LFD

[Azazel]

When I levelled up my Warrior from 1-63ish after the 4.0 changes but before cata came out I ended up LFD pretty much from level 15-58. In that time I ran across a lot of douchebags, but I also came across a lot of cool people that were fun to group with who also appeared to appreciate my tanking. Certainly more fun than most of the random douchebags n my guild who I've never had any interaction with.

Without LFD, I'd never have come across those cool people. Wth LFD, I'll never see any of them again. And even if I do, I won't remember WTF they are/were.
 

Koyasha - I don't really AH, and I'm not personally worried about the integrity of my server's economy. Especially since after 3 months on again, I tend to stop playing for 7-18 months at a time. I'm talking about Blizzard's reasons. That and server-first wank-achievements, I guess.

[Koyasha]

Well, unless they're sticking to discrete servers because they like the idea even if something else would probably be better given the nature of the way the game has evolved (which I certainly wouldn't doubt, considering how hard they sometimes push stupid concepts like the original meeting stones), I'd suspect the reasons are more technical than anything else.  It would likely take them a massive amount of work to rewrite into being able to switch servers at will - the server transfer is currently decently streamlined, but it does have bugs (once my character lost skills after a server switch, for instance - this sort of thing could not be allowed to happen even 1% of the time if you could be expected to switch servers several times a week, or even more often) and the back end of the game would probably need a major redesign to make it work.

Keep in mind that WoW has never been strong on their own technical side of things.  Even after all this time it seems to need near-daily restarts of the servers, as opposed to many other games that run for weeks without the servers going down.  I don't know if they've rewritten code on the back end since the launch troubles that first led them to start doing daily restarts, but the continued restarts seem to indicate they've never completely solved the problems, and only throwing more hardware at the problem and doing regular restarts allows the game to function.

[Minvaren]

Sounds normal for an Oracle platform, from my experience.   

[Lantyssa]

They're able to group people from separate servers into battlegrounds and instances.  It's not a significant hurdle at that point.

[Malakili]

I installed recount yesterday after starting to level my mage from 80-85, and my GOODNESS some people suck at DPS, its kind of hilarious actually.  How can these people do less than 2000 dps at level 80+?   Luckily normals don't seem to require a very good group as long as your healer is good, though it becomes more important at level 85 and in heroics when healers don't have infinite mana pools anymore.

[SurfD]

I installed recount yesterday after starting to level my mage from 80-85, and my GOODNESS some people suck at DPS, its kind of hilarious actually.  How can these people do less than 2000 dps at level 80+?   Luckily normals don't seem to require a very good group as long as your healer is good, though it becomes more important at level 85 and in heroics when healers don't have infinite mana pools anymore.

Some of this i can see a valid reason for (only some mind you).   A lot of it has to do with exaclty how hard the ratings conversions hit you when you make that jump from level 80 in your phat sexy fully buffed ICC gear to level 82 or 83 with your unenchanted greens.

I got yelled at by some level 80 mage in a BRC run the other day while dicking around on my level 83 ret paladin alt.  I am medeocre with my paladin at best (just leveling him to 84 to unlock Twilight Highlands so i can max out his enchanting).   This mage decided to give me an earfull because I am "level 83 on an OP class and only pulling half his dps".  For reference, he was a fully ICC geared fire mage pulling 12-14k dps, while I am pulling around a steady 8k in quest greens as ret.  I told him to stuff it, and get back to me when he hits level 83 and goes from 50% crit, hitcapped, and 40% haste or whatever he had, to 20% crit, 5% hit, and 15% haste.  The Rating conversion curve gets REALLY freaking steep as soon as you break 81.

But yes, at level 85, with decent gear (meaning you have mostly ilevel 320 or so average), anyone pulling under 6k dps on boss fights better have a damn good reason.

[Selby]

But yes, at level 85, with decent gear (meaning you have mostly ilevel 320 or so average), anyone pulling under 6k dps on boss fights better have a damn good reason.

I never bitch about anyone's DPS until they are 85 and either in a high level dungeon or heroic.  Before that the adjustment curves per level are just too wild for some classes to really get a feel about what DPS they "should" be doing, assuming what kind of gear they might have found.

But yeah, anything less than 5-6k in my opinion deserves a "seriously, what's going on here?" comment because the encounters are tuned so that you pretty much *have* to be doing that DPS to win them.

[Sjofn]

People at 85 can be hrrbl. I did my first heroic on my rogue the other day, who is JUST BARELY allowed even in them (his score is like ... 332 or something). I blew the other two DPSers away, and I am just ... not that good a rogue. I mean, these dudes, with the 15% buff were only in the 5-6k's on bosses, while I was doing 12-ish.

