The unintended consequence of difficulty.

[awake283]

This isn't World of Guildcraft.
You shouldn't be forced to find a guild in order to play the game the way YOU want to play it.

Everything you do now seems to be focused around being guild-related... heroics, rated bg's, achievements etc.... lame.

I respectfully TOTALLY disagree with this post. You should not be playing an MMO if you prefer a solo gaming experience as the two concepts are in direct conflict with each other! Of course everything in an MMO is becoming centered around the group experience. I am kind of confused by your expectations as a player. I am also confused why you find things "guild-related" as lame? What is lame about making friends and sharing experiences with them?

On an added note, I sense a bit of entitlement from your post, as you are defending YOUR way to play YOUR game. This is an MMO man, the interests of the group will always trump the interests of a single user. You may label this as unfair or "lame", but the fact is that it is the truth and you should either adapt or move away from this genre!

[Shamslam]

Harder heroics and people dropping mid run have created an interesting problem...case in point:

We picked up this lock last night who commented on how he hates waiting 50 minutes to come into a dungeon in progress and it made me realize how right he was. It's kind of stupid how DPS using the LFD are punished by waiting nearly an hour and sometimes will be brought into the last boss.

I know people say "oh queue for a specific instance and you won't have that problem" but I still can see how it is somewhat unfair for those pure DPS to either decline an in-progress dungeon and wait another 50 minutes or come in for a couple bosses then go back to waiting 50 minutes. I'd honestly like to see Blizz add a way to decline an a dungeon that's in progress without being punished for it. It's in no fault of that DPS queued that someone dropped during that run.

[WoWGoneBad]

IM gonna have to disagree with the whole you HAVE to find a guild thing. Im in a guild and we all run at different times so we often pug alot. a few of the peeps in my guild area already raid set and have pugged both BoT and heroics and have had a varying degree of success. yea they had the stupid crew but most of their runs have been successful. TIME is what is important here. given that most have experienced heroics and how they run there will be more n more successes in heroics.

I only get nuff time for 1 maybe 2 heroics a day and have started to have far more successes than failures due to experience of others knowing the ropes.

[coldbear]

You don't need a guild, people. You don't need close friends. You just have to learn social networking skills. It's just like learning your class, everyone starts off a noob and if you work at it and try to learn you can get it.

/sigh

[awake283]

IM gonna have to disagree with the whole you HAVE to find a guild thing. Im in a guild and we all run at different times so we often pug alot. a few of the peeps in my guild area already raid set and have pugged both BoT and heroics and have had a varying degree of success. yea they had the stupid crew but most of their runs have been successful. TIME is what is important here. given that most have experienced heroics and how they run there will be more n more successes in heroics.

I only get nuff time for 1 maybe 2 heroics a day and have started to have far more successes than failures due to experience of others knowing the ropes.

Specifically speaking about heroics, I don't think anyone is inferring that the entire group must be guildies, all the time every time. From my own point of view, even ONE guild member out of the remaining four vastly improves the general success rate of the group. Tactics, strategy, placement and the like can only be communicated effectively over vent, with other like minded players.

You are continually setting yourself up for disappointment by relying on a RANDOM tool to fulfill what you want. The more you stop relying on a TOOL and take thigns into your own hands (aka finding friends, guild, good players), the sooner you will become empowered in this game and realize how much easier things could be!

---------- Post added 2011-01-06 at 06:50 AM ----------

You don't need a guild, people. You don't need close friends. You just have to learn social networking skills.

Yea, I admittedly agree with the concept of this at least. I still will prefer guilds and the added benefits they can offer, but your general sentiment I agree with.

Be more social, people!

[Flaks]

Simply put trash pulls in between mobs need to be greatly reduced/nerfed. If necessary, buff the bosses but people SHOULD NOT BE ABLE TO WIPE ON TRASH NO MATTER HOW RETARDED.

The measure of a good player with CC is how quickly he can get an add out of an encounter. Not how he can CC X and the other guy can CC triangle and kill the first three mobs then the other two. There's no 'difficulty' or 'skill' involved in that whatsoever.

