Leodious - the sheer level of ignorance and misinformation in your post amazes me. Are you intoxicated in some way? I will clear up some factual errors first:
a) Nowhere in this thread have I said anything about the time taken to organize a raid.
b) I have not stated that raids deserve better gear than a 5 man (although I have said that the current raids in Warcraft are harder than the current 5-mans, and hence deserve better gear, that shouldn't be taken to mean a more difficult 5-man is impossible).
c) I haven't argued that 10 man and 25 man should get different gear rewards. That's an entirely separate debate that I have chosen not to enter into in order to avoid distraction
d) At no point did I state that raiders deserve better gear because of time and commitment.
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Given your other inaccurracies, I'm not sure I believe your claim to have run Ulduar. Maybe you did, maybe you didn't. But I'm amazed you can claim Ulduar bosses are as simple as 5-mans.
Here's the tactics for Loken, the 5-man boss that has probably wiped more heroic groups than any other:
All stand in a tight group as close to the tank as possible. Tank runs when he casts nova. Others follow tank. If well geared, skip the running away part. Just stand close and nuke hard.
You correctly identified XT as being one of the simplest bosses in Ulduar. He's in the Siege area, which generally requires less skill than the later parts. Here's the tactics as I understand them:
Tank pulls and keeps boss over by the two rubbish piles on the right. Raid must spread out ideally 10 yds apart. Any player with light bomb or gravity bomb debuff must move away from others. AoE heal during Tantrum. During heart phase, scrap bots and boombots should be killed before they reach boss. Pummelers should be offtanked. Use aoes for adds, and try to explode bomb bots in the middle of packs of adds. Be careful about exploding bomb bots next to players, and move away from any bomb bots approaching you. Whilst keeping adds under control, put as much DPS as possible into the heart (it takes double damage). Be careful not to accidentally destroy the heart since this triggers hard mode.
Are the above boss tactics accurate? And that was one of the simplest Ulduar bosses. I'd like to see you explain Yog Saron or Mimiron so briefly.
You see these things as "Gimmicks" - but in Ulduar players generally have to maintain a high level of DPS / tanking / healing whilst thinking about all these "gimmicks". The overall demand is actually quite high - thinking about a whole bunch of things at once is simply harder than thinking about only one thing at a time. And that can be seen quite easily by the number of people who fail on those fights, even though the same people are perfectly capable of completing any 5-man in the game.
Your point about a job and a wife is also misleading. Plenty of people manage to maintain time consuming hobbies whilst in a relationship. Next you will be telling me that it's impossible, for example, for a married person to engage in amateur football, or a round of golf, since both require a commitment of several hours.
You might see it as difficult, but I don't; however, as has been said, skill or difficulty is very much a relative concept. But my point remains, that you have never discussed; the "gimmicks" or, since that seems to annoy you, variables, are the same in five-man dungeons as they are in 25-man ones. There are just more people that are required to remember the thing that happens. I've never done Yogg-Saron, but having done quite a bit of raiding, I can say with some certainty that that fight works the same as any other final boss. There are three phases or stages, and they are all very simple in themselves. The "added difficulty" comes from having to know each of the phases.
You mentioned Loken. That fight just has the two things: his damage aura, and his large aoe damage attack. That's it. He's simple, it just requires people to do a very simple action at a very obvious time.
Why not discuss Sapphiron? It's the same thing. The dragon chooses people to freeze, and then he does a massive aoe damage attack. Instead of running outside of a defined area, players need to run behind the blocks of ice he creates. It is the exact same mechanic as Loken, except there is an added difficulty! There are Blizzards running around that you need to avoid. Incredibly complex, yes? It isn't really any harder, it just requires 10 or 25 people to do something instead of five. The mechanics are the same.
Ulduar is no different from Naxx in terms of the mechanics of the bosses, nor is it different from the mechanics of five-mans. The only difference is the gear requirements caused by the sheer health/damage of the bosses. If you have the correct gear, the bosses are no harder, and play no differently.
I did make the assumption that because you just stated flat out that raids are harder than five-mans, that you were agreeing with Dafong, and so I apologize. I just assumed, also, that you, like Dafong, at least had the good sense to realize that raids were not actually more difficult to play and that the only difference is in the time it takes to get one organized. Seeing that you actually do think raids have a higher level of difficulty, I felt obligated to explain this to you.
That said, I started posted on this thread in regards to why I don't think this is a good policy by Blizzard. There is a relatively small portion of players that have the time or energy to do raids several nights a week, and so they never see the majority of new content that is added after an expansion in the content patches. In addition to that, raiders have gear that far surpasses that of other people, with no other reason than the dungeons they run. Even Blizzard is trying to acknowledge this with the inclusion of the Crusader's Coliseum, which I doubt I will ever play in, and the Conquest marks dropping in five mans. Of course, an argument could be made that this isn't Blizzard admitting that this is a bad idea, and more Blizzard wanting to gear people so that everyone has the chance to fight the Lich King. Yogg-Saron, while probably a bigger deal than Arthas in reality, doesn't have the kind of lore presence. I think Blizzard wants everyone to experience that encounter, and I think that's a wise Business move.
Therefore, finally, I will make a point similar to my first. Stipulate that raids are in fact more difficult that five-mans. (As I have stated, I fervently do not believe this, but I have no intention of posting here again, so I want to say this now, as it was my original, largely on-topic, idea.) If that were true, it is a bad idea. What you are doing is alienating a majority of your players and making them considerably less powerful (of course, I don't like the power of gear in WoW either. Gear triples my HP and quintuples my damage and healing output. That's stupid.) than the people that can participate in raids. They then release a new raid (read: AQ, Black Temple, Ulduar) that requires you to have most if not all of your slots filled with gear from the previous raid dungeon. If you do not have that, you cannot participate in the next one, and any decent guild will have farmed the first raid to death and want to move on and do the next one.
Because of this, if you are not in a raid from the start, unless you get "carried" and get gear that way, you will be unable to participate in any further raids until the next expansion. This method of progression is ridiculous, if for no other reason, because it alienates a majority of the players. These players are relegated to daily quests and five-mans for their rewards, all of which are considerably less powerful. WoW is a strange beast. It caters almost exclusively to the casual player until the level cap, and then caters almost exclusively to the raiding crowd. I, frankly, don't understand it, and I don't understand why people keep playing.
Before you whine at me about playing Wrath, I still have loyalty to the story because of the quality and powerful storytelling inherent in the old Blizzard, and so I still felt the need to buy the game and play to the level cap; I still wanted to see what the New Blizzard had done to the story I had gotten into. I really, really don't like the direction the story is going, but I still feel the need to play it and see it. I don't know why, but I love Azeroth still. I will probably play Cataclysm and play for a few months. I am actually very interested in what they are doing with Gilneas.
So, finally, I think end games as a rule are terrible, stupid, but cost-effective, because most players are stupid and really love to be led by the hand through an epic storyline, even if everyone else in the world did the same "unique" events. I have killed Kel'Thuzad (I use that term loosely since I never actually dealt more than a tiny bit of damage to him.) a dozen times or more. That's ridiculous, even more so for bosses that are not undead. But of course, when you spend all of your development time created scripted encounters (which, to be fair, are pretty well done) against famous bosses, it would be a shame to kill them once and leave it at that. It is just ridiculous that everyone has killed Kel and Sapph. Ridiculous that everyone found that secret tome revealing secrets of the undead and giving Azeroth a chance. Ridiculous that everyone saved that Night Elf child from certain death from disease. Ridiculous that everyone found Mankrik's poor wife for him.
But that is the curse of the theme park. It makes you feel like a hero by placing you within the epic story as the key hero in every event, but it simultaneously marginalizes that very heroic feeling by throwing it in your face and everyone else's. You can't have everyone be the hero.
This is why I think EVE has the right idea (though I can't stand the way you control your ship and thus cannot play the game). Give players a world and some tools. Raiding for gear is ridiculous. Having gear that doubles, triples, or quadruples your power is ridiculous. Living in a world where everyone is THE hero of the world is...you know.
Of course, I'm a roleplayer. And it is hard to roleplay when you are, as the character, given such incredibly important tasks to do, but then realize that everyone else did that same important thing. I guess I like MMOS to be persistent worlds, not lengthy single-player campaigns with multiplayer dungeons.
"There are two great powers, and they've been fighting since time began. Every advance in human life, every scrap of knowledge and wisdom and decency we have has been torn by one side from the teeth of the other. Every little increase in human freedom has been fought over ferociously between those who want us to know more and be wiser and stronger, and those who want us to obey and be humble and submit."
John Parry, to his son Will; "The Subtle Knife," by Phillip Pullman
Get over yourselves, all of you! Yes, WoW raiding is downright terrible. Everyone already knows that. People who play it do not play it for the engaging game play. They play it because they are stupid. That is why it has the highest number of subscriptions, excluding apparently Perfect World, with their 50 million players, but has a comparatively low rating. Discriminating players do not play it. Most of the people that play WoW play it only because it is their first MMO, and they do not fully comprehend what they are missing. It is a shame investors believe it is because WoW has good mechanics.
End Game is the idea created by developers that are not clever enough to do something better with their game. End Game is the idea loved by little boys that love the idea of being winners with their displayable rewards, but do not have the mental capacity to compete against other players. This is why they enjoy scripted encounters. With the scripted encounter they can memorize the pattern of a boss and do things on a pre-defined schedule of action and believe it is skill. The only thing that will ever truly gauge player skill is PVP. That is why games like EVE and GW still have such thriving communities. PVP makes you think and makes you learn to play. PVE makes you memorize a pattern of action. This is not skill.
End Game is a horrendous idea and would like to throttle the person that devised it. I wish people would realise that there is no defence for the idea of an end to the MMO. I want to live in a world, not a play a game. There are other games that are games. MMOs are worlds.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it." Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
Leodious - now you have taken time to actually explain your position instead of calling people jerks, I find I can agree with you on at least some of it.
We still have different opinions about the difficulty of raids in WoW. I still haven't heard a satisfactory explanation from anyone as to why 2/3rds of the people who have killed the first four bosses in Ulduar have failed to kill the end boss. It isn't gear - since the gear requirements for the later bosses aren't much higher (gear helps yes, but it isn't really needed). So what is the difference? What stops so many players? I say lack of skill. What is your answer?
