Last week, Lissanna from Restokin wrote about her view on trash mobs, and why instances need them. I was going to post something on the topic earlier, but I just got back from a great weekend in Melbourne.. and I have Christmas, familiy birthdays, and a few social engagements bearing down on me, argh!


Truth is though, that I do like a bit of chaos and pressure. Christmas time is probably my favourite time of year, because I can really indulge my desire to plan and organise everything. Plus, business deadlines start to close in. It’s funny.. I find that the more work and pressure that I have, the more energy I have, too.


Anyway – I could have just shelved this one because I was a bit late with it, but I did want to write my own take. Better late than never.



Trashless TOC is fine (by itself)


Honestly, I love our trash-less TOC. I don’t think it trivialises the instance or makes it feel boring. I think it is a breath of fresh air – something different. You can get on with things without having to wade through trash first.


But – I don’t think I’d like all instances to be like TOC; it’s only the fact that it’s the only instance of its kind, I guess, that makes it “OK”. If every instance was like TOC, with no trash, then I think things would probably feel a bit cheap and easy.


I agree with Lissanna that trash helps to break up the encounters, and pace things a little. But the problem, I think, is that once you’ve been doing an instance for a few weeks, and you’ve mastered the trash, or you outgear it, it really becomes very tedious to have to clear and reclear each week. It no longer provides a challenge, it’s just an annoying speed-hump standing between you and the bosses. And each week, it becomes more and more irritating to have to reclear it. I believe that in many cases, this stops people wanting to go back, and probably shortens the lifespan of the instance.


I think that’s why we see so many people pugging TOC; because you can just jump right into fighting the bosses. There’s no chronic AFKing on trash, or spending an hour clearing to the first boss and then disbanding because someone had to leave. You can just dive headfirst into the action, no mucking around. I love that. I hope we see more of it.


But, on the flip side, as I said, I don’t think I’d like it to always be like that. There needs to be instances and encounters with trash. If every boss had no trash, it would start to feel a little too easy, a little trivial.


There just needs to be a balance.



Trash that we hated


Naxx: long, winding corridors of pack upon pack upon pack. Packs of cursing and poisoning spiders that made me want to kick puppies. Some novelty in the eye-stalk gauntlet, Frogger, timing the gargoyles properly etc. On the whole – far too much trash.


Sartharion: far too much trash for a single boss.


Hyjal: waves and waves of trash, and if you die at the end of one, you get to start allll over again. Every week you have to clear 20 minute waves of trash.


BT: Supremus’ room: far, far too much to clear. You could skip some of it if you were careful, but it was still far too much trash.


Sunwell: very difficult trash that many guilds struggled to get through to get to the first boss.


Flame Leviathan: fun a few times, while you play around in each type of vehicle; but such a huge area to clear.


Freya: another huge room to clear.


Vezax: a long way to go, then when you get to his room, you have all of those annoying packs of mobs, plus the two big guys. Glad it was reduced a little. Not terribly difficult, just so TEDIOUS.



Author’s note:


RAID-WIDE POISONS AND CURSES: STOP DOING THIS. SERIOUSLY. I absolutely LOATHE these pulls. They serve no purpose other than to make the pulls tedious and miserable for cleansing classes. Stop doing it. I can’t even begin to express my seething hatred for these.



Trash concepts that are good

• Novelties like spider tanks on Mimiron trash

• Gauntlets (as long as they are short)
• Achievements for clearing trash fast (like Freya)
• Novelty mounts (AQ40)
• CC pulls – makes people work together instead of “zerging”
• Mobs that restore health/mana when they die (Kara)
• Reputation (how about adding some fun rewards to buy?)
• Trash epic drops
• Herb and ore nodes, and skins, as incentive for clearing
• Final bosses with no trash – it’s a relief
• Small numbers of challenging packs, rather than long sections of dull packs


I think you either need a small number (say, 2 or 3) of challenging packs, or, if you’re hell-bent on a huge room full of trash, then it should provide a reward for clearing. Nodes, a higher chance of trash drops, achievements, or other rewards – there needs to be a trade-off. I can handle large and boring rooms, if it’s not just a large and boring room, every single week.