[Ershiin]

This isn't World of Guildcraft.
You shouldn't be forced to find a guild in order to play the game the way YOU want to play it.
(inb4 ur doing it wrong, etc.)

Everything you do now seems to be focused around being guild-related... heroics, rated bg's, achievements etc.... lame.

Well you must also remember that the peope you pug with are also playing the way THEY want to play. Which may very well be and often is at odds with the way YOU want to play.
THAT is why a guild is so recommended.. That and all the new juicy perks.

"A guild" in itself is no guarantee that you will always get the good heroic groups, the winning BG team, or the awesome achievements.. Its the people IN the guild, and it is the PEOPLE in the guild that are such a vital part of the "get a guild" argument.

You're basically saying that you shouldnt be forced to join up with likeminded people in order to play the game the way you want to.. Because thats what a guild is, its not just a tag below your character's name and a bonus chat channel.
There are only two ways for Blizz to actually realistically accomodate such a demand:
One is to make the game so easy that even people who actively tries to mess up a run is prevented from doing so.
The other is to make the game singleplayer.
Both ways are illogical and I hope i dont have to explain why.

[darinprice22]

Thats why I quit for a while. Too much of a timesink for me. I don't have 3-4 hours a night to do 1 heroic for VP and log on every day to do it. If that means I can't do the content b/c I have college, job, and friends then that's fine. I play this game to spend some of my free time. Not to get sucked into an endless pit of time to see wipe after wipe after crappy group. I've accepted that Heroics in all honesty aren't that difficult, me and a friend were able to pug 4 heroics to completions the first weekend with randoms out of the 7 we ran. It's the randoms that make it long and ruin it and not everyone is in a guild that is able to run everyday for that long. My guild especially has very similar time restraints to mine. But whatever, i'm over it. Just gonna come back in a few months and hope the pugs gear improves enough where they idiocy doesn't matter.

he said it perfectly, im debating quitting just for the fact that i dont want to spend 3-5 hours a day on 1 thing...not to mention alts, im having trouble atm putting time in with just the girlfriend but soon college starts up as well as my job and instead of a passing of free time wow seems more like a job these days. Feeling like you HAVE to log on everyday get your dailies done and what not just gets tiresome

[Dread32]

would you rather have every guild and pug group completing all raid content in a week like in wrath? I wouldn't and pugs will just have to adjust or fail - I don't care

[awake283]

I get irritated when people say "well, I have a job or a life or am in college or bla bla bla". WE ALL HAVE RESPONSIBLITIES. What does being a productive member of society have to do with understanding game concepts?

[Gaexion Ramza Beoulve]

Simply put trash pulls in between mobs need to be greatly reduced/nerfed. If necessary, buff the bosses but people SHOULD NOT BE ABLE TO WIPE ON TRASH NO MATTER HOW RETARDED.

The measure of a good player with CC is how quickly he can get an add out of an encounter. Not how he can CC X and the other guy can CC triangle and kill the first three mobs then the other two. There's no 'difficulty' or 'skill' involved in that whatsoever.

What universe do you live in? You ask these Wrath Babies to do anything other than stand in fire and it's "whine, whine, whine". The hardest part of pug heroics is getting these whiny-ego-starlets to get over themselves and do what they're told.

It's not unreasonable to sheep moon,kill skull, and then X. It takes two seconds to mark them, and it makes the healer's life easier.

The hardest part of this game seems to be for little kids to follow orders. They're too proud to do what they're told and so groups fall apart and you get these horrendous ques and bad groups who cycles through tanks.

Using marks and strategy IS fun because 'I love it when a plan comes together". If all you want to do is be the star of the show then go play Dynasty warriors Li Mu Bi. Wow at it's core is about strategy and discipline. You only get to 'unleash' after you've earned the right to, which is a result of everything running smoothly.

That's what wrath was about, bad groups who didnt function able to faceroll their way into t9s and that momentum carried them through the first 4 bosses of ICC.

Wow has never been a hard game, but doing what is expected and fulfilling that role is what is hard. WotLK has warped/twisted/corrupted the very definition of what those roles are.

Healers are not your mommy
Tanks are not unkillable god kings who generate infinite threat
Dps are not Duke Nukkem

I dont even know where Im going with this I just had fun writing it.

