Response to Greg Street's "Progress" Post.

[Roguer]

Most people have already responded rationally to the OP. Really, there are two things here:

1) Why take things so personally? That's ridiculous. This is why GC posts things that are mostly common sense, and yet people on the forums tend to get outraged at his posts. "ZOMG, he's making fun of me! ME! Blizzard, what do you have against Shamans/Hunters/Warriors? Are you trying to RUIN MY LIFE???"

He's not telling you what to think or feel. He's telling you the different perspective that devs have to consider.

2) Remember Ulduar? That's funny; most people don't. When you release content too early (especially with the tiered badge system for gear), the vast majority of the player population doesn't get to see the older content. Think about it: are you really going to learn the mechanics for Yogg when you can just run ToC for better gear? BETTER! Ulduar mainly died, and a lot of players never got to see it all the way through, because they released dungeons too soon.

I know if you're in a progression raiding guild, you'll see all the content. Good for you. Most of us, however, are not. This game was not made personally for you, or me, or any other person.

-Rog

[Herecius]

Newer does not mean better.
Nothing is ever "take it or leave it".
Blizzard does not "give" anyone anything, they "offer" it, for a fee, and they are not entitled to "faith" or praise.

Just because Blizzard has chosen a new approach does not mean their former approach was "wrong" or "outdated" or doesn't have support. This very discussion is proof of that. The former approach, and not the current approach, made WoW great.

I'm not going to get into a discussion about my perceived loyalty, I've had my own serious criticisms of some of Blizzard's decisions, and this post is not about that. Arguing the semantics of something that is given/offered/paid for isn't what this is about either.

I also never intended to imply that there is no support among players for TBC's raiding model; I'm well aware there is. I see posts about 'wanting TBC back' quite often enough. What I am saying is that the support for that raiding model is in no way substantial, that it is the vocal minority by and far. One could equally argue that the current approach is what makes WoW great, as such a thing is totally subjective. We're still totally ignoring absolutely any attempt to come up with some sort of middle ground solution.

Regrettably, I cannot seem to think of a middle ground solution that would be good for both camps here. Don't think I'm not trying, either.

[bullseyed]

I guess I'm having trouble taking this thread seriously.

bullseyed, I think the reason people are "trolling" you is that from way up there, you're a little hard to take seriously. I apologize that we uneducated, raid-ignorant masses are messing your game up for you. ;> (It's okay, I'm saying this with a smirk on my face, please read as such. )

But seriously, sarcasm to illustrate the point aside (after all, what is it they say about sarcasm?), the wording that you're using smacks very strongly, especially in your earlier post in this thread, like you're so far ahead in raiding that Blizzard inherently doesn't care about you by virtue of the fact that Blizzard is bothering to care about everyone else---you WANT the new content, and are frustrated at what you see as artificial "gating" to that content. In itself, I'm not sure I have a problem with that argument; artificial gating *is* a little silly, and I am NO WHERE near being classified as a hardcore raider. ....Our guild just tried Throne of the four winds for the first time last night. *shrug* it's a casual guild, it's how we roll.

But the problem is, then you turn around and say, paraphrased, "casuals are wrong for so adamantly demanding new raid content like they did in Wrath, they should work for it." It's worth noting you're using this as an argument towards the "artificial gating is bad" argument, but... it basically also says "Casuals immediately expecting new content is wrong, but it's okay for me." ....That's the part I'm having a hard time taking you seriously on.

You've reigned it in a little bit in your later posts; perhaps because a mod is watching the thread. Reason notwithstanding, I'm glad, and it *looks* like it could still end up being a productive discussion. That's cool in my book. .......But placation aside, it's still there.

