f13.net

This has got the be the funniest thing I've ever seen. Could you imagine being the horde?

http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=4807139311734672369

:heart:

That is all.

Not to take away from the fun, but I hate Google video. I want to see how much mana they're burning up.

Gogo Imba Newb Style. Spam that moonfire.

I'm convinced that WoW PvP takes practically no player skill. Zero.

Personally, I hate it. But then, I'm not dmg+int geared or a Moonkin either. It's terribly inefficient from my (admittedly, inexperienced) point of view.

[edit] Also, I'm a Tauren. We shouldn't be "cute" anyways.

I'm not arguing (I've been reamed too many times while in stun/fear/charm/whatever to assert otherwise), but I've always been of the impression that moonfire spam was an extremely poor tactic.  I haven't been up against that many moonkin who spam moonfire, but the ones I have seen I can usually out-DPS with my shaman or just heal myself a few times until they run out of mana.  Have I just not been getting hit by any uber geared druids, or what?  Does this really work?  I was amazed when the screen popped up and showed that the Alliance won that; it looked like they had like what, eight guys defending the blacksmith for most of that match, against a handful of Horde?

I can't speak much for the 50-60 PvP range. I got a warrior to 52, tried the PvP, and promptly quit out of disgust.

But I played the lowbie brackets a shitton. Moonfire spam works FAR too well in those brackets; at least as a warrior, there's practically no way to stop it, as it's an instant cast. Hell, I've had stupid elf druids simply walk backwards and spam me down. I imagine it would be even worse if I did use a Tauren warrior.

(That's not to say that I can't kill druids; I kill them by the boat load. I just think that stupid tactic should practically never work, especially if both people start at full health)

Among the links next to that video was some footage from a cooler game than the one you are currently playing.

http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=-4795476850948386379 (http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=-4795476850948386379)

Hamstring is "instant cast" too, y'know? ;)

If you don't suceed there, and they shift to a form to break your snare, then Hamstring again. A Druid won't be able to shift forever. Costs a lot of mana to do that.

And if they do so happen to take off in Cat Form, there's a little window of opportunity for your charge to pop up and you can close in on them again. Once you charge them, then Hamstring them.

Use nothing but a two-hander in PvP. You want scary burst damage as a warrior. It has a better psychological effect on opponents, and keeps them on their toes. DPS otoh, just gives them the impression they can throw down with you, and makes them confident. You don't want confident opponents.

If he gives up running and tries to start healing, then Pummel. Then beat the shit out of him.

Execute.

If none of that works out, then Fear them. Save the fight for another day.

....

What's a Tauren warrior have to do anything? I don't understand.

Well, the psycological effect had to be devistating. Moonfires everywhere, getting eaten, 4 ticks on you, unable to do any real physical damage to them... they just shift out and heal...

It's entirely possible they were outgeared. I'm personally shocked they found 15 moonkin on one server ;)  The guy who made the video was weilding a shadow focus staff (http://www.thottbot.com/?i=40806) so they've finished BWL at least. I couldn't tell his armor due to the low resolution.

Noobfire works more often then anyone (including druids) wants to admit. Doubly so if your actually balanced spec'd. With that many balance druids in one place, all spamming it up, they are dealing something like 2k-3k dmg every moonfire blast, assuming no crits, which would just inflate it even more. Then you have the 10-15 DoT's all stacked on you... so even if you managed to get away, you'd die to that. It was pretty much a wtf moment for the other side. How often do you see one oomkin, let alone a dozen?


As to moonfire itself, yes it is often hilariously effective in the lowbie BGs, but many abilities and spells are just out of whack at that level. Come 60, especially when people start getting better gear and have more stamina, it becomes far less effective for the most part. Doesn't become useless either though. If you have a decent amount into balance (20ish in or so), it is entirely possible to noobfire down low HP classes like mages, usually to their extreme frustration. You can't really counterspell a instant, and unless the mage can one/two-shot the druid (which does happen depending on gear/spec), the fight will devolve into a mana war, and the Druid will always win the mana war.

Probably the best part about moonfire spam, is how it seems to annoy other druids. A lot of druids pride themselves on their intricate shapeshifting tactics and strategies. Going about how they FeralCharged into a Root to pull away to cat for 3 rounds to combo up to a rip then hit a FeralCharge again shifted out to cast a wrath, went back into bear to maul then bash, then healed and HoT'd and went back into cat for a shred and finally a ferocious bite... etc. These druids seem to get very upset when they see another druid, in the same situation, just spam noobfire ftw and win the fight in half the time and a tenth of the effort.


Want to have real FrontLoading fun though? Instead of 10-15 druids, get 15 Shamans and have them all Shock the same target. Insta death every six seconds!


PS. Your noobfire tip for the day, Hit the target with your top rank, then spam the rank just below it. This way the DoT portion of the moonfire will continue without interuption from the reapplying of the moonfire as it is being spammed.