However, where we agree is where you talk about the steep gear gradient in WoW. For example, consider DPS characters, since they are easiest to compare. A newish level 80 can do roughly 2000 DPS if played well, whilst a player with full best in slot gear, who knows his class, can put out 6k plus DPS in a stand and nuke fight. So geared players are 3 times as effective as the undergeared. This creates very strong barriers in the game - for example, people may be gear checked before joining a group. I've seen people kicked from VoA raids because they were carrying a single green (low quality) item.
I'd agree that the steep gear curve is detrimental to building a community, and I'd quite happy if the gear gap was smaller. Would it be quite so terrible if a well geared character was only twice as effective as a poorly geared character played with similar skill?
Reducing the gear gap would also have a positive effect on PvP. At the moment, PvP gear must be continually ramped up with each new season, so it can remain competitive with the best PvE items. This can result in some extremely one sided fights between well geared PvP characters and newcomers. If the PvE gear cap was smaller then the PvP gear gap could be made similarly smaller, resulting in a more competive PvP environment. In the past, I have sometimes entered battlegrounds, looked at what's happening, and concluded that my side has no chance - we simply have too many poorly geared players. And sometimes I can look at the gear of my team and conclude the opposite - that we are almost certain to win due to gear levels, even before the first blow has been struck. Reducing the disparity in PvP gear would help to make battlegrounds revolve around tactics and skill, rather than overgeared warlocks 3 shotting people in greens.
Get over yourselves, all of you! Yes, WoW raiding is downright terrible. Everyone already knows that. People who play it do not play it for the engaging game play. They play it because they are stupid. That is why it has the highest number of subscriptions, excluding apparently Perfect World, with their 50 million players, but has a comparatively low rating. Discriminating players do not play it. Most of the people that play WoW play it only because it is their first MMO, and they do not fully comprehend what they are missing. It is a shame investors believe it is because WoW has good mechanics. End Game is the idea created by developers that are not clever enough to do something better with their game. End Game is the idea loved by little boys that love the idea of being “winners” with their displayable rewards, but do not have the mental capacity to compete against other players. This is why they enjoy scripted encounters. With the scripted encounter they can memorize the pattern of a boss and do things on a pre-defined schedule of action and believe it is skill. The only thing that will ever truly gauge player skill is PVP. That is why games like EVE and GW still have such thriving communities. PVP makes you think and makes you learn to play. PVE makes you memorize a pattern of action. This is not skill. End Game is a horrendous idea and would like to throttle the person that devised it. I wish people would realise that there is no defence for the idea of an end to the MMO. I want to live in a world, not a play a game. There are other games that are games. MMOs are worlds.
More mythology. And naming calling. Using terms such as "stupid" to refer to people who disagree with you is the sort of language heard in playgrounds every day. It says far more about you than about those you disagree with.
I can understand you don't like raids. That's partly a matter of taste. But if wow raiding is so terrible, where are the raids that are better? The only game that comes close to WoW in terms of raid content is Everquest - but EQ currently enjoys very little in terms of new development, whilst WoW raiding is continually renewed. Most serious raiders play WoW. You may not like that - you may not like raiding. But that doesn't change the numbers.
You are correct in saying that there are many WoW players who have never played another MMO. But there are also a great many who have played other games, and have chosen to stick with WoW. New launches of MMOs, such as AoC and WhO are full of ex-WoW players. They try these games, but soon come to the conclusion that they were better off in WoW all along. Most of them go back.
What sort of PvP were you referring to? Why does PvP require large amounts of mental capacity?
A large amount of MMO pvp consists of nothing short of zerging. Fighting in any sort of large scale MMO zerg doesn't take the remotest sort of intelligence. Just pick a target and DPS it. If someone picks you, drop back until you get heals. Rinse and repeat. I guess you could say that in activities such as world PvP and RvR there is an element of strategy (e.g. picking which targets to attack), but only a few people need to have strategic brains, the rest just follow orders.
Then you have ganking based games such as Darkfall, where time spent is a huge part of success. Established players crush noobs and all the time congratulate eachother regarding the high levels of skill they have displayed in beating people who don't have a chance to fight back.
The only sort of PvP that requires substantial amounts of skill is competive fixed format battles with the same (low) numbers on each side, and everyone in similar gear. And the only games where I'm aware this happens on any sort of regular basis are Guild Wars and the game you are so quick to condemn, Warcraft. I would consider anyone with a high arena rating in WoW to be skilled.
However, it's also my experience that a large part of PvP skill comes from exactly the same sources as PvE skill - namely practice. Your contention that each opponent will react in a unique and unscripted way is simply untrue. And the higher level you play at, the less true it becomes. Warriors will charge. Mages will frost nova. Warlocks will fear. Many moves are quite predictable, and a large part of PvP skill is simply developing an understanding of other classes and learning to predict their responses. So you practice lots and you get good at PvP. When I used to PvP every day, I could pull off stunts that others would consider impressive - such as winning 1v3 battles against similar level opponents, soloing a high warlord, or achieving 20+ killing blows in a battleground without dieing once. Practice every day, and most people can achieve similar results. PvP once a week, and you are cannon fodder.
The other source of PvP success is reactions. I've seen how people with great reactions operate. I know myself well enough to know I couldn't do that. I could never PvP at the highest level with 2500+ arena rating or whatever. I don't really see that as much of a problem, in exactly the same way as I don't see my inability to compete on the international tennis circuit as being a problem. It's just not something I'm too worried about.
Out of curiosity, would you say that anyone who refuses to play competitive tennis, is also stupid? Would you say anyone who plays chess for fun, and can't play at a grandmaster level is lacking in mental capacity?
Something many PvPers fail to understand is the way pschology changes amongst individuals. Most hardcore PvPers are males in the 15-25 age range, full of testosterone and anxious to make their mark on the world. But many game players are considerably older and more mature. We've been around long enough to know how good we are. We're not the best, and we're not the worst, and we don't feel any real need to prove ourselves, since we've already tested ourselves and succeeded or failed many times in the past. I have great qualifications, and a highly paid job - why should I care deeply about scoring epeen points against people with acne?
So why PvE? I guess that partly depends on the sort of PvE involved. For example, sometimes soloing can be very relaxing. But in a group environment, I find myself challenged on a regular basis. For example, playing a hunter in a PvE context I may have to continually think about:
- hitting the correct target
- the next shot to use in order to maximise my DPS. For hunters this uses a priority system with the around 6-7 possible skills chosen according to the highest priority skill available. Sometimes it requires a mid fight judgement call - e.g. choosing between squeezing in a low damage skill now (steady shot) at the cost of slightly delaying the use of a higher damage skill in a second's time?
- how to effectively use long term cooldowns
- my own position. Am I standing somewhere dangerous? Too close to other players? Am I failing to take advantage of better terrain elsewhere?
- minimising movement whilst maintaining position. I get an extra buff (sniper training) for not moving. So how can I stay safe whilst moving the minimum number of times?
- the position of my pet. Is it in any danger?
- my own health level
- the health level of my pet
- Reacting to boss abilities.
- My aggro levels
- My mana levels
- Anticipating the use of raid wide buffs such as heroism, and adjusting my priorities accordingly.
- Helping the tank maintain aggro through use of Misdirection
Other skills may be used less often - for example, chain trapping, kiting, or protecting healers.
Any experienced player knows that not every PvE'r does all the above equally effectively. Some people do a good deal less DPS than others, even with similar gear. Some people overaggro more often that others. Some people stand in the wrong place on a regular basis. Some people regularly DPS the wrong targets.
If we look at two players with similar gear, one may top damage meters on a regular basis, whilst coming near bottom of damage taken. The other may regularly die at the wrong moments, and end up bottom of meters at the end of the night. So what would you call the difference between those two players? Most PvErs would call it skill.
You seem to think that interaction with other people - that dealing with unpredictable responses, only occurs in PvP? How wrong you are. PvE is often a team activity - you raid alongside other people, who are often just as unpredictable as your PvP opponents. How do you get the most from the people around you? Persuade people to keep going and not quit, calm disputes, explain tactics, adjust your own play to compensate for the weaknesses of those around you? Sometimes things don't go well - what do you do to fix it? OK - you could say that's all the responsibility of the raid leader. But no one person can effectively lead 24 others without help. Any effective raid has multiple sources of authority. Are you able to do that? Of course, much (not all) of the above is about people skills, and I'll admit PvP games can require those as well - although I'd say it's rarely to the same extent (in PvP groups are often of smaller sizes, and having one person quit halfway through is seldom a disaster).
Many raid bosses also have random elements. Saying they are all "predictable" and "scripted" is simply incorrect. Perhaps, for example, they target random people with nasty attacks. Or there special abilities activate after random amounts of time. Nothing is easier for a programmer than invoking a random number generator. In many ways, this can mean PvE bosses become less predictable than human opponents, since many humans fall into habits, and under the same circumstances, will almost always respond in the same way.
I'll leave you with a closing thought. Which of the following would you say is most skilled and why?
- A boxer who has just won a national title?
- A mathematician who has successfully solved a centuries old puzzle after years of work?
- A businessman who has built up a multinational company from humble beginnings?
We still have different opinions about the difficulty of raids in WoW. I still haven't heard a satisfactory explanation from anyone as to why 2/3rds of the people who have killed the first four bosses in Ulduar have failed to kill the end boss. It isn't gear - since the gear requirements for the later bosses aren't much higher (gear helps yes, but it isn't really needed). So what is the difference? What stops so many players? I say lack of skill. What is your answer?
Lets not pretend that it is anything else other then gear.
Your argument that the gear level between the two isn't that different doesn't hold water. When you consider that the Equipment itself is not the only factor in determining things like HP or mana pool or DPS levels. A lot of that will come down to things that hardcore players will invest a lot of time and effort into getting and casual people will not. Enchantments, Gems, Food and Flasks will make a combined difference to the level ability of a raid.
Not being funny but Mimiron normal mode. What is hard about this fight? Nothing except that during Phase 2 he pumps out a LOT of damage, he does constant AoE damage to everyone and his guns fire off and randomly shot people, the combined damage is hard for healers to deal with.
Increase their mana pool, increase their individual heals, increase the HP of the individuals getting hit and it gets easier. It is that simple.
We still have different opinions about the difficulty of raids in WoW. I still haven't heard a satisfactory explanation from anyone as to why 2/3rds of the people who have killed the first four bosses in Ulduar have failed to kill the end boss. It isn't gear - since the gear requirements for the later bosses aren't much higher (gear helps yes, but it isn't really needed). So what is the difference? What stops so many players? I say lack of skill. What is your answer?
My apologies in advance to OP for being off topic.
