Response to Greg Street's "Progress" Post.

[bullseyed]

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.

And gone is a large portion of the 14 million subscriptions in late TBC.

[Tharkkun]

That's the thing, the presence of more content doesn't mean that the "lesser players" cannot have their time. What you're really saying is that the "lesser players" are so rabidly jealous that they cannot stand that fact that other players spend more time or are better at the game than they are. Right now and in WotLK the focus was so much on everyone "HAD" to be on the current tier of content. It was never like that before. In the past there were T4 guilds, T5 guilds and T6 guilds. All the content was being used all the time. If I was bored and wanted to go run SSC while I was in a SWP guild, I could. I miss that. I hate what they have done to the game. When I was running ICC heroics with my guild in WotLK, I would have LOVED to go run Ulduar with another guild in my spare time. I couldn't. Why? Because that was scrub content and they could get better gear from heroic 5 mans, so no one bothered. People who didn't play during Ulduar never learned that one mechanic from that one boss that will get reused 2 tiers from now, so when that boss comes they won't have a clue what to do when everyone else knows exactly how to handle it. Then that player ends up looking and feeling bad. On top of that, they never got to live through the first incarnation of the mechanic, which sucks because one upon a time it was FUN.

No one is jealous of your time. You made a conscious choice to try to level as fast as humanly possible, racing through content and completing it prior to the next content patch. Congrats to you. Blizzard has a lot more than "raid content" to design for the other 11 million subscribers. So you'll have to now wait your turn when the next tier of raid content is released. Don't like it? Play a different game until the content patch arrives or quit.

What did you do for the last 9 months after ICC was on farm? Or Black Temple before Sunwell? There were far longer lapses between content than there is today. Entertain yourself.

[shadowboxer123]

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.

Except that raid gear doesn't = PvP gear, and really doesn't have an huge effect on getting ganked or rolled in BGs.

[Tharkkun]

1. This is a subscription based game so client sales are relatively irrelevant
2. Second accounts and lolRaF are much more common now than in TBC by a huge margin
3. Wholesale numbers are relatively meaningless as a measure of game success; just because the box is on the shelf doesn't mean it gets played

Plus the majority of their profit is off subscriptions not new expansions. With the amount they actually make per box sold they probably barely cut a profit after marketing, r&d and distribution costs.

[bullseyed]

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.

If not gear envy, then why would ANYONE have ANY desire to clear ToC without clearing Ulduar and Naxx? Why ICC without ToC? Heck, if you went into ICC with your 5 man heroic badge gear you'd think "who is this Tirion guy and why the hell would I listen to what he has to say?". Your logic is falling apart quickly. The only logical explanation is the natural desire of herd based creatures to want to "lead the pack". You want to be as close to the leaders in status as quickly as possible to assert yourself as the head of the herd. The alpha male if you will. In WoW, that status symbol is gear, which is why no one gives a crap about content, mechanics or bosses. They just want to get the wonderful shineys off the corpse and move on.

In real life, the status symbol is money which is why you hear people complain about how the rich get richer and greed and how not fair it is.

[bullseyed]

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.

It seems that the only "enjoyment" you get out of the game is seeing other people enjoy the game less than they used to.

---------- Post added 2011-03-18 at 11:02 PM ----------

Had nothing to do with ICC's longevity and everything to do with Xmas.

I know, especially with Activision in charge. I was just disproving his argument that "we had to release cata, we were in ICC too long".

[goozen]

And gone is a large portion of the 14 million subscriptions in late TBC.

I dont understand what you mean, during wrath WoW hit a new subscriber high, and forcing people to go back 2 tiers is a bad idea, and the new hcs show that blizz dont want this.

Also, why do you think cata came out to soon?

[bullseyed]

Except that raid gear doesn't = PvP gear, and really doesn't have an huge effect on getting ganked or rolled in BGs.

You've never played relevant content. If you only would have played TBC.