There was a 10-druid WSG on my server a while ago, it was apparently quite fun. Keep in mind though, stacking 10 of any class can get pretty crazy (10 deathcoils!), if you have the organization to pull it off. You're also very likely to get wrecked the moment you meet an organized group that has more than just 1 class (and thus versatility).

Killing druids as a warrior isn't that hard as long as you have a pvp trinket, I can't remember the last time I died to one on my warrior. Hamstring (piercing howl if they get out of range somehow), mortal strike and beat on them, in caster form they go down quick. If they try to heal or root in caster, you have 3 different interrupts (4 as tauren); if they go in catform, you should be able to 2-shot them; if they go bear (and are specced for it), you might be in trouble, but the fight will take at least 3 minutes. I really don't think gauging moonfire spam viability in the 20-29 (or 30-39, etc) bracket is worthwhile; not only does everyone have less health, but with the proper +arcane gear, they can actually hit for rather harsh damage.

In fact, (speaking as someone with a rank10 warrior) warriors are one of the classes that take the least amount of 'skill' (or I should say, initiative) to play. As long as you keep your target hamstrung and are beating on them with a huge sword, you win... or lose. Of course there are unconventional skills like intimidating shout / disarm / sweeping strikes / berzerker rage / intercept, but it's evident when you need to use those (I got feared? oh... berzerker rage! Mage blinked? Hmmm... intercept!). Playing a healing class or a CCing dps class gives you a lot more options and decisions in pvp.


-- Z.

Out of curiosity, Strazos, what other games do you feel have more skill involved in PvP combat?  I`ve always felt wow allowed for some very skilled pvp, making use of many different skills and using many different tactics to take on all the different class`s.  Each class has been paper/scissor/rock balanced enouph to require alot of different strategys.  Only thing I could really see that argument working for are warriors, since usual my encounters with them are Charge/hamstring/half my life gone/fear/warrior breaks fear instantly/intercept stun/ 1 or 2 shot death.  But everything else usually is a pretty good fight.  Personally, I`ve yet to play an MMO that took any more skill than wow for PvP, with maybe the exception of Eve.  But that is such a different style of PvP its hard to compare, and alot of its automated.

Too gear dependent.

Equally geared fights can have some skill, but there are also huge imbalances.

I think there will be a bit of skill in the team fights in the expansion in the arena, though. Because as they have said a number of times WoW is more balanced in groups than individualy.

But current PvP is real world PvP, which is often ganking or 1v1 (which is unbalanced), or BGs, which is just gear dependent or zerging boringness. So current PvP has little skill.

Yeah, gear will sully things a bit. It might be gratifying (in a Beserk GTA/Slaughter the Innocents kind of way) for the person with major item advantages, but I really doubt it's "fun" for them (at least this is what I've observed from a friend with well geared out characters in just about every bracket).

For their opponents, it's obviously not fun being taken out of a fight so easily by someone who just stands there and swings. It's also not fun when you have no choice but to zerg people who resort to that.

There are times when the game doesn't stoop to the level of Zerg vs Twinks, and can be pretty entertaining. For the type of game it is at least -- relatively speaking, "rpg" pvp in and of itself is crap (it's just a good thing there are other elements that make up for that). Hotkeys and acquaintance with class skills (even all class skills) are not difficult things to understand. Hell, I barely play the game, didn't play the game much before, and my Theorycraft-Fu is about as good as it gets.  :wink:

Once again: Shadowbane is uglier, but much better. Next to no uber items (save for the odd live event item here and there), world pvp had a point, and a good group of 10 could make life hell for groups twice their number every time. A good group of 30 vs a bad group of 30 could potentially wipe out the entire side without only a few people dying.

Amazingly enough Strazos, warror vs balance druid is almost a druid auto-win. I don't know if you have any experience fighting moonkin, since they are fairly rare and require a good deal of high-end specalized equipment to be *really* viable (genesis set, that kind of thing), but in the right situation they are really really deadly one on one vs a warrior, owning to Entangling roots, Nature's grasp (high chance to proc entangling roots on hit), and their +360% armor in moonkin form (the same as the bear form). They can generally root, stay out of range, and hit you for starfire/moonfire/wrath until you drop. It's even worse with tauren, becuase they can shift->warstomp->regrowth+rejuv->shift back, whereas the NE moonkin only get shift->rejuv->shift. They are the closest thing that WoW has to the tank mage. It's essentially their mana bar versus your life bar, and while they have trouble taking more than one, or a warrior with healing/damage support, 1 vs 1 is generally no contest.

Yeah, I know all of that. Doesn't help if I don't get to charge in first and they snare/root me.

Far too often, the outcome comes down to level (= time played) and gear (= time played). I can sit around and play for hours on end every day too if I want. The only skill involved in that is finding a way to pay your bills while playing so much.

