Cataclysm

[Merusk]

Warcraft is srs bizns, you M&S!   

[Zetor]

Yeah, Gevlon is a Hungarian sociopath. Actually, that may be redundant. 

[Ironwood]

This is a Euro Psycho ?

Interesting.

[Minvaren]

Wow.  I respecced my Shammy alt I haven't played in forever from ele to enhance, and I'm enjoying the heck out of it.  Leveling feels almost scary-fast with the heirloom shoulders and the guild 5% perk.

Will probably run into the Same Old Issues(tm) once I hit Outland, but enjoyable for the moment.

[SurfD]

Get yourself an Heirloom Chest for your shaman, and you will blow through outland in 2 zones at most.

[apocrypha]

I have discovered how to make tanking heroic pugs fun.

1) Get drunk. Quite a lot. Sometimes a valium on top of that to take the edge off. Don't judge me, k?

2) On entering dungeon say "Hi! I've not tanked this before and I'm really, really drunk! That ok?"

3) Half group leaves. Replacements arrive. I restate previous position.

4) Repeat 2-3 until group fully ready to go.

5) Fun, hilarity, hijinks, loot, VPs, etc.

My favourite part of this tactic is when, as tonight, someone says something like: [Hunter] Why do you keep hitting trapped mobs? Are you stupid or drunk?  [Me] Drunk! I think I mentioned that!  [Everyone else] Lol! <3

Seriously, crossing over the line into "I honestly don't give a shit about this, let's have a laugh" and being open about it has turned dick+nails experiences into genuine fun and some utterly hilarious evenings. Fuck the whiners, you're just not drunk enough.

[Tannhauser]

It's people like you, trying to have fun in this game, that ruins it for everyone! 

 

[Malakili]

"I honestly don't give a shit about this, let's have a laugh" and being open about it has turned dick+nails experiences into genuine fun and some utterly hilarious evenings. Fuck the whiners, you're just not drunk enough.

Only one problem: I don't drink. 

[01101010]

"I honestly don't give a shit about this, let's have a laugh" and being open about it has turned dick+nails experiences into genuine fun and some utterly hilarious evenings. Fuck the whiners, you're just not drunk enough.

Only one problem: I don't drink. 

Yes, but your party does not know that. 

[Shrike]

2) On entering dungeon say "Hi! I've not tanked this before and I'm really, really drunk! That ok?"

Back in LK, we had a HPoS where the tank spawned in and basically that was the first thing he said. We kicked his ass right there.

In this expansion, I'm beginning to think being blind drunk is expected. I suspect the devs might have been when they designed some of this stuff.

[WindupAtheist]

Back in LK, we had a HPoS where the tank spawned in and basically that was the first thing he said. We kicked his ass right there.

Yeah, but so what? He probably still started his dungeon before you did. Kick may as well not exist as far as tanks are concerned.

[Paelos]

Yeah, but so what? He probably still started his dungeon before you did. Kick may as well not exist as far as tanks are concerned.

Yep for tanks it's, "Do I want to do a dungeon? Sure." Queue, wait 2s, hit accept button, watch the screen fill in the checkmarks, load dungeon, buff, go.

[Lantyssa]

A tank has to have a first dungeon run once.  Gods know being drunk would probably make me a better tank.  I get too high-strung when I'm learning fights.

[Arrrgh]

Yeah, but so what? He probably still started his dungeon before you did. Kick may as well not exist as far as tanks are concerned.

Yep for tanks it's, "Do I want to do a dungeon? Sure." Queue, wait 2s, hit accept button, watch the screen fill in the checkmarks, load dungeon, buff, go.

One DPS always fails the queue check. This happens one to three times per queue so it's actually two minutes or so to get into an instance.

[Minvaren]

Ahahaha, so true.   

[Merusk]

That's the guy who was AFK doing wash or going to the bathroom after sitting there for 45 mins.  They were pissed when they got back, I can tell you from experience.  (Tho at least I could always say "fuck it" and queue as tank if I was really anxious.)

[01101010]

A-frickin-men. I get insta-queues on my pally tank and it's ALWAYS the DPS that doesn't accept. While it annoys me, I can't help but visualize some kid dead or asleep at his pc from the long wait.

And seriously... this gogogo bullshit has to end. I let the first one slide, but when the second time occurs, I state: "you want me to go? ok" /leave party. I am a steady puller, not an AoE puller. Since I have 0 wait time, I can be picky. 

[Polysorbate80]

I usually get the "gogogo" crap from the healer, often on a boss pull when they're sitting at, say, 25% mana.  Apparently they don't realize that I can see that their mana bar?

And Lantyssa, every first run tanking a heroic dungeon for me has been with the benefit of a nice big scotch    I've got enough of my own stupid to worry about on those without having to give a shit about everyone ELSE's stupid.

[Minvaren]

Get yourself an Heirloom Chest for your shaman, and you will blow through outland in 2 zones at most.

Knew I was grinding AT for something...  Done.   

