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Topic: Are you pleased with this content tier? (Read 85596 times)
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Xanthippe
Terracotta Army
Posts: 4779
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I'd love to see a harder mode of 5-man.
Do it yourself. Wear greens. Go with 4 instead of 5. Try to get the achievements. There's plenty of ways to make it harder on yourself, but if it's too hard, it's impossible to make it easier.
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Paelos
Contributor
Posts: 27075
Error 404: Title not found.
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I'd love to see a harder mode of 5-man.
Do it yourself. Wear greens. Go with 4 instead of 5. Try to get the achievements. There's plenty of ways to make it harder on yourself, but if it's too hard, it's impossible to make it easier. Hardcores get bored trying to make their own entertainment. Mindless farming and grinding have killed what little imagination they started with. We should change the title to, "ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED?!?!"
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CPA, CFO, Sports Fan, Game when I have the time
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Ironwood
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Posts: 28240
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"Mr Soft Owl has Seen Some Shit." - Sun Tzu
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Merusk
Terracotta Army
Posts: 27449
Badge Whore
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Oxhorn does the best Wow Machinema. Now to listen to the 12 days of winter's veil again.
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The past cannot be changed. The future is yet within your power.
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Sjofn
Terracotta Army
Posts: 8286
Truckasaurus Hands
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The raid that MOST feels hugely disconnected from the world to me is Obsidian Sanctum. Why am I killing those dragons? Why? I mean yes, I'm doing it for the loots, but there's like ... NOTHING in the game that I've found that even mentions why I would want to do what I'm doing in there. Yes, the black dragons are iffy, but they're not the current dragon flight being assholes.
Wasn't Onyxia part of the back dragonflight? People might still be kind of pissed off at the black dragons because of her. Onyxia is/was a black dragon, yeah, but like I said, they're not the CURRENT asshole dragon flight, the blues are. It just feels totally random to me. It would probably feel less dumb if there was at least a quest to go in there, but there isn't. The voice acting sort of indicates we're interupting SOMEthing, but I have no idea what. There's also stuff like I WILL GUARD THESE EGGS WITH MY LIFE. Well, of course you will! But why are we disturbing you and your eggs in the first place?! Basically, considering how even the stupidest instances have SOMEthing leading up to it so you know why you're there or they're there or SOMEthing, OS exists in a vaccuum, which is totally different from how Blizzard usually does it. The Wintergrasp raid too, but that bugs me less for some reason. EDIT: I keyboard turn too, El Gallo! We should start a club.
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« Last Edit: February 24, 2009, 08:13:20 PM by Sjofn »
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God Save the Horn Players
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Gobbeldygook
Terracotta Army
Posts: 384
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Basically, considering how even the stupidest instances have SOMEthing leading up to it so you know why you're there or they're there or SOMEthing, OS exists in a vaccuum, which is totally different from how Blizzard usually does it. The Wintergrasp raid too, but that bugs me less for some reason. It's that Sarth is a dragon and Archavon's just this rude golem that farts, spits, and jumps around like a retard. There were these same complaints about netherspite: WTF is this dragon doing here? Yet you didn't hear people questioning "wtf is an eredar doing here?" anywhere near as much. In both real life and WoW, dragons have a ton of lore and mythological weight. Slaying the dragon is supposed to be an epic thing you do at the end of the novel. Meanwhile, golems are well established as 'trash' mob in stories; e.g. zomg the statues are alive we must kill them now!
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Fordel
Terracotta Army
Posts: 8306
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Netherspite was quite obviously studying the planar convergence in the tower.
The thing with Sarth, is there IS actual lore for him and the Eggs and those other purple drakes in the place. It's just all inside some novel, most of the WoW populace will never see.
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and the gate is like I TOO AM CAPABLE OF SPEECH
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Paelos
Contributor
Posts: 27075
Error 404: Title not found.
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WoW lore is a carwreck anyway. It either happens in game, or it gets smashed together randomly in the hopes that we can make some sense out of it.
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CPA, CFO, Sports Fan, Game when I have the time
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K9
Terracotta Army
Posts: 7441
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My guild has progressed onto Sarth 10 +1 tonight. Decided to go with Shadron, and managed to kill the drake on the 2nd attempt, but we all forgot about the portal, and then when we finally remembered organisation went to hell and we wiped. After that we had a few more wipes with various boss positioning issues and called it after a while as our MT had to log. Still, we all know we can do it, and this is possibly the most fun boss fight I've done in wow in a long-long time. The damage is generally very manageable, I understand now how the difficulty is in the execution.