[Psilar]

Dps are not Duke Nukkem

I'd heal Duke Nukkem...even if he pulled aggro. But the again, I'm pretty sure Chuck Norris would be at the top in threat.

[Eurytos]

Time is certainly a huge factor.

Difficulty is not the problem.

I would like to see more dungeons like halls of origination, and less like deadmines. Let me explain. In HoO you can skip a large portion of the bosses, and go straight to the valor point guy. By skipping a few bosses the instance become about a 30min run, non wipes. Clearly not an unreasonable amount of time after a usually unreasonable queue time. Deadmines, which I love btw, is simply too long with no option of making it shorter if all you're after is valor points, and honestly, this is the main issue.

In HoO, if you need a certain gear piece, then you should set aside the time for a full clear and commit to it when you have time. If all you want is valor, you have the option of doing a quick run. There are a few other instances that have skippable bosses, but the majority don't.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy cata 5mans substantially more than wrath, but I also value my time. An instance with 3 mandatory bosses with a few packs of cc adds and a few packs of aoe trash with 2-3 optional bosses seems like an instance map I would like to see more of. And when I need something off an optional boss, I'll make sure to plan for it and run with a group I know will attempt that boss and not dissolve after valors are received or bitch because I want to do it.

[Rooflesstoofless]

Take some time off or go level an alt...come back when everyone outgears the content and they can carry you through. Then you can get your gearz and purps in 1/8th the time it took the 'hardcore' players who'll flame you on here.

Example:
Paladin was my 'original' main. Built him up through regs, heroics, then raids, then heroic raids when everything was 'progession' in WotLK. It took....a while.

Fast forward several months...decided to make a Feral druid as my new main. Got him to 80 and after that I got him into ICC with an appropriate gs in a few days. (/sidenote Atlas Loot, being carried in some cases, and immediately jumping into heroics was used to make this quick).

I get tired of the 'run with a guild' mantra that gets dropped when that isn't an option for everyone. I'm on at such weird times and those even vary so my name up on any guild event is rare. The trade chat suggestion is a good one though....it works as well if not better sometimes.

[kerwyn]

You don't need a guild, people. You don't need close friends. You just have to learn social networking skills. It's just like learning your class, everyone starts off a noob and if you work at it and try to learn you can get it.

/sigh

Social networking? On my internet?

Seriously though, this is the best post in this thread.

[Deleted]

I think the issue is simply the ease of Wrath coming into Cata.

Which is completely false. With full 346 heroic gear most of heroic 5-man instances already get /facerolled. With first raid tier they will be just a laugh. WotLK instances were about just the same. You was never 100% sure to finish instance with 5x fresh 80's.

[Irony]

An MMO is a time sink. Go play Call of Duty if you don't want to invest a lot of time.

[Deleted]

Simply put trash pulls in between mobs need to be greatly reduced/nerfed. If necessary, buff the bosses but people SHOULD NOT BE ABLE TO WIPE ON TRASH NO MATTER HOW RETARDED.

Trash must be like in The Eye - so that retarded ppl cannot entr instance at all :P

[Irony]

Which is completely false. With full 346 heroic gear most of heroic 5-man instances already get /facerolled. With first raid tier they will be just a laugh. WotLK instances were about just the same. You was never 100% sure to finish instance with 5x fresh 80's.

Heroics are easy with good players and some CC. Exactly how Blizzard wanted heroics to be. Wrath heroics were "faceroll" the moment Wrath hit.

[Deleted]

I'm with the OP. I have a guild and we're all good friends but our schedules are sufficiently varied that none of us have the four consecutive hours every night that is required to suffer thru a Cata heroic.

Jesus dude... Dunno what kinda heroics you are doing there! My guild isn't exactly dripping with epics or anything but we manage to burn through heroics in double quick time these days. 38 minutes for Grim Batol last night. Reason I know this is because we needed to get it done in 40 mins as the other guys wanted to join Tol Barad. That time even included one silly wipe. Seriously a little communication and teamwork goes a very long way towards making the experience a lot easier and much more enjoyable.