0.23% of Players Defeated Heroic Garrosh

[cFortyfive]

Why is that a bad thing. I think in most human activities people try to seek out others with similar ability levels.

Absolutely it's pretty much the same in any game where there is anything to gain by winning.

[Pann]

And that justification for the elimination of heroic raiding as a whole? I highly doubt that will fix the issue. I do agree that guilds and personal relationships in game also play a big part in keeping people in game and playing. Raiding 12 hours a week with a bunch of people you like elevates the game to another level. Where as doing random LFR/flex content is some random social guild almost hurts your chances of moving on to harder content.

I think the combination of eroding game community and content anyone can fully see even w/out putting forth any real effort doesn't lend itself to long stays.

It is not so much heroic raiding but the focus on raiding, which heroic raiding is at the sharp end of, that is the issue. Even LFR requires a large time commitment, for one wing you are looking at one to two hours depending on the queue and the quality of your group, compare this to Wrath where a player could log on for thirty minutes each day and earn far better rewards than they can now.

[Paarthurnax]

How in the hell is killing the current tier end boss in LFR "all the content there is to see in the game"?

If that's what a player thinks, fine, but that's just willfully ignorant.

If you're expecting people to take that argument seriously, you have some perspective problems of your own.

- - - Updated - - -


You seem to have a profoundly incorrect understanding of Bobby Kotick.

At its core this game is about raiding. Maybe in the future blizzard will change that but its a raiding game about collecting loot. Sure the social aspect and pvp/questing/xmog/achievements/petbattle stuff is important too but at its deepest core it was founded and (imo) still is a game where the ultimate crescendo is raiding and collecting better and better loot. After one kills or at least see's the end boss die, its then just a matter of farming that content for better gear, i even posted about what someone might do after that if pushing harder content doesn't interest them. There is lots to do technically but most of them don't have the meat that raiding does.

In the end everyone has their own priorities as to what drives them to keep playing but does the meat outside of raiding keep people continually subbed and satisfied for years w/out breaks?

[Pann]

Why is that a bad thing. I think in most human activities people try to seek out others with similar ability levels.

Because this is a game? The choice of who you play with should be determined by how much you like them and how much fun you have in their company not whether it easier to get purple pixels with them.

[Paarthurnax]

It is not so much heroic raiding but the focus on raiding, which heroic raiding is at the sharp end of, that is the issue. Even LFR requires a large time commitment, for one wing you are looking at one to two hours depending on the queue and the quality of your group, compare this to Wrath where a player could log on for thirty minutes each day and earn far better rewards than they can now.

So you would kill off heroic raiding (those elitist jerks looked down on me!), kill off LFR (takes too much time), and beef up 5 man loot to LFR or better quality but not increase the difficulty at all? That's the grand plan to making the game uber successful?

Your idea also hinges on the fact that raiding content comes at the expense at all other content. I'm pretty sure they have separate teams working on those things and one teams success or failure has nothing to do with the other. They don't even design heroic raids first then scale things down i'm fairly sure normal mode raiding is the standard and numbers get adjusted up or down from there and since LFR/FLex/Normal/Heroic all use the same boss models, same locations, same everything the act of adjusting numbers/mechanics to fit each difficulty would have to be what "takes content away from the rest of the game". That is simply not true.

[cabyio]

Because this is a game? The choice of who you play with should be determined by how much you like them and how much fun you have in their company not whether it easier to get purple pixels with them.

Maybe for you. For me I have more fun when I can play with people that are at least in the same skill ballpark as me. I still want them to be likeable. Regardless of how nice someone is if they "suck the big one" then its going to get on people's nerves eventually, even people who like them. If you are a world class tennis player, you don't play with begginers on a regular basis, it would not be fun for you.

game:a form of play or sport, esp. a competitive one played according to rules and decided by skill, strength, or luck.

[Santoryu]

Then please explain how wotlk saw the most subs wow has ever seen in arguably the easiest expansion? Class mechanics were so easy spamming 1 button was often the key to victory. So it would seem that people like that more than current builds. Raiding was done by everyone without lfr and multiple alts were able to be geared without this nauseating shit we have today where people are more bent on ilvl more than skill.

WOTLK was when the subs peaked. The reasons for the peaking are to be found prior to the peak.

Osmeric explained this back in post 1093

He's talking out of his ass. Those who were 10 years old in 2004 when wow launched are now 20 and represent that reservoir to churn from.

Fact is 99% don't care about heroics. Why? Because quite frankly it's a boring chore to them

Yep, because it's basically the same bosses with more health.

If they are doing this, it's grounds for termination. Kotick himself has come out against developers working at cross purposes to the game company's business goals.

Things started to go horribly wrong the moment after the activision merger.

We point out a lot that Blizzard is a business, not a charity for gamers. This has implications. Having a CEO with goals like that is one of them.

Engaging games that give you a feeling of accomplishment tend to make you play them longer. Games you can beat in a week, do not.

Mostly, it enables lesser players to retain the illusion they don't suck, compared to the high skill players.

So by that analogy we shouldn't give out grades in schools either as we wouldn't want the poor students to know they don't have enough knowledge. Grow some testicular fortitude and face the challenge you're presented with.

[Pann]

So you would kill off heroic raiding (those elitist jerks looked down on me!), kill off LFR (takes too much time), and beef up 5 man loot to LFR or better quality but not increase the difficulty at all? That's the grand plan to making the game uber successful?

Your idea also hinges on the fact that raiding content comes at the expense at all other content. I'm pretty sure they have separate teams working on those things and one teams success or failure has nothing to do with the other. They don't even design heroic raids first then scale things down i'm fairly sure normal mode raiding is the standard and numbers get adjusted up or down from there and since LFR/FLex/Normal/Heroic all use the same boss models, same locations, same everything the act of adjusting numbers/mechanics to fit each difficulty would have to be what "takes content away from the rest of the game". That is simply not true.