If there are any guilds out there that have cleared all 10-man content, but haven't tried this you're missing out on a lot of fun.
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I love the smell of facepalm in the morning
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Azuredream
Terracotta Army
Posts: 912
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My guild has progressed onto Sarth 10 +1 tonight. Decided to go with Shadron, and managed to kill the drake on the 2nd attempt, but we all forgot about the portal, and then when we finally remembered organisation went to hell and we wiped. After that we had a few more wipes with various boss positioning issues and called it after a while as our MT had to log. Still, we all know we can do it, and this is possibly the most fun boss fight I've done in wow in a long-long time. The damage is generally very manageable, I understand now how the difficulty is in the execution.
If there are any guilds out there that have cleared all 10-man content, but haven't tried this you're missing out on a lot of fun.
You'll save yourself a lot of frustration (although you had fun so I can't knock it  ) if you go for tenebron. He comes soonest and his whelps can be ignored until you finish him off, and his aura isn't particularly deadly. Shadron is generally regarded as the most dangerous because of the +100% fire damage aura active until he dies. If you go for two drakes Vesperon doesn't land until a good clip after Tenebron so you have enough time to at least bring him down before you have multiple drakes up.
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The Lord of the Land approaches..
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Ingmar
Terracotta Army
Posts: 19280
Auto Assault Affectionado
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I am hoping to run +1 tomorrow night. I need to remember to remind people to run dailies for repair money tonight...
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The Transcendent One: AH... THE ROGUE CONSTRUCT. Nordom: Sense of closure: imminent.
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K9
Terracotta Army
Posts: 7441
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You'll save yourself a lot of frustration (although you had fun so I can't knock it  ) if you go for tenebron. He comes soonest and his whelps can be ignored until you finish him off, and his aura isn't particularly deadly. Shadron is generally regarded as the most dangerous because of the +100% fire damage aura active until he dies. If you go for two drakes Vesperon doesn't land until a good clip after Tenebron so you have enough time to at least bring him down before you have multiple drakes up. We did think about Tenebron, but our OT is one of our reserve guys, and not someone who we had 100% confidence in, so I was worried about the whelp spawns. Shadron wasn't too bad as almost all our guys are pro wall-dodgers now, and our tank had enough HP to live through a breath. Our main problem was getting overwhelmed with elementals I think, and leaving the acolyte alive (still kicking myself about that). How tough is Vesperon? I hear twilight torment is a real pain, but we have had no way to test it yet, as this has been our first week. Also, which way do you guys face Sarth, to the right or to the left?
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I love the smell of facepalm in the morning
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Azuredream
Terracotta Army
Posts: 912
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You'll save yourself a lot of frustration (although you had fun so I can't knock it  ) if you go for tenebron. He comes soonest and his whelps can be ignored until you finish him off, and his aura isn't particularly deadly. Shadron is generally regarded as the most dangerous because of the +100% fire damage aura active until he dies. If you go for two drakes Vesperon doesn't land until a good clip after Tenebron so you have enough time to at least bring him down before you have multiple drakes up. We did think about Tenebron, but our OT is one of our reserve guys, and not someone who we had 100% confidence in, so I was worried about the whelp spawns. Shadron wasn't too bad as almost all our guys are pro wall-dodgers now, and our tank had enough HP to live through a breath. Our main problem was getting overwhelmed with elementals I think, and leaving the acolyte alive (still kicking myself about that). How tough is Vesperon? I hear twilight torment is a real pain, but we have had no way to test it yet, as this has been our first week. Also, which way do you guys face Sarth, to the right or to the left? The tank pulls Sarth back toward the spot you pull him from and the raid runs past him so that the tank is ideally positioned to avoid waves and the raid has plenty of room. We tank Sarth facing left (from the point of view of the entrance), and we tank the drakes on the right part of the platform while the ranged stands on the left. We originally had our prot paladin doing the add tanking but later realized that it's very difficult on the paladin and that a prot warrior or death knight is better suited because of their mobility in regards to the unpredictability of elemental spawns (random location, random frequency). Vesperon comes last so you'll have to wait a bit if you're only pulling him, torment isn't too bad (although I raid with a warlock who has Siphon Life/Haunt/Shadow Ward so it barely tickles me) if your healers are conscious of it. You should also be packing 3 tanks for any multi-drake kill (even on 10 man), the elementals/whelps have to be contained and it's impossible for someone to pick up both the drakes and the adds, and you still need someone on Sartharion.