[zealous]

This whole discussion is pretty moot.

I started playing in TBC. I loved the expansion and still have fond, nostalgic memories of it, but not because it was that great, but because that's when I started playing with my friends, that's when I founded a guild, that's when I started raiding and pvping.

Bottom line to all this is, there have been 2 progression models so far:

1. TBC - Tiered progression.

Good side - there was no "outdated content", older tier was revisited.

Bad side - it took months to gear up and level an alt, or if you decided to reroll to another class, or if your guild needed you in another role.

2. WotLK and Cata - Current tier progression.

Good side - gearing up an alt or a different spec was fast and easy, newcomers, newbie players and people who returned from a break could step back in to raiding in no time.

Bad side - Old tier raids were abandoned and visited only rarely for achievements.

There are good and bad sides to both models. Period. Anyone assuming there is a clear and OBJECTIVE advantage to either one is foolish. There is only personal preference.

To the OP, your credibility and the chances of reaching an understanding with responding posters took a giant hit in your title post:

1. Addressing the post to GC on an unofficial forum makes you look like you seek attention.

2. You gave no proof of having Sinestra on farm, which is a pretty bold statement considering not even 0.5% of the people playing this game can boast that. Many will assume you're a liar.

3. You (accidentally, or on purpose) took on a tone of smug superiority. Whether you meant to or not, it sounded like you felt you were better than the people that have not achieved your level of progress. "Rabidly jealous?" Seriously? And you hope for understanding?

4. You assume that Blizzard is out on a selfless quest to make everyone happy. It is a business. The purpose of a commercial enterprise is to make money, pay back the investors, pay for the salaries of their employees, and for the mansions of their owners.

Reverting everything to the TBC system, or bashing their heads in an effort to find an ideal compromise between the TBC and LK system is, and will never be, cost-effective.

Your whole argument is moot.

P.S. Oh dear god, the "mount guy" is here. I suppose (s)he is obligated to offer his semantically-overloaded, yet thinly-argued opinion here too.

[Herecius]

If not gear envy, then why would ANYONE have ANY desire to clear ToC without clearing Ulduar and Naxx? Why ICC without ToC? Heck, if you went into ICC with your 5 man heroic badge gear you'd think "who is this Tirion guy and why the hell would I listen to what he has to say?". Your logic is falling apart quickly. The only logical explanation is the natural desire of herd based creatures to want to "lead the pack". You want to be as close to the leaders in status as quickly as possible to assert yourself as the head of the herd. The alpha male if you will. In WoW, that status symbol is gear, which is why no one gives a crap about content, mechanics or bosses. They just want to get the wonderful shineys off the corpse and move on.

In real life, the status symbol is money which is why you hear people complain about how the rich get richer and greed and how not fair it is.

People love gear, yes, and there are those who see nothing in raiding except the gear, but I think this comes back to the question of 'do I raid for gear, or do I obtain gear so I can raid?' I think a lot of people went and obtained gear so they could raid ICC, not necessarily so they could be 'as cool as those guys that raid ICC.'

Anywho, lets try and steer this back on topic, we got dangerously close to having some intelligent, progressive discussion when you were rounding out a concept for raiding that could somehow be a middle ground! I asked the question of whether or not Blizzard could somehow keep up that kind of insane development cycle of 3-4 months. I suppose there's no real way to know, since we're not Blizzard, but it doesn't seem very realistic given their development history. Historically, 6 months is the average for a major raiding patch to hit, and it generally isn't 'ready' before then, either.

Eventually, their own furious development cycle, even after delaying Cataclysm to backlog some content like you suggested, would catch up with them, they wouldn't be able to sustain it, and they'd have to start pushing content back to the old 6 month cycle once more, wouldn't they?

[ChromWolf]

Three fallacies here.
1. "TBC model favors those that raid from the very beginning, and raid all the time"
2. "The first model favors a minority of the playerbase, and the second model is considerably more friendly to the vast majority of the playerbase."
3. "From a purely business standpoint, the second model makes the most sense."