[Koyasha]

I've done a number of random heroics recently just so I could see what the experience was like without queuing up with preformed groups.

I don't know if I'm in some magical land of good players or people are just blowing this way out of proportion, but my experiences do not line up with 3-4 hour wipefests.  Most of the groups I've gotten are reasonably competent.  Perhaps averaging one terrible player per group, which can often be driven to leave the group simply by explaining to them just how terrible they are, and they can usually be kicked other times.  Not every group has a bad player, and some have more than one, but I think I feel safe in saying it averages about one per group.

Thus far I've completed every heroic I've tried.  I'm pretty sure all in under 2 hours, most in 1 hour, give or take 15 minutes or so.  Admittedly, some bosses have occasionally been skipped because things were starting to take a while so we wanted to get it finished.  Most of the players I've had to deal with have been willing to listen and capable of doing the jobs assigned to them.  In the event that nobody tells them what to do, there can be problems, but once they have instructions, they usually can follow them sufficiently well to get through without major hassle.

The only thing I can think of that may be different from others' random experiences is that I am perfectly willing to berate a terrible player for being terrible, give instructions and call people out on failures, and kick people if they can't do their job.  The worst run I've had so far was a heroic deadmines where a retadin DPS was doing ~2500 DPS, and a shaman (can't recall if he was enhance or elemental) was doing about 3k.  After calling them out on how bad they were, the paladin left (probably in shame, I am guessing) and the shaman fell back on the 'gear' excuse, after which I inspected him and told him, "your gear is fine, your character needs a better player."  He eventually needed to be kicked. They were replaced by a competent warrior and death knight who did 11k and 9.5k respectively, and we finished the instance easily.

So, if people are trying to just grit their teeth and deal with it instead of getting rid of these kinds of people, then I can certainly see why those runs may be 3-4 hour wipefests.  But if you're willing to throw out the useless twits, my experience seems to be that there's a reasonable amount of people who are at least minimally competent, who can manage to do things well enough to get through without problems as long as they are properly instructed.

[Lantyssa]

What if you are the useless twit?  Gonna take a while then, huh?

Damn you sound like a giant arse.

[Pennilenko]

I agree with Lantyssa.

[Selby]

Damn you sound like a giant arse.

Zing.

I have been kicked for doing just fine interrupts, CC'ing with sheep, and DPSing the marked mobs to the tune of 7-8k.  Guess I need to l2p ;-)

[SurfD]

I've done a number of random heroics recently just so I could see what the experience was like without queuing up with preformed groups.

I don't know if I'm in some magical land of good players or people are just blowing this way out of proportion, but my experiences do not line up with 3-4 hour wipefests.  Most of the groups I've gotten are reasonably competent.  Perhaps averaging one terrible player per group, which can often be driven to leave the group simply by explaining to them just how terrible they are, and they can usually be kicked other times.  Not every group has a bad player, and some have more than one, but I think I feel safe in saying it averages about one per group.

Thus far I've completed every heroic I've tried.  I'm pretty sure all in under 2 hours, most in 1 hour, give or take 15 minutes or so.  Admittedly, some bosses have occasionally been skipped because things were starting to take a while so we wanted to get it finished.  Most of the players I've had to deal with have been willing to listen and capable of doing the jobs assigned to them.  In the event that nobody tells them what to do, there can be problems, but once they have instructions, they usually can follow them sufficiently well to get through without major hassle.

The only thing I can think of that may be different from others' random experiences is that I am perfectly willing to berate a terrible player for being terrible, give instructions and call people out on failures, and kick people if they can't do their job.  The worst run I've had so far was a heroic deadmines where a retadin DPS was doing ~2500 DPS, and a shaman (can't recall if he was enhance or elemental) was doing about 3k.  After calling them out on how bad they were, the paladin left (probably in shame, I am guessing) and the shaman fell back on the 'gear' excuse, after which I inspected him and told him, "your gear is fine, your character needs a better player."  He eventually needed to be kicked. They were replaced by a competent warrior and death knight who did 11k and 9.5k respectively, and we finished the instance easily.

So, if people are trying to just grit their teeth and deal with it instead of getting rid of these kinds of people, then I can certainly see why those runs may be 3-4 hour wipefests.  But if you're willing to throw out the useless twits, my experience seems to be that there's a reasonable amount of people who are at least minimally competent, who can manage to do things well enough to get through without problems as long as they are properly instructed.

If the shaman was enhance, he would have to be failing pretty spectacularly to be doing 3k dps.  My alt is an enhance shaman, and i think that even with an average gear level just good enough to get into heroics, with a bunch of greens, 2 shitty trinkets, and a crappy mainhand weapon, i could pull 8k without even trying.    Hell, with WF / FT on mainhand / offhand i could probably auto-attack for 3k dps.

[caladein]

What if you are the useless twit?  Gonna take a while then, huh?

If you're that level of useless twit, you're probably only sober enough to right-click on moving shapes and won't notice you've been kicked.

