World of Warcraft®

nvm

I do agree to some extent that we live in a society where the younger generations (don't get me wrong, I'm of the "younger generations" as well) expect everything handed to them on a platter.

I also agree that it is only fair for the less skilled / newer players to have a chance to clear a raid within the space of a patch.
What I don't agree with, is Blizzard catering for people that do 1 raid, find it too hard, give up because it cost them 20g of repairs / because they didn't get any loot, that then come and throw a childish tantrum about how this game is too hard for casuals.

We had less people complaining about the difficulty of the game back in TBC, which arguably harbored the hardest raids wow has seen so far (Ulduar had some extreme hardmodes but the normal mode was easy. In TBC/Vanilla, there was no such thing as hardmode/normal), than we do now, in an expansion that really does provide a huge amount of things to do for casuals. I am perpetually astonished at what people complain about.

I consider myself a casual nowadays (in the real definition of the word: infrequent/occasional), spending much less time in the game.
But I am not being nostalgic or unthoughtful when I say that the real reason for that, is the drop in difficulty and perpetual quality of life changes to cater for people that should be playing Call of Duty if they want something simple, easy and rewarding. The sense of achievement for me is directly proportional to the difficulty and the amount of work you have to put into something.

Small annecdote on the "QoL" changes: Group Finder, CRZ, Flying Mounts, Flight points available without even discovering them, removal of outdoor group / seriously hard elite quests are amongst many changes that contributed to the destruction of the wow community as I knew it. It's no longer a "World" of Warcraft. You don't need to interact with it all if you don't want to, nor the players within it. MMORPG? Yeah right.

What annoys me in the standard Blizzard response to everything (although I'm grateful there actually is a response occasionally), is that they assume that only a minority of people feel the way I do.
Because of the way you have given in to the whining of a few vocal (excuse the language) spoilt brats, the gamers that played this mmo for the challenge, excitement, and sense of community are leaving / have left the game.
Example of standard response:

22/01/2013 12:07Posted by Draztal

For some people it is. Some people only want some mindless fun. Something they can do to relax rather than having to set their mind on overcoming a virtual challenge. That's one of the many reasons why invoking majorities in online discussions just doesn't work.

Invoking an unquantitive "some" doesn't make your argument any more valid than his. The problem with you guys at Blizzard nowadays is that rather than having a philosophy / image of a direction you want to take the game in, you buckle in when 20 people throw up a moany post on the forums. You can't develop a game based on the whims of a few, as you said, but it's what you do.

My friends and me used to be extremely loyal and full of praise for Blizzard, never in the first expansion (tbc) did we swear "f*****ing Blizzard" like we hear all over the place these days. We adored the game.

Nowadays the game is messy, there is no ultimate goal, there is no sense of a community grouping up to fight against a common ennemy, it has become a solo game where guilds are used only for their perks, and players expect to be rewarded for just logging into the game, claiming they are "paying customers". The most active people in trade and general chat are pvp boosters. Rated pvp is now a farce, more often than not a player with a high rating in RBG or arena has been boosted.

I'm not angry that my favourite game has lost it's mojo.

I'm disappointed and sad.

22/01/2013 14:26Posted by Cenadria

I do agree with this, however not all nerfs are even asked for. Sometimes Blizzard nerfs content simply because according to their figures not enough people have experienced it. Blizzard want their hard work to be seen by more than a few people so when it seems to them that not enough have managed to do some content they may nerf it even without people asking for it.

I could even understand that, but what i do not understand - there are currently, as I posted earlier, 3 modes :

- easy, normal, harder. Normal is for teams, easy is for single playing people who do not have will, time, skills, etc to commit. And harder is for teams that want to challenge their skills and try more complex game mechanics. And while normal ought to be accessible to all teams and LFR for most single individuals - why nerf (not to be mixed with tweaks and hotfixes) harder content that people enter to seek challenges and when they hit wall they do normal modes to gain better gear and experience.

There you go, the "unskilled losers" ask for nerfs. That's a not very nice way of putting an etiquette over a group of players that may have difficulties overcoming a challenge in the game. There's no real reason why you should go out of your way to also say that then real life for those players must be incredibly difficult. We get it, you consider yourself a very skilled player in World of Warcraft, that's great.

But in a game with as many players as World of Warcraft has, you have to realize that people come from very different backgrounds, some have been playing games for years, some are just starting to discover this world... Therefore, they have different expectations of how they would like to enjoy the content.