The best was when I accidently pulled aggro in a normal dungeon (like I said, I am not that good  ), died, and basically got to watch the rest of my group take about 50 years to down the boss. :P

[Azazel]

Even if there was some kind of way to befriend people from other servers (without realID) so you could group with them again if they're cool people. That would be good.

[Kail]

I mean, these dudes, with the 15% buff were only in the 5-6k's on bosses, while I was doing 12-ish.

This kind of thing always amazes me.  I mean, I know I'm not the most knowledgeable player in the world, but I finally got around to installing recount and found that I'm pulling something like 4k when I'm questing, or up to 6k on the training dummy with 230-ish gear.  My stuff isn't optimal (not enchanted or anything, not at hit cap) but that seems like that's a chasm that I'm not going to be able to bridge just by rubbing a scroll on my pants.  How are people getting this DPS?  I'm playing a ret pally, and it looks to me like they're one of the most retard proof classes in the game right now (button lights up = hit button; else Crusader Strike) but goddamn, I must be missing something obvious, just wish I knew what it was.

[Sheepherder]

[Fordel]

Lots of people just suck at pressing their fucking buttons.

It's pretty easy to out DPS people, even if you are in inferior gear, when you cast twice as many spells as they do in the same time frame. 

[Malakili]

Lots of people just suck at pressing their fucking buttons.

It's pretty easy to out DPS people, even if you are in inferior gear, when you cast twice as many spells as they do in the same time frame. 

I always wonder if thats an issue when I see really low DPS, but I never bother to actually watch.  What are people doing if they aren't hitting buttons, watching?

[Rendakor]

This kind of thing always amazes me.  I mean, I know I'm not the most knowledgeable player in the world, but I finally got around to installing recount and found that I'm pulling something like 4k when I'm questing, or up to 6k on the training dummy with 230-ish gear.  My stuff isn't optimal (not enchanted or anything, not at hit cap) but that seems like that's a chasm that I'm not going to be able to bridge just by rubbing a scroll on my pants.  How are people getting this DPS?  I'm playing a ret pally, and it looks to me like they're one of the most retard proof classes in the game right now (button lights up = hit button; else Crusader Strike) but goddamn, I must be missing something obvious, just wish I knew what it was.

Are you 85? I ask because 230 is pre 85 gear...

[Sjofn]

I mean, these dudes, with the 15% buff were only in the 5-6k's on bosses, while I was doing 12-ish.

This kind of thing always amazes me.  I mean, I know I'm not the most knowledgeable player in the world, but I finally got around to installing recount and found that I'm pulling something like 4k when I'm questing, or up to 6k on the training dummy with 230-ish gear.  My stuff isn't optimal (not enchanted or anything, not at hit cap) but that seems like that's a chasm that I'm not going to be able to bridge just by rubbing a scroll on my pants.  How are people getting this DPS?  I'm playing a ret pally, and it looks to me like they're one of the most retard proof classes in the game right now (button lights up = hit button; else Crusader Strike) but goddamn, I must be missing something obvious, just wish I knew what it was.

I ramped up pretty quick once you start putting on blue level 85 gear (make your weapon a priority), really. Which is why I was wtf in the heroic, because it has a minimum high enough where they should be doing more than they did.

[Fordel]

Lots of people just suck at pressing their fucking buttons.

It's pretty easy to out DPS people, even if you are in inferior gear, when you cast twice as many spells as they do in the same time frame. 

I always wonder if thats an issue when I see really low DPS, but I never bother to actually watch.  What are people doing if they aren't hitting buttons, watching?

There's a chance lots of them just don't understand how latency effects casting in this game, so they may even think they are doing it right, when they are not and are actually losing minutes of casting in a boss fight.


Honestly though... lots of people just suck, suck tremendously and will forever continue to suck and nothing can be done for it.

[Merusk]

Lots of people just suck at pressing their fucking buttons.

It's pretty easy to out DPS people, even if you are in inferior gear, when you cast twice as many spells as they do in the same time frame. 

I always wonder if thats an issue when I see really low DPS, but I never bother to actually watch.  What are people doing if they aren't hitting buttons, watching?

Mouse clicking abilities and keyboard turning.  Hell, I'll bet there's a significant number of players who don't reshuffle ability bars and just leave them where they pop-in when they train.