The other problem is, there's another side to the "artificial progression is bad" argument which I very much agree with, especially as a casual: I never saw most of SSC, none of TK, and not a peep of the T6 raids at all. I earned my Kil'jaeden achievement something between the Ulduar/AT era. Blizzard decided that large portions of the player base NEVER seeing the content *they* paid for was also bad, and I am VERY glad they decided that. I LOVED downing LK (again, with a casual raid schedule and very sparse signups closer to the end of the expansion, we were just a few weeks before Cata release, and certainly ater 4.0.1 patch, when we finally got a chance to down him). I would have NEVER done it if it weren't for the fact that heroics were giving the emblems I needed to get the gear to be able to do it, and LOTS of ICC farming. But even I thought it was at least a *little* silly to get the previous tier of raid content from farming heroics. It was TERRIBLY convenient as far as being able to see the content, but even to me, a super-casual, it seemed.... I dunno, like cheating.

Bottom line: I think we both agree that artificial gating is, indeed, bad. Given that I found getting T8/T9 gear from heroics emblems a little like cheating, I shudder to think what your opinions are on that specific subject.

But with all your unhappiness, you propose no actual constructive criticism: an alternative.

I think I've the leeway to generalize for the casual playerbase in saying we don't want accessible content off the table. And neither do you, let's just say a representative of the hardcore playerbase, want raids to have artificial gating.

What you haven't done is figured out how we can meet in the middle.

By way of offering this thread some direction away from potential flaming, I'd like to challenge you to offer any ideas you might have. I'm not trying to troll you here, I'm being serious; I think if some good ideas could be presented, something could actually be done about the problem we both see.

So what do you think?

You haven't read all of my posts, but that's ok, I was posting quickly. I didn't temper or change my tone because a mod noted that they were watching, in fact I'm rather pissed off that we have "post count: 1" and "lol QQ" people blatantly trolling in this thread with no action taken. Surprisingly I haven't seen a TLR post yet.

I mentioned that some of the content was perhaps a little "too hard" back then. With how much easier things are now, plus the raid structure of TBC, I think things would have worked out a little better. Blizzard did try to fix things with introducing badge gear in TBC. Unfortunately the oh em gee everything for badges metric in WotLK didn't work at all. Tier for badges ruined the game in two ways:

1.) It introduced the "I'll just do heroic 5s for badges and go from 80 -> endgame" mentality, which is obvious in many of the posters here. They cannot comprehend the concept of a multitier progression system. To them, progression is and always will be "a new raid comes out and the moment it does I am entitled to my full tier set from farming 5 mans".

2.) It artificially sped up and evened out the progression of a guild. Progress was primarily determined by time spent rather than bosses downed. At week number X, the guild would have full tier gear, come hell or high water. Now this is fine for a lower tier when you want people to progress through in a reasonable timeframe so that they had some hope of catching up. This is bad when it happens with the current tier. The differential between badge and boss gear wasn't high enough. This may have worked if badges were on lower tier raids instead of 5 mans. If you had to farm ToC normal for 2-3 weeks to get the ToC heroic tier to enter ICC, it wouldn't have been so bad.

So how would this work today?

Cata probably would have been delayed 1-2 months. By the time Cata was released, T11 would have been tested (so there would have been no buggy hard modes) and been actually ready for release. Firelands would have been "PTR stage" so that around the time guilds finished the glory of the raider achievement, it would have been ready. So a month from now, but everyone would be 1-2 months behind current progression. This means when people world first cleared T11 heroic, Firelands would be being released 2-3 weeks later.

The scaling to Firelands would be significant. If you didn't have 4 piece heroic T11, you'd pretty much have no chance of killing more than maybe the first boss or two. This way by farming those bosses, you'd get gear to help speed up your completion of gearing in T11. You'd once again see guilds that were 10/13+ heroic T11 and 2/13 normal T12. Once people got into Firelands (say 1% of all guilds, worldwide) T11 would be hotfixed to drop badges. These badges would allow acquisition of T11 heroic gear. In about 4 weeks of clearing 13/13 normal, you'd have enough badges to to get 4 piece T11 heroic. During that time with the gear boost, you'd naturally start clearing more heroics and you'd probably be 6-8/13 heroic. You'd have seen all the content on normal, and more than half of it on heroic. You'd have at least 4 piece heroic T11. You'd be ready for Firelands, and be at most 4-6 weeks behind the world class guilds.

