QQ i haz 2 think naoFollow

Waaah, I can't just mash buttons indiscriminately, this SUCKS!

This is my favorite part, where he summarizes his point:


Now, I'm not in the beta, so I can't comment on whether there is any merit to his complaint. Unfortunately he didn't provide any kind of scenario I could use to judge that. All he's saying is that sometimes he runs out of mana after a few pulls and has to drink! And he has to pick the right spell! And if he picks the wrong one, he runs out of mana faster!

I just have trouble drumming up sympathy for someone complaining that it requires "too much" thought to have to memorize what seven spells do and apply the right one. He says himself that health pools are much larger, so theoretically he should have more time to make that decision than he does now. Particularly given that he's a druid and should be a fairly proactive healer. There's no indication that he's running out of mana during actual fights, only that he has to drink sometimes.

Again, he may have a valid point in there; I imagine they haven't got the balance right yet, and maybe mana pools are too small, or damage is too high to give that extra split second to decide, or whatever. But everything he's saying is happening? Sounds like a really fun way to heal to me.

It's true. I think the absolute dregs of WoW players ended up with beta access.

I suspected this was the case. Whatever your position on the "Wrath is too easy" debate overall, there's no denying that they did make several former basics of dungeon play obsolete: marking mobs, paying attention to the kill order, cc, watching threat, stopping before the boss to make sure everyone is full HP/Mana. Really anything that requires slowing down and thinking about the pull. Judging by the decisions they made, faster play was seen as more fun than thoughtful play so that's what they ran with.

Now they want people to learn to play carefully again, and it's seen as a nerf. And why wouldn't it be? People got the expectation of being AOE superheroes who can smash through content in 15 minutes from somewhere. I agree with the direction Blizzard is going, I just wish it wasn't a total 180 from where they are now.

The dungeon finder is going to be so awful for the first month or so. My husband can tank so at least I'll be sure of having someone who will mark mobs and wait for me to drink. But the DPS will be like a revolving door with people dropping group because ZOMG JUST GOGOGOGOGO. And laughing when a target is marked for CC. LOL SAP IS 4 PVP NOOB! He should do a ready check at some point, just to watch their heads explode.


Edited, Aug 20th 2010 4:33pm by teacake

I'd like a return to the game this was four years ago. Being away from the game so long and only returning several months back the differences that probably were gradual to all of you were so marked for me. There seems so much less tactics in the game now and with such a faster play style, less player interaction. I miss rogues sneaking forward to SAP, I miss seeing mobs sheeped, I miss using the occassional mind control on a difficult room.
I've been on the mind numbing track of repeated scarlet monastary crypt runs lately. GOGOGO, grab grab grab AOE AOE AOE. Its just a different type of mind numbing grinding. So while its easy to get a group with dungeon finder its just not so fun to make the run.

Can't Shamans hex for CC?

NOW they can. Used to be different.



Random groups generally ARE stupid. It's not like anybody has to try not to be since the whole system is anonymous enough. I don't see the people who are thrown together by the dungeon tool being able to properly coordinate.

Look at all the ICC PuGs. They're perfectly capable of clearing 2 wings. Once things start to require coordination rather than just raw power all those groups seem to fail.

I agree with this. I wish they could find a way to make dungeons less about memorizing encounters and more about knowing how to play your role and class. If I could walk into a dungeon, visually inspect the first pull, and just from that be able to say, "Okay, there are two casters, three melee, and one guy in the back who looks like he could spit fire, so here's the kill order, here's who I want cc'd, here's where everyone should stand, and if you see some fire, move out of it," I'd be a lot happier. With the current system, if you want to do a random you need to read WoW Wiki for an hour first to make sure you know all the mechanics of every instance you might get thrown into.

Even better if they could make the dungeons dynamic, so that the trash pulls aren't exactly the same every time you do it. It seems like it wouldn't be that hard to have a pack of x mobs randomly spawn from any of three types, or something. Even give the boss some different abilities that change combinations. People complain all the time about how bored they are doing the same heroics over and over again. I don't think it should be this binary switch of either you know the gimmicks, or you don't.

We've had that for quite some time. It resulted in people not even going there, or later instantly quitting when the LFG tool put them there. Blizzard eventually realized that it wasn't going to work and nerfed it as well as increased the rewards, and madeit scale with people's gear... It's Oculus...

You have a quite similar situation now with Halls of Drama Reflection. Too much coordination and gear required without rewards that are any better than what you would get elsewhere. The result is people - tanks and healers - preferring to eat the 30 minute penalty rather than bother with it.

No, not a fight where our characters don't use their abilities, like the Occulus's mounted battle. More like the Lich King encounter from HoR, sure. Or with kiting-required adds like Nethermancer Sepetherea from the Mechanar, or with void zones, or deadly pursuit, or whatever. Something that means mouth-breathers won't survive. Something about as challenging as a raid fight for five people.

Then, in addition to that, the same dungeon at lower levels of difficulty, where you can get the same rewards at a much slower rate. Gear up slowly but surely with the pot luck people you get in randoms, or go for the faster rewards with people you can count on.

This is a problem that's barely fixable, though. Blizzard is already implementing a lot of raid encounter-like quests to make the jump to raiding easier (simple quest bosses that you don't just DPS down, but have specific tactics), but even then - what kind of healer/tanking content would you like to see outside of instances that plays similar to instances?

As much good as the cross-realm LFG feature has brought us, it also brought out the worst in players. It's not just issues about actual items and their intended use. I mean the first thing people did on my realm(s) was starting with "need"-rolls on Frozen Orbs, something that didn't disappear again until more recently. Now you have people pulling a couple packs and logging out while the rest of the party wipes. These are things that would have never happened when your instance runs were still limited to your own realm and people had to give some thought to their reputation.

The dungeon difficulty needs to match the people you're running with, and the current system simply results in places having to be dumbed down enough to make them easily manageable with a cross-realm random group. There just isn't any room for anything that requires complicated tactics and lengthy discussions and explanations of them.

In fact, you're more or less drawn into the whole thing. Look at how Halls of Reflection is being played. You have to do the alcove thing because nobody knows how to do it differently, not because it's always the best way to do it.

You see it in battlegrounds too. I always find it amusing when on one realm I'm on Alliance rushes RIGHT past Belinda's bunker in AV, while on another realm everybody goes LEFT. We're all just freaking Lemmings... Don't think, don't ask, just follow...

And no, tanks aren't automatically leaders just because they're spearheading your dungeon efforts, and neither should they be. If you expect a tank to come up with fancy marks, you might as well expect dps to sense what the tank will be doing because it's the only logical choice.

You can't even get the pure basics across in today's random groups, like not to attack until the tank has the attention of all relevant mobs. The sad reality is that you have bolts of fire and lightning already chasing you as a tank before you're even anywhere close to a pack.

I don't think that Blizzard will manage to drastically change people, even though that change would be more than necessary if you look at how things are developing about Cata.

Right now you're looking at hard-hitting mobs, tanks needing considerably more time to bring up their maximum threat, and healers being severely limited by their mana pool. I think that the efforts are fair and just, and certainly have their place.. but that's in raids, and not in 5-mans you're playing with random people.

I'm loving this
Zarhym


Edited, Sep 2nd 2010 9:37pm by Stallob