Of course, it may look selfish to ask for nerfs if you can overcome the content at its current difficulty, but, isn't it equally selfish to deny others content just because they don't have your skill?

While the wording "unskilled loser" is going overboard, as there could be a lot reasons behind a guilds progression that just aren't black and white, there's truth in what the man is saying.

Any rational person would know the reason for three different difficulty levels, is so there's a type of game play appealing to as many as possible.

1. LFR, the ultimate easy-mode where you also see the content.
2. Normal mode, an increase in difficulty, same items with higher stat-weights, and same content.
3. Heroic, steep incline in difficulty on some fights, higher stat-weights, but still the same content.
If mechanics suddenly = content, why not just remove two of the difficulties and slap a heroic tag on the one difficulty?

I said the same in Cataclysm during Dragon Soul, if there is already three difficulties, then the point of lowering normal or heroic modes to the points where's it near enough impossible to tell what difficulty your doing, is counter productive for everyone, which includes blizzard.

From a player stand point, people get accustomed to having everything they want, in all aspects of the game, this means if blizzard tries to make changes that's inconsistent with the mindset of those wanting everything for nearly nothing, they get a Noa's flood of complaints, just as they've gotten in MoP in regards to dailies and dungeons, and how it's unfair you can't get 3 rewards for doing 1 type of game play.

It most certainly also means the average player base, which is the majority of the game, is lowered to such a standard, that their incapable of any creative thinking on their own when it comes to a raid setting, and that is a big impact on the guild system, because most guilds only survive for a longer period, if their able to get decent players who can do more then just hang around for an expected nerf.

I hope blizzard isn't underestimating what impact their decisions have in the game, historically speaking you need only to look at the que-system and what it essentially did to realm reputations (which was what keep't players in check), since this feature became a fully working option, stealing items from others, even if only to disenchant, vendor or grieve them, became a daily thing that didn't mean anything, other then to the player who could have used X item, because the que-system mean't anonymity.
Personally I find it exceptionally unrealistic to throw that onto the community itself and say it's our own fault for behaving this way, as if that made the impact of their decision not their responsibility or any less, when it's blizzard making it an option for some players to behave this way.

22/01/2013 14:32Posted by Azryel

I do agree with this, however not all nerfs are even asked for. Sometimes Blizzard nerfs content simply because according to their figures not enough people have experienced it. Blizzard want their hard work to be seen by more than a few people so when it seems to them that not enough have managed to do some content they may nerf it even without people asking for it.

I could even understand that, but what i do not understand - there are currently, as I posted earlier, 3 modes :

- easy, normal, harder. Normal is for teams, easy is for single playing people who do not have will, time, skills, etc to commit. And harder is for teams that want to challenge their skills and try more complex game mechanics. And while normal ought to be accessible to all teams and LFR for most single individuals - why nerf (not to be mixed with tweaks and hotfixes) harder content that people enter to seek challenges and when they hit wall they do normal modes to gain better gear and experience.

Its still the same thing though. I do not know for a fact that they have this, but if Blizzard have a percentage they expect to complete normal and heroic modes, and the players do not hit this percentage - by a long way - then Blizzard may come to the conclusion that their expected difficulty wasn't what they originally planned for and change it. For example if they plan for 10% of guilds to complete heroic modes and only 5% do this would be an indication that maybe they had tuned things higher than they intended.

I personally DO believe that heroic modes should be left alone so long as progress is being made by "normal" guilds (by normal I mean not world-first type of guilds), however nerfing normal modes some time into a patch (or when the next patch comes out) I don't have a problem with. Personally I don't complain about the difficulty of things - if its too hard for me I just don't do it and take the attitude that its for people with higher skill (or overgeared) than I am. I can see however people running normal modes still stuck in T14 when T15 has been out for a while being very frustrated to not be able to finish T14 before moving on. Or they dont move on and then are stuck on T16 when the next expansion has been out a while etc.

I hope blizzard isn't underestimating what impact their decisions have in the game, historically speaking you need only to look at the que-system and what it essentially did to realm reputations (which was what keep't players in check), since this feature became a fully working option, stealing items from others, even if only to disenchant, vendor or grieve them, became a daily thing that didn't mean anything, other then to the player who could have used X item, because the que-system mean't anonymity.
Personally I find it exceptionally unrealistic to throw that onto the community itself and say it's our own fault for behaving this way, as if that made the impact of their decision not their responsibility or any less, when it's blizzard making it an option for some players to behave this way.