If you had been clearing say 6/13 normal when 1% of world guilds entered Firelands, you'd have less badges per day after the hotfix. Within say 2 weeks, this gear boost would be about enough that you should be 13/13 if you had any hope of ever clearing it without being carried. So you'd sit about 2 weeks back of the "semicasual" guilds. and 6-8 weeks back of the "hardcore" guilds.


So you see, there would be no gating at all on the front end, people would be able to go through content as fast as they wanted to. (Given that the lead time at the beginning is enough time for Bliz to stay ahead for the entire expansion (debatable, but it worked in TBC)). At the same time, there would be an anchor or safety net to drag the rest of the world behind the top guilds. The longest delay for a casual guild being about 8 weeks (2 months) behind world lead. The top world guilds would be on a 3-4 month cycle, and the plus 2 tail would put the rest of players on a 5 to 6 month cycle. Right where we are at with the current system.


Sure, I left out things like the specific fine tuning. How many badges per week, how much would items cost. You could model all that out easily and quickly tweak it if you got it wrong. The exact number is irrelevant because the proportion matters.

[Shampox]

You obviously haven't read Greg's post. He said (as I said in my post) what hardcore raiders are or are not thinking, not what the general population is thinking. Here is a quote from his post:

"Let’s consider two extremes. If you complete the raid content very quickly and have Sinestra on farm and everyone has acquired their best in slot items, then you’re probably ready to take a break from raiding. If you worked really hard to get to that point, as many of the current “finished” guilds did, then you’re probably pretty happy about resting until Firelands becomes available."

Speaking for myself and many others within this category, we aren't happy to rest. We don't want to take a break. If we take a break, we might not come back. Ok ok, he said "probably pretty happy" whoopie, he didn't use an absolute statement when making his broad generalization. The fact of the matter is he still made a broad generalization that appears to be incorrect based on available knowledge. Given that he generalized it, he probably believes what he said to be true, which is a bad thing for the community.

So what you're saying is you're an addict and you need your next fix and your supplier is denying you?

[Tziva]

And I notice, still, that nobody has suggestions. At this point we're all just nitpicking each others' posts. Maybe there is no middle-ground alternative, hence why we haven't seen one in-game yet. This thread wearies me.

I think in part because what Blizzard is doing is middle ground.

They are not releasing content just to please the top .1% of players who are ready early, but nor are they waiting for every guild to finish the normal content or for the majority of the players to finish hard modes.

Given the time estimations on tier 12, and the fact that only about 20% of guilds are 12/12 normal right now, Tier 12 will probably end up being released when about half of all guilds, maybe a little more, have finished the content on normal. That seems like a pretty reasonable middle ground to me.

[bullseyed]

You can't have a proper debate with someone who is being hypocritical in their own stance on the matter. "No one else" gets to finish things at their own pace? "No one else" in this case is millions of other players who you don't speak for. How can you continue to ignore the fact that Blizzard caters to the majority for the sake of their business model and still say you're after intellectual conversation? Your argument boils down to "Why isn't Blizzard doing what I want when clearly that would be best?" when what that really means is "that is what would be best for a tiny fraction of the player base, ignoring what Blizzard, a world-class game design company, thinks is best."

Your comprehension is lacking here. Saying that "hardcores" have to wait for new content but that "casuals" do not is a biased and illogical argument. If content is released along with the pace of the hardcore raider, then no one has to wait for content. If Firelands were to be released tomorrow, it would still be there waiting 4-6-50 weeks from now whenever the casual raider finished with T11. The casual raider (your supposed million strong majority) would not have to wait a single moment for new content, ever, through the entire expansion.

Oops, Edit: Forgot to mention, if Blizzard was really the world class game design firm you say it is, they wouldn't have needed to be purchased by a larger corporation. No one surrenders control of their company when things are in their own favor.

---------- Post added 2011-03-18 at 10:30 PM ----------

So take your monthly subscriptions elsewhere, we wont miss you. Goodbye sweet prince.

I thought this thread was being watched?