That's not to say I didn't do well when I PvP'ed - I did exceptionally well. But it wasn't really tough; oooo, charge, (rend on rogues) (zerker stance vs warlocks, priests, mages) hamstring, Mortal Strike, Heroic Strike, maybe Execute if I felt like it. Toss in a disarm against rogues, warriors, maybe paladins. Simply charge a paladin and fire a Deathray for added fun. Maybe pummel against a caster, but whatwith the lag and short cast times, that was almost useless. Toss in some Overpowers when able. Cleave, Whirlwind in groups, maybe sweeping strikes. Fire retal for added fun when multi-targetted. Randomly fire Demoralizing shout if I think there's a stealther around, and ruin their day. Grab the enrage item for super fat cow action.

Nope, it's not tough. At all.

I'll bite. Saying pvp in WoW takes little to no skill is an unjustly large generalisation. There are a lot of factors involved in pvp, the biggest of which are gear, class matchup and player skill. Some classes are easier to play than others (I still refuse to believe that shadow priest pvp is difficult) and as a result, player skill is more of a factor with some classes than others. So yeah, gear can be a big factor (the disparity between blues/MC epics and AQ40 gear is really where this starts to hurt IMO), but if you're fighting a terrible player and you happen to be pretty good, there is still a fighting chance. Are you saying you've never had a tough pvp fight, Strazos?

I don't think anyone'd disagree that gear's pretty much the defining point in pvp, especially similar-class matchups.

However, that's not true of every class. Like I said in my previous post, warriors are one of the most simplistic pvp classes in the game [tied with shadow priests], and I say that with more than a year of active warrior pvp experience. You might have options, but at every point it's clear what you should or shouldn't do. With a healing, CCing or hybrid class, there's a lot more room for strategizing.


-- Z.

WoW PvP is like any other MMO's PvP. It isn't so much "skill" as it is simply not screwing up to badly. The Fights are more often then not, decided on how your enemy screws up, not on how you perform. The bar for player skill in a MMO is set so low, that it's almost not an issue. A Warrior and myself (A Druid) are defending the mine, a Mage and Priest come to assault it. The Mage decides to poly me, the druid. I break it and we kill them off easily. Nothing we did was dramatically awesome as players, it's just the Mage boned his poly up. Had he poly'd the warrior, I would've been at the mercy of two silence capable classes. /shrug

The only time I really think true player skill would come into play is if you had two identical classes, same gear, same level, same spec, and one player somehow won the majority of the time... but even then, I'd wager the RNG has more to do with victory then any kind of player skill.

If you want to say the skill in MMO PvP is in the teamplay, I'd probably agree. You can really see the difference in a good team against a poor one. A really good team will be dynamic and adjust to the situation on the fly, a poor one will carry out there preset strategy even if its getting them all killed. Ever kill the MainAssist in DAOC and watch the rest of the train run around clueless?


Most folks on these boards could probably be given any WoW class at 60 and within 10 minutes have all the basics, and within an hour be as good as they fellow who played the class for a year. There just isn't that much to figure out really on a per class basis.

I think you people are simplifying quite a bit.  It may be hard to see from your lofty perch of having PvPd for a while, but there is a bit of a climb.

Take me for example.  I have a 60 warrior, great gear, but I haven't PvPd much (almost Honored with Arathor, plus random world PvP on a PvP server).  I still suck massively.  I die most of the time regardless of my gear.

I played my friend's 60 lock, which is blue-geared for a while.  I'd get lucky once in a while, but I hardly could figure out how to drive the thing, much less make the bad guys die.

I now have a 40s shadow priest (easymode ftw).  I do decently in PvP, but I still suck against someone with any sort of skill whatsoever.

So my conclusion is, there is a learning curve.  I used to be good in UO, AC1, and SB PvP, and various RTS, so it's not that I just suck at games.

If you were good at those games, then I don't know what to say. That kind of experience works in my benefit at least.

Is the Alzheimer's already settling in or what? ;)

Don't joke.  I went back to my warrior after a break to level a lock to 60 and I'd totally forgotten how to play.

:(

Sure I have, and the difficulty of the battle commonly comes down to level and gear disparity, and then people using cheap/borderline-exploity techniques (FD-Trap, fleeing druids constantly shapeshifting with enough lag to keep ahead of me, stunlock (at lower levels before trinket/zerker rage) and other stupid nonsense).

Very rarely do I find a battle to be hard because of any kind of skill on the part of the opponent. And it usually doesn't matter, because when I was playing, I won far more battles than I lost.

But it was said wel above; whoever screws up less probably wins. I suppose not screwing up could be a skill.

You might be on to something there.

Of course, some classes just have less to screwup and/or can recover from said screwup better.