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The Lord of the Land approaches..
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Ratman_tf
Terracotta Army
Posts: 3818
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Something that's come up among the raiders I know is that a lot of people are taking it really easy now. We've crashed through Wrath raid content and there's not a few people who log in just for raid night, and maybe once or twice a week to do dailies, farm mats, etc...
I think this is a good thing. WoW endgame is becoming a lot less catass.
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 "What I'm saying is you should make friends with a few catasses, they smell funny but they're very helpful." -Calantus makes the best of a smelly situation.
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Modern Angel
Terracotta Army
Posts: 3553
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Something that's come up among the raiders I know is that a lot of people are taking it really easy now. We've crashed through Wrath raid content and there's not a few people who log in just for raid night, and maybe once or twice a week to do dailies, farm mats, etc...
I think this is a good thing. WoW endgame is becoming a lot less catass.
That's me. But it... I don't know. It's a little hard to describe. WoW's always been self-consciously a game but with only logging in twice a week all the crappy lore comes crashing down. There's no real immersion. I'd hate what it says about me and other MMO players if immersion only equals obsessive time investment but there you go. I love to see the scripting in the raids and stuff. They're the best in the business. But there's a palpable sense of detachment from the "world" that probably shouldn't be in a medium ostensibly trying to create a world.
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Lantyssa
Terracotta Army
Posts: 20848
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There's no real immersion. I'd hate what it says about me and other MMO players if immersion only equals obsessive time investment but there you go.
As someone who loves sandboxes and RP and immersion... I'm enjoying WoW now that I view and play it as a game and social experience. I want to login to chat with my friends and the game is just to occupy my time or give us a common task to work towards. I'm so much happier with it.
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Hahahaha! I'm really good at this!
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kildorn
Terracotta Army
Posts: 5014
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I very casually log in, but I don't really want that much immersion. It IS a game. I have emotional attachments to my friends and our experiences together, but not their characters or the various characters in the world. Heck, half the world notable NPCs you have to interact with are total douche bags <3
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Modern Angel
Terracotta Army
Posts: 3553
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Let me play a little Devil's Advocate here: if you're self-consciously a game, with little to no verisimilitude or immersion, aren't you ceding the entire point of the MMO medium in the first place?
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kildorn
Terracotta Army
Posts: 5014
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Let me play a little Devil's Advocate here: if you're self-consciously a game, with little to no verisimilitude or immersion, aren't you ceding the entire point of the MMO medium in the first place?
No, you're ceding the entire point of an RPG. Having a shitload of players does not require immersion, simply a server structure that can handle the communication. What I'm saying is that in an MMORPG, the first three letters entertain me more than the last three.
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Ingmar
Terracotta Army
Posts: 19280
Auto Assault Affectionado
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Let me play a little Devil's Advocate here: if you're self-consciously a game, with little to no verisimilitude or immersion, aren't you ceding the entire point of the MMO medium in the first place?
I assume you mean MMORPG, "MMO" alone just means 'a bunch of people are playing something'. That said, I don't think it is accurate to say WoW has little to no versimilitude/immersion. It is sloppy at times, but even 10 minutes browsing through WoWWiki will show you there's craploads of lore floating around, and the Wrathgate event seems to show they're making a better effort to get that out to people who don't read quest text.
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The Transcendent One: AH... THE ROGUE CONSTRUCT. Nordom: Sense of closure: imminent.
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Ratman_tf
Terracotta Army
Posts: 3818
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No, you're ceding the entire point of an RPG.
Which is what I think Blizzard did on day one when they started designing WoW. It's not a very good RPG, and clearly wasn't designed to be one.
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 "What I'm saying is you should make friends with a few catasses, they smell funny but they're very helpful." -Calantus makes the best of a smelly situation.
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Azazel
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But we've done that argument. A thousand times. And, when we do it again, Schild Comes. You don't want that.
Do you mean Schild shows up.. or...? My casual-problem with WoW is that with the much lower barrier to entering raids, PUG raiding is pretty much mandatory if you're unguilded or in a shitty useless guild. And you can't generally get into much that's better than that if you only want to get on a couple of times a week, and don't like the whole "5-hour session" thing... Which is why I recently quit. Not enough time to fit WoW in with things I need to do IRL.
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kildorn
Terracotta Army
Posts: 5014
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Let me play a little Devil's Advocate here: if you're self-consciously a game, with little to no verisimilitude or immersion, aren't you ceding the entire point of the MMO medium in the first place?