[Herecius]

We don't ban outright :P Actions happen, even though you don't see them. I like your concept, bullseyed, though there are a few caveats. I've already mentioned how I don't like the idea of having Cataclysm release later (we were seriously on ICC for a full 12 months), but I think it begs the question of whether or not Blizzard could honestly keep up a pace like that in actual development.
Assuming an expansion on average of one every two years, if guilds were on a 3-4 months cycle for raids, Cataclysm would have to have something like 8 tiers of raiding, or we'd end up in the same situation, with everybody stuck on T14 for 12 months waiting for the next expansion to come out.

If Blizzard could actually keep up that kind of development cycle, I suspect they already would be doing that, but assuming they can't would you be alright with having to sit in the final tier of raiding for an entire year all over again, just like in ICC, killing Deathwing for his lava-covered Invincible to be evenly distributed among all of your alts? Not that a lava-covered Invincible wouldn't be amazing, or anything.

[Gneisha]

Speaking for myself and many others within this category, we aren't happy to rest. We don't want to take a break. If we take a break, we might not come back.

It doesn't sound like you enjoy the game if you might not come back after a raiding break, even with you being so "progressed" and "skilled". Why bother playing at all if you're not enjoying yourself? Besides, there are so many other things to do besides raiding in this game.

PvP, level alts, level professions, chase achievements, etc.

Make an alt that's completely different from your main and try raiding on that instead. Have a warrior tank? Make a priest healer. Or a mage. Or a shaman.

But please don't come onto these forums and cry that Ghostcrawler said you should be happy that you have Sinestra on farm. Most of us haven't come close to her. And as a whole, the raiding community needs more time to get more progressed in the current tier.

[bullseyed]

Also, no response to Chrom's post?

Except that everybody DIDN'T eventually see Sunwell, or BT, or Naxx 40. Which was entirely the problem. Remember that seeing these places =/= full clearing on (now) heroic modes. It means seeing them while they're still epic and relevant, and not getting pugged by people 5 levels higher than the content in greens ignoring the mechanics of fights completely and then arguing over the out-dated loot. And maybe, if your group has the skill, seeing the final boss of a tier.

I'll have to find Chrom's post. Had to drive home from work so there was a 45 minute drop out in posts.

Two things to your other point there.
1.) If SWP had dragged on as long as ICC did, people would have seen the bosses. How many guilds killed H LK while it was relevant? (Willing to bet less than KJ). Furthermore, if the system at the end of TBC had been in place since the beginning of TBC, things would have also worked out better. Few people saw SWP because few people saw BT and MH. With the system I am proposing, or even the system implemented late in TBC, most guilds would have been in BT when SWP came out, instead of most guilds being in Karazhan when SWP came out. Jumping from Karazhan to SWP would have been stupid, yet that is EXACTLY what the "plan" was in WotLK.

2.) As I stated many times, TBC was tuned slightly too hard. The badge gear was introduced relatively late and they hadn't finished working out the concept. The knee jerk that took place in WotLK was akin to making an omelet with a sledgehammer.

[Tziva]

You haven't read all of my posts, but that's ok, I was posting quickly. I didn't temper or change my tone because a mod noted that they were watching, in fact I'm rather pissed off that we have "post count: 1" and "lol QQ" people blatantly trolling in this thread with no action taken. Surprisingly I haven't seen a TLR post yet.

You're not doing yourself any favours by accusing everyone who disagrees with you of trolling, nor are you furthering the discussion. Judging by your recent posting history, this seems to be commoplace n for you and perhaps something you should advance past if you expect mutually intelligent discussion.

(there are only two posts in this entire thread that even come close to falling under that category)

[bullseyed]

Your reasoning is flawed because if you came to the game during the T9 era you'd never see Ulduar or Naxx, and if you came to this game during the T13 era, you'd never see BWD/BoT. Scrolling content made the game less, and not more, accessible.

Your entire viewpoint is a red herring because "seeing the content" is irrelevant. What matters is not "seeing the content" or downing bosses but whether or not the game is, as a whole, fun and satisfying for those who play it. Hstorically, most games that are produced and sold are not beaten by most who play them, let alone "completed". This is not a design flaw, this is a good thing, because it makes the game experience much broader and satisfying to a greater diversity of playstyle.