As a fairly undergeared mage, if I don't play perfectly, I really suck it up.

I would say my playstyle takes a lot of skill.  Some classes probably take much less than mage, but playing a mage requires FPS like reflexes, tactical understanding of distance, and total understanding of the other classes.

This goes for pretty much any class in WoW. Every class must have "FPS-like reflexes", which is what I think a lot of people mistake for skill. Well, that is of course a skill as well, but a general skill for every class. Everyone's got to know distance.. "Hmm, how far away am I from his/my charge range?" especially when fighting hunters you've got to know the deadzone well. Total understanding of the other classes? You're not going to beat meany people if you don't know their class.

I think WoW PvP gives great illusion of skill, though. I can't tell you how many times leveling and even PvP'ing from level 1 to 60 I felt like I was insanely skilled. When really, its all basic. Throwing two DoTs on a mob/player and kiting them with a snare and your fear certainly feels like you outskilled them, but really there's no other you could have done it. Same with warriors, while you may feel like you owned that rogue because you're so good, all you really did was snare him and overpower him when the button popped up. That's certainly not skill, its pressing buttons.

There are situations in WoW where you do need to actually think about when to use an ability, but that's mainly for things like deciding if you want to interrupt a heal, or a nuke that might kill you. But often that's pretty much been dumbed down to "Hit pummel when you see green glowies!".

And of course none of the above even matters if your outgeared. Especially fighting the same class as you. Its pathetic being a warrior and running across another warrior and losing purely because he hits for one and a half what you hit for and has twice your armor. There's absolutely nothing you can do at that point except maybe a few engineering items or trinkets. But even then, there's no skill - you just lose. To gear.

So I guess FPS games don't actually require skill either because there's only one right way to shoot people? And your last paragraph reminded me of the experiences I've had with AWP whores.

That's the difference between a mage and a warrior then:  As a mage, I can beat definitely beat a mage that outgears me if I play well, because the fight isn't 'just the way it's gonna be' every time.  When do you counterspell, when do you sheep, when do you ice block, what range do you stay at, what nuke do you use?  Lots of choices, including skill use and once again, distance!

Distance is increasibly important for a mage.  Appropriate use of distance (and closing of it in certain cases) is essential to playing the class well.  Understanding distance is not something a bot would be able to do very well, especially against multiple opponents in a 3v2 type situation.

Well, there's a reason AWP whores are reviled among a large percentage of players.  Mousing a cross over a player and clicking a button isn't a super difficult skill to master.  Most of the skill in CS (or in most FPSes) comes from the tactical aspect of it.  When do you move, when do you stop, where do you move to, where is the cover in a certain position, et cetera.  You don't get this in WoW, because those options are largely negated by the combat system.  You can't jump out from behind cover and let off a shot or two, because most of your nukes take two or three seconds to fire.  You don't worry about stealth or concealment because either your name shows up over your head as a huge neon red marker, or you're a Rogue and can be concealed in the middle of a flat empty plane at noon.  You can't try to use the terrain to your advantage, because most attacks will ignore it completely (fireballs going right through trees/hills, melee attacks ignoring obstructions/weapon range/height differences/etc.).



I'm not understanding this really well (I never played a mage past thirty).  As any other class, if an enemy is outside of the range for an ability, that ability will grey out and you won't be able to even try to use it.  The exception for this would be AOE spells, which either show you exactly where you'll hit (like Blizzard) or only hit enemies fairly close to you (like Frost Nova) where the distance is fairly easy to estimate.  And why would a bot have difficulty reading distance?

I do agree that a mage (or any caster) is less depentant on gear than a warrior or rogue, and has a ton more options open to them.  I find them to be a lot more fun in general.

However, I also think that, ultimately, they fall prey to the same simplicity that other classes to.  When do you counterspell?  When the enemy is about halfway done casting their healing/big damage spell.  When do you sheep?  When fighting two enemies at once.  What range do you stay at?  The "long" one.  I'm sure you can come up with some situations where you'd do otherwise, but how crucial are these to your overall success?  Compared to, say, the likelihood of your enemy getting in a few lucky resists, or critting you at an inopportune time?

Even the "FPS like reflexes" gets tossed out in WoW (and most other MMOs), due to the global cooldown 90% of abilities must follow. Almost every ability has a 1.5 second mechanical 'hesitation' built into it. 1.5 seconds of hesitation in a FPS usually means you just died.

In FPS games players die and kill more frequently; it's natural that they require reflexes. However reflexes are but a small subset of what one might define as 'skill.'

Now that we've defined tactical knowledge to be an important part of 'skill' I think we can move on. There's plenty of tactical (and strategic) knowledge in WoW as well.

