4.2 Debates the critics

[schippie]

So guys i dont normally make a thread about QQ or nerfs etc. but lately since everybody seems to have a problem with the 4.2 nerf to "old content" i decided to post a video i saw this morning.
It was made by jesse cox and is about the nerfs to the old BOT, TOTFW, BWD.
In my opinion the guy is 100% right. I also dont see any sort of problem what so ever because of the nerfs.



Anyways this was not a thread to really express my opinion more a thread to post about a guy who has probably been playing this game longer then most of us here. With a calm/ good argumented opinion.

So what do you think about his statements?

[Deleted]

this game is about makin money ... i understand why top players are pissed off, im also, on the other hand i have some alts so it will be easier and less time consuming to gear them up, and dont forget about thing that 85% of player base are casuals ( not mean bad player but player who have less time to play ) and noobs

I have to admit 1-3 are pretty goood arguments

[Emofairy]

I agreed with all of his points except for point 9. The thing about "I pay like everyone else so I deserve to see the content too" I don't think that justifies a nerf to content. Someone with an hour of free time a day still has the same chance of seeing content as someone who has much more free time. Nothing about the difficulty level keeps time restrained players from raiding. People with very little free time are still allowed to raid. A nerf doesn't change that.

I agree with points 1-8 though. It's going to be old content that most raiders are done with and won't return to on their main character. I'm not opposed to the nerfs I just don't agree with reason 9.

[drroastbeef]

A lot of good discussion, thumbs up!

The incoming nerf, even though I've cleared everything, still feels like those irritating screens on God of War when I played through it again on god mode asking me if I wanted to try it on easy ><

I dunno, i guess the test of skill or the challenge is gone when a game is made easier for you? Had I not already cleared everything I'd feel a lesser sense of accomplishment doing it post-nerf, just like when my old guild couldn't down LK25 or lady death 25H until the buff got to like 20 or 25%. It was a hollow victory, I didn't feel much excitement cause it felt like we were being coddled.

[mercutiouk]

For a really cheesy analogy a lot of the "but I had to do it without the nerfs!" comments can be rather compared to:

Teen: "NO! Those toys were bought for ME! You can't play with my transformers"

When he will never actually properly do anything but VERY rarely mess with em ever again.

[zealous]

I like jesse as a podcaster and voice actor but I don't really agree with what he did here.

I realize that he is basing those "arguments" off of the "discussion" he had in youtube video comments (seriously?) and so he isn't trying to present it like it's the boiled-down opinions of the entire community.... but that's what most people watching this video will think. "Omg Jesse addressed all the whiners posting on the forums and took their arguments apart!"

I feel most of those points, actually all of them to different extents, are twisted either in their formula or Jesse's explanations...

1. That point is not about someone thinking "ok guiz I needz to train in hard content to train to be a leet raider!" It's about social engineering (I totaly agree with TB on that, even though I like Jesse a lot more as an entertainer)... the devs have a great deal of control on the mindset of the playerbase, on their demands and standards. Each time they nerf something to make it "more accessible" people lower their standards and expect stuff to be easier and more rewarding in the future. It's a subtle process that warps the mind, just like it happened in Wrath with heroic 5 man zergfests. Even old raiders like me felt themselves change a bit.

2. The "difficulty wall" has been a huge issue in Cata imo, much more than in WotLK. Again, I agree with TB on this (which again is surprsing to me since I disliked lots of what he said during beta podcasts). Did you see those stat on wowprogress? The giant drops in guilds which downed everything on normal but then just quit during the first hardmodes (21k guilds killing normal Nef but only 3k killing heroic Magmaw, 25k guilds killing normal Cho'Gall, but only 5k killing heroic Halfus)? You don't need to necessarily make h-modes easier, there just needs to be a more gentle learning curve so that bosses gradually become more difficult and aren't pushovers on normal but steamrollers on heroic.

And now Blizz is deepening this problem.

3. Point 3 is subjective, it can be viewed as a minor problem by some, my gripe with it is lack of consistency. What's the point of developing a raid for months to only drop it into the nerf bucket later? (not talking about t11, but about the "possible" nerf to Firelands that might happen because of the diffculty jump between those raids).

4. The problem I have with Jesse suggesting to "run heroic modes if you get bored" is the same old "difficulty wall". People will be running easy content, get bored, then try harder content, hit a brick wall, wipe dozens of times and start quitting out of frustration. I've seen stuff like that happen to casual guilds during Ulduar and TotC, both of which had a serious disproportional jump in difficulty from normal to hm. But this time it might turn out even worse imo.

5. Again I feel he's skewing the argument. He says "heroic raiders will clear it fast anyway, the normal mode raiders will have plenty of stuff to do".
I don't think those 7 bosses will be that hard that they will take normal mode raiders the same time to down or longer as we did 13 bosses in t11. From what I've seen of the PTR streams and vids, even if they get buffed a bit, they will only be raised to the level of t11 difficulty anyway.

Points 6 through 9 are just whining. Why he wanted to include them into that list beats me. Seems a bit unethical since he's making the previous arguments look totally idiotic too by grouping them with the whiney baseless egotistical ones.