Focusing first on completion and second on enjoyment is a very wrong game design philosophy. Enjoyment should come first. If that means creating content that the majority of the playerbase doesn't see, so be it. The only reason to care that someone has or does something in this game that one does not is taking the game way too seriously, out of any sense of proportion.

This, to an extent. You have to realize when a player says "everyone should see the content" what they really mean is "my gear should be as good or within 2% of the hardcore raiders" regardless of whether or not they actually do anything.

They don't care to see T7 when T10 is out. They just want the T10 gear so that they don't get ganked when farming or rolled in BGs. Ulduar was one of the best raids ever done, but anyone who joined after ToC came out never saw it.

If you joined during ToC, should you have had to spend 4 months in T7 and 4 months in T8 before being allowed into T9? No. But you should have had to spend 1 month in T7 and 1 month in T8 before being allowed into T9.

[glitchslol]

You haven't read all of my posts, but that's ok, I was posting quickly. I didn't temper or change my tone because a mod noted that they were watching, in fact I'm rather pissed off that we have "post count: 1" and "lol QQ" people blatantly trolling in this thread with no action taken. Surprisingly I haven't seen a TLR post yet.

ya i made this account just because i was so baffled that you thought that ANYONE would be jealous of you. people use the word trolling wayyy too loosely. oh and by the way, i'm so sorry that my not being banned bothered you as much to be "pissed off". take things lightere, it's a game, no one owes you anything quit acting like they do.

[bullseyed]

You're also missing the point of much of Chromedog's post; he was asking the OP if there was a potential middle ground for this, if there was some solution that had not yet been brought up.

We either have the TBC model - which favors those that raid from the very beginning, and raid all the time - or we have the tiered badge/valor/justice point model, which favors those who might just start raiding at the 3rd raiding tier of the expansion because they didn't start playing at the same time others did. What is the middle ground that we can have here? The first model favors a minority of the playerbase, and the second model is considerably more friendly to the vast majority of the playerbase, so from a purely business standpoint, the second model makes the most sense, but I still ask, is there a middle ground, some model we haven't discussed yet?

I guess I wasn't clear enough with my posts, or assumed people knew enough about TBC. The late TBC model was what created badges. That model worked. It wasn't given the proper time or environment.

[goozen]

Bullseyed, the problem with your suggestion that you need 4 pices of hc gear for firelands cant be done because this means that you or balance it around the bleeding edge and then no one else stands a chance or on weaker players and then top raiders can do it with weaker gear. If you recall a korean guild killed yogg in all blues or somthing like that. Gone are the days where you need the best gear to stand a chance, gear can only slow you done if its res gear.

[Psii]

I see this a lot, but I never see the evidence.

Also, it's an unfair leap to make. Content is not the only factor that determines an MMO's subscription count, especially in longevity. And subs = success? What would EVE Online be, then? It's a beautiful game, but not nearly as commercially successful as alternatives.

And I notice, still, that nobody has suggestions. At this point we're all just nitpicking each others' posts. Maybe there is no middle-ground alternative, hence why we haven't seen one in-game yet. This thread wearies me.

You see this a lot because people assume it to be true.
Content subscription has been on the decline since WoW peaked in the original at 9 million or whatever it was.

The facts are simple.
(this numbers may be a bit off because they're what I remember from the article)

4.7 million people bought TBC.
4.2 million people bought Wrath.

I'm not going too far on a limb saying that less then 4 million people bought Cata(Note this is a guess, not reality).

[Nobleshield]

I think the real issues is the WotLK mentality that make ppl think they need to move on the highest possible tier avaliable wether they are ready or not. In BC we farmed kara and grull and mag untill we were ready for ssc and tk then we farmed them till we were ready for BT and hyjal and so on, we didnt say ooohhh look sunwell is out and i hit 70 today i better be able to do some of it this week.

PS: BT and MH were available in game the day i hit 70, but i had a blast working ym way thru kara and ssc/tk and getting to them at my own pace. WotLK has screwed up the whole wow community.