In WoW you can't dodge (other than passively), and you aim by simply clicking or /targetting people. There's also healing, buffs, debuffs, cooldowns, casting times, gear, enchants, levels, classes, stuns, snares, seduction, sleeps, roots, traps, fears, holds, feigning death, mind fucking control (!), very little restrictions on line of sight, and whatever other staple of mmorpg's I'm forgetting to mention. When it's all added up, there's very little left on your part except to not be a complete, uninformed, blundering fool. If that's a skill, then so be it.

Or in other words, your character matters more than you. In an FPS such a concept is virtually non-existent (or rather, not existent at all).

[edit]

Also, whatever players that do have skill in an mmo like WoW are the ones who are good at other games too (i.e. their tactics and way of going about things are borrowed from experience in shooters, beat em ups, or strategy games. The same can't be said for the knuckleheads who've migrated from EQ).

See the thing is: There is more than one way to shoot someone in FPSs. Most of its been covered, but I'll go on. In an FPS you've got lots of things to think about. You can use cover, you can adapt your weapon of choice to ranged or close quarters combat, you can try to outmaneuver your opponent to mess with his accuracy, you can sneak up on someone with a ready to go rocket launcher, whatever. At any one point there's a whole bunch of things you can do. He's got an AWP sniper? Lob grenades at his general position to flush him out, find some way to get to him other than running through an open area, get someone else on your team to flank him or to cover you while you go in. All this is a good amount of strategy and also all this works because its 100% equal. You got killed by weapon X 10 times so far and think its overpowered? Use it yourself, nothing it stopping you. Everything is available to every player. And its never "obvious" as to what you need to do. In WoW, its pretty simple for each class since they only have a few things they can do primarily. Mages cast a few different spells, Warlocks have DoTs, Fear, and one nuke, Warriors have autoattack and a special attack or two, Hunters shoot arrows and lay traps, Priests have a DoT, Fear, and a nuke, etc. As a Mage, you nuke them and don't let them get near you. As Warlock you DoT them and keep them away. As a Warrior you autoattack all day long.

Now, I'm not saying WoW has zero skill involved. Group fighting definately has many tactics, but the skill is in the grouping.. as the individual's experience is simple, its harder to coordinate it all and get it to work together with usually between 4 to 9 other people.

Well it's a good thing that WoW's pvp is balanced and conceptualized around that whole group idea then, isn't it?

I honestly wonder if any MMO PvP is really ever balanced at all. I know all the Dev's always say that everything is balanced around groups, but is it really? I'm half certain it is just some sort of cop out, since even with 5v5, you have eight classes per side, and one class is unique per side and each class has three distinct branches of specialization... so you have thousands, if not millions of possible class/spec combinations.

Has someone really worked all those kinks out?  :-P

I want to say they just nerf/buff things as they become apparent and that there really isn't any kind of grand balance scheme in the backend.

As much as Sirlin's a blowhard he has a few good points. In this article (http://www.sirlin.net/archive/game-balance-part-1/) for example he tries to define balance:

By this definition, WoW certainly is balanced around groups, just like its older cousin DAoC. One on one, class matches are unfair (Here's a sarcastic video (http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=-1756460987529817534&q=wow+balance)), but a PvP group does not live or die based on its class composition. It depends, instead, on the synergies between classes and the skill players have exploiting precisely the one-on-one imbalances that make dueling (and soloing on PvP servers) so frustrating.

I use the term "skill" interchangably with "experience". Playing Go requires neither lightning reflexes nor much memorization of rules, but nobody fairly complains that it's any less skill-based than Billiards or Baseball. And even in those twitchy games, a seasoned player with an understanding of nuance and consequence can outfox a more twitch-capable newb.

If more options are viable, then the more experience a player has the more skill he will display in exercising the correct option at the correct moment as the correct response to the correct opponent's behavior.

That you play with or against a bunch of newbs doesn't mean that game's bad... only that it's popular. I'm sure high-end WoW is as skill-based as any FPS. The skills are just different.

And where it's obvious that only a skilled player can lead a moving target the right distance to make that perfect shot, or properly time a perfect rocket jump... skill level in MMOs is more subtle. That anybody could, theoretically,  choose the right ability to use at the right moment doesn't mean that any but a skilled player actually does.

Its interesting that if this thread was about PvE not taking any skill hundreds would come out of the woodwork to combat the exploiter griefer pk that said it  :roll:

Come on people.  Anyone who says that each class only has a few skills and people just mash buttons are retarded or coming down off of an ego-bruising PvP death and trying to cry themselves to sleep.

Watch videos of the GOOD players sometimes (especially with classes like druids where successful PvP is difficult).  I am not good (but slowly improving, even after all this time most people do NOT expect engineering)  but even I know i have to combat every class differently, first of all.  And even within each class, you have to consider factors (hunter dead zone, which lock pet is out, etc.).  Its not chess, but there are rock-paper scissors aspects that you have to consider.  I've seen phenomenal PvP players and mediocre ones (wearing the same gear), and its fun to watch.