I thought someone here had a story about a player who was actually using abilities out of their spellbook because their single hotbar had filled up.  Pretty sure it's in the Bad Groups thread.

[Sjofn]

I mouse click abilities and keyboard turn.  

It's just PvE, dammit.

[Paelos]

I keyboard turn. It's not a big deal when you are tanking. In pvp you're a walking HK.

[Malakili]

Do you care that there is a better way to do it?  I mean that as a sincere question.  In pretty much anything I do, gaming or otherwise, if I know of a better way to do something I can't bring myself to keep doing it sub-optimally.  Maybe this is why I simply can't relate to the majority of gamers.

[Lakov_Sanite]

What works for some people doesn't work for others. I'm left handed, mouse-click buttons, though only partially keyboard turn, mostly strafe and my reaction time does not suffer in the least but YMMV

[Minvaren]

I do the same, and cluster core skills on multiple hotbars so the mouse doesn't have to move much.  I just find that moving with the mouse (especially while tanking) can lead to losing your target way too easily.

[Rendakor]

Sticky targetting is a must, tank or otherwise.

[Shrike]

Sticky targetting is a must, tank or otherwise.

Haven't bothered with that since vanilla. More of a PvP thing, but even there, haven't bothered since vanilla. Never found it that useful over all. Would help most in 5mans, but haven't felt particularly handicapped without it. Although, now that I think about it, after last night's spaz tank, might be worth trying again...

What I"ve seen, the really bad dps number are probably from not paying attention (i.e. not pressing buttons) and lack of enchants/gems/whathaveyou. I've seen a shocking number of people that don't seem to bother enchanting (especially weapons  ) or gemming. They seem to think that if it's not purple, it's not worth spending money on. Hence 346ish il and them pulling 5k while those who bothered are pulling 10k. Motivation to do well seems the real root cause. They simply can't be bothered so they blow GCDs, don't tune gear, and don't run a decent rotation/priority, though that dovetails with not paying attention.

[Rendakor]

It was more a suggestion for Minvaren who has trouble losing target while moving with the mouse.

[Ingmar]

I mouse click everything outside the core 6 or 7 things, but I don't keyboard turn. I play too many alts to memorize 30 keybinds for each one.

[proudft]

I hotkey pretty much everything, and always have.  It's not too bad for alts, since I just put things that are vaguely the same on the same keys.  Shift-1 on the warrior is Challenging Shout, so Shift-1 on the druid is Challenging Roar - those are basically identical so it's easy; 8 on the mage (my first character) was Blizzard, so therefore 8 on the druid is Hurricane, 8 on the warlock is Rain of Fire, and 8 on the hunter was Volley (before that got removed).

It takes me a few minutes to adjust/remember wtf the icons are if it's a character I haven't played in a few weeks or months, but in WOTLK I would routinely tank 3 dungeons in row with my 3 different tanks (brb, switching to warrior) and I could mentally switch adequately enough.

The switching hasn't come up as much with Cataclysm since I haven't been playing it nearly as much, but that's the other thread, I guess.   

[Fordel]

Which button is Iceblock. 

[proudft]

Oh, I don't keybind that one.   

(I'm lying, it's alt-1).

[sinij]

Blizzard with World of Warcraft came as close as humanly possible, and a lot further than they should have, to turning mmorpgs into single player experience. I don't think they understand that the main point of these types of games is interaction with other players, both positive and negative.

[Rasix]

No, it's a game.  The point is to have fun.

[Sjofn]

Do you care that there is a better way to do it?  I mean that as a sincere question.  In pretty much anything I do, gaming or otherwise, if I know of a better way to do something I can't bring myself to keep doing it sub-optimally.  Maybe this is why I simply can't relate to the majority of gamers.

It's not hurting me doing it the way I do it, so no, not really. In PvE, keyboard turning almost never matters. I CAN mouse turn when it's extremely pressing I do so, but it's not my instinct. I have my important always use shit bound, obviously, but anything past 6 on my hotbar, I just click, which is much easier for me than "shit, which bind is LoH, I haven't played my paladin in two months, nevermind, I'm dead." I doubt anyone playing with me would notice I am a clicker.

Basically, I would have to re-learn how to play if I wanted to do it the allegedly "optimal" way, but I doubt very much it would rocket my gaming ability up so high it would be worth the effort.

[Paelos]

I click my trinkets and oh fuck buttons on my right hand toolbar

[Sjofn]

Yeah, that's where most of my oh-shit buttons are. The middle is random shit I might want to use but probably won't.

[Ratman_tf]

No, it's a game.  The point is to have fun.