Slowing raids down for the sake of slowing them down just makes people annoyed and restless – and less likely to want to come back.



Rewards for clearing trash


One of Lissanna’s main points is that trash rewards raiders even if they don’t kill the boss.


I agree and disagree. It’s true in theory, but I think that these days, trash is less rewarding than it used to be. Sure, there are BOE drops, but often these go to the guild vault, so the players don’t really benefit (at least directly, in a way that they feel glad they came for the trash). I think players need to feel that they, personally, are getting something out of long trash, otherwise it’s just a chore.


I would love to see the return of reputations from raids – with more rewards. Let’s face it, most of the rep rewards in the past have been sidegrades at best – by the time you’ve done enough runs of Instance X, you likely outgear anything that the rep vendor offers you. How about offering things like:


- BOA items
- pets and mounts
- tabards
- more powerful food, only able to be used in that instance
- a way to port to the instance (like the BT neck or Argent tabard)
- novelties, like costumes or single-use items, novelty foods, trinkets


I treasured (and still use) my BT neck. Of course, that was a quest reward – but we could have something similar to the Argent tabard that ports you to the tournament grounds. Food, buffs, perhaps even special flasks that you can only purchase at exalted rep and can only be used inside that instance, or perhaps even cooking or alchemy recipes for buffs that can only be used there (although this may have economic implications – but you get the idea).



Speed things up for old hats


How about selling an exalted mount that allows you to travel through the instance faster than normal mounts? This would make wipe recovery faster, which helps to ease the strain on veteran guilds that are getting jaded after being in the instance for a long time.


Or, even more fun, something like a bomb detonator (with limited charges) so that next time you have to run the frogger bomb gauntlet at Mimiron, you can protect the raid by blowing up the bombs? Or a flag that acts basically as a totem, that you can put down and it gives you +X damage against elementals, so clearing Freya’s room becomes faster and easier?


Basically – items that are a mix of fun, a slight money sink, and most importantly – novel ways to speed up the instance for guilds that have been there for what may seem like an eternity. Anything that helps trash go a little faster will help these guilds feel like the instance is less of a chore.


I also think that we should see more nodes in instances, to reward guilds for clearing everything. Epic gems or frost lotus for the bank is definitely nice compensation for having to clear a room of trash.


I think they’re also introducing raid “dailies”, but I’m not sure of the format of these. I’d love to see raid quests that require you to kill X flowers in Freya’s room or Y iron dwarves leading up to Flame Leviathan – with an emblem and cash rewards for completing them. This would make tedious rooms much more rewarding because you know you’re going to get 26g and an emblem, which then goes towards your upgrades and repair bills. They’d need to make sure people couldn’t just reset and cheat, though.


Of course, I’m not saying that we should throw epics at people just for walking in and killing the first couple of pulls – but I do think that trash should be more rewarding, particularly if it is long.



The balance


Overall, I agree with Lissanna that trash is helpful to set the pace in instances; but I don’t think that it should become such a tedious chore for veterans of the zone. Trash should provide a challenge for a while, but we shouldn’t have to clear long corridors of trash, or waves, or encounter trash that is a massive “gear check” like Sunwell – unless there is a small reward for doing so.


It should:

• be challenging for the new people, but not an impossible bottleneck

• not be tedious and discouraging for farming guilds – can we improve this?
• alternate between large and small, zerg and CC
• add the occasional novelty pulls
• trade off between small/fast packs and longer clears that are more rewarding
• contribute to repeatable quests for emblem/cash rewards


Trash can be fun and rewarding. If I had the choice, I would much rather have fun trash than no trash, certainly. None (if it happens a lot) can be just as boring as too much. Some is good – it just has to be balanced.


I think one of the biggest issues is how boring and discouraging trash can be when you’ve been in an instance for weeks or months – Could this be improved – while still providing an initial challenge, and without trivialising the instance?

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