Why each point is demonstrably false:

1. "TBC model favors those that raid from the very beginning, and raid all the time"
A good many people liked TBC and did not raid all the time. TBC heroics were challenging, so even if you did not raid, you could do challenging content. Karazhan was raided the entire expansion, so you did not have to pick up the game at a certain time to see it. PvE as a whole was not oriented around getting to raid and raid gear, so a player could enjoy the PvE game without feeling compelled to raid.

Wellll, a certain point about how TBC raiding worked has kinda been missed here. Specifically, the *reason* why Karazhan was raided throughout the whole content: Because if you never got a chance to raid anything higher, Karazhan was all you had. Let's explore that.

On a different server, in a different time, long before dual-spec, and all that, that's how my OLD OLD old guild was. We didn't progress because we were a guild of RL friends; there wasn't a big push, and we could hardly call ourselves "casuals"; we were a bunch of guys (and some gals) who were friends. Oh, and we also play this awesome WoW game! Great stuff! ....We tried to run with some bigger, more focused guilds, but I wouldn't call those guilds "raid guilds" either. If you never managed to get to go to the raid, you never got your gear upgrades, and couldn't progress to the next tier. THAT is the problem with the "Gear up so you can move on" model; you had to progress through each raid tier before you could move onto the next, each and every time.

So, you can see the natural thought progression on Blizzard's part for WotLK development; "let's make it so that's no longer the case, and you can continue progressing even if you skipped a tier because, for example, you left the game and came back." Again, that's a paraphrase, but I'd call it more or less an accurate description of handing out previous tier loot via the Wrath emblem system.

[QUOTE=Aestu;10792290]Implied in your claim here, is that "seeing content = enjoying the game as a whole". Fallacy.[/q]

Forgive me for asking, but... isn't that (A) again a matter of semantics, always a shaky base upon which to make arguments, and (B) entirely subjective? I mean, regardless of whether it's true or not, couldn't someone come into this thread and say "but hey, for *me*, seeing content IS how I enjoy this game!" That makes it difficult for me to view it as a fallacy, so perhaps I'm just missing your point.

2. "The first model favors a minority of the playerbase, and the second model is considerably more friendly to the vast majority of the playerbase."
What "favors" the playerbase is defined by, again, enjoyment and not completion of the content. The square peg is happier in the square hole than in the oblong hole that is splitting the difference between the square peg and the round peg.

Again, it's my opinion that this fallacy is entirely a subjective point and as such, not really a viable point, so..... I don't have an argument I can counter the point with. Additionally, since more than just me have asked, "why can't we find out just what the oblong peg would be like?", I think we're both willing to look for something in between the two suggested models.

Just because you raid Karazhan a great deal, then go into SSC/TK and never down Kael/Vashj, doesn't mean your enjoyment of the game is fundamentally less than if you trounced a good many more lesser challenges in a different expansion. If that content is for YOU, and not everyone who does it when it is "current", then it's going to be a better fit, like a right-hand glove compared to an ambidextrous glove.

See above.

3. "From a purely business standpoint, the second model makes the most sense."
Subs grew dramatically during Vanilla and TBC, stagnated during WotLK, and are now in decline.
The former approach grew the game most dramatically. So this claim is empirically false.

Yet again, this point relies, at least a little, on semantics. Notably less so than the previous, but no actual numbers have been provided to corroborate the statement, so I'm not sure you could claim it is "empirically" false, since no empirical data has been submitted in this context/venue. I do NOT want to say I doubt the point; I'm sure there are subscription numbers out there, and that they may indeed corroborate your point. Simply that they weren't offered, and I have a hard time believing that subscriptions are actually, at this time, in decline, I'd say this point is incomplete, but apart from that, NOT invalid. Assuming it is indeed proven true, I'd say point for Aestu.

Begging the question.

