WS with a raiding guild and WS without one.
----
			
Sorry if I discuss anything here that's already been covered. I haven't read the entire thread.
 
I'd like to address the topic of difficulty regarding dungeons and raids. I've seen it mentioned several times in here, and plenty on the forum in general. Right now it seems to boil down to "high end instances need to be made easier and/or more forgiving to allow more casual players in" and "they are fine as they are for the hardcore raiders." What I feel is missed is that the player base isn't just these two groups. There's people in between these two extremes who I don't see mentioned. People who raid casually, or who spend most of their time trying to improve their medals in the dungeons. But also those that take it easy, but do like to try and clear a bronze dungeon from time to time. You may think this obvious, however the forums indicate there is a believe that the casuals far outnumber raiders and that's that. The truly casual may be a sizable portion of the player base, and the hardcore raiders a somewhat small portion, but everyone in between may very well make up the largest part.
 
So with that established, if you'd start adjusting the difficulty scale to make things easier, you won't necessarily create more effective access. Yes it may allow more people in, but it may also make the content much less interesting for many others and aside from raids and dungeons there isn't much in the way of significant challenge for a lot of people. I reckon altering difficulties will do little more than shift the issue and not solve anything. Building more content for varying difficulty levels seems like a much better idea to me.
 
In any case, this thread was about attunement so I'll give my thoughts on that as well. Personally I love the concept of attunements. Being able to walk strait into a piece of content such as a raid is far less rewarding than if I have had to work for obtaining entry. I love collecting keys in that regard. I really hope Carbine keeps them in for future content and that we get a key ring of some sort. That said, I understand the issues an attunement can bring. I see it being called a "padlock" or "road block", even after the changes that were made to the objectives, and it shouldn't be something negative like that. It should be a fun quest chain in and of itself. The fight with Pyralos and the small in between quests on, for example, Farside or aboard the ship are great and unique quests that really fit an attunement quest line, I find. However the ones that require you to max reputation or finish the adventures, dungeons or world bosses are quite lackluster. They carry no uniqueness as you can do these things at any time anyway and fail to truly tie into the quest line. You could argue a step such as "get bronze on the dungeons" is there to prepare and test to see if people are ready for raids. However an encounter such as Pyralos does exactly this, if you attempt to solo him. Expanding on such small scale tests seems much more interesting to me than being told to go run a "generic" piece of content. Another argument could be made that Carbine wants time sinks to prolong the expected clear time for raids but the really hardcore were attuned in a matter of days, if I'm not mistaken. Is that small gain in time sinks really worth making a very attention grabbing piece of content such as attunements less interesting?
 
So, moving forward I hope Carbine sticks with attunements cutting away the time sink quests whilst keeping and adding to the great unique encounters such as Pyralos and the other solo quests in that chain.
 
And really Timetravel, a key chain to collect many keys for, pretty please. I'd be a very happy Aurin.	
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
What easy/hard switch are you talking about? Are you referring to Normal STL? Normal STL is level 20 lol
----
			
I find threads like these funny and entertaining. It allows me to stroke my e-peen for clearing oh such hard content (lol).
 
How about you tell Carbine exactly what is OVERWHELMINGLY HARD in the current content so that they can avoid adding this to the oh so hardcore solo dungeons/veteran ship hands and other stuff coming relative soon.
 
None of the current content is impossible or hard if you invest enough time to learn how the game works, which is why the attunement process is there (minus rep and world bosses)	
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
I find threads like these funny and entertaining. It allows me to stroke my e-peen for clearing oh such hard content (lol).
 
How about you tell Carbine exactly what is OVERWHELMINGLY HARD in the current content so that he can avoid adding this to the oh so hardcore solo dungeons/veteran ship hands and other stuff coming relative soon.
 
None of the current content is impossible or hard if you invest enough time to learn how the game works, which is why the attunement process is there (minus rep and world bosses)
----
			
 
{| class="blockquote"
Which parts of the attunement caused you the most issues? How do they compare now to the steps required back in July?
 
Also, the overall comments in the post are actually something we are looking into. We really like the challenge that vet dungeons and the raids can give to players. However, we can do a much better job of ramping players up into that content. On the 1.2.0 PTR (up now, go try things! Feedback plug!), Protogames Academy is a step in that direction.
 
In the future we would also like to create additional stair-step-style content like that, and are working on some plans to encourage it more.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Put another way - how would things change if there *was* a level 50 normal mode (not vet mode) version of each dungeon in the game?
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Not sure why this is the expectation. Players have been trained in the Open World Questing (solo)... Shiphands (instanced solo)... Adventures (instanced basic group)... so it only makes sense that by the time you reach dungeons, you're ready for the mechanics.
 
Just have to practice and use teamwork. Once you learn the puzzle, it's all about execution. That is what makes it fun on more than 1 level.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
? People start doing dungeons at lvl 20. How are they prepared?
----
			
I can understand that the attunement process can seem long and pointless and yes I can agree that it probably needs some tuning but I don't exactly understand what it is that players are looking to gain by it being changed.  Do they simply want attunement to be easier as that's where they are in the game and its tedious or difficult?  Do they want to be in GA faster?
 
If the entire attunement process was removed tomorrow would all the attunement naysayers simply walk into Genetic Archives and be satisfied?
 
If an end goal was more clear perhaps the solution would also be as well.	
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
I can understand that the attunement process can seem long and pointless and yes I can agree that it probably needs some tuning but I don't exactly understand what it is that players are looking to gain by it being changed.  Do they simply want attunement to be easier as that's where they are in the game and its tedious or difficult?  Do they want to be in GA faster?
 
If the entire attunement process was removed tomorrow would all the attunement naysayers simply walk into Genetic Archives and be satisfied?
 
If an end goal was more clear perhaps the solution would also be as well.
----