I've always said that WoW PvP has been the most fun for me since UO.  I don't know why but it seems like there are so many strategies and counters that its always fresh.  I'm sorry you died today but that isn't the same as "OMFG PVP TAKS NO SKILLZ".

Possibly.  But watching a Level 60 Rogue in full BWL gear using Sinister Strike and Eviserate to gank people with twin swords and stunlock is as much fun as watching paint dry.

See Grim.

Sure, he can beat two warriors wielding two sulfuron hammers, but it's boring as fuck to watch.

I suppose that I play a Druid because they require a little more vigilance than usual (Well...That, and I can't make up my mind. It's a good class for the indecisive). There's nothing I can truly depend on with them. There's no set battle plan, counter, shapeform, or gear set to prepare around them. Except the big heals, I guess. Other than that, it probably represents the best tactical gameplay WoW has to offer. Other classes tilt more to the strategizing + character end side (not that they aren't tactical at all. It's just that all of those little moments where you have to think on your feet with other classes is like that all the time with a Druid).

Still doesn't take a lot of skill though.  :evil:

It might not require a lot of skill, but a fair amount of skill can be brought to bear (ha! a druid pun!).  I play a feral/back-up healer in a 5 man-only "guild" and I shift alot.  It's not so important what I'm doing right now, but knowing what I need to be doing 5 seconds from now and how to get there that's important (if I'm bear right now, but primary needs an invigorate, but I'm getting beaten hard, how do I get into elf-form for long enough to invogorate, and what else to I squeeze out while I'm there).

I win almost every 1v1 PVP engagement I engage in. And this is over multiple lvl 60 classes, very different gear levels, very rarely 1v1 specced, and against all sorts of classes and gear levels. The people I tend to lose against... are the same people all the time, because they tend to be better than me (or are as good and are playing a better class/spec/gearset for it). With cross server battlegrounds with me in pretty lowish gear (my best geared char is only well geared for raid healing zzz)... I own. Hard. People have run up to me in all sorts of gear and been slapped down (for reference, cross server BGs came out 1 week after my server's first Nef kill). Now I'm no superhuman WoW PVP 1v1 prodigy. I have people who regularly beat me, but the average joe doesn't stand a chance. Why? Skill, and playing a class where skill matters. It's as simple as that.

As a side note I'd say play a healer if you want your skill to matter, any other class can easily be held at the mercy of someone being just too geared... but healing solves a lot of problems. Even on a SL warlock in tier 2 and trimmings I've felt helpless far more times than any healer I've played with blues. Sometimes you can just see your DPS, and their DPS, and they break your CC and... well you lose and there's nothing you can do.

I had this big detailed post all ready and then I noticed that there was a second page to this thread. Oh well, carry on.

I'm not sure if this will be interesting or enjoyable to watch or even useful in the slightest, but here's a mage that I believe displays 'skill' in playing:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7751967026590643950&q=mage+PvP&hl=en

The music sucks and you can just skip the first 20 seconds.

Why would you think that? PvE takes even LESS skill then PvP. At least with PvP you have the human factor, with PvE, once you've done it once, you've done it for the 100th time to the 1,000,000th time.

PvE only takes skill when you have a non taunting + fearing Fury Warrior as your tank.

In fact, not only does it take a little skill to survive that, but sometimes it can even be *gasp*.....Fun. :-D

You must not be familiar with the 2000-2003 (roughly) MMOG era that I dub the UO Therapy Session.  In that time, every dev bent over backwards to not offend PvEers in any way ("offend" included the idea that PvPers were even having fun on another separate server in your game).  In that inglorious time, it was verboten to claim that PvP took any skill (it was all exploiter gankers) and it was worth the life of a dev to imply that crafting or PvE took even less skill.

That's why I love WoW so much.  In the Therapy era, if someone recited a third-hand story about a miner getting pked in UO, devs would change (or start out with) that person's chosen PvE mechanics to placate them (if the PvEer had TWO STACKS or more of garlic looted from their corpse, the devs would send a team to a PvEer's house with cookies and warm milk).  When PvEers whined in WoW about Gadget guards, the devs responded "learn tactix newb".  :heart:

I am so sick of boring PvE content. Shit like LDoN orpretty much any WoW instance. That nonsense puts me to sleep.

Quite literally. I've nodded off in the middle of LDoN/Instance runs.

Group members going to sleep makes things a bit fun and challenging as well.

Nice Rogue.

You probably wouldn't nod off in the newer WoW instances. But hey, it takes all kinds right?


Most of it's a lie but I do have those claws. Turning into a tiger generates a lot of 'wtf tiger' comments. It's fun.