Maybe the explanation you are looking for is a very simple one. Some guilds are just more dedicated to raiding and mastering end content then others, they add only those like minded, with lots of free time to help progress in raids, and they are willing to leave friends out or have them reroll to form the perfect balance of classes for each encounter. In other words, they do what ever it takes to defeat the end boss.
Anyway, I do not think its a question of skill so much, as it is a question of time, dedication and willingness to hand pick a perfect raiding team who can listen and understand directions.
You may want to take under consideration that I prefer small guilds, and am biased against having to form large guilds to compete for gear.
Antipathy: I'm not interested in debating with you. I was telling you and Dafong and Leodious to get over yourselves, and then I responded to the OPs questions about End Game and raiding. I think they are terrible. I think they are most terrible in WoW. I think most things about WoW are terrible. I think it is simplistic and childish and it boggles the mind that there are so many people that play it.
But no, I shall not engage myself in a childish debate with you as others seem to be doing. I could not care less what you think. I was posting my thoughts about End Games and raiding. Thank you for your understanding.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it." Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
My apologies in advance to OP for being off topic... ...Anyway, I do not think its a question of skill so much, as it is a question of time, dedication and willingness to hand pick a perfect raiding team who can listen and understand directions. You may want to take under consideration that I prefer small guilds, and am biased against having to form large guilds to compete for gear.
I like to echo that I believe this thread has been derailed into a totally other debate in the last 2 pages, so lets get back on track
This is a matter of the concept of End-Game and Raiding and I agree with this post for the most part. Taking her as an example, you can see the sentiment for other "casual" players that prefer not to raid and that has been the exact point I been getting at. Even if I had the time to raid, it is not necessarily in my best interest as a player to raid. However, in order to progress beyond a certain point for my character (which is important to me), I HAVE to raid. There are no other options available to me as a Player, no fresh dynamic or something totally new to play the game with. Its the same thing over and over again for the last 5 years and you would figure by now, Blizzard would of added more dynamics to the game to keep the gameplay fresh for the sake of their loyal community, but they haven't. I'm sure all the crazy new dynamics they like to best save for a totally other game so we can continue to hand over cash to their company.
As a subscriber and a dedicated fan to Blizzard for over a decade, even I'm starting to believe that their profits are being placed above the actual values of their services. It'll be officially over when they start charging for Battle.net. There was a point in time where they weren't so profit-crazy before their MMO release, now they are just slowly looking like a bunch of sell outs. Just look at all the stuff they have released alongside of the MMO to make more money, its ridiculous (card games, magazines, name changes, etc.).
Originally posted by Jairoe03 However, in order to progress beyond a certain point for my character (which is important to me), I HAVE to raid. There are no other options available to me as a Player, no fresh dynamic or something totally new to play the game with.
I am amazed someone has played their character for so long without even noticing the concept of arena, which pretty much counters every point you have made above.
It allows you to progress without raiding. It is another option available to you as a player. It is a fresh dynamic that was not available for the first few years after launch... and top tier arena gear is every bit as good as the best raiding gear.
There are loads of other ways people can advance your character that have been introduced in the last five years. Heroic dungeons weren't in the game at launch. Neither was the Argent Tournament. Neither was the concept of buying PvP epics for honour. Or wintergrasp. Or 30 minute raids that were designed to be pugged by casuals. Or 5-man dungeons that drop gear better than a good deal of raid level gear (MgT, or ToC). Or gear from badges / emblems.
The idea that Blizzard has done nothing over the past five years to cater for casuals is laughable.
Originally posted by Jairoe03 However, in order to progress beyond a certain point for my character (which is important to me), I HAVE to raid. There are no other options available to me as a Player, no fresh dynamic or something totally new to play the game with.
I am amazed someone has played their character for so long without even noticing the concept of arena, which pretty much counters every point you have made above.
It allows you to progress without raiding. It is another option available to you as a player. It is a fresh dynamic that was not available for the first few years after launch... and top tier arena gear is every bit as good as the best raiding gear.
There are loads of other ways people can advance your character that have been introduced in the last five years. Heroic dungeons weren't in the game at launch. Neither was the Argent Tournament. Neither was the concept of buying PvP epics for honour. Or wintergrasp. Or 30 minute raids that were designed to be pugged by casuals. Or 5-man dungeons that drop gear better than a good deal of raid level gear (MgT, or ToC). Or gear from badges / emblems.
The idea that Blizzard has done nothing over the past five years to cater for casuals is laughable.
Your assumptions and contempt is laughable. I already have done arenas, BG, 10-25-40 man raids, 5-man instancing, Wintergrasp, I am a Crusader and by then I think many agree Argent Tournament is entirely played out after you finally hit Crusader. Way to digress my post about me wanting more PvE challenges into pointing out that there's PvP which was obviously outside my interest. I done all of the instances except 10-25 man Ulduar and 10-25 ToC (and the whole PvE side isn't Ulduar/ToC either so don't use that as an excuse to try and demerit me).
What you are arguing is merely content, and I'm a player that is hungrier. I look beyond simple things that seemingly is sufficient to entertain you and look for something entirely new. A legitimate fresh experience, maybe a 15 man instance where 3 5-man groups have to start from 3 different starting points and cooperate in more of a puzzle-type dungeon would be fresh and new. Learn to think outside the box rather than make your pitiful assumptions about people. The ignorance in your post should amaze you more than my desire for more. -_-
To get my post and this thread back on track, I was merely arguing there should be more options for PvE in a game as old as WoW other than just raiding and the same 5-man content. I was suggesting something fresh or new, a new way of pursuing PvE such as a very difficult quest line that requires as much skill as the hardest 10-25 man Raid (probably not solo-able, but not require 25 people) or a new system or type of dungeon. WoW is a big cycle of rinse and repeat (yes their instances are engaging) but having only couple options is limiting in terms of experience and it makes WoW start feeling more and more outdated as they rinse and repeat their same cycle with their patches and expansions.
I personally enjoyed Dungeons, but at the same time they aren't able to be done at random sporadic times. The game I paid $15 a month for in WoW had not had the amount of content for a person at max level so that they were able to do stuff during the day and then raid when everyone in their guild was available later. The reason that I disliked WoW's system was that everything revolved around raiding.
Farming to get money to buy the pots to raid, farming to buy reagents to raid, farming to cover repair costs of raids, etc. It didn't make sense that in order to go into this mysterious area with lots of valuable stuff, I would have to farm things accessible to everyone when in reality a damn treasure dungeon exploration should pay for itself.
Your assumptions and contempt is laughable. I already have done arenas, BG, 10-25-40 man raids, 5-man instancing, Wintergrasp, I am a Crusader and by then I think many agree Argent Tournament is entirely played out after you finally hit Crusader. Way to digress my post about me wanting more PvE challenges into pointing out that there's PvP which was obviously outside my interest. I done all of the instances except 10-25 man Ulduar and 10-25 ToC (and the whole PvE side isn't Ulduar/ToC either so don't use that as an excuse to try and demerit me). What you are arguing is merely content, and I'm a player that is hungrier. I look beyond simple things that seemingly is sufficient to entertain you and look for something entirely new. A legitimate fresh experience, maybe a 15 man instance where 3 5-man groups have to start from 3 different starting points and cooperate in more of a puzzle-type dungeon would be fresh and new. Learn to think outside the box rather than make your pitiful assumptions about people. The ignorance in your post should amaze you more than my desire for more. -_- To get my post and this thread back on track, I was merely arguing there should be more options for PvE in a game as old as WoW other than just raiding and the same 5-man content. I was suggesting something fresh or new, a new way of pursuing PvE such as a very difficult quest line that requires as much skill as the hardest 10-25 man Raid (probably not solo-able, but not require 25 people) or a new system or type of dungeon. WoW is a big cycle of rinse and repeat (yes their instances are engaging) but having only couple options is limiting in terms of experience and it makes WoW start feeling more and more outdated as they rinse and repeat their same cycle with their patches and expansions.
I made no assumptions about you. You said nothing new had been introduced in the past 5 years. I gave you a long list of things that had been introduced. If you choose to ignore some of them (such as arena), then that's entirely your choice - but claiming those options aren't there is simply inaccurate.
The vast majority of content in Warcraft, and particularly in Wrath of the Lich King, is designed for casual players. However, some people who often refer to themselves as "casual" put in some quite long hours, and simply come to the end of that content. It sounds like you're in that group. Don't worry about it - these things happen - pretty much the same thing has happened in every MMO ever developed. That's one of the reasons things like raiding and reputation grinds were invented - they are time sinks. Other games get you to repeat content in other ways - e.g. in FFXI you get to do the whole thing again, but with some different job. However, if you don't like time sinks, then on your personal terms you've beaten the game. Well done !
If your real desire is to find a brand new experience that isn't anything like Warcraft, as it currently exists, then there's a simple solution to that. Do something that isn't Warcraft. Find another game, or another hobby !
However, think things through before you make suggestions about changing endgame. Just casually tossing around ideas saying "X should be different" without really thinking through how is the infantile response of a whiner. For example - consider your idea of a dungeon with 3 groups starting from different points. In a small way this is already present in the game, with the Thorim encounter in Ulduar. But lets consider a few questions that would have to be answered for your idea to be properly developed.
- Should your idea be developed within the existing budget? Suppose Blizzard had started with your idea at the beginning of WoTLK. If they only had a fixed amount of money, what should they have removed from the game in order to pay for your idea?
- Alternatively, do you think the development budget is too small, and that is the reason for lack of content?
- Would the three groups who all start on this dungeon typically all know each-other, and be linked together in some way? What form would this link take if it isn't a raid?
- If a member of one of the groups included a warlock, would he be able to summon members of the other group, given they are all in the same dungeon?
- What if only one or two groups wanted to run this dungeon at a particular time? Would some sort of queueing system have to be introduced so they could wait for the third group?
- What if group 1 finds it too hard and decides to give up. What should the members of groups 2 and 3 do?
- What if group 2 is really good, and solves all the puzzles and gets to the middle early. What do they do then? Do you expect them to sit around doing nothing in the middle for half an hour whilst the other groups catch up?
Maybe problems like the above are solvable. All I'm saying is that they need to be thought through. At the moment, your post sounds like "I have some half baked ideas and therefore the current endgame is wrong and all those people who design these games for a living are clueless". Well no - it doesn't mean that - it just means you have a half baked idea.
Maybe problems like the above are solvable. All I'm saying is that they need to be thought through. At the moment, your post sounds like "I have some half baked ideas and therefore the current endgame is wrong and all those people who design these games for a living are clueless". Well no - it doesn't mean that - it just means you have a half baked idea.
