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Author Topic: Cracks starting to show?  (Read 543910 times)
Rokal
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Reply #2590 on: October 31, 2011, 01:20:40 PM

I believe he was also demanding Blizzard fire a couple people before he would grace them with his $15 a month again. Not Sinij crazy, but getting there.
Paelos
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Reply #2591 on: October 31, 2011, 02:21:37 PM

I believe he was also demanding Blizzard fire a couple people before he would grace them with his $15 a month again. Not Sinij crazy, but getting there.

Wanting Ghostcrawler and Kalgan fired is hardly crazy. There's a very solid set of reasoning behind that fact. Very few people can magically get away with the amount of losses that were directly under their control and maintain their employment status as leads for the business.

The apology thing is half-joking, half-serious. It would be fantastic if they did it, and finally back off this ridiculous stance they have of not admitting that the expansion was very much the result of catering to the wrong audience, but they won't do that. What I think many of the fans want, myself included, is an assurance that they won't just cram the same old hardcore-is-our-main-focus-l2p design choices down our throat if we decide to invest in the game again.

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Ingmar
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Reply #2592 on: October 31, 2011, 02:23:17 PM

Given that they aren't going to be spending 75% of their content production time on 1-60 this time, they should have plenty of time for fleshing out other stuff in theory.

The Transcendent One: AH... THE ROGUE CONSTRUCT.
Nordom: Sense of closure: imminent.
Rokal
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Reply #2593 on: October 31, 2011, 02:43:07 PM

The apology thing is half-joking, half-serious. It would be fantastic if they did it, and finally back off this ridiculous stance they have of not admitting that the expansion was very much the result of catering to the wrong audience, but they won't do that. What I think many of the fans want, myself included, is an assurance that they won't just cram the same old hardcore-is-our-main-focus-l2p design choices down our throat if we decide to invest in the game again.

Your ire at Ghostcrawler is completely misplaced, but this is something we've gone over before in this thread. He's the class design lead, so often he's posting 'development opinions' or blogs that are about work other developers have done. Cata class design was great imo, so he seems to be decent at his job as class design lead. I'm not sold on MoP talents, but I don't think he's actually been responsible for many blunders that you attribute to him.

Difficult 5-mans did not cater to hardcore players. It catered to players that wanted challenging content, which could just as easily be casual players that only play a couple hours a week. I only play ~6 hours a week at this point, and it's the content design I wanted. Same old story where "casual" and "hardcore" are shitty/meaningless labels nobody can agree on.

I re-read the "Wow, Dungeons are hard!" blog last week and I still agree with everything it says. Making dungeon/boss mechanics that matter did make the game better. There just wasn't enough end-game or alternative content for anybody in this expansion, but especially players that didn't like difficult content.

It's kind of hilarious that they're going back to Wrath-style dungeons for MoP, when you read that blog. Do they suddenly believe that irrelevant mechanics did make the game better? Or, are they actually admitting that they are making changes to the game that they know will make the game worse (but more successful)?

You'd have thought the solution would be "make sure there are plenty of normal mode level 90 dungeons in MoP, make sure the rewards are very close, make sure heroics aren't required for raiding". Instead, there will be no normal mode level 90 dungeons, heroics will be easy, and we'll have less 5-man content in MoP than we had in Cata. What?

« Last Edit: October 31, 2011, 02:48:45 PM by Rokal »
Ingmar
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Reply #2594 on: October 31, 2011, 02:47:18 PM

Fewer traditional dungeons, but there will be some unknown amount of PVE scenario content which basically fills the same sort of role in terms of content. We also don't know how many dungeons they'll be adding as they go in the patch cycle. If they could deliver 3 new 5 mans per raid tier I'd be pretty happy - that is more than they've ever managed to average though.

The Transcendent One: AH... THE ROGUE CONSTRUCT.
Nordom: Sense of closure: imminent.
Rokal
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Reply #2595 on: October 31, 2011, 02:50:25 PM

Yeah I'm actually pretty excited about scenarios. I got a lot of mileage of out them in both Rift and LOTRO.

Not original by any stretch of the imagination, but it's good content.
Ironwood
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Reply #2596 on: October 31, 2011, 03:11:00 PM

You're still utterly delusional 75 pages on Rokal.

Seriously, if you're NOT getting paid, you're missing a trick.