While what you say is correct, I do think its important to realise the difference in scale. In TBC for example running heroics (if you didn't have pre-made guild groups) took a LONG time. A consequence of this is that less loot was dropped. With LFG and LFR a LOT more loot per player drops, with players ninjaing items from others in LFG and LFR before the change, people still get more items than they used to. Getting items for Badges of Justice in TBC was also very slow.

I agree that the community isnt as good as it used to be, but I do that if it wasnt for things like LFG/R that the game would have suffered far more loss of numbers as people were not as prepared to wait for 2 hours to form a group as they were to start with.

I would just like to add that the difference with Wow and other games that offer different difficulties is that even if you are able to solo any normal game on the hardest mode, you need to think about the other 24 people and what their skill level is.

LFR = Easy
Normal = novice
Heroic = hard

Because wow is an MMO it's hard to balance the skill level based on game you can play solo or co op.

Look at diablo 3, it has many modes each changing the way the mobs hit but the game stays the same. you can do it solo or with friends, WoW "NEED" other people of your skill level to enjoy the end content of the game.

But sure you can pick it up and level / Quest by yourself but that's about it.

If wow had a matchmaking system like League of legend or how arena works without you having to find the groups yourself the difficulty block would be removed.

You could queue for a heroic raid because you think you are heroic worthy but no. LFR or 5man is all you can queue for, the rest you have to go out and find people who YOU believe are at the same skill level as you.

How I see it :
LFR is for sightseeing for the random dungeon delvers.
Normals are for the masses, casual raiders, team of friends and so on.
HC's are for those, who are willing to accept a challenge and work for it (i.e. have the Mu'ru effect)

Nothing wrong on having content to everyone, and if there's so many layers they should be kept proper for their target audience. While I can see nerfs being viable way to adjust normal content for the masses, then nerfs on HC content should always be level of tweaking not as much of making content easier. Those 5%+5% aura nerfs a la 4.3 in HC's are a no go in my books.

easy - normal - hardmode - modes is common on single player games and everyone chooses the difficulty that suits them. And so should it be here once we have the 3 layers. No need to dumb down the HC mode raids or challenge mode dungeons.

Just my flawed view point :)

This, please dont touch HC modes.

22/01/2013 12:07Posted by Draztal

You can't really asky others to not enjoy the game so you can enjoy your own vision of the game.

But you can huh? Or where you trolling when you said this? :

"You have two talent specializations. Why not have one for DPS? Even if it's a different healing spec, do you really need it at every single moment of the day? It's your choice to go with two healing specs, and that obviously comes with a downside (just as a tank that decides to go with two different tanking specs and argues his DPS is low on that content).

Proceeding to argue that because you run with a dual healing spec there's no content you can do is not going to get you very far because the answer is simple: use a DPS spec for that content."

-- Draztal
http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/6161067458?page=6#110

22/01/2013 12:07Posted by Draztal

Because facerolling through a videogame is fun. No it is not.

For some people it is. Some people only want some mindless fun. Something they can do to relax rather than having to set their mind on overcoming a virtual challenge. That's one of the many reasons why invoking majorities in online discussions just doesn't work.

We all have our own reason to do what we do. Some want to test themselves and improve their skill, some just want to relax and have some fun time with their friends. Some don't even know what the concept of hardcore and casual gaming mean, let alone "skill" or "competitiveness" in something they may not even consider a hobby.

If you just want to relieve some stress there is plenty other things to do. If you just want to relieve some stress then why do you go do something ingame that is too hard for you? WHY DON'T YOU JUST STICK TO LFR and let others enjoy the game?

You can't really asky others to not enjoy the game so you can enjoy your own vision of the game. Neither option is right. Sure, there are areas of the game specifically tailored to a particular group of players (Heroic Raids are better fit for the hardcore crowd), but that shouldn't stop you from trying something different and find out if it's fun or not for you.

And YES it are the unskilled losers who ask for nerfs. Deal with it.
This game is not stressfull, it's not rocketscience, it's piss easy. But for the 'majority' it is stressfull to do heroic raids or challenge modes or even normal mode? I wonder what is challenging in your real life if WoW is already too hard for you.

There you go, the "unskilled losers" ask for nerfs. That's a not very nice way of putting an etiquette over a group of players that may have difficulties overcoming a challenge in the game. There's no real reason why you should go out of your way to also say that then real life for those players must be incredibly difficult. We get it, you consider yourself a very skilled player in World of Warcraft, that's great.