Your lack of any real inference making abilities are astounding. You only got one thing right, the ideas I thrown out there were half-baked because they were just thrown out there. The fact that you didn't realize is these are creative ideas that can be further developed by a game company (thats THEIR job not mine). I understand the impacts behind game design, but that shouldn't stop a company from thinking outside the box (i.e. making Raiding the only available option for PvE development, keyword, PvE) either which Blizzard apparently fails to do along with you. If you think Blizzard has no room for mistakes or some kinds of failure, then your in denial. Wasting any more words with you is obviously a waste since you seem to gradually twist my points around (no, Arena was NOT a counter to ALL my points if ANY, way to try and use exaggeration to mislead and bend the points I was actually trying to make with my posts). I didn't even bother reading your whole post this time because you obviously have been missing other people's points 2-3 pages ago so why should you deserve the same respect.
EDIT: Try to not take 1 quote/paragraph and focus a counter to it and say that was my whole argument. After the first expansion, the game has followed somewhat of the form of a trend, this is not deniable. They constantly feed more and more instances along the same form. The only changes they actually use was utilize 10 man and change 40 to 25 man, and add in another difficulty (wow how hard is that, changing a couple values around to make it harder?), in the face of NEW EXPERIENCES, these things are minimal. I can run 10 man Naxx and know what I am doing in a 25 man Naxx, Heroic difficulty is like Normal but they hit harder (with exceptions to a couple things obviously). I don't feel like I should have to cover every single aspect of a subject to lay out points and arguments, you should be smart enough to make your inferences that hey, I probably thought of that already because I'm not that simple or dense. Consider all your posts from here on out not worth replying to, it'll be pointless for you to respond to it unless you just want me to read it and maybe I will.
Jaire, the only reason I replied to only part of your post was that it was the only bit with substance - the only concrete suggestion. The rest was full of vague aspirations, personal attacks, attempts to defend yourself against non-accusations and to counter points I never put.
I chose to ignore it because I didn't want to sink to your level.
Jairoe03, I have quite a simple question for you that shouldn't take half a page to answer.
Do you think you should have to put in more, or less, or equal amounts of time to earn Raid level rewards?
Do you think that this time should be as constrained as it is for raiders...ie you have to do 4 hours of work without logging off, and that you have to do it a minimum of 3 nights in a week to get a raid level reward.
If not, then why not, why should you get the same level rewards for less work? You can take half a page to explain that if you like.
Jairoe03, I have quite a simple question for you that shouldn't take half a page to answer.
Do you think you should have to put in more, or less, or equal amounts of time to earn Raid level rewards?
Do you think that this time should be as constrained as it is for raiders...ie you have to do 4 hours of work without logging off, and that you have to do it a minimum of 3 nights in a week to get a raid level reward.
If not, then why not, why should you get the same level rewards for less work? You can take half a page to explain that if you like.
1st question, in terms of time total for Raid level rewards if I were to do it outside a raid, more time. Raids are the places that everyone has known to get high level gear so I wouldn't want to change that. I wouldn't care if it stayed as the best (the problem is its the ONLY) way to get gear.
2nd question, no, thats the issue for more casual gamers is time. So there shouldn't be a constraint, but I would like it to be as hard if not harder and wouldn't mind if it had to be done in groups (sure, make it glorified chains of level 80-only group quests, it'll keep me busy, even that'll be new to WoW). But the balance here would be in terms of total time, it definitely should take longer and I mean a lot longer. As I posted before (sad if half a page is too long for a subject that you care about), this is mainly about having other options outside of just Raiding to progress your character past the regular 5-man heroics, however currently there really is nothing beyond it but raiding. Raiding shouldn't be the end-all-be-all of WoW (in terms of PvE). Raiding is an old concept in PvE and Blizzard has failed to deliver something entirely new and go beyond it in that aspect.
1st question, in terms of time total for Raid level rewards if I were to do it outside a raid, more time. Raids are the places that everyone has known to get high level gear so I wouldn't want to change that. I wouldn't care if it stayed as the best (the problem is its the ONLY) way to get gear. 2nd question, no, thats the issue for more casual gamers is time. So there shouldn't be a constraint, but I would like it to be as hard if not harder and wouldn't mind if it had to be done in groups (sure, make it glorified chains of level 80-only group quests, it'll keep me busy, even that'll be new to WoW). But the balance here would be in terms of total time, it definitely should take longer and I mean a lot longer. As I posted before (sad if half a page is too long for a subject that you care about), this is mainly about having other options outside of just Raiding to progress your character past the regular 5-man heroics, however currently there really is nothing beyond it but raiding. Raiding shouldn't be the end-all-be-all of WoW (in terms of PvE). Raiding is an old concept in PvE and Blizzard has failed to deliver something entirely new and go beyond it in that aspect. PS I hope this isn't too much reading for you
Thing is, I don't disagree with you.
I have no issue with the same level gear being gotten outside of raids, as long as those in group and solo situations have to work equally as hard as those people who raid.
The problem is, most people don't want to work as hard as raiders or can't work as hard as raiders. The thing that makes me laugh is that some people will say..."I can't devote 4 hours to a computer game of a night, I am too busy" but then deny the fact that devoting 4 hours a night to a computer game is difficult. Well if it isn't difficult...you do it....if it is difficult, then understand that those that can do that difficulty level deserve better gear then you.
As to length, I can handle any length of reply you post...to me, but when I have to dissect your post as it pertains to someone else, it becomes a chore. While me and Antipathy share the same conclusion, we don't share the same reasoning. To give you an example, two people believe in climate change, one believes it is down to carbon emissions, pollution and manmade effects, the other believe that it is gods punishment for homosexuality....can we just lump these two people together and argue against them using the same rhetoric? I would hope not. So your replies to Antipathy have nothing really to do with me and answer none of the issues I bring up.
I have no issue with the same level gear being gotten outside of raids, as long as those in group and solo situations have to work equally as hard as those people who raid.
The problem is, most people don't want to work as hard as raiders or can't work as hard as raiders. The thing that makes me laugh is that some people will say..."I can't devote 4 hours to a computer game of a night, I am too busy" but then deny the fact that devoting 4 hours a night to a computer game is difficult. Well if it isn't difficult...you do it....if it is difficult, then understand that those that can do that difficulty level deserve better gear then you.
As to length, I can handle any length of reply you post...to me, but when I have to dissect your post as it pertains to someone else, it becomes a chore...So your replies to Antipathy have nothing really to do with me and answer none of the issues I bring up.
I agree with you. I don't know why, but people play the game with laziness in mind rather than to challenge their mind. I think they are bored and just want something to burn their time with. I guess thats fine, but theres things already out there for them if they just want to burn time.There are casual gamers like myself that are looking for a challenge they can pick apart an hour or two at a time and to feel like they are rewarded for their efforts (in terms of character development in WoW's case items, which is something that most of us shoot for in an MMO). The casual gamers looking for challenge do not have much within WoW to satisfy them. So, now they have something for the lazy players, why can't they release things for the not-so-lazy. There is plenty of challenge for the raiders, so why do they feel the need to throw more their way. It seems the reason why there are even so many raiders because WoW has pidgeon holed higher end content into just Raids. How many of those raiders actually are enjoying the raids or are just suffering through it because thats where the items are at for them?
Sorry, I should of done a better job replying directly to the thread and the topic, people like him just irritate me and I guess a troller has a way of grabbing attention. And yes I actually am trying to do a better job at keeping these shorter It's just the text editor can be misleading and not make it seem as "long" since it uses a wider space.
Originally posted by Dafong The problem is, most people don't want to work as hard as raiders or can't work as hard as raiders. The thing that makes me laugh is that some people will say..."I can't devote 4 hours to a computer game of a night, I am too busy" but then deny the fact that devoting 4 hours a night to a computer game is difficult. Well if it isn't difficult...you do it....if it is difficult, then understand that those that can do that difficulty level deserve better gear then you.
The problem is that the actual in-game difficulty of an encounter does not change based on how much time you devote to the encounter. As a matter of fact the better you get at an encounter, the less time you spend on doing the encounter. So if you want to give out rewards purely on how long someone takes to do an activity then the better raid guilds should get worse rewards.
So the fact that you cannot spend four hours in a row during a night raiding is not a matter of difficulty but one of inconvenience.
Originally posted by Dafong The problem is, most people don't want to work as hard as raiders or can't work as hard as raiders. The thing that makes me laugh is that some people will say..."I can't devote 4 hours to a computer game of a night, I am too busy" but then deny the fact that devoting 4 hours a night to a computer game is difficult. Well if it isn't difficult...you do it....if it is difficult, then understand that those that can do that difficulty level deserve better gear then you.
The problem is that the actual in-game difficulty of an encounter does not change based on how much time you devote to the encounter. As a matter of fact the better you get at an encounter, the less time you spend on doing the encounter. So if you want to give out rewards purely on how long someone takes to do an activity then the better raid guilds should get worse rewards.
So the fact that you cannot spend four hours in a row during a night raiding is not a matter of difficulty but one of inconvenience.
You act as if raid encounters are randomly generated by the world! as if they are real life?
Encounters are not sponteanously created that way, they are designed to take a certain amount of time to get to and to beat. If some guilds are better then the designers anticipted then it will take them less time, if some guilds are worse then the designed anticipated then it will take longer....however there is a designed core time that the creators expected the raid to take.
All I am saying is, take that time core that the designers put into the encounter and use that as the requirement for solo or group content.
Then everyone can earn the same while doing the same amount of designed work. While some players with great skill will do it faster and others will do it slower the designed requirement is equal.
Encounters are not sponteanously created that way, they are designed to take a certain amount of time to get to and to beat. If some guilds are better then the designers anticipted then it will take them less time, if some guilds are worse then the designed anticipated then it will take longer....however there is a designed core time that the creators expected the raid to take.
All I am saying is, take that time core that the designers put into the encounter and use that as the requirement for solo or group content.
Then everyone can earn the same while doing the same amount of designed work. While some players with great skill will do it faster and others will do it slower the designed requirement is equal.
I think you might need to clarify these statements a bit since they seem to go against what you were arguing for in the rest of this thread.
Using your criteria, if a Naxx raid takes about 4 hours spread out over a week then a solo player who plays for that same amount of time (or more) over a week should get the equivalent to what a single raider can expect to get as loot from a single Naxx clear?