Completion =/= enjoyment. I'd even argue the opposite - if you've completed the game, what are you enjoying?

Here's where you do come in with at least a more sensible argument for the point, but in that you're still using a subjective point to argue your subjective point, I think it's not really a valid claim. Achievements are in the game specifically for the "Completion = enjoyment" counterargument; to have something *else* to complete, and therefore enjoy. It's worth pointing out that my own argument is inherently subjective, because I can't possibly speak for any percentage of the playerbase and know what they specifically enjoy for the game, but it's still a counterargument to the point being made. If you've completed the current tier of raid content, there *are* plenty of other things to do---that is to say, to complete.


Reading the rest of the posts.

[bullseyed]

I dont understand what you mean

Evidently.

forcing people to go back 2 tiers is a bad idea

Do you know what a bare assertion fallacy is?

And if the people "want to see the content" then they have to go back two tiers. To see the content. That they claim they want to see. Unless you're calling half the people in this thread liars...

the new hcs show that blizz dont want this.

And thousands of guilds, posters and canceled subscriptions show that players do. Who funds the paycheck?

[Nobleshield]

What I don't understand is why Blizzard doesn't compromise. As I understand it one of the stopgaps in the TBC style of progression was the raid tiers were somewhat large - they were Ulduar-sized with a lot of bosses, so it took you a long while to progress through and therefore you ran out of time as a new xpac is released once a year or two.

Wouldn't it make sense to take the Cata design philosophy of having a couple of smaller raids, say no more than 4-5 bosses (and a one-boss or two a la Sarth or Gruul or Magtheridon), and then bring back the attunements or similar concept (maybe more lenient so only one person has to have it, and it's account wide? I don't know just saying) to force a progress path from one tier of raiding to the next?

The creme de la creme of raiders can never be appeased because they will always be cutting edge and clearing things in a few weeks of attempts; there's no way around this, but I hate the idea that I can just ignore raids because the gear gap is so great between tiers that the previous tier is totally invalidated; IMO it should be outclassed but not by a huge amount so there might still be a reason to go and kill Boss A for Trinket B, because I cannot get Trinket C yet and Trinket B is still decent to use, and hey I will get some badges I can use to round out my gear while helping on Boss D in TX+1 Raid E. The problem is that the gear in a new raid is always worlds away better than the old stuff, so there is literally NO reason to even bother getting some sidegrade pieces that you might have missed out with, as you can either get better gear from the new raid or just get them with badges/points

The problem lies in design and the idea that it's wrong for people to progress at their own pace, and instead all but force them to stop the current tier when the next tier comes out. I suppose if you had people with the same mindset it wouldn't matter and you could still take the progression path, but the design goals will screw you over longterm if you try to go that route. Even though people could, nobody started with Naxx and worked their way up in Wrath because you were putting yourself at a disadvantage if you went that route, through no fault of your own. If it wasn't the rest of the community, it would be Pugs insulting you in heroics for being in T7 gear instead of T9 badge gear.

[Tziva]

If not gear envy, then why would ANYONE have ANY desire to clear ToC without clearing Ulduar and Naxx? Why ICC without ToC? Heck, if you went into ICC with your 5 man heroic badge gear you'd think "who is this Tirion guy and why the hell would I listen to what he has to say?". Your logic is falling apart quickly. The only logical explanation is the natural desire of herd based creatures to want to "lead the pack". You want to be as close to the leaders in status as quickly as possible to assert yourself as the head of the herd. The alpha male if you will. In WoW, that status symbol is gear, which is why no one gives a crap about content, mechanics or bosses. They just want to get the wonderful shineys off the corpse and move on.

Players went to TOC even if they hadn't finished Ulduar and Naxx because that's how progression works. People work on current content, because that's how a raid makes progress. It's silly to avoid current tier just because you haven't completed all prior content. And yes, gear is a factor, as a means to an end. If you can spend the same amount of time to get either T8 or T9 gear, no person in their right mind would chose T8, especially if they care about progress.