But in a game with as many players as World of Warcraft has, you have to realize that people come from very different backgrounds, some have been playing games for years, some are just starting to discover this world... Therefore, they have different expectations of how they would like to enjoy the content.

Of course, it may look selfish to ask for nerfs if you can overcome the content at its current difficulty, but, isn't it equally selfish to deny others content just because they don't have your skill?

I was a bit cranky when I wrote that.

Why do you waste your time on this?

I do actually consider myself to be above average after seeing the hundreds or thousands of players in LFD/LFR/PuGs/Guilds over the years.
And in the current state of WoW you are quite the loser if you are asking for nerfs. There is different content for everyone. Everything is already simplified and made accessible to extremes. Or don't you agree? There is no reason to nerf content and potentially ruin it for many people when you can choose a different difficulty. I bet there are a lot of people very happy that you are not nerfing 5.0 raids progressively like in Cataclysm.
I didn't make that etiquette btw. The person I quoted started with 'unskilled' I just added losers because I had a bad morning.

And yes it pisses me off quite a lot when after you butchered this game for the sake of accessibility (which I got used to but don't like) someone comes here to ask for more nerfs because they want to relieve some stress or because they don't have as much time as someone else to play the game without any regards to what others want.

It is funny. I am at least 60% of the time constructive on here depending on how ridiculous the comments are. Yet you reply on this one.
I read threads on here almost daily. I see so many threads which are not reasonable, constructive or thought out so yes I am sometimes quite rude. I can do that because I am not a CM.

I am blocked at Elegeon normal 10man.
My raid can do phase 1 without problem, but phase2 is very hard, very punishing. You separate the raid in 2 groups to deal with risen columns and we get killed of the sparks, which deals 50k per tick and with only 1 healer per group (2halers is the recommendation for this boss fight). In 6 ticks you are killed. It's too more damage. It doesn't care what we did, we got killed every time.

One wave of sparks can't kill you if you're dropping stacks properly (even w/o any healing for entire wave).

which deals 50k per tick and with only 1 healer per group

33k according to my dungeon journal. 33*6=198k. This is a very low amount of damage to heal in ~13seconds, even for low geared healer(which is not your case, i assume). Keep in mind that those raids were designed for 463ilvl.

Replace your healers or check if everybody drop stacks properly. Easy as that.

That's what LFR was for. It's what Blizzard has said LFR was for right from the start, yet now you still see a need to make normal modes easier.

Since you mention normal difficulty, I think it's a good opportunity to mention this blog article by Watcher where he explains how developers tune the raid encounters: http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/blog/7065831/Coffee_with_the_Devs_Encounter_Tuning_by_Watcher_-17_01_2013

I may be wrong but I find it incredibly hard to imagine that there is a boss in the game that is absolutely insurmountable to even a casual player.

If you give that person an infinite amount of time (and will) they'll probably overcome the encounter at some point, sure. But what actually happens is that, rather than keep at it, most players stop trying at some point out of frustration.

The will to persevere and continue battling a foe that feels like an unavoidable obstacle is actually not as common as you may think among gamers (otherwise, why would we even have difficulty settings in most games anyways? :P)

This implies that when players have failed X number of times and reach the point of quitting, they've made no progress on the given fight in question, is unable to determine where the issue lies in the failed attempts, or that they just don't take the time in general to prepare for the encounter.
Poster above me have chosen a grand example of a guild in question!

In all of the above, how does downgrading a difficulty help the player base, considering the impact it has on the infrastructure of guilds in terms of a decent pool of players to recruit from?
I'm thinking primarily 25 man guilds due to the higher level of coordination required in general-

and how does it help blizzard?
This would mean you are forced into making less difficult content over a time span, to appease this pool of players consistently asking for downgrading in game plays that's tied to raiding, and raiding itself at the cost of losing more advanced players!

Did I just log onto the US forums o.0

The difficulty of LFR is tuned so that a group of people with wildly variable skills who aren't collaborating much in any meaningful way can complete it. If you do LFR with friends, there's not going to be much in terms of sense of accomplishment.

Because of that, I think there needs to be a difficulty where even if the players aren't all that great, a group collaborating to a reasonable extent can complete it. If it takes LFR gear to get through, fine...that's one way the content nerfs itself over time (first guilds probably cleared normal in 463-470 gear and most players should now have roughtly 485 or better).

I don't see that happening that much. If you look at WoWProgress, a whole lot of guilds are still working through normal modes and very few have moved on to even working on heroic kills.