"Mr Soft Owl has Seen Some Shit." - Sun Tzu
caladein
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Reply #2597 on: October 31, 2011, 03:15:52 PM

You'd have thought the solution would be "make sure there are plenty of normal mode level 90 dungeons in MoP, make sure the rewards are very close, make sure heroics aren't required for raiding". Instead, there will be no normal mode level 90 dungeons, heroics will be easy, and we'll have less 5-man content in MoP than we had in Cata. What?

Because heroic dungeons are supposed to be easy, that's what end-of-life Wrath taught the player base, ignoring heroics during BC or Wrath launch.  A lot of players balked at going back to that in Cata so now Blizzard isn't bothering to reinforce what heroics used to mean, they're just the new level-cap normals.

Will challenge mode dungeons, that are difficult by design and never get nerfed gradually by gear, survive contact with the player base?  Maybe, I think they have a much better chance than Cata heroics if only because they're called something that doesn't have radically different meanings depending on how long one's memory is.  And the reward structure helps.

I'm not super excited about scenarios just because part of the fun of LotRO skirmishes was the pets.

"Point being, they can't make everyone happy, so I hope they pick me." -Ingmar
"OH MY GOD WE'RE SURROUNDED SEND FOR BACKUP DIG IN DEFENSIVE POSITIONS MAN YOUR NECKBEARDS" -tgr
Rokal
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Reply #2598 on: October 31, 2011, 03:23:37 PM

Maybe, I think they have a much better chance than Cata heroics if only because they're called something that doesn't have radically different meanings depending on how long one's memory is.  And the reward structure helps.

I think they'll succeed solely because they don't grant people power upgrades. I mean, we'll still see complaints that "challenge mode is too hard and I deserve a cosmetic tabard too", but hopefully they will feel truly optional since they give you zero advantage in the game.

I'll admit it, challenge mode sounds great to me. Better than Cata heroics in concept, in terms of what I want out of content. A consistent challenge that doesn't evaporate when the first content patch comes out or I get a few upgrades? Sounds great. I'm just worried it will be speed runs of easy dungeons, which isn't much fun. I hope the ilevel debuff sets us at a really brutal ilevel.

You're still utterly delusional 75 pages on Rokal.

Seriously, if you're NOT getting paid, you're missing a trick.

Me and Blizzard had a deal cut out. They would implement playable Pandaren, and I would try to remind people that WoW is a video game not a chatroom.
Paelos
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Reply #2599 on: October 31, 2011, 03:26:33 PM

Difficult 5-mans did not cater to hardcore players. It catered to players that wanted challenging content, which could just as easily be casual players that only play a couple hours a week.

I'll just add this to the list of reasons you "don't get it."

One of the things you should have taken away from Cata was that players don't want to be challenged in five mans. They want to play with their friends and enjoy the game. They want to get their points and move on. They DO NOT want to be challenged. The moment you present any length or challenge in a five man environment that isn't fun, the players will balk and ignore it.

CPA, CFO, Sports Fan, Game when I have the time
Rokal
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Reply #2600 on: October 31, 2011, 03:38:51 PM

One of the things you should have taken away from Cata was that players don't want to be challenged in five mans. They want to play with their friends and enjoy the game. They want to get their points and move on. They DO NOT want to be challenged. The moment you present any length or challenge in a five man environment that isn't fun, the players will balk and ignore it.

Right, but that has nothing to do with casual/hardcore/whatever.

I did play the game with my friends, and had fun, mostly because the content required a little bit or effort and wasn't like sleep walking. As a matter of fact, I'd argue that if Cata taught me anything, it's that most players don't want to play with their friends. Most people seem to use the LFD tool to form groups, which means they are running dungeons for upgrades/points first, not for fun.

I think the points/loot treadmill in the game is pretty disgusting, so I don't sympathize with the notion that people just want to "get their points and move on". I do believe that it's accurate though.
Ingmar
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Reply #2601 on: October 31, 2011, 03:41:12 PM

The LFD 15% buff is a bit of a curse when it comes to how attractive a fixed group is for difficult content.

The Transcendent One: AH... THE ROGUE CONSTRUCT.
Nordom: Sense of closure: imminent.
caladein
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Reply #2602 on: October 31, 2011, 03:45:33 PM

Difficult 5-mans did not cater to hardcore players. It catered to players that wanted challenging content, which could just as easily be casual players that only play a couple hours a week.