I want a gif of my rogue. How do I do that?

http://www.curse-gaming.com/en/wow/addons-2090-1-wow-model-viewer-in-limbo.html

It's a program that reads the MPQ files from WoW. You can view mobs or player models, customise the characters' looks and gear, and so on. As far as legality goes I think it's a bit dodgy but it doesn't modify the MPQs at all.

If you're saying it's dodgy because you somehow think that looking at files hosted on your machine with another program is somehow unsavory.. well, the RIAA and other DMCP champs want to send you a valentine.

So long as you're not futzing things to gain any advantage, there's nothing dodgy about it.  And if you ARE futzing with things, and get an advantage, then well, that's a whole 'nother discussion.

You're making the mistake of thinking that I agree with the idea. I don't know if Blizzard minds you digging into their data files or not but I personally have no qualms with it. It's just a nice thing to point it out to other people who might have such qualms.

Have you actually played them or what? What's so different about them? Content? New maps and skins? Mobs have bigger bonuses and more hitpoints (is that your definition of enhanced gameplay?)? What?

Anyhow, I don't think PvE will ever be worth getting all excited about unless the Tank and Pulling game is completely tossed aside. Completely. Which was my point above about the stupid Fury Warrior. People should trade punches. People should feel overwhelming pressure. Everyone should be using all of their skills, bandages, and potions. People should be falling. Druids should be battle rezzing, etc..

Scarlet Monastery/Armory, for example, should feel like a long action movie sequence where 5 heroes storm in and manage to lay waste against dozens of soldiers at a time until they face off Herod (who should do something far more predictable than calling out his spin attacks btw).

No creeping along room by room, pulling two or three mobs at a time shit. Who the fuck raids an enemy base like that?? It's shit like this that puts guys like Strazos to sleep.

No tanking. No waiting. It should be constant action with little breathing room or "resting time". Everything should be built around this fast type of gameplay. It should be God of War (except party based). Raiding the Scarlet Monastery should be like Normandy. It should be like the action sequence at the end of Equilibrium (ok, maybe not that ridiculous).

Well, there's the fight against C'thun. He sits in the middle of the room invincible while tentacles spawn and eat people, shoot lasers, and knock people into the air. The only way you can actually hurt him is by getting eaten and then killing some tentacles in his stomach which make him temporarily vulnerable. And it isn't tanked.

Raid encounters seem to be getting more dynamic, less formulaic, and require more of the player than simply following instructions and punching the same buttons over and over. It's also worth pointing out that WoW has already expanded the mechanics of boss fights pretty far beyond what was ever found in EQ.

Who actually has to be "eaten" though, and what else is everyone else doing in the meantime?

Secondly, C'thun is barely played by anyone. Good for them if they hired some console designer to make raids a little more interesting, but 99% of the rest of the game isn't like that. It's still the same ole, same ole. And even with dynamic encounters, the actual mechanics of MMO combat still doesn't compare to other combat games. When Shadowfang Keep starts resembling a knees-deep-in-shit Survival shooter, or Scarlet Monestery starts resembling the Dirty Dozen, then I'll consider it fun and challenging. Otherwise, I'm just gonna invite really shitty warriors to my groups from now on.  :-)

Anyone can be eaten, and since everyone can do damage of some sort they're all useful, though some more than others of course. Everyone else is fighting an army of tentacles and hurting C'thun when he's vulnerable.


Of course this is a problem. Unfortunately they don't seem to be in the practice of changing how older fights work, and I can only imagine the unholy uproar if they did. They seem to be treating Burning Crusade as a chance to fix all the stuff that was broken with classes, dungeons, raid mechanics, and the like.. but of course you have to level to 60 and beyond to even see that stuff, which is disappointing. At some point it's just going to be stupidly hard to start playing WoW and experience the content at the 'end-game.' </rant>


I find it deep enough to be enjoyable, but I'm the strategy-gamer who's dabbled in FPS games, not the other way around.

You're arguing pve vs a guy who just plain can't stand pve, or RPG mechanics without a storyline.  There's really no point.


Ok then.

Well....I was determined to make it an argument at first, but Chengiz has softened me up a bit  8-). All in all, this isn't a bad conversation. Whether we still disagree or not.

http://www.curse-gaming.com/en/wow/addons-5214-ctprofile-model-viewer.html (http://www.curse-gaming.com/en/wow/addons-5214-ctprofile-model-viewer.html)

This mod auto-magically pulls the info from a CTProfile you might have, so you don't need to set it up twice (apart from setting what your character actually looks like).

Of course there is skill in WoW, but it's only up to a point.

It's a small range. Then it comes down to gear and class imbalances. The larger number of people in a battle the more teamwork begins to play a part. But gear is King.

I play with an Australian guild. We get bad latency because there are no Au servers. We play BGs against people in the US and we have a disadvantage. If there was a lot of skill "twitch like" then this would be a rather big one. And our warriors and others often complain because you can't judge distance and such often because of this, but it's not huge. However we lose ABs when we go as a group if we come up against geared enemies, NOTHING we can do.