All of the above is my personal opinion. Don't bother flaming, I won't answer.

[Deleted]

A twelve minute oppinion about a game patch? Oh boy.

[Dariela]

It's funny that people are all worked up about this at all.

It's been happening since the game was released. If you don't like it, this isn't the game for you. It is part of the game design. If you haven't caught on by now... then I can't help you.

The sun rises in the east, the sea is salty, and old content is nerfed to make it more accessible.

[zealous]

trust me when I say that most people whining about it do it for the whining itself.

Excuse me, do you personally know most of those people or do you have a PhD in psychology?

[Blaschnack]

2. The "difficulty wall" has been a huge issue in Cata imo, much more than in WotLK. Again, I agree with TB on this (which again is surprsing to me since I disliked lots of what he said during beta podcasts). Did you see those stat on wowprogress? The giant drops in guilds which downed everything on normal but then just quit during the first hardmodes (21k guilds killing normal Nef but only 3k killing heroic Magmaw, 25k guilds killing normal Cho'Gall, but only 5k killing heroic Halfus)? You don't need to necessarily make h-modes easier, there just needs to be a more gentle learning curve so that bosses gradually become more difficult and aren't pushovers on normal but steamrollers on heroic.

One thing that came to my mind when i took a look at those Wowprogress statistics was that, in my opinion, it's not really that easy to say that the first heroic boss of an instance is the logical next step after defeating the endboss in normal mode. My guild for example has killed all normal modes first before heading to heroics, so it might be that this is also the case for other guilds and Nefarian is probably the hardest if the normal mode endbosses (at least I felt it that way).

So maybe it might make more sense to compare heroic Halfus (which often is one of the first hardmodes that people progress on) to normal mode Nefarian kills. If we do that we find only a difference of ~4% between those two, which wouldn't make it look THAT bad like those almost 22% difference when you compare heroic Halfus with normal Cho'Gall.

Of course that all doesn't have to be entirely true and is based alot on my personal experience with the content, but it could be that quite a few guilds actually also tried to clear the whole normal modes before heading over to heroics.

[zealous]

One thing that came to my mind when i took a look at those Wowprogress statistics was that, in my opinion, it's not really that easy to say that the first heroic boss of an instance is the logic next step after defeating the endboss in normal mode. My guild for example was killing all normal modes first before heading to heroics, so it might be that this is also the case for other guilds and Nefarian is probably the hardest if the normal mode endbosses (at least I felt it that way).

So maybe it might make more sense to compare heroic Halfus (which often is one of the first hardmodes that people progress on) to normal mode Nefarian kills. If we do that we find only a difference of ~4% between those two, which wouldn't make it look THAT bad like those almost 22% difference when you compare heroic Halfus with normal Cho'Gall.

Of course that's all doesn't have to be entirely true and is based alot on my personal experience with the content, but it could be that quite a few guilds actually also tried to clear the whole normal modes before heading over to heroics.

I personally believe the reason to those drops was the "difficulty wall" and the fact it was the same boss with a couple more spells. In TBC, people were really motivated to keep trying when they wiped in TK or SSC, because it was a new instance, new boss, new loot, new art (and ofc familiar lore characters). So even if they wiped, they kept doing it for a couple weeks because they were motivated. Some would succeed, some would not but they tried.

What I feel happened in Cata was people gave up very fast when they started wiping on heroics. What was their incentive if they weren't going for realm/world firsts (which most guilds weren't)? A couple achievements, a couple more digits on the same-looking items?

It's a bit less motivation. I think it was about a 50/50 divide between those two reasons (difficulty and heroic modes being the same bosses with a couple more spells) why people gave up on them at the first signs of failure.

Plus I feel like since Wrath people give up raids very very easily. PuGs in WotLK were a leave-a-thon for me, I mostly stayed through multiple wipes in 25 man pugs while I saw people leave at the first sign of trouble. In TBC I did Maggy, Gruul and even t5 content pugs with people staying to wipe until they got the job done.

Again, social engineering. Changing of the players' mindset. The devs might not understand what they are doing but they are doing it.

[Deleted]

Edit : Oh right, he's arguing in favour of the nerfs. I'll watch the vid then make a response.

Point 1. He's pretty spot on here. If a player hasn't already done 12/12 normal atleast, he's going to have a nearly impossible time getting into a hardcore raiding guild anyway without some social connections.
Point 2. Like he says, the difficulty wall between heroic 5 mans and normal raiding was pretty huge. Now they're just moving the wall forward a tad. I don't think many guilds will go to heroic Tier 11 before Firelands as he suggests though.
Point 3 will depend on how quickly they nerf Firelands, since I think thats inevitable. As long as its right as Tier 13 is released I don't see any hardcore players being too upset.
Point 4. From experience I know hard content is much worse for causing burnout. M'uru and Kael killed guilds.
Point 7, doing Tier 11 "as intended". Due to the better gear available, its going to be pretty hard to do this anyway.