I assume you mean MMORPG, "MMO" alone just means 'a bunch of people are playing something'. That said, I don't think it is accurate to say WoW has little to no versimilitude/immersion. It is sloppy at times, but even 10 minutes browsing through WoWWiki will show you there's craploads of lore floating around, and the Wrathgate event seems to show they're making a better effort to get that out to people who don't read quest text. That, the phasing, and the forced interaction with events (think the UC raid and such) were very much hitting the visual players over the head with lore that was usually hidden in quest text. I got a lot more immersion out of Wrath than the prior expansions, simply because I skim quest text for targets. blah blah murlocs blah blah six eyes blah.
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Nevermore
Terracotta Army
Posts: 4740
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I think I mentioned this on another thread, but I still like the lore in WoW. I just don't take it seriously at all. It's there for flavor, not Shakespearean storytelling. It's more Venture Bros. than Lord of the Rings.
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Over and out.
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Sjofn
Terracotta Army
Posts: 8286
Truckasaurus Hands
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Venture Brothers is actually so well written it pains me to see you compare it to WoW. 
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God Save the Horn Players
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Hindenburg
Terracotta Army
Posts: 1854
Itto
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My casual-problem with WoW is that with the much lower barrier to entering raids, PUG raiding is pretty much mandatory if you're unguilded or in a shitty useless guild. And you can't generally get into much that's better than that if you only want to get on a couple of times a week, and don't like the whole "5-hour session" thing...
Given that the prior choice was to run kara over and over and over again or do fuck all, I'd say that's a much better scenario.
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"Who uses Outlook anyway? People who get what they deserve, that's who." - Ard.
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Azazel
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Oh, it's better in a lot of ways. I just don't have the time right now, (or I'm not willing to spend the WoW-time) so I'm not playing. Also those seasonal achievements fucked me right off.
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Koyasha
Terracotta Army
Posts: 1363
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I think this thread has pretty well run its course, but I do want to raise a tangential issue that is skirted, but never quite openly adressed in the WoW raider milieu:
The assumption that what separates the "hardcore" from the "casual" is *skill*
My consistent experience in all MMO's is that 80% of the hardcore "skill" comes from augmented abilities/spells/stats that are the result of time (i.e. loot) and definitely not the skill of the individual player. Extra marks of course go for organization and teamwork... but that is a matter of good leadership and following orders - not what I would precisely call, skill. If I could screen for leadership and following abilities I could rule the MMO world.
Another way to put it is this: If I could substitute a good skilled "follower" in greens and have success, then I say ratchet-the-fuck-up.
But since Skill does not really exist, or, better put, skill is trumped by gear... and gear is only accessible via progression... and progression is only available via time commitments... then I'm only really looking at gear and pretending it is skill.
I've been healing in MMO's for almost a decade... give my Druid Tier XX gear, one night to acclimate to pace and my new output, and I'll heal your ass through any content you want.
I know this is near heresy in a PvE game, and it begs the question of why raid if not for loot that makes content accessible... but I might suggest that the first game to provide meaningful advancement and content that can fulfill the "bring the person not the toon" mantra will be The Next Big Thing (tm).
<and this goes double for PvP>
As far as the whole raider v. casual thing in WoTLK... another way to look at it from the hardcore point of view is that you might actually have a larger pool of "skilled" players from which to chose since the gear differential is less radically segmented (at the earlier stages) than at any other point in WoW's development.
Optimistic thought courtesy of Jack Handey.
What separates the "hardcore" from the "casual", at least in my observation and definition of the terms, is that the "hardcore" walk into a place prepared, ready, interested, and with all their focus on the task at hand, with a "let's get this DONE" attitude. When mistakes are made they are called on them, people aren't allowed to suck ass simply because they're nice people, and so on. Things get done, mistakes get corrected and people don't bitch and complain when the going gets a little rough. "Casuals," on the other hand, putter along playing randomly without focus. Then they go "I want to raid!". They immediately gather a bunch of other people together, maybe do a little research but don't really look into things deeply, they don't properly prepare themselves and their characters, and they're afraid of failure. They walk in distracted, usually an hour or more after the scheduled start time (since nobody was actually ready when they were supposed to be), and kind of interested but not focused, and their attitude is more along the lines of "let's try this". When someone makes a mistake, usually they're not called on it. If they are, justifications are made. Rarely do they own up and go 'yeah, I fucked up, I'll do better'. Usually half the raid says something like "there's no point in assigning blame." Of course, since blame isn't assigned, nobody cares to improve and not do the same fuckup again, next try. And they almost never tell someone "you suck and you're not improving. You're outta here." And they blame a percieved lack of gear for their failure, rather than realizing their own tactics and strategy needs improvement, or they simply aren't executing as well as they should. The "skill" of MMOG's mostly boils down to doing a little research, following the plan, and most importantly, identifying mistakes in yourself and your teammates and correcting them the next time around. That gear issue? It's about 90% false. The hardcore? They go in, often with less gear than the casuals when they're starting out, and they win. Because they learn quickly from their screwups and don't rely on overgearing things. The people that did world firsts on the Lich King content? They went in WAY undergeared as compared to what most of the "casuals" go in with, which tends to be high level quest blues. They didn't have time to outfit themselves in full quest blues and all that, they had to GO and do the raids. And they won. With gear 10 levels below them. Yes, there are times when a good player is held back by their lack of gear. But it's not as often as people like to think.