I'm realistic and I can acknowledge that a lot of people do care about gear or inflate its value unnecessarily. But you're being unfair to just toss out a blanket statement to imply that's all anyone cares about (also: citationneed.jpg). There are ample people out there who enjoy raiding for raiding and not just because they want to stand around in Stormwind showing off their armor. The fact that TOC was wildly unpopular, despite being extremely easy and a quick route to loot, is evidence to this fact.

[Simca]

The TBC raids were a joke in terms of complexity compared to modern raids. MOST (Yes, I understand there were a few complex fights) of the Hyjal and Black Temple raids were very basic bosses, exceeding no more than 5 or maybe 6 abilities tops.

Current raid design is so much better, and I'd rather live with this content for a few more months than have them hammer out TBC style raids where they just make the bosses require a lot of gear and everyone pushes one button (Resto Shaman, Destruction Warlocks, etc).

And gone is a large portion of the 14 million subscriptions in late TBC.

This is a lie, whether intentional or an accident. 13 million subscriptions was a high point in Wrath, not TBC.

[glitchslol]

The TBC raids were a joke in terms of complexity compared to modern raids. MOST (Yes, I understand there were a few complex fights) of the Hyjal and Black Temple raids were very basic bosses, exceeding no more than 5 or maybe 6 abilities tops.

Current raid design is so much better, and I'd rather live with this content for a few more months than have them hammer out TBC style raids where they just make the bosses require a lot of gear and everyone pushes one button (Resto Shaman, Destruction Warlocks, etc).

i found tbc more challenging, but i haven't done herioc modes. especially now that dbm is so precise you don't need to know the boss at all to get the kills.

[bullseyed]

People love gear, yes, and there are those who see nothing in raiding except the gear, but I think this comes back to the question of 'do I raid for gear, or do I obtain gear so I can raid?' I think a lot of people went and obtained gear so they could raid ICC, not necessarily so they could be 'as cool as those guys that raid ICC.'

But "you" (not necessarily you, but others who hold your position) say that they absolution have to have easymode raid and spoonfed gear to see content. So which is it, do you want to see content, or do you want to jump to the head of the progression train? It cannot be both. You see this so you avoid it. You must confront it and either find a way out or admit defeat.

Anywho, lets try and steer this back on topic,

I was directly challenged by a point to which I have no answer, so I will claim it is "off topic" and try to steer the conversation around something I cannot disprove.

we got dangerously close to having some intelligent, progressive discussion

I will backhandedly suggest that forcing me to answer that question is unfair by stating that this new steering is intelligent and progressive!

when you were rounding out a concept for raiding that could somehow be a middle ground! I asked the question of whether or not Blizzard could somehow keep up that kind of insane development cycle of 3-4 months. I suppose there's no real way to know, since we're not Blizzard, but it doesn't seem very realistic given their development history. Historically, 6 months is the average for a major raiding patch to hit, and it generally isn't 'ready' before then, either.

But there isn't a 3-4 month development cycle. There is a 3-4 month cycle + lead time. Are you versed in the science of logistics and shipping? You first have capital, which is converted to work in progress. This initial WIP becomes the "safety stock" level in your primary storage facility.

Let's go to an example. Let's say raid development began 8 months before Cata launch. This means that the whole first tier is done (6 months) and 33% of the second tier is done (2 months). If the content takes 4 months to progress through, then the time committed to the second tier is then 6 months (2+4) by the time it is needed. Everyone is happy and it APPEARS to have only taken 4 months to produce the second tier. By stacking development time in the background, you build up inventory for the next release.

The pure numbers don't matter though, only their proportion. There is a "sweet spot" where the entire system works out. That depends on how long you can make each tier last and how many tiers you want to be in the system.

Eventually, their own furious development cycle, even after delaying Cataclysm to backlog some content like you suggested, would catch up with them, they wouldn't be able to sustain it, and they'd have to start pushing content back to the old 6 month cycle once more, wouldn't they?