In an ideal world there would be a place for all types of players. Raiding is coming at the expanse of other content for example this is the first expansion that has not had a single dungeon added. Unless Blizzard are prepared to invest more or their limited resources into the game's development then the focus has to shift from raiding and as heroic raiding is experienced by just a few thousand out of millions it is logical that is the point to start at.

The argument that heroic raiding is just tweaking a few numbers here and there and is therefore not expensive is reliant on raiding being the majority's content of choice and it just being an extension of it. But this is not the case, Blizzard have said that they needed to get more players into raids to justify their development costs as such the non-raiding players have had LFR thrust upon them and in return rewards outside of raids are harder to come by or even nonexistent.

[cabyio]

So by that analogy we shouldn't give out grades in schools either as we wouldn't want the poor students to know they don't have enough knowledge. Grow some testicular fortitude and face the challenge you're presented with.

Hey Oh! Thank you for that analogy. Shielding people from their own ineptitude just does a disservice to them.

[Pann]

game:a form of play or sport, esp. a competitive one played according to rules and decided by skill, strength, or luck.

Haha! Good one! You are competing against an unchanging, scripted event that is decided by Blizzard who will nerf the encounter if your skill is not up to the task.

[Frost1129]

The other pernicious effect of this is to make it very important to gear up as fast as you can. If your gear falls behind, you have a greater chance of being ditched. The game design incentivizes players to consume the content at top speed.

This isn't necessarily true. Almost every class has a DPS rotation / healing breakdown that doesn't really change as you get gear. So long as you are not like 30-40ilvls behind in gear, if you show through WoL/WCL that you know what the fuck you are doing a good guild isn't going to have a problem picking you up to raid. It's probably just that people are a lower ilvl and fail to get into better guilds because they play poorly. And honestly, even if you are like 540ish right now, if you have your legendary and show you know what you are doing, you could still find a spot. Getting turned down from a good guild and saying it's just based on gear is probably just an easy/nice way of saying, "your logs looked bad."

I can probably spend less than 5 minutes on the logs of a mage / hunter / rogue / S.priest (Warrior might take a bit longer, moonkin I'd refer to another raider) and regardless of gear level tell if I want them in my raid or not.

[Pann]

Things started to go horribly wrong the moment after the activision merger.

That comment is completely at odds with one below.

WOTLK was when the subs peaked. The reasons for the peaking are to be found prior to the peak.

Both cannot be true!

So by that analogy we shouldn't give out grades in schools either as we wouldn't want the poor students to know they don't have enough knowledge. Grow some testicular fortitude and face the challenge you're presented with.

The students are not paying customers.

[cFortyfive]

This isn't necessarily true.

Well to be fair it is pretty much for people who consume random content only and have no friends which probably is the biggest issue in the first place.

If you are a world class tennis player, you don't play with begginers on a regular basis, it would not be fun for you.

Doesn't even need to go as high. As if everyone here would play day in day out with someone coop mode games who dies every 5 meters. I believe you'd come up with something else to do pretty fast.

[Antherios]

Yes i think 0.25% its fine. Only a super small portion of players should be able to defeat the last main bad guy of the expansion on its hardest setting.
Why is there even a poll for this? If we keep nerfing stuff, so that lesser skilled players can see all the difficulties, eventually you will log in, breathe on Garrosh, and collect heroic gear.

This is coming from a guy that's 2/14 on heroic, before anyone says im an elitist.

People need to rise up to the challenge instead of crying to have Blizzard lower the difficulty for them.

[melodramocracy]

Because this is a game? The choice of who you play with should be determined by how much you like them and how much fun you have in their company not whether it easier to get purple pixels with them.

Nothing is stopping you from pursuing either direction.

[Requital]

Right, I'm thinking 0.23% is too little. Blizzard can arbitrarily alter numbers, and if I were them I'd actually go a little higher and at least let 5% of your player base feel it's doable. I mean 0.23% of an estimated 7 million players (remaining subs) is 16,000. If I made a massively multiplayer online game where only 16,000 of 7,000,000 have defeated the last boss on the hardest difficultly, I think I'd rethink my perspective on difficulty.

The challenge should be there, but I'd like to see maybe 100-200k of 7mil have done it, 4 months out. 16,000 sounds like a number when the patch has been out for like 2 weeks.

5% @ 4 months is way too much. It means the content is too easy and the top end players would clear the entire tier in a week. sub 1% is fine there is plenty time for them to nerf it so average joe can kill it and feel good.

[Frost1129]

Well to be fair it is pretty much for people who consume random content only and have no friends which probably is the biggest issue in the first place.

Im not sure what you are saying here - Do you mean that people without friends cannot advance into decent guilds because of gear disparities? Lets be honest here. If you are not doing heroic raiding, you don't really need gear above what, 510? Maybe 530 for stickler flex 4 groups?

[Requital]

Because this is a game? The choice of who you play with should be determined by how much you like them and how much fun you have in their company not whether it easier to get purple pixels with them.

That is your choice but not everyone feels the same way, Some people want to be competitive and there is nothing wrong with that. If you want to play with select friends no one is stopping you. The choice of who you play with should be determined by what you want to accomplish.

[Pann]

Nothing is stopping you from pursuing either direction.

Really? I don't know many raid guilds that are tolerant of players who say "sorry can't raid tonight I'm running LFR with Bob."

[Requital]

Well to be fair it is pretty much for people who consume random content only and have no friends which probably is the biggest issue in the first place.

So what your saying is you just stereotype top end raiders but don't actually know anything about them?