I think you might need to clarify these statements a bit since they seem to go against what you were arguing for in the rest of this thread. Using your criteria, if a Naxx raid takes about 4 hours spread out over a week then a solo player who plays for that same amount of time (or more) over a week should get the equivalent to what a single raider can expect to get as loot from a single Naxx clear?
You can do PuG Naxx raids spread out over 4 hours of a week and get the rewards from Naxx already.
I don't have any issue with people doing that. The truth is though, that it is RARE that a single PuG raid group is only going to spend 4 hours in Naxx. The truth is that while a GUILD can do this, PuGs generally take much much longer. Which is the complaint that most of the people have here, they can't spend that time, but they want the same rewards.
The truth is that the time requirement is difficult for them to commit to, but they want the same rewards, which is silly, they admit there is difficulty here, but deny that anyone should earn for matching that level of difficulty.
You can do PuG Naxx raids spread out over 4 hours of a week and get the rewards from Naxx already.
I don't have any issue with people doing that. The truth is though, that it is RARE that a single PuG raid group is only going to spend 4 hours in Naxx. The truth is that while a GUILD can do this, PuGs generally take much much longer. Which is the complaint that most of the people have here, they can't spend that time, but they want the same rewards.
The truth is that the time requirement is difficult for them to commit to, but they want the same rewards, which is silly, they admit there is difficulty here, but deny that anyone should earn for matching that level of difficulty.
No, the complaint is that Raiding is the only thing defining what end-game content is. Outside of raiding, the rest of the end-game appears fairly limited. Even if I had the time, I'm not even sure if I would spend it on raiding. New challenges in a form other than raid would be nice especially if it provides me an other option to progress me character development other than being trapped into having to raid for any kind of improvement.
Again, as it seemingly keeps getting ignored, the point amongst casual gamers like myself looking for new challenges is that Raiding should not be the ONLY dimension/way to experience good quality end game content (for people seeking more out of PvE) and it won't hurt to at least be half-way decently rewarded for them. No one is asking it for it to be easier (or the rewards to be above raid items) rather quite the contrary, we wouldn't mind something hard, but would like to be able to pick it apart that ISN'T in a raid context.
Let's face it, raid was a big thing when it first came out, now its just overdone, abused and relied upon a little to heavily by designers to keep a game going. It just so happens now some of us can notice a trend (trends take time) and some of us aren't entertained that easily by being force fed Raid content in order to get anything decent out of the game. A raid experience was fun before (for veterans like myself) but this isn't an experience I am looking for anymore (or maybe just for now). At the very least the game should have a change of pace in the trend, 5 years is just too long (with an outlook that it looks like this trend will follow in the oncoming years without anything else to compliment it).
As the title of this thread implies, I do not think there should be a direct link from end game content to raid. Its very 1 dimensional thought and sadly I don't think many people can honestly associate many other words to end game content aside from PvP. How many epic quest lines suited only to the end game are there (talking about any game)? Maybe I'm not looking hard enough, but this is a trend that is not only prominent in WoW for a long time, but in games that are coming out (at least the ones I have seen, I can't keep up with all of them). I think end-game for any game (if there is an end-game) should be a little more involving than just Raid and PvP (PvE can be broken down way better than this). Again, back to the laziness of people, this can safely be applied to game designers and developers as well.
I think you might need to clarify these statements a bit since they seem to go against what you were arguing for in the rest of this thread. Using your criteria, if a Naxx raid takes about 4 hours spread out over a week then a solo player who plays for that same amount of time (or more) over a week should get the equivalent to what a single raider can expect to get as loot from a single Naxx clear?
You can do PuG Naxx raids spread out over 4 hours of a week and get the rewards from Naxx already.
I don't have any issue with people doing that. The truth is though, that it is RARE that a single PuG raid group is only going to spend 4 hours in Naxx. The truth is that while a GUILD can do this, PuGs generally take much much longer. Which is the complaint that most of the people have here, they can't spend that time, but they want the same rewards.
The truth is that the time requirement is difficult for them to commit to, but they want the same rewards, which is silly, they admit there is difficulty here, but deny that anyone should earn for matching that level of difficulty.
A Naxx PuG that does not wipe should be able to complete the raid in about 5-6 hours. If you need to split it over two days then 3 hours per day should do it. A person who does not like Naxx could easily spend two 3 hour sessions doing single or 5man content. So if your only metric for 'effort' and 'challenge' is the time spent continuously then he should be getting the same rewards as the Naxx raiders.
Comments
Leodious - the sheer level of ignorance and misinformation in your post amazes me. Are you intoxicated in some way? I will clear up some factual errors first:
a) Nowhere in this thread have I said anything about the time taken to organize a raid.
b) I have not stated that raids deserve better gear than a 5 man (although I have said that the current raids in Warcraft are harder than the current 5-mans, and hence deserve better gear, that shouldn't be taken to mean a more difficult 5-man is impossible).
c) I haven't argued that 10 man and 25 man should get different gear rewards. That's an entirely separate debate that I have chosen not to enter into in order to avoid distraction
d) At no point did I state that raiders deserve better gear because of time and commitment.
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Given your other inaccurracies, I'm not sure I believe your claim to have run Ulduar. Maybe you did, maybe you didn't. But I'm amazed you can claim Ulduar bosses are as simple as 5-mans.
Here's the tactics for Loken, the 5-man boss that has probably wiped more heroic groups than any other:
All stand in a tight group as close to the tank as possible. Tank runs when he casts nova. Others follow tank. If well geared, skip the running away part. Just stand close and nuke hard.
You correctly identified XT as being one of the simplest bosses in Ulduar. He's in the Siege area, which generally requires less skill than the later parts. Here's the tactics as I understand them:
Tank pulls and keeps boss over by the two rubbish piles on the right. Raid must spread out ideally 10 yds apart. Any player with light bomb or gravity bomb debuff must move away from others. AoE heal during Tantrum. During heart phase, scrap bots and boombots should be killed before they reach boss. Pummelers should be offtanked. Use aoes for adds, and try to explode bomb bots in the middle of packs of adds. Be careful about exploding bomb bots next to players, and move away from any bomb bots approaching you. Whilst keeping adds under control, put as much DPS as possible into the heart (it takes double damage). Be careful not to accidentally destroy the heart since this triggers hard mode.
Are the above boss tactics accurate? And that was one of the simplest Ulduar bosses. I'd like to see you explain Yog Saron or Mimiron so briefly.
You see these things as "Gimmicks" - but in Ulduar players generally have to maintain a high level of DPS / tanking / healing whilst thinking about all these "gimmicks". The overall demand is actually quite high - thinking about a whole bunch of things at once is simply harder than thinking about only one thing at a time. And that can be seen quite easily by the number of people who fail on those fights, even though the same people are perfectly capable of completing any 5-man in the game.
Your point about a job and a wife is also misleading. Plenty of people manage to maintain time consuming hobbies whilst in a relationship. Next you will be telling me that it's impossible, for example, for a married person to engage in amateur football, or a round of golf, since both require a commitment of several hours.
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You might see it as difficult, but I don't; however, as has been said, skill or difficulty is very much a relative concept. But my point remains, that you have never discussed; the "gimmicks" or, since that seems to annoy you, variables, are the same in five-man dungeons as they are in 25-man ones. There are just more people that are required to remember the thing that happens. I've never done Yogg-Saron, but having done quite a bit of raiding, I can say with some certainty that that fight works the same as any other final boss. There are three phases or stages, and they are all very simple in themselves. The "added difficulty" comes from having to know each of the phases.
You mentioned Loken. That fight just has the two things: his damage aura, and his large aoe damage attack. That's it. He's simple, it just requires people to do a very simple action at a very obvious time.
Why not discuss Sapphiron? It's the same thing. The dragon chooses people to freeze, and then he does a massive aoe damage attack. Instead of running outside of a defined area, players need to run behind the blocks of ice he creates. It is the exact same mechanic as Loken, except there is an added difficulty! There are Blizzards running around that you need to avoid. Incredibly complex, yes? It isn't really any harder, it just requires 10 or 25 people to do something instead of five. The mechanics are the same.
Ulduar is no different from Naxx in terms of the mechanics of the bosses, nor is it different from the mechanics of five-mans. The only difference is the gear requirements caused by the sheer health/damage of the bosses. If you have the correct gear, the bosses are no harder, and play no differently.
I did make the assumption that because you just stated flat out that raids are harder than five-mans, that you were agreeing with Dafong, and so I apologize. I just assumed, also, that you, like Dafong, at least had the good sense to realize that raids were not actually more difficult to play and that the only difference is in the time it takes to get one organized. Seeing that you actually do think raids have a higher level of difficulty, I felt obligated to explain this to you.
That said, I started posted on this thread in regards to why I don't think this is a good policy by Blizzard. There is a relatively small portion of players that have the time or energy to do raids several nights a week, and so they never see the majority of new content that is added after an expansion in the content patches. In addition to that, raiders have gear that far surpasses that of other people, with no other reason than the dungeons they run. Even Blizzard is trying to acknowledge this with the inclusion of the Crusader's Coliseum, which I doubt I will ever play in, and the Conquest marks dropping in five mans. Of course, an argument could be made that this isn't Blizzard admitting that this is a bad idea, and more Blizzard wanting to gear people so that everyone has the chance to fight the Lich King. Yogg-Saron, while probably a bigger deal than Arthas in reality, doesn't have the kind of lore presence. I think Blizzard wants everyone to experience that encounter, and I think that's a wise Business move.
Therefore, finally, I will make a point similar to my first. Stipulate that raids are in fact more difficult that five-mans. (As I have stated, I fervently do not believe this, but I have no intention of posting here again, so I want to say this now, as it was my original, largely on-topic, idea.) If that were true, it is a bad idea. What you are doing is alienating a majority of your players and making them considerably less powerful (of course, I don't like the power of gear in WoW either. Gear triples my HP and quintuples my damage and healing output. That's stupid.) than the people that can participate in raids. They then release a new raid (read: AQ, Black Temple, Ulduar) that requires you to have most if not all of your slots filled with gear from the previous raid dungeon. If you do not have that, you cannot participate in the next one, and any decent guild will have farmed the first raid to death and want to move on and do the next one.
Because of this, if you are not in a raid from the start, unless you get "carried" and get gear that way, you will be unable to participate in any further raids until the next expansion. This method of progression is ridiculous, if for no other reason, because it alienates a majority of the players. These players are relegated to daily quests and five-mans for their rewards, all of which are considerably less powerful. WoW is a strange beast. It caters almost exclusively to the casual player until the level cap, and then caters almost exclusively to the raiding crowd. I, frankly, don't understand it, and I don't understand why people keep playing.