I'll just add this to the list of reasons you "don't get it."

Again, you're just talking past each other.  Some people define casual as "preferring a low time commitment", others as "preferring a low difficulty/stress/external-work-needed environment".

Plenty of people fit both definitions or the opposite of both.  I don't and am not alone in my particular combination of casualness time-wise and hardcoreness playstyle-wise.  And trying to square the circle of different meanings in the same context is just going make one toss their thesaurus and inadvertently create dumb memes (see: Serious Casual).

"Point being, they can't make everyone happy, so I hope they pick me." -Ingmar
"OH MY GOD WE'RE SURROUNDED SEND FOR BACKUP DIG IN DEFENSIVE POSITIONS MAN YOUR NECKBEARDS" -tgr
Paelos
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Reply #2603 on: October 31, 2011, 03:47:04 PM

I think the points/loot treadmill in the game is pretty disgusting, so I don't sympathize with the notion that people just want to "get their points and move on". I do believe that it's accurate though.

Really? Were you playing WoW for the gameplay?

At it's very core, the whole purpose of WoW from vanilla going forward was a loot treadmill. I mean that's the basic fundamental aspect of the game. You can't get mad at people for wanting to pull the lever more.

CPA, CFO, Sports Fan, Game when I have the time
Ironwood
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Reply #2604 on: October 31, 2011, 03:47:14 PM


 As a matter of fact, I'd argue that if Cata taught me anything, it's that most players don't want to play with their friends.


Ok.

Go.

"Mr Soft Owl has Seen Some Shit." - Sun Tzu
Rokal
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Reply #2605 on: October 31, 2011, 03:52:27 PM

Really? Were you playing WoW for the gameplay?

At it's very core, the whole purpose of WoW from vanilla going forward was a loot treadmill. I mean that's the basic fundamental aspect of the game. You can't get mad at people for wanting to pull the lever more.

Yes. I think the gameplay/content itself is fun. I can't blame people much for wanting to pull the lever more, but I can be disappointed that game design continues to revolve around it.

It's another reason I'm excited about challenge mode, but in some ways they are just trading gear upgrades for cosmetic upgrades. Pokemon battles could be pretty great too, but I'm sure it will have grindy/reward elements to make sure it is 'sticky'.

Reading is hard for me.

Sorry to hear that.
« Last Edit: October 31, 2011, 03:54:04 PM by Rokal »
Soulflame
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Reply #2606 on: October 31, 2011, 03:58:23 PM

Playable pandaren is... pandering.   Ohhhhh, I see.

It's not enough to even perk my interest.  Nothing short of a declaration that Cataclysm was a mistake that would not be repeated will.
Paelos
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Reply #2607 on: October 31, 2011, 04:02:48 PM

See I think WoW can no longer satisfy people with the baseline gameplay. They've done everything. They have no more tricks in their bag that don't involve add rushes or ground fire for bosses. At the end of the day, you're still pushing buttons and getting out of fire in a different environment.

Sure they can do some gimmicks, but fundamentally I think they've exhausted their ingenuity long ago on their raiding designs. What they can do is design content that make the game fun for the people that play because it's a social game, an exploration game, an achievement game, or a pvp game. They do that by making the game more inclusive and more stratified at the very very top end.

I have no problem with them putting in punishing stuff in heroic raids, or if only 2% of their population ever sees that. I do have a problem with the fact that archeology was a waste of time instead of a cool exploration feature, or that guild points and the LFD stuff killed socializations, or that they tried to cram rated bgs down everyone's throat.

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caladein
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Reply #2608 on: October 31, 2011, 04:20:17 PM

I think you can get a lot of mileage out of putting already used mechanics in a blender and just moving the tuning emphasis around.  (Rift certainly does!)  Also, context is important.  Mechanics that can take the lead during one part of a game's life can be serve other purposes down the line.

As for loot, I can't be bothered to care about it.  I raid because I enjoy punching internet dragons with my friends.  (And I do hard dungeons because I like punching internet dragons full stop.)  I don't begrudge people that love to get their drops as long as it doesn't negatively impact my game experience: either by going crazy if they don't get something, bailing after they have nothing else to get, or if they cause gameplay to become stale just to make getting that next hit easy.