Speaking as a Wrathbaby, I have to say this x100. The idea that you always must be on the latest and greatest tier is what's wrong with this game, instead of doing the content you are comfortable and familiar with until you are ready to move on. I hate seeing old raids in the current xpac invalidated because there's this idea that only the new stuff is worth doing. I never saw Naxx or Ulduar, and barely saw ToC as I came in when you could get T9 from heroics and jump right into ICC. I hated it. I wanted to do Naxx when I hit 80; I remember having a big list of heroic gear I needed to start raiding "this Naxxramas thing", and being told (politely, luckily) that I didn't need to do it, I could just get better gear from badges and jump into the end raid. It seemed very strange to me, but I did it anyway.

[Herecius]

This, to an extent. You have to realize when a player says "everyone should see the content" what they really mean is "my gear should be as good or within 2% of the hardcore raiders" regardless of whether or not they actually do anything.

I personally think you're making a grave error here, assuming that all of the less hardcore players are somehow envious of your all-powerful gear and achievements. I think that's actually the least likely situation, really. It was quite true in Vanilla and TBC, where there were very very few people wearing the upper end of gear, people would swarm around them and marvel, but when the gear is just a single ilvl step above, it really does not have the same impact.

[shadowboxer123]

Focusing first on completion and second on enjoyment is a very wrong game design philosophy. Enjoyment should come first. If that means creating content that the majority of the playerbase doesn't see, so be it. The only reason to care that someone has or does something in this game that one does not is taking the game way too seriously, out of any sense of proportion.

I agree that the number one priority should be having enjoyment in the game.

The problem is that there are MILLIONS of people playing this game, and a LOT of different opinions on what makes a game enjoyable.

Blizzard is the one with the data, and in my OPINION, they are trying to do their best to make the game enjoyable for as many people as possible. Disagree with me if you will, that is fine, but I agree with the notion that you have to find a balance, a middle ground, between too difficult, and not difficult enough.

But just because a vocal minority is not getting enough "enjoyment" out of a game, that does not mean that no one else is getting "enjoyment" out of it.

[bullseyed]

We don't ban outright :P Actions happen, even though you don't see them. I like your concept, bullseyed, though there are a few caveats. I've already mentioned how I don't like the idea of having Cataclysm release later (we were seriously on ICC for a full 12 months), but I think it begs the question of whether or not Blizzard could honestly keep up a pace like that in actual development.
Assuming an expansion on average of one every two years, if guilds were on a 3-4 months cycle for raids, Cataclysm would have to have something like 8 tiers of raiding, or we'd end up in the same situation, with everybody stuck on T14 for 12 months waiting for the next expansion to come out.

If Blizzard could actually keep up that kind of development cycle, I suspect they already would be doing that, but assuming they can't would you be alright with having to sit in the final tier of raiding for an entire year all over again, just like in ICC, killing Deathwing for his lava-covered Invincible to be evenly distributed among all of your alts? Not that a lava-covered Invincible wouldn't be amazing, or anything.

You're falling back to a concept that in the business world is called throwing good money after bad. Just because they messed up with WotLK does not mean that they must continue messing up on all future content patches. They need to cut their losses and move on. An extra month or two in ICC wouldn't have had an impact. Everyone who would have quit over that had already quit. And no where near 50% of guilds had killed LK. When I pug ICC on my server, I'm still usually the only Kingslayer in the raid to enable heroic modes.

[coldbear]

Relative minority is the understatement of the century, how many people actually have Sinestra on a farm status? It is a tiny percenteage of the WoW community.

Wowprogress has just 55 guilds down as 13/13, just 55 out of how many? Tens of thousands?

/thread right there

Let's leave the content as "current" til at least a good 20% of all semi-serious raiders has at least had a chance to SEE the Heroic-mode-only boss like Sinestra.

They'd be asinine to design content only for the top 1% of raiders, much as all the rest of us want to have our Pve heroes and talk about their drama and exploits. (Exploits in the sense of cool adventures, not illegal stuff.)