Heroic is different. I think some heroic bosses should be a bit easier (sort of token heroics) while others can really push the limits of what players can do.

I think if normal ends up being a bit too easy for the best guilds, that's fine, because they'll then be working on heroic bosses and they haven't really run out of content.

When guilds become stuck on content, they either fall apart or they start blaming people and changing their roster. This means that people who want to be raiding with a guild group need to look elsewhere.

I think in a lot of cases being stuck is also a result of poor raid leadership. Poor leaders read the encounter mechanics and some vague tactics off a website and then tell everyone to do their job. If that fails, they start replacing people who appear weak with stronger players. Maybe they force their way through - maybe not. Better leaders look at the strengths and weaknesses in their raid and try to figure out why the group is failing. Sometimes it's the players and you do the roster changes, but quite often it's a matter of properly and deeply understanding the encounter mechanics.

Unfortunately great raid leaders don't grow in trees, so a lot of groups don't reach their full potential.

Blizzard admits that LFR allowed them to tune normal a little bit harder for Pandaria, because they felt PUG groups didn't need to be able to clear normal. I think that was a mistake.

TLDR: LFR=Fine, Normal=Bit too tight, Heroic=No idea, but probably fine.

22/01/2013 15:51Posted by Галлифрей

Replace your healers or check if everybody drop stacks properly. Easy as that.

Not easy for the healers who got replaced, nor easy for the guild officers. Try telling people they aren't good enough to play normal mode raids when they have been raiding for years and even done a number of heroic bosses in earlier expansions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paragraph

Just friendly advice, not trying to be snarky. Paragraphs would greatly improve the readability of your post, and as such, get your opinion across in a clearer, more concise way.

And in the current state of WoW you are quite the loser if you are asking for nerfs. There is different content for everyone.

I cant be sure but i think what he meant is mainly your attitude of calling anyone who knows less about a game/performs worse names. Loser has a very negative meaning.
and u can meet such attitude eveyrwhere in the game nowadays. People like you who are calling weaker players names are the reason many people stop having fun in this game nowadays. Everyone is so freaked out/obssesed about numbers on recount that they loose every bit of fun in this game.

And most time those who scream loudest "loosers" , "retards" are people who have a bit of skills but in comparison to really really skilled players they mean nothing. (good forbid i was thinking about myself as skilled player in wow - im just a bit over average joe when it comes to game skills) Today few hours ago i have meet such recount hero in a dungeon on my freshly dinged warrior - i got 445 itlv on it completly not gemed not enchanted far away from hit/exp cap and subddenly a +/- 495 itlv pala doin 90k dps is bashing me for pulling only 35k dps. because he wanted to have a 5 minutes dungeon run for vp he feels entitled to calling out retards to anyone who is doin below him. And many many people meets such entitled "pros" in dungeons/lfr nowadays.
Did i care - not even a bit cause i know my skills and i know that if i had his gear i could easily outperform him. But there are many players who have thiner skin then me and treat such things personally - think 3 seconds before u start calling weaker perfoming people names.

This is not pointed in your direction - but before u start using words like "loosers" in your posts think a little bit. Before anyone judge other people think 2 seconds how were u performing 4-5 years ago in wow. how much things have u learned during the time u play wow. how much have your skilled changed over the years. And now think what devs must think - they cant cater only to very small group who have been playing wow for few years - they have to cater to anyone even someone who just installed wow for the first time and loged in first time to the game.

Replace your healers or check if everybody drop stacks properly. Easy as that.

Not easy for the healers who got replaced, nor easy for the guild officers. Try telling people they aren't good enough to play normal mode raids when they have been raiding for years and even done a number of heroic bosses in earlier expansions.

Then you have to decide - to replace "baddies"/teach them to play or to stuck at elegeon normal(which was already nerfed few times) and eventually /gdisband.

And as i said, it might be "stack dropping" problem. It would be impossible to heal someone who stays inside for a whole phase. You should ask for help instead of nerf.

22/01/2013 16:12Posted by Draztal

There's quite a difference between not being able to do (defeat) something and refusing to use the tools the game offers to do a certain piece of content :)

There is no difference at all Draztal. You where telling other players to play classes they do not enjoy in content they do not enjoy, and completely refused to even discuss the issues they where facing because you personally enjoy the content and roles they hated - and here you are in another thread telling players :

"You can't really asky others to not enjoy the game so you can enjoy your own vision of the game."

You are a troll. I wish I can place you /ignore.