"Point being, they can't make everyone happy, so I hope they pick me." -Ingmar
"OH MY GOD WE'RE SURROUNDED SEND FOR BACKUP DIG IN DEFENSIVE POSITIONS MAN YOUR NECKBEARDS" -tgr
Rokal
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Reply #2609 on: October 31, 2011, 04:22:45 PM

See I think WoW can no longer satisfy people with the baseline gameplay. They've done everything. They have no more tricks in their bag that don't involve add rushes or ground fire for bosses. At the end of the day, you're still pushing buttons and getting out of fire in a different environment.

I actually thought Firelands was a pretty good example that there are still interesting fights and mechanics to make. It's funny that so many people complain about Rhyolith, when that was one of the most enjoyable fights I've seen in WoW in a while. The goal was not to dps the boss well, kill adds, or avoid fires (though all three of those things happen in the fight). The goal was to steer the boss into volcanos by coordinating dps on each of his legs. Neat, right? But people just wanted to get their points/gear and get out, so you see a lot of complaints about the fight since you can't just overpower the main mechanic with gear.

That said, I still enjoyed T11/T12 and 5-man bosses that re-used more traditional mechanics.
« Last Edit: October 31, 2011, 04:24:17 PM by Rokal »
Azazel
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Reply #2610 on: October 31, 2011, 05:47:43 PM

Mike apologies for a video. Next step, public apology for Cataclysm!

Link to the video, please!  Oh ho ho ho. Reallllly?

http://azazelx.wordpress.com/ - My Miniatures and Hobby Blog.
Sheepherder
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Reply #2611 on: October 31, 2011, 06:06:23 PM

Your ire at Ghostcrawler is completely misplaced, but this is something we've gone over before in this thread. He's the class design lead, so often he's posting 'development opinions' or blogs that are about work other developers have done. Cata class design was great imo, so he seems to be decent at his job as class design lead. I'm not sold on MoP talents, but I don't think he's actually been responsible for many blunders that you attribute to him.

No, it isn't.  Class design in Cataclysm is fucking terrible, you're just a broken person.
Ingmar
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Reply #2612 on: October 31, 2011, 06:07:29 PM

I'm broken too then, I like what they did with almost all my characters.

The Transcendent One: AH... THE ROGUE CONSTRUCT.
Nordom: Sense of closure: imminent.
Lantyssa
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Reply #2613 on: October 31, 2011, 06:20:30 PM

You are broken, but you're not so damn annoying about it.  And you can admit some changes aren't necessarily better for the player base as a whole.

Makes a world of difference to have a kink you enjoy rather than only being able to get off to outright torture.

Hahahaha!  I'm really good at this!
Xanthippe
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Reply #2614 on: October 31, 2011, 06:42:47 PM


Your ire at Ghostcrawler is completely misplaced, but this is something we've gone over before in this thread.
<snip>

I re-read the "Wow, Dungeons are hard!" blog last week and I still agree with everything it says. Making dungeon/boss mechanics that matter did make the game better. There just wasn't enough end-game or alternative content for anybody in this expansion, but especially players that didn't like difficult content.

And you are still 100% wrong.
Rokal
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Reply #2615 on: October 31, 2011, 06:45:32 PM

It seems like a few of you may need to review this article too.
caladein
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Reply #2616 on: October 31, 2011, 06:54:23 PM

Calling for nuance (or provisionalism or recognizing context) is unlikely to get you anywhere anywhere.

Just have to roll with the punches.

"Point being, they can't make everyone happy, so I hope they pick me." -Ingmar
"OH MY GOD WE'RE SURROUNDED SEND FOR BACKUP DIG IN DEFENSIVE POSITIONS MAN YOUR NECKBEARDS" -tgr
Ingmar
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Reply #2617 on: October 31, 2011, 07:01:25 PM

Yeah we don't do nuance here. You're lucky we use complete sentences, really.

The Transcendent One: AH... THE ROGUE CONSTRUCT.
Nordom: Sense of closure: imminent.
Sjofn
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Reply #2618 on: October 31, 2011, 07:09:45 PM

I'm broken too then, I like what they did with almost all my characters.

I'm broken too! Whee!

And the changes I don't necessarily like playing with now (DKs and hunters) were changes I know, in the long run, were better for those classes. But I fucking love my paladin(s) now. To death. I know this is partly because I have not played ret for real since vanilla, but I don't give a shit. Protection and holy are both great, dammit.