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-Do you honestly think that we believe ourselves evil? My friend, we seek only good. It's just that our definitions don't quite match.- Ailanreanter, Arcanaloth
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Rasix
Moderator
Posts: 15024
I am the harbinger of your doom!
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-Rasix
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Azuredream
Terracotta Army
Posts: 912
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The difference IS skill. They put more time in, of course they're going to be better than you. Someone who treats this as a game and not a commitment doesn't want to spend hours poring over DPS spreadsheets and gear lists and raid compositions and cranking out perfect rotations, and so on, and I agree with them. The game is so much more fun when you can play it as you want to and not because you feel like it's an obligation.
It doesn't really matter either way, most people aren't putting in 30+ hour weeks on a video game and Blizzard finally decided to design content with that in mind.
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« Last Edit: March 04, 2009, 12:23:05 AM by Azuredream »
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The Lord of the Land approaches..
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Triforcer
Terracotta Army
Posts: 4663
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To summarize for those who don't want to read it all: I have never known the touch of a woman
I concur.
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All life begins with Nu and ends with Nu. This is the truth! This is my belief! At least for now...
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WindupAtheist
Army of One
Posts: 7028
Badicalthon
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/thread
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"You're just a dick who quotes himself in his sig." -- Schild "Yeah, it's pretty awesome." -- Me
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kildorn
Terracotta Army
Posts: 5014
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Did that post imply that if you actually zone into a raid instance with a goal of downing raid bosses, you're hardcore?
And casual can't cope with wipes?
Because, uh, I've never seen a casual guild splinter due to chain wiping on a boss in BWL, but I've seen TONS of hardcore guilds bleed members due to banging their head on progression content.
Unless, you know, I'm secretly in a hardcore raiding guild and we just Pretend.
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Xanthippe
Terracotta Army
Posts: 4779
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The difference IS skill. They put more time in, of course they're going to be better than you. Someone who treats this as a game and not a commitment doesn't want to spend hours poring over DPS spreadsheets and gear lists and raid compositions and cranking out perfect rotations, and so on, and I agree with them. The game is so much more fun when you can play it as you want to and not because you feel like it's an obligation.
Isn't it the people who pour over DPS spreadsheets and gear lists and raid compositions who are now complaining that WotLK is too easy?
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Paelos
Contributor
Posts: 27075
Error 404: Title not found.
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The difference IS skill. They put more time in, of course they're going to be better than you. Someone who treats this as a game and not a commitment doesn't want to spend hours poring over DPS spreadsheets and gear lists and raid compositions and cranking out perfect rotations, and so on, and I agree with them. The game is so much more fun when you can play it as you want to and not because you feel like it's an obligation.
Isn't it the people who pour over DPS spreadsheets and gear lists and raid compositions who are now complaining that WotLK is too easy? Yep, they are bored now. They don't have to endlessly prepare to be successful, or hit themselves in the nuts over and over on 2% margin of error fights, so they don't know what to do with themselves. Blizzard took most of the ridiculous preperation and theorycrafting bricks out of the briefcase, and reduced it into the simple skills the game actually requires you to master to be successful. Turns out those skills weren't that substantial. 1 - Don't stand in that shit. 2 - Be ready to move to a different place in the room. 3 - Cleanse things. 4 - Hit these 4 buttons in a row until things are dead. 5 - Switch targets and focus fire. 6 - Spread out and/or gather up.
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« Last Edit: March 04, 2009, 07:53:46 AM by Paelos »
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CPA, CFO, Sports Fan, Game when I have the time
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