[Hottie4Hire]

One thing that came to my mind when i took a look at those Wowprogress statistics was that, in my opinion, it's not really that easy to say that the first heroic boss of an instance is the logic next step after defeating the endboss in normal mode. My guild for example was killing all normal modes first before heading to heroics, so it might be that this is also the case for other guilds and Nefarian is probably the hardest if the normal mode endbosses (at least I felt it that way).

So maybe it might make more sense to compare heroic Halfus (which often is one of the first hardmodes that people progress on) to normal mode Nefarian kills. If we do that we find only a difference of ~4% between those two, which wouldn't make it look THAT bad like those almost 22% difference when you compare heroic Halfus with normal Cho'Gall.

Of course that's all doesn't have to be entirely true and is based alot on my personal experience with the content, but it could be that quite a few guilds actually also tried to clear the whole normal modes before heading over to heroics.

This is correct. Nef is a little more difficult for tanks and healers than Cho. Halfus is a little more difficult for healers arguably. That's really all there is to it. Blizzard balanced it out. The gap between Cho and Halfus is fairly reasonable. The gap between Nef and Magmaw is also to be expected, as Magmaw is considerably more difficult than Nef.

[sithorion]

I don't know why people are still wondering why the difference is so big between heroic content and normal content. If you really want to get into the debate, then you gotta have your sources. One of those main sources is all the blue posts of blizzard stating they would make normal content accesible for everyone, while heroic content would be for the more hardcore players. Agree with it or disagree, that's just they way the devs decited to take. After all, it's their game, and listening to the community rarely gives anything good. I mean face it, 80% of us have no clue how to organise a game. They decide which way they go with the game, you as player decide if you still want to play it. Call me a Blizzard fanboy, idc, at least I play the game and enjoy it instead of playing and whining.

As is the same about those nerfs. There are arguements for and against it, but you gotta ask yourself: what does it matter to me? I can't change it, but do I still like the game enought to cope with it?

[Ryme]

This video is I value his voice more than his opinion, he's quite short sighted.

[sourmonkey]

I did not watch the video i only posted my thoughts collectively on this topic

i will just ansewer my thoughts on the numbered bullets from the video preview cause i am sick of players making posts about 4.2

1) if you can not raid by now those high end guilds would ROFL all over your app.
2) the content is old if they have not done it , then its more likely due to them not raiding period thus making the whole topic Null. if not then enjoy it in 4.2.
3) what does this have to do with today? raid mechanics have changed and will continue to . its very hard to base what tomorrow will look like when all we can do is view the past.
4) if normal is too easy then try heroics last i heard only normal modes are being touched.
5) once one guild beats it makes a video then the rest will follow. how many mechanics do you think there can be past don't stand there , and hit this first? besides blizzard said they will be releasing content faster . so far this has been true and holds up

i will make this crystal clear about 4.2

you think t11 will matter in 4.2? when most of the progression guilds will be in t12? nope
you think t11 will matter in 4.2? when a player can gear in ZA / ZG and be geared enough to walk in t12 in full 353? ( plus valor gear) nope most players will take the heroic 5 mans who can not form 10 mans and still have decent enough gear for the same content.

so please think before you post all of the bullets in that preview are opinionated and not factual. base on what i said here ^

[Deleted]

so please think before you post all of the bullets in that preview are opinionated and not factual. base on what i said here ^

The bullet points in the screenshot are just arguments that he dismantles in the video itself

[Dariela]

I did not watch the video i only posted my thoughts collectively on this topic

i will just ansewer my thoughts on the numbered bullets from the video preview cause i am sick of players making posts about 4.2

1) if you can not raid by now those high end guilds would ROFL all over your app.
2) the content is old if they have not done it , then its more likely due to them not raiding period thus making the whole topic Null. if not then enjoy it in 4.2.
3) what does this have to do with today? raid mechanics have changed and will continue to . its very hard to base what tomorrow will look like when all we can do is view the past.
4) if normal is too easy then try heroics last i heard only normal modes are being touched.
5) once one guild beats it makes a video then the rest will follow. how many mechanics do you think there can be past don't stand there , and hit this first? besides blizzard said they will be releasing content faster . so far this has been true and holds up

i will make this crystal clear about 4.2

you think t11 will matter in 4.2? when most of the progression guilds will be in t12? nope
you think t11 will matter in 4.2? when a player can gear in ZA / ZG and be geared enough to walk in t12 in full 353? ( plus valor gear) nope most players will take the heroic 5 mans who can not form 10 mans and still have decent enough gear for the same content.

so please think before you post all of the bullets in that preview are opinionated and not factual. base on what i said here ^

You do realize the author of the video agrees with you?

[Deleted]

By lowering the normal difficulty,when players move to heroic or firelands they'll suddenly hit a difficulty wall.

that's so fail.. like all other complains imo... we had so many months to practice...if you w8 for the nerf to kill the normals you can't have any big expectations.. that makes you unable to complain about difficulties and many other things

[tankz]

Come 4.2, you can buy T11 with JP, so all the gear you can get from normal Heroics will be the same iLvl as from raids.. so what's the point in the raids being much harder? old stuff should always get nurfed later on (and naturally gets nurfed by gear anyway) so I don't get why people are so up in arms about normal modes being nurfed. Video dude is correct on pretty much all points imo.