Before you whine at me about playing Wrath, I still have loyalty to the story because of the quality and powerful storytelling inherent in the old Blizzard, and so I still felt the need to buy the game and play to the level cap; I still wanted to see what the New Blizzard had done to the story I had gotten into. I really, really don't like the direction the story is going, but I still feel the need to play it and see it. I don't know why, but I love Azeroth still. I will probably play Cataclysm and play for a few months. I am actually very interested in what they are doing with Gilneas.
So, finally, I think end games as a rule are terrible, stupid, but cost-effective, because most players are stupid and really love to be led by the hand through an epic storyline, even if everyone else in the world did the same "unique" events. I have killed Kel'Thuzad (I use that term loosely since I never actually dealt more than a tiny bit of damage to him.) a dozen times or more. That's ridiculous, even more so for bosses that are not undead. But of course, when you spend all of your development time created scripted encounters (which, to be fair, are pretty well done) against famous bosses, it would be a shame to kill them once and leave it at that. It is just ridiculous that everyone has killed Kel and Sapph. Ridiculous that everyone found that secret tome revealing secrets of the undead and giving Azeroth a chance. Ridiculous that everyone saved that Night Elf child from certain death from disease. Ridiculous that everyone found Mankrik's poor wife for him.
But that is the curse of the theme park. It makes you feel like a hero by placing you within the epic story as the key hero in every event, but it simultaneously marginalizes that very heroic feeling by throwing it in your face and everyone else's. You can't have everyone be the hero.
This is why I think EVE has the right idea (though I can't stand the way you control your ship and thus cannot play the game). Give players a world and some tools. Raiding for gear is ridiculous. Having gear that doubles, triples, or quadruples your power is ridiculous. Living in a world where everyone is THE hero of the world is...you know.
Of course, I'm a roleplayer. And it is hard to roleplay when you are, as the character, given such incredibly important tasks to do, but then realize that everyone else did that same important thing. I guess I like MMOS to be persistent worlds, not lengthy single-player campaigns with multiplayer dungeons.
"There are two great powers, and they've been fighting since time began. Every advance in human life, every scrap of knowledge and wisdom and decency we have has been torn by one side from the teeth of the other. Every little increase in human freedom has been fought over ferociously between those who want us to know more and be wiser and stronger, and those who want us to obey and be humble and submit."
John Parry, to his son Will; "The Subtle Knife," by Phillip Pullman
Get over yourselves, all of you! Yes, WoW raiding is downright terrible. Everyone already knows that. People who play it do not play it for the engaging game play. They play it because they are stupid. That is why it has the highest number of subscriptions, excluding apparently Perfect World, with their 50 million players, but has a comparatively low rating. Discriminating players do not play it. Most of the people that play WoW play it only because it is their first MMO, and they do not fully comprehend what they are missing. It is a shame investors believe it is because WoW has good mechanics.
End Game is the idea created by developers that are not clever enough to do something better with their game. End Game is the idea loved by little boys that love the idea of being winners with their displayable rewards, but do not have the mental capacity to compete against other players. This is why they enjoy scripted encounters. With the scripted encounter they can memorize the pattern of a boss and do things on a pre-defined schedule of action and believe it is skill. The only thing that will ever truly gauge player skill is PVP. That is why games like EVE and GW still have such thriving communities. PVP makes you think and makes you learn to play. PVE makes you memorize a pattern of action. This is not skill.
End Game is a horrendous idea and would like to throttle the person that devised it. I wish people would realise that there is no defence for the idea of an end to the MMO. I want to live in a world, not a play a game. There are other games that are games. MMOs are worlds.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it." Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
WTF? No subscription fee?
Leodious - now you have taken time to actually explain your position instead of calling people jerks, I find I can agree with you on at least some of it.
We still have different opinions about the difficulty of raids in WoW. I still haven't heard a satisfactory explanation from anyone as to why 2/3rds of the people who have killed the first four bosses in Ulduar have failed to kill the end boss. It isn't gear - since the gear requirements for the later bosses aren't much higher (gear helps yes, but it isn't really needed). So what is the difference? What stops so many players? I say lack of skill. What is your answer?
However, where we agree is where you talk about the steep gear gradient in WoW. For example, consider DPS characters, since they are easiest to compare. A newish level 80 can do roughly 2000 DPS if played well, whilst a player with full best in slot gear, who knows his class, can put out 6k plus DPS in a stand and nuke fight. So geared players are 3 times as effective as the undergeared. This creates very strong barriers in the game - for example, people may be gear checked before joining a group. I've seen people kicked from VoA raids because they were carrying a single green (low quality) item.
I'd agree that the steep gear curve is detrimental to building a community, and I'd quite happy if the gear gap was smaller. Would it be quite so terrible if a well geared character was only twice as effective as a poorly geared character played with similar skill?
Reducing the gear gap would also have a positive effect on PvP. At the moment, PvP gear must be continually ramped up with each new season, so it can remain competitive with the best PvE items. This can result in some extremely one sided fights between well geared PvP characters and newcomers. If the PvE gear cap was smaller then the PvP gear gap could be made similarly smaller, resulting in a more competive PvP environment. In the past, I have sometimes entered battlegrounds, looked at what's happening, and concluded that my side has no chance - we simply have too many poorly geared players. And sometimes I can look at the gear of my team and conclude the opposite - that we are almost certain to win due to gear levels, even before the first blow has been struck. Reducing the disparity in PvP gear would help to make battlegrounds revolve around tactics and skill, rather than overgeared warlocks 3 shotting people in greens.
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More mythology. And naming calling. Using terms such as "stupid" to refer to people who disagree with you is the sort of language heard in playgrounds every day. It says far more about you than about those you disagree with.
I can understand you don't like raids. That's partly a matter of taste. But if wow raiding is so terrible, where are the raids that are better? The only game that comes close to WoW in terms of raid content is Everquest - but EQ currently enjoys very little in terms of new development, whilst WoW raiding is continually renewed. Most serious raiders play WoW. You may not like that - you may not like raiding. But that doesn't change the numbers.
You are correct in saying that there are many WoW players who have never played another MMO. But there are also a great many who have played other games, and have chosen to stick with WoW. New launches of MMOs, such as AoC and WhO are full of ex-WoW players. They try these games, but soon come to the conclusion that they were better off in WoW all along. Most of them go back.
What sort of PvP were you referring to? Why does PvP require large amounts of mental capacity?
A large amount of MMO pvp consists of nothing short of zerging. Fighting in any sort of large scale MMO zerg doesn't take the remotest sort of intelligence. Just pick a target and DPS it. If someone picks you, drop back until you get heals. Rinse and repeat. I guess you could say that in activities such as world PvP and RvR there is an element of strategy (e.g. picking which targets to attack), but only a few people need to have strategic brains, the rest just follow orders.
Then you have ganking based games such as Darkfall, where time spent is a huge part of success. Established players crush noobs and all the time congratulate eachother regarding the high levels of skill they have displayed in beating people who don't have a chance to fight back.
The only sort of PvP that requires substantial amounts of skill is competive fixed format battles with the same (low) numbers on each side, and everyone in similar gear. And the only games where I'm aware this happens on any sort of regular basis are Guild Wars and the game you are so quick to condemn, Warcraft. I would consider anyone with a high arena rating in WoW to be skilled.
However, it's also my experience that a large part of PvP skill comes from exactly the same sources as PvE skill - namely practice. Your contention that each opponent will react in a unique and unscripted way is simply untrue. And the higher level you play at, the less true it becomes. Warriors will charge. Mages will frost nova. Warlocks will fear. Many moves are quite predictable, and a large part of PvP skill is simply developing an understanding of other classes and learning to predict their responses. So you practice lots and you get good at PvP. When I used to PvP every day, I could pull off stunts that others would consider impressive - such as winning 1v3 battles against similar level opponents, soloing a high warlord, or achieving 20+ killing blows in a battleground without dieing once. Practice every day, and most people can achieve similar results. PvP once a week, and you are cannon fodder.
The other source of PvP success is reactions. I've seen how people with great reactions operate. I know myself well enough to know I couldn't do that. I could never PvP at the highest level with 2500+ arena rating or whatever. I don't really see that as much of a problem, in exactly the same way as I don't see my inability to compete on the international tennis circuit as being a problem. It's just not something I'm too worried about.
Out of curiosity, would you say that anyone who refuses to play competitive tennis, is also stupid? Would you say anyone who plays chess for fun, and can't play at a grandmaster level is lacking in mental capacity?
Something many PvPers fail to understand is the way pschology changes amongst individuals. Most hardcore PvPers are males in the 15-25 age range, full of testosterone and anxious to make their mark on the world. But many game players are considerably older and more mature. We've been around long enough to know how good we are. We're not the best, and we're not the worst, and we don't feel any real need to prove ourselves, since we've already tested ourselves and succeeded or failed many times in the past. I have great qualifications, and a highly paid job - why should I care deeply about scoring epeen points against people with acne?
So why PvE? I guess that partly depends on the sort of PvE involved. For example, sometimes soloing can be very relaxing. But in a group environment, I find myself challenged on a regular basis. For example, playing a hunter in a PvE context I may have to continually think about:
- hitting the correct target
- the next shot to use in order to maximise my DPS. For hunters this uses a priority system with the around 6-7 possible skills chosen according to the highest priority skill available. Sometimes it requires a mid fight judgement call - e.g. choosing between squeezing in a low damage skill now (steady shot) at the cost of slightly delaying the use of a higher damage skill in a second's time?
- how to effectively use long term cooldowns
- my own position. Am I standing somewhere dangerous? Too close to other players? Am I failing to take advantage of better terrain elsewhere?
- minimising movement whilst maintaining position. I get an extra buff (sniper training) for not moving. So how can I stay safe whilst moving the minimum number of times?
- the position of my pet. Is it in any danger?
- my own health level
- the health level of my pet
- Reacting to boss abilities.
- My aggro levels
- My mana levels
- Anticipating the use of raid wide buffs such as heroism, and adjusting my priorities accordingly.
- Helping the tank maintain aggro through use of Misdirection
Other skills may be used less often - for example, chain trapping, kiting, or protecting healers.
Any experienced player knows that not every PvE'r does all the above equally effectively. Some people do a good deal less DPS than others, even with similar gear. Some people overaggro more often that others. Some people stand in the wrong place on a regular basis. Some people regularly DPS the wrong targets.