If they do it improperly (AKA screw up) then yes. They should hire some project managers if they have that problem. But certainly a "world class" organization like Blizzard would have no problem planning that out properly, right?

[xile]

Wrong. Progression is challenge-driven, not gear driven. "Current content" is a term with no meaning outside the abberation that was WotLK.
Besides, why do you want seconds if you haven't finished what's on your plate?



You're contradicting yourself. If gear is a means to an end then why would they choose gear over which tier happens to be more fun or challenging?

You're also flatly wrong because players who enjoy raiding often slam their faces into walls for months on end because the challenge is worth more to them than gear.

Patchwerk vs Cthun
Vashj vs Najentus
Algalon vs Anub
HLK25 vs logging off

Youre wrong entirely and the person you quoted did NOT contradict himself. Those who raid seriously move on to the newest content as their priority time and time again historically because it provides the best gear upgrade and ultimately the newest and best progression. People didn't go back and make yog 0 a priority after ToC was released did they? No. Even the top guilds who were able to down him cleared ToC first then moved back. I don't know of any guild that took steps back and continued to make old content their main focus because when it comes down to it the gear is outdated. Sure they may still do it, but more often than not it was the new content that took the place of the old content.

[goozen]

Evidently.

Do you know what a bare assertion fallacy is?

And if the people "want to see the content" then they have to go back two tiers. To see the content. That they claim they want to see. Unless you're calling half the people in this thread liars...

And thousands of guilds, posters and canceled subscriptions show that players do. Who funds the paycheck?

Amusing that you say i assert and then say thousands of people have canceled with no proof.
But as to why it a bad idea, quite simply you can only hold people back by atunnments because for example with naxx gear the best of players could clear icc normal pre buff and with kara gear you can clear alot of BT/MH.
So say you need atunnments will just creat a catch 22 for new raiders/alts.
And people raid to progress and get gear, not just for the sake of raiding.

[Herecius]

The TBC raids were a joke in terms of complexity compared to modern raids. MOST (Yes, I understand there were a few complex fights) of the Hyjal and Black Temple raids were very basic bosses, exceeding no more than 5 or maybe 6 abilities tops.

Current raid design is so much better, and I'd rather live with this content for a few more months than have them hammer out TBC style raids where they just make the bosses require a lot of gear and everyone pushes one button (Resto Shaman, Destruction Warlocks, etc).

This is a lie. 13 million subscriptions was a high point in Wrath, not TBC.

I personally think that the subscription numbers are a non-issue; they're probably fluctuating anywhere between 10 and 12 million right now, and I think a lot of that isn't because WoW is failing to attract more players, but rather that most of the people that are interested in playing WoW are already subscribed to it. It has thoroughly saturated the market. Sure, other people play other MMOs, but chances are, almost all of the people playing those other MMOs, either have played, or at least tried, or still play WoW at the same time.

I do still personally think there is room for compromise here. Somebody mentioned releasing a lot of smaller raid tiers, and I think combining that with bullseyed's idea of backlogging some content and then releasing on a 3-4 month cycle might be it... but would every raid then have a new level of gear? We can't have that; again, assuming Blizzard can even keep up that kind of pace and release 8 raid tiers in an expansion, we'd have massive, out of control stat inflation, which was a serious problem at the end of WotLK and resulted from them releasing only a SINGLE extra level of gear, when they introduced heroic-level gear in Ulduar, mid-expansion.

The stats at the end of an 8-tier expansion would be insanely out of control, tanks reaching 100% avoidance, DPS with 70% passive haste, all sorts of crazy things you just cannot balance around. The only way to avoid it would be to make the stat difference between levels of gear very small.... which then absolutely defeats the concept of making it so bosses in the next tier up will destroy raids that aren't fully decked out in the previous tier's gear.

Hopefully, that made some sense.