God Save the Horn Players
Paelos
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Reply #2619 on: October 31, 2011, 07:42:55 PM

I wasn't really a fan of the warrior tanking changes in Cata, but they don't usually bother me enough to worry about.

As for the blog about raiding and heroics being hard, the one thing Blizzard really failed on was making heroics and raids "matter" so much up front. You never want to make your first iteration of content right out of the box tough on anyone. Why? Because people immediately have buyers remorse and/or stop caring. After an expansion it's easy to just walk away from any obstacles if you hate the changes.

Blizzard thought they should continue to have the model be Tough -> nerf -> doable -> next patch content -> faceroll for badges. In my mind, the patch difficulty should start easy and ramp up with each patch, then nerfed.

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Rokal
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Reply #2620 on: October 31, 2011, 07:52:59 PM

I actually agree with you on that. I see my guild playing worse every week in nerfed Firelands. If they ran it and the current 5-mans (nerfed further by gear inflation) for a year? I can see the transition to non-trivial content being pretty jarring. I liked the balance of launch content at 85, but at this point it seems fairly obvious that the difficulty curve started way higher than it should have.

It's just one bullet point on a long list of "things that went wrong with Cataclysm", at this point.

4.3 looks sort of lackluster too (even though my class was lucky enough to get the next legendary). At this point, I'm just looking forward to MoP. I hope we're playing it in Q2 instead of Q4.
Sheepherder
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Reply #2621 on: October 31, 2011, 07:58:42 PM

I'm broken too then, I like what they did with almost all my characters.

You already admitted as much when you said you like Cata tanking.  I'm pretty certain that there are more people dying of tumors that play tank classes than there are people who are satisfied with tanking in Cataclysm. why so serious?

And the changes I don't necessarily like playing with now (DKs and hunters) were changes I know, in the long run, were better for those classes.

"We're fixing the GCD lock DK's experience by decreasing the rate at which runes recharge." ... "Whelp."

Steady shot spam is not fun for the vast majority of people.  It will never be fun for the vast majority of people.  They removed 31/30 warrior for a reason.
Merusk
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Reply #2622 on: October 31, 2011, 08:07:18 PM

Yeah, steady shot needs to die.  SS arcane ss multi cs ...zzzzzz

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Kageru
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Reply #2623 on: October 31, 2011, 08:27:00 PM

Your ire at Ghostcrawler is completely misplaced, but this is something we've gone over before in this thread. He's the class design lead, so often he's posting 'development opinions' or blogs that are about work other developers have done. Cata class design was great imo, so he seems to be decent at his job as class design lead. I'm not sold on MoP talents, but I don't think he's actually been responsible for many blunders that you attribute to him.

Difficult 5-mans did not cater to hardcore players. It catered to players that wanted challenging content, which could just as easily be casual players that only play a couple hours a week. I only play ~6 hours a week at this point, and it's the content design I wanted. Same old story where "casual" and "hardcore" are shitty/meaningless labels nobody can agree on.

Ghostcrawler is, and posted as, lead systems designer. The title given in a picture in the article you linked.

Casual and hardcore is a pointless discussion. But dropping subs and low completion rates on content are unarguably important, and they tuned it badly. The correct tuning would have been for most people to see most content with the effort put into high end only content equal to the proportion of the player base they represent. Using extremely challenging achievements for this purpose in the wrath sense was excellent design.

No player is going to cry too hard because they can't get all the "hard-core" achievements, but they will if they are locked out of content. And releasing a watered down version for them later isn't going to do anything to change that.


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Paelos
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Reply #2624 on: October 31, 2011, 08:33:04 PM

No player is going to cry too hard because they can't get all the "hard-core" achievements, but they will if they are locked out of content. And releasing a watered down version for them later isn't going to do anything to change that.

Correct, you need to create a separation through achievements rather than a situation of have's and have-not's in your playerbase. "You'll get to see it...eventually," is not an acceptable answer to that problem. Better stratification of difficulty is (and imo always will be) the answer to most of these problems. I see no problem, for example, with giving raids 5 layers of difficulty and scaled gear to match. I see no problem either with scaling dungeons to match how many people you see fit to bring with you.

Let the players burn out at their own competitive level instead of deciding it for them.

CPA, CFO, Sports Fan, Game when I have the time
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