There's a world of difference between "Hey man, you might want to grab some hit gear from Reputation_A, it'll help your damage out." or "Next time guys, switch over to Important_Target_A when X happens." and "How the hell are you breaking CCs and doing only 4 DPS?"

I have been kicked for doing just fine interrupts, CC'ing with sheep, and DPSing the marked mobs to the tune of 7-8k.  Guess I need to l2p ;-)

No, that just means your group wanted to bring one of their friends in.  I think a lot of people just blindly hit Yes on vote kicks for some of the not-bad players I've seen bounced.

[Ironwood]

Saying that it's ok NOW after they've just nerfed the bad ones into the ground and JP are falling like rain and most randoms are geared out the arse is ... kinda missing the point.

It is better now, but even now morons are trying to aoe through the whole thing and just spoiling it for everyone...

[apocrypha]

CC doesn't happen any more in heroic pugs here. People have stopped bothering except on the Adepts in VP.

Heroics were horrible and difficult and required CC etc for... two months. Now it's almost back to LK except they take a bit longer and people interrupt more often and blow their cooldowns almost every time they can. Raid pugs are starting on my server, I'm gonna read up tactics for the current raiding tier and try getting into randoms.

The mudflation design of WoW means that all of Ghostcrawler's hurf blurf about making healing harder and heroics challenging is all irrelevant after the brief 333-346 iLvl window.

[Paelos]

The mudflation design of WoW means that all of Ghostcrawler's hurf blurf about making healing harder and heroics challenging is all irrelevant after the brief 333-346 iLvl window.

Which imo makes the design decision that much more puzzling. If we know the game eventually is going to make that particular brand of content turn into Y, why in the world would you make it like X in the beginning? All that does is piss off the people who enjoyed Y and make them quit. The people who enjoy X are done with it in a matter of weeks and have moved on to your high end stuff.

I thought we had gotten over listening to the most dedicated raiders in how to design your everyday content and overall game, but I guess not.

[Azuredream]

If you're that level of useless twit, you're probably only sober enough to right-click on moving shapes and won't notice you've been kicked.

Not really, take almost any player 13 or younger (there's a lot), people like my dad who can do quests and level up but has no idea what a rotation or DPS is, people who don't take the game very seriously, or people who just aren't very good. I think a lot of people who fall under these categories have just stopped queueing. They can't be carried anymore.

[Xanthippe]

Get yourself an Heirloom Chest for your shaman, and you will blow through outland in 2 zones at most.

You can do that without heirlooms.

[01101010]

Funny that my human pally tank's last quest was a westfall quest @ 16. Dungeon crawled since then and am sitting at 57 without touching the outside world other than to level herbalism.

[Fordel]

The mudflation design of WoW means that all of Ghostcrawler's hurf blurf about making healing harder and heroics challenging is all irrelevant after the brief 333-346 iLvl window.

Which imo makes the design decision that much more puzzling. If we know the game eventually is going to make that particular brand of content turn into Y, why in the world would you make it like X in the beginning? All that does is piss off the people who enjoyed Y and make them quit. The people who enjoy X are done with it in a matter of weeks and have moved on to your high end stuff.

I thought we had gotten over listening to the most dedicated raiders in how to design your everyday content and overall game, but I guess not.

Blizzard just seems to be really bad at predicting their own power creep or whatever you call it. I think they intended for the window to be much longer, but they suck at itemization and shit.

[Xanthippe]

Saying that it's ok NOW after they've just nerfed the bad ones into the ground and JP are falling like rain and most randoms are geared out the arse is ... kinda missing the point.

It is better now, but even now morons are trying to aoe through the whole thing and just spoiling it for everyone...

I don't think I've queued for a random heroic in over a month.  I quit logging in except to sell shit about the same time.  Cancelled one account a couple weeks ago, the other is getting canceled in favor of playing Rift. 

Call it voting with my wallet, sending a message, whatever.  In my own small way, I'm registering my unhappiness. The damage caused by boneheaded dev decisions - when I thought they were over making those dumb decisions - will impact my feeling for the game even after they change the way they do things. 

[Paelos]

Call it voting with my wallet, sending a message, whatever.  In my own small way, I'm registering my unhappiness. The damage caused by boneheaded dev decisions - when I thought they were over making those dumb decisions - will impact my feeling for the game even after they change the way they do things. 

I decided to do the same today and just play out my remaining time. It's the only way to really get any change. This is not the game I enjoyed playing for the last 2 years.

[caladein]

The mudflation design of WoW means that all of Ghostcrawler's hurf blurf about making healing harder and heroics challenging is all irrelevant after the brief 333-346 iLvl window.

You do realize part of that hurf blurf had lines like:

They’re only going to get easier from here on out.

In Cataclysm, the Heroic dungeons and raids are intended to be challenging -- and they are, at least until you overgear them.

Tanks, you can’t pull and AE every group in a Heroic (again, until you overgear the content).

We also just tend to nerf content over time because the original players hitting that content have moved on, so we want to open it up to a wider audience.

?

Edit: Well, that was a lot of whitespace.