If we look at two players with similar gear, one may top damage meters on a regular basis, whilst coming near bottom of damage taken. The other may regularly die at the wrong moments, and end up bottom of meters at the end of the night. So what would you call the difference between those two players? Most PvErs would call it skill.
You seem to think that interaction with other people - that dealing with unpredictable responses, only occurs in PvP? How wrong you are. PvE is often a team activity - you raid alongside other people, who are often just as unpredictable as your PvP opponents. How do you get the most from the people around you? Persuade people to keep going and not quit, calm disputes, explain tactics, adjust your own play to compensate for the weaknesses of those around you? Sometimes things don't go well - what do you do to fix it? OK - you could say that's all the responsibility of the raid leader. But no one person can effectively lead 24 others without help. Any effective raid has multiple sources of authority. Are you able to do that? Of course, much (not all) of the above is about people skills, and I'll admit PvP games can require those as well - although I'd say it's rarely to the same extent (in PvP groups are often of smaller sizes, and having one person quit halfway through is seldom a disaster).
Many raid bosses also have random elements. Saying they are all "predictable" and "scripted" is simply incorrect. Perhaps, for example, they target random people with nasty attacks. Or there special abilities activate after random amounts of time. Nothing is easier for a programmer than invoking a random number generator. In many ways, this can mean PvE bosses become less predictable than human opponents, since many humans fall into habits, and under the same circumstances, will almost always respond in the same way.
I'll leave you with a closing thought. Which of the following would you say is most skilled and why?
- A boxer who has just won a national title?
- A mathematician who has successfully solved a centuries old puzzle after years of work?
- A businessman who has built up a multinational company from humble beginnings?
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Lets not pretend that it is anything else other then gear.
Your argument that the gear level between the two isn't that different doesn't hold water. When you consider that the Equipment itself is not the only factor in determining things like HP or mana pool or DPS levels. A lot of that will come down to things that hardcore players will invest a lot of time and effort into getting and casual people will not. Enchantments, Gems, Food and Flasks will make a combined difference to the level ability of a raid.
Not being funny but Mimiron normal mode. What is hard about this fight? Nothing except that during Phase 2 he pumps out a LOT of damage, he does constant AoE damage to everyone and his guns fire off and randomly shot people, the combined damage is hard for healers to deal with.
Increase their mana pool, increase their individual heals, increase the HP of the individuals getting hit and it gets easier. It is that simple.
My apologies in advance to OP for being off topic.
Maybe the explanation you are looking for is a very simple one. Some guilds are just more dedicated to raiding and mastering end content then others, they add only those like minded, with lots of free time to help progress in raids, and they are willing to leave friends out or have them reroll to form the perfect balance of classes for each encounter. In other words, they do what ever it takes to defeat the end boss.
Anyway, I do not think its a question of skill so much, as it is a question of time, dedication and willingness to hand pick a perfect raiding team who can listen and understand directions.
You may want to take under consideration that I prefer small guilds, and am biased against having to form large guilds to compete for gear.
Antipathy: I'm not interested in debating with you. I was telling you and Dafong and Leodious to get over yourselves, and then I responded to the OPs questions about End Game and raiding. I think they are terrible. I think they are most terrible in WoW. I think most things about WoW are terrible. I think it is simplistic and childish and it boggles the mind that there are so many people that play it.
But no, I shall not engage myself in a childish debate with you as others seem to be doing. I could not care less what you think. I was posting my thoughts about End Games and raiding. Thank you for your understanding.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it." Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
WTF? No subscription fee?
I like to echo that I believe this thread has been derailed into a totally other debate in the last 2 pages, so lets get back on track
This is a matter of the concept of End-Game and Raiding and I agree with this post for the most part. Taking her as an example, you can see the sentiment for other "casual" players that prefer not to raid and that has been the exact point I been getting at. Even if I had the time to raid, it is not necessarily in my best interest as a player to raid. However, in order to progress beyond a certain point for my character (which is important to me), I HAVE to raid. There are no other options available to me as a Player, no fresh dynamic or something totally new to play the game with. Its the same thing over and over again for the last 5 years and you would figure by now, Blizzard would of added more dynamics to the game to keep the gameplay fresh for the sake of their loyal community, but they haven't. I'm sure all the crazy new dynamics they like to best save for a totally other game so we can continue to hand over cash to their company.
As a subscriber and a dedicated fan to Blizzard for over a decade, even I'm starting to believe that their profits are being placed above the actual values of their services. It'll be officially over when they start charging for Battle.net. There was a point in time where they weren't so profit-crazy before their MMO release, now they are just slowly looking like a bunch of sell outs. Just look at all the stuff they have released alongside of the MMO to make more money, its ridiculous (card games, magazines, name changes, etc.).
I am amazed someone has played their character for so long without even noticing the concept of arena, which pretty much counters every point you have made above.
It allows you to progress without raiding. It is another option available to you as a player. It is a fresh dynamic that was not available for the first few years after launch... and top tier arena gear is every bit as good as the best raiding gear.
There are loads of other ways people can advance your character that have been introduced in the last five years. Heroic dungeons weren't in the game at launch. Neither was the Argent Tournament. Neither was the concept of buying PvP epics for honour. Or wintergrasp. Or 30 minute raids that were designed to be pugged by casuals. Or 5-man dungeons that drop gear better than a good deal of raid level gear (MgT, or ToC). Or gear from badges / emblems.
The idea that Blizzard has done nothing over the past five years to cater for casuals is laughable.
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I am amazed someone has played their character for so long without even noticing the concept of arena, which pretty much counters every point you have made above.
It allows you to progress without raiding. It is another option available to you as a player. It is a fresh dynamic that was not available for the first few years after launch... and top tier arena gear is every bit as good as the best raiding gear.
There are loads of other ways people can advance your character that have been introduced in the last five years. Heroic dungeons weren't in the game at launch. Neither was the Argent Tournament. Neither was the concept of buying PvP epics for honour. Or wintergrasp. Or 30 minute raids that were designed to be pugged by casuals. Or 5-man dungeons that drop gear better than a good deal of raid level gear (MgT, or ToC). Or gear from badges / emblems.
The idea that Blizzard has done nothing over the past five years to cater for casuals is laughable.
Your assumptions and contempt is laughable. I already have done arenas, BG, 10-25-40 man raids, 5-man instancing, Wintergrasp, I am a Crusader and by then I think many agree Argent Tournament is entirely played out after you finally hit Crusader. Way to digress my post about me wanting more PvE challenges into pointing out that there's PvP which was obviously outside my interest. I done all of the instances except 10-25 man Ulduar and 10-25 ToC (and the whole PvE side isn't Ulduar/ToC either so don't use that as an excuse to try and demerit me).
What you are arguing is merely content, and I'm a player that is hungrier. I look beyond simple things that seemingly is sufficient to entertain you and look for something entirely new. A legitimate fresh experience, maybe a 15 man instance where 3 5-man groups have to start from 3 different starting points and cooperate in more of a puzzle-type dungeon would be fresh and new. Learn to think outside the box rather than make your pitiful assumptions about people. The ignorance in your post should amaze you more than my desire for more. -_-
To get my post and this thread back on track, I was merely arguing there should be more options for PvE in a game as old as WoW other than just raiding and the same 5-man content. I was suggesting something fresh or new, a new way of pursuing PvE such as a very difficult quest line that requires as much skill as the hardest 10-25 man Raid (probably not solo-able, but not require 25 people) or a new system or type of dungeon. WoW is a big cycle of rinse and repeat (yes their instances are engaging) but having only couple options is limiting in terms of experience and it makes WoW start feeling more and more outdated as they rinse and repeat their same cycle with their patches and expansions.
I personally enjoyed Dungeons, but at the same time they aren't able to be done at random sporadic times. The game I paid $15 a month for in WoW had not had the amount of content for a person at max level so that they were able to do stuff during the day and then raid when everyone in their guild was available later. The reason that I disliked WoW's system was that everything revolved around raiding.
Farming to get money to buy the pots to raid, farming to buy reagents to raid, farming to cover repair costs of raids, etc. It didn't make sense that in order to go into this mysterious area with lots of valuable stuff, I would have to farm things accessible to everyone when in reality a damn treasure dungeon exploration should pay for itself.
I made no assumptions about you. You said nothing new had been introduced in the past 5 years. I gave you a long list of things that had been introduced. If you choose to ignore some of them (such as arena), then that's entirely your choice - but claiming those options aren't there is simply inaccurate.
The vast majority of content in Warcraft, and particularly in Wrath of the Lich King, is designed for casual players. However, some people who often refer to themselves as "casual" put in some quite long hours, and simply come to the end of that content. It sounds like you're in that group. Don't worry about it - these things happen - pretty much the same thing has happened in every MMO ever developed. That's one of the reasons things like raiding and reputation grinds were invented - they are time sinks. Other games get you to repeat content in other ways - e.g. in FFXI you get to do the whole thing again, but with some different job. However, if you don't like time sinks, then on your personal terms you've beaten the game. Well done !
If your real desire is to find a brand new experience that isn't anything like Warcraft, as it currently exists, then there's a simple solution to that. Do something that isn't Warcraft. Find another game, or another hobby !
However, think things through before you make suggestions about changing endgame. Just casually tossing around ideas saying "X should be different" without really thinking through how is the infantile response of a whiner. For example - consider your idea of a dungeon with 3 groups starting from different points. In a small way this is already present in the game, with the Thorim encounter in Ulduar. But lets consider a few questions that would have to be answered for your idea to be properly developed.
- Should your idea be developed within the existing budget? Suppose Blizzard had started with your idea at the beginning of WoTLK. If they only had a fixed amount of money, what should they have removed from the game in order to pay for your idea?
- Alternatively, do you think the development budget is too small, and that is the reason for lack of content?
- Would the three groups who all start on this dungeon typically all know each-other, and be linked together in some way? What form would this link take if it isn't a raid?
- If a member of one of the groups included a warlock, would he be able to summon members of the other group, given they are all in the same dungeon?
- What if only one or two groups wanted to run this dungeon at a particular time? Would some sort of queueing system have to be introduced so they could wait for the third group?
- What if group 1 finds it too hard and decides to give up. What should the members of groups 2 and 3 do?
- What if group 2 is really good, and solves all the puzzles and gets to the middle early. What do they do then? Do you expect them to sit around doing nothing in the middle for half an hour whilst the other groups catch up?