But there is a little bit of skill, to a point.

Last night me and a Mage let a sortie on stables just before the end of the map, we were on vent and timed it so that when we got in I feared the priest and he polyed the pally. Then I capped while he kept the priest away and repolyed the pally. I capped and the rest of the team rushed in and we took the spot, going on to win a little bit later 2000 to 1980.

I like to think there was some skill there, and there was. But.

If the pally had bubble up and was good he would have used it and stopped me capping and we'd have lost. If he couldn't then there was nothing he could do. If he could have but didn't then you could say we had more skill. If the guy resisted my fear or the mage's poly then can you say were were less skilled? We can just blame the RNG or the other player's gear.

On a macro level is there skill in knowing that getting a other group to zerg GM and then rushing Stables with us two will give us enough time to cap and win? Yeah, maybe you can. On the micro level can you say that player skill level plays a part too, but the points you need to master individualy are not as fine as in FPS games.

As for PvE taking skill? Sure it does. I can take two groups of equally geared players, same classes and specs, in to the same instance and get wildly different results. Because even though the skills of WoW are pretty easy to master, most people still can't master them.

How many priests don't realise that you can use healing aggro to get off threatless heals on a MT using fade? Too many.
How many shamen don't have the awareness to know when to stop dpsing and to backup heal? Too many.
How many warriors cannot, despite the mind numbing ease of it all, tank?
How many people just fuck upp generaly all the time, getting aggro, making bad pulls, etc? Nearly everyone to some degree.

PvE doesn't take skill most of the time because people never challenge themselves if they dont have to and WoW doesn't make you - but you can force yourself if you really want it. The problem is there's no risk v reward, and very few people have the sense of fun to try it just for its own sake.

Now I'm all for doing away with the whole stupid setup of trash mobs in groups & pats then bosses system that blizzard currently uses, and I hope that there will be more fun and inventive things in the expansion, but to say there is no skill currently is wrong - it's just that any lowest common denominator system will never require you to actually use your skills to succeed.

Nice find, caladein.

Every video game genre is mired in convention.  It's just as hard to suspend disbelief when I'm gunning down my 5000th Nazi in an MoH derivative.  Many people seem to think that since MMOs emulate "worlds", there should be a perfect sense of flow, realism, and opportunity.

If experience has shown us anything however, this is much harder to feasibly design into MMOs in particular.

Even if it was harder, that's none of my concern. On my end of things, I want something more challenging and fun. Why should I really care if that's harder to design or not? I'm not a developer. I'm just someone who wants a good game. If I order bourguignon, don't give me a fucking burnt hamburger just because "it's easier to make".   

It's a copout though, if you ask me. The only reason why so many mmo's are designed this way isn't because developers aren't willing to be creative or challenge themselves. It could be that in some cases, but I think it's due to other factors (namely, current market popularity and the people whose job is to pay attention to nothing else but that). Technically, there is no reason to make a Diku mmo.

Secondly, we're not even talking about games that help suspend disbelief. Or are we? Last I checked, this was still a conversation about tactical options and player side skill.

Not sure who that's meant to be directed at.

We are just mentioning how we would rather see a few new things in the game design rather than the typical. So that when you go into a new instance you don't know that all you have to do is clear trash mobs, usualy by simple tanking and then nuking, sometimes with aoe, and then maybe chatting briefly about "the strat" that may or may not be needed for a boss.

BRD is probably my favourite instance in this regard, creativity wise. It's still very linear in the combat mechanics but otherwise it has many fun things and many fun paths.

PvE and PvP in WoW both rely very heavily on one skill: coordination.  Group vs group or group vs mob, the people who can work together as one entity will prevail over the group that cannot every time.

The problem is that on very rare occasions you get two equally coordinated groups and gear dictates the outcome.  But 99% of the people who complain about gear imbalances have no chance of beating a good team naked.

I didn't think gear imbalances were that bad, until one day when I ran into some epicly equipped Taurens in Elwynn.  I was on my 20 mage at the time.  They were there to provoke some pvp, I guess, but nobody came out to play.  I danced with them and emoted to them and so on, and they played back.  One stripped and lost half hit hit points - I could tell when he put everything back on.

Nope can't say I am familiar with any of that, my First 'real' MMO was DAOC, the idea of playing a PvE only game confuses me ;) PvE in DAOC was just that thing they made you do before you were allowed to actually go out and have fun in the frontiers. Something that frustrates me with WoW, I thought WoW was going to be more DAOC'ish with the Horde vs Alliance thing, not the pile of suck that the WoW PvP system currently is. Maybe outland will fix it? (probably not)



As to the gear advantage, It is just absolutely huge. Unless the team with the super epics is braindead, your going to lose unless you have your own super epics.