Maybe problems like the above are solvable. All I'm saying is that they need to be thought through. At the moment, your post sounds like "I have some half baked ideas and therefore the current endgame is wrong and all those people who design these games for a living are clueless". Well no - it doesn't mean that - it just means you have a half baked idea.
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Your lack of any real inference making abilities are astounding. You only got one thing right, the ideas I thrown out there were half-baked because they were just thrown out there. The fact that you didn't realize is these are creative ideas that can be further developed by a game company (thats THEIR job not mine). I understand the impacts behind game design, but that shouldn't stop a company from thinking outside the box (i.e. making Raiding the only available option for PvE development, keyword, PvE) either which Blizzard apparently fails to do along with you. If you think Blizzard has no room for mistakes or some kinds of failure, then your in denial. Wasting any more words with you is obviously a waste since you seem to gradually twist my points around (no, Arena was NOT a counter to ALL my points if ANY, way to try and use exaggeration to mislead and bend the points I was actually trying to make with my posts). I didn't even bother reading your whole post this time because you obviously have been missing other people's points 2-3 pages ago so why should you deserve the same respect.
EDIT: Try to not take 1 quote/paragraph and focus a counter to it and say that was my whole argument. After the first expansion, the game has followed somewhat of the form of a trend, this is not deniable. They constantly feed more and more instances along the same form. The only changes they actually use was utilize 10 man and change 40 to 25 man, and add in another difficulty (wow how hard is that, changing a couple values around to make it harder?), in the face of NEW EXPERIENCES, these things are minimal. I can run 10 man Naxx and know what I am doing in a 25 man Naxx, Heroic difficulty is like Normal but they hit harder (with exceptions to a couple things obviously). I don't feel like I should have to cover every single aspect of a subject to lay out points and arguments, you should be smart enough to make your inferences that hey, I probably thought of that already because I'm not that simple or dense. Consider all your posts from here on out not worth replying to, it'll be pointless for you to respond to it unless you just want me to read it and maybe I will.
Jaire, the only reason I replied to only part of your post was that it was the only bit with substance - the only concrete suggestion. The rest was full of vague aspirations, personal attacks, attempts to defend yourself against non-accusations and to counter points I never put.
I chose to ignore it because I didn't want to sink to your level.
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Jairoe03, I have quite a simple question for you that shouldn't take half a page to answer.
Do you think you should have to put in more, or less, or equal amounts of time to earn Raid level rewards?
Do you think that this time should be as constrained as it is for raiders...ie you have to do 4 hours of work without logging off, and that you have to do it a minimum of 3 nights in a week to get a raid level reward.
If not, then why not, why should you get the same level rewards for less work? You can take half a page to explain that if you like.
1st question, in terms of time total for Raid level rewards if I were to do it outside a raid, more time. Raids are the places that everyone has known to get high level gear so I wouldn't want to change that. I wouldn't care if it stayed as the best (the problem is its the ONLY) way to get gear.
2nd question, no, thats the issue for more casual gamers is time. So there shouldn't be a constraint, but I would like it to be as hard if not harder and wouldn't mind if it had to be done in groups (sure, make it glorified chains of level 80-only group quests, it'll keep me busy, even that'll be new to WoW). But the balance here would be in terms of total time, it definitely should take longer and I mean a lot longer. As I posted before (sad if half a page is too long for a subject that you care about), this is mainly about having other options outside of just Raiding to progress your character past the regular 5-man heroics, however currently there really is nothing beyond it but raiding. Raiding shouldn't be the end-all-be-all of WoW (in terms of PvE). Raiding is an old concept in PvE and Blizzard has failed to deliver something entirely new and go beyond it in that aspect.
PS I hope this isn't too much reading for you
Thing is, I don't disagree with you.
I have no issue with the same level gear being gotten outside of raids, as long as those in group and solo situations have to work equally as hard as those people who raid.
The problem is, most people don't want to work as hard as raiders or can't work as hard as raiders. The thing that makes me laugh is that some people will say..."I can't devote 4 hours to a computer game of a night, I am too busy" but then deny the fact that devoting 4 hours a night to a computer game is difficult. Well if it isn't difficult...you do it....if it is difficult, then understand that those that can do that difficulty level deserve better gear then you.
As to length, I can handle any length of reply you post...to me, but when I have to dissect your post as it pertains to someone else, it becomes a chore. While me and Antipathy share the same conclusion, we don't share the same reasoning. To give you an example, two people believe in climate change, one believes it is down to carbon emissions, pollution and manmade effects, the other believe that it is gods punishment for homosexuality....can we just lump these two people together and argue against them using the same rhetoric? I would hope not. So your replies to Antipathy have nothing really to do with me and answer none of the issues I bring up.
I agree with you. I don't know why, but people play the game with laziness in mind rather than to challenge their mind. I think they are bored and just want something to burn their time with. I guess thats fine, but theres things already out there for them if they just want to burn time.There are casual gamers like myself that are looking for a challenge they can pick apart an hour or two at a time and to feel like they are rewarded for their efforts (in terms of character development in WoW's case items, which is something that most of us shoot for in an MMO). The casual gamers looking for challenge do not have much within WoW to satisfy them. So, now they have something for the lazy players, why can't they release things for the not-so-lazy. There is plenty of challenge for the raiders, so why do they feel the need to throw more their way. It seems the reason why there are even so many raiders because WoW has pidgeon holed higher end content into just Raids. How many of those raiders actually are enjoying the raids or are just suffering through it because thats where the items are at for them?
Sorry, I should of done a better job replying directly to the thread and the topic, people like him just irritate me and I guess a troller has a way of grabbing attention. And yes I actually am trying to do a better job at keeping these shorter
It's just the text editor can be misleading and not make it seem as "long" since it uses a wider space.
The problem is that the actual in-game difficulty of an encounter does not change based on how much time you devote to the encounter. As a matter of fact the better you get at an encounter, the less time you spend on doing the encounter. So if you want to give out rewards purely on how long someone takes to do an activity then the better raid guilds should get worse rewards.
So the fact that you cannot spend four hours in a row during a night raiding is not a matter of difficulty but one of inconvenience.
The problem is that the actual in-game difficulty of an encounter does not change based on how much time you devote to the encounter. As a matter of fact the better you get at an encounter, the less time you spend on doing the encounter. So if you want to give out rewards purely on how long someone takes to do an activity then the better raid guilds should get worse rewards.
So the fact that you cannot spend four hours in a row during a night raiding is not a matter of difficulty but one of inconvenience.
You act as if raid encounters are randomly generated by the world! as if they are real life?
Encounters are not sponteanously created that way, they are designed to take a certain amount of time to get to and to beat. If some guilds are better then the designers anticipted then it will take them less time, if some guilds are worse then the designed anticipated then it will take longer....however there is a designed core time that the creators expected the raid to take.
All I am saying is, take that time core that the designers put into the encounter and use that as the requirement for solo or group content.
Then everyone can earn the same while doing the same amount of designed work. While some players with great skill will do it faster and others will do it slower the designed requirement is equal.
I think you might need to clarify these statements a bit since they seem to go against what you were arguing for in the rest of this thread.
Using your criteria, if a Naxx raid takes about 4 hours spread out over a week then a solo player who plays for that same amount of time (or more) over a week should get the equivalent to what a single raider can expect to get as loot from a single Naxx clear?
You can do PuG Naxx raids spread out over 4 hours of a week and get the rewards from Naxx already.
I don't have any issue with people doing that. The truth is though, that it is RARE that a single PuG raid group is only going to spend 4 hours in Naxx. The truth is that while a GUILD can do this, PuGs generally take much much longer. Which is the complaint that most of the people have here, they can't spend that time, but they want the same rewards.
The truth is that the time requirement is difficult for them to commit to, but they want the same rewards, which is silly, they admit there is difficulty here, but deny that anyone should earn for matching that level of difficulty.
No, the complaint is that Raiding is the only thing defining what end-game content is. Outside of raiding, the rest of the end-game appears fairly limited. Even if I had the time, I'm not even sure if I would spend it on raiding. New challenges in a form other than raid would be nice especially if it provides me an other option to progress me character development other than being trapped into having to raid for any kind of improvement.
Again, as it seemingly keeps getting ignored, the point amongst casual gamers like myself looking for new challenges is that Raiding should not be the ONLY dimension/way to experience good quality end game content (for people seeking more out of PvE) and it won't hurt to at least be half-way decently rewarded for them. No one is asking it for it to be easier (or the rewards to be above raid items) rather quite the contrary, we wouldn't mind something hard, but would like to be able to pick it apart that ISN'T in a raid context.
Let's face it, raid was a big thing when it first came out, now its just overdone, abused and relied upon a little to heavily by designers to keep a game going. It just so happens now some of us can notice a trend (trends take time) and some of us aren't entertained that easily by being force fed Raid content in order to get anything decent out of the game. A raid experience was fun before (for veterans like myself) but this isn't an experience I am looking for anymore (or maybe just for now). At the very least the game should have a change of pace in the trend, 5 years is just too long (with an outlook that it looks like this trend will follow in the oncoming years without anything else to compliment it).
As the title of this thread implies, I do not think there should be a direct link from end game content to raid. Its very 1 dimensional thought and sadly I don't think many people can honestly associate many other words to end game content aside from PvP. How many epic quest lines suited only to the end game are there (talking about any game)? Maybe I'm not looking hard enough, but this is a trend that is not only prominent in WoW for a long time, but in games that are coming out (at least the ones I have seen, I can't keep up with all of them). I think end-game for any game (if there is an end-game) should be a little more involving than just Raid and PvP (PvE can be broken down way better than this). Again, back to the laziness of people, this can safely be applied to game designers and developers as well.
You can do PuG Naxx raids spread out over 4 hours of a week and get the rewards from Naxx already.
I don't have any issue with people doing that. The truth is though, that it is RARE that a single PuG raid group is only going to spend 4 hours in Naxx. The truth is that while a GUILD can do this, PuGs generally take much much longer. Which is the complaint that most of the people have here, they can't spend that time, but they want the same rewards.
The truth is that the time requirement is difficult for them to commit to, but they want the same rewards, which is silly, they admit there is difficulty here, but deny that anyone should earn for matching that level of difficulty.
A Naxx PuG that does not wipe should be able to complete the raid in about 5-6 hours. If you need to split it over two days then 3 hours per day should do it. A person who does not like Naxx could easily spend two 3 hour sessions doing single or 5man content. So if your only metric for 'effort' and 'challenge' is the time spent continuously then he should be getting the same rewards as the Naxx raiders.