0.23% of Players Defeated Heroic Garrosh

[Alandalus]

What are you talking about? A new expansion costs around 45 euros here. Add a 12 month sub on top of that and you end up with 225 euros. Which "normal" activision game costs 225€?

I guess you missed where he said "one month".

[xezar]

My thoughts: either it's too hard for the heroic guilds on him still, they're casual players who don't bother, and there's some out there who just don't give a shit about heroics being considered end game content considering it's just an extra hard mode for e-peen boosting.

[klogaroth]

That doesn't make a difference.

It's not a problem, as box cost plus one month's subscription is the same as a normal Activision game.

Do you think that the top 0.23% of organised clans in an FPS can log on and play against an organised team also in the top 0.23% at any time of day they choose without pre-planning?

No they cannot.

Logging on any time of day in an FPS is LFR.

[Firebert]

I guess you missed where he said "one month".

Again, it also doesn't matter, WoW can go instant gratification and still be a sub game and still be successful.

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Do you think that the top 0.23% of organised clans in an FPS can log on and play against an organised team also in the top 0.23% at any time of day they choose without pre-planning?

When can two raids directly face off against each other in PvE?

Your analogy doesn't make sense.

[klogaroth]

Again, it also doesn't matter, WoW can go instant gratification and still be a sub game and still be successful.

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When can two raids directly face off against each other in PvE?

Your analogy doesn't make sense.

Which is why your instant satisfaction analogy with CoD also doesn't make sense.

[Firebert]

Which is why your instant satisfaction analogy with CoD also doesn't make sense.

Why not? The model where you buy the game, buy a month, level to max level, run the dungeons, run LFR and then unsubscribe is as sustainable as the latest CoD game.

Makes perfect sense.

[klogaroth]

Why not? The model where you buy the game, buy a month, level to max level, run the dungeons, run LFR and then unsubscribe is as sustainable as the latest CoD game.

Makes perfect sense.

Because the top, top players in games like CoD don't get as much satisfaction from that. They gain it from facing equally skilled opposition. See how pleased people are to win Blizzard invitational tournaments over win a non-rated PvP match as an example of this in WoW.

WoW is full of instant gratification, moreso than almost any other game.

The levelling up noise, the screen popups, the regular loot while levelling, the exploration noise. All tiny little bits of instant gratification all the way through.

As you head towards endgame the effect of some of these starts to wear off for some people, and delayed gratification plays a bigger part.

The inclusion of these is also not affected by the existence of heroic raiding. If people want delayed gratification from difficult content it doesn't stop others from going to do LFR or flex or normal. Or from enjoying questing or any other aspect of the game.

[Pann]

Because the top, top players in games like CoD don't get as much satisfaction from that. They gain it from facing equally skilled opposition. See how pleased people are to win Blizzard invitational tournaments over win a non-rated PvP match as an example of this in WoW.

WoW is full of instant gratification, moreso than almost any other game.

The levelling up noise, the screen popups, the regular loot while levelling, the exploration noise. All tiny little bits of instant gratification all the way through.

As you head towards endgame the effect of some of these starts to wear off, and delayed gratification plays a bigger part.

Well I don't think it comes as much of a surprise to many that MMOs are one big Skinner Box. I fail to see how being successfully trained by Blizzard to keep pressing the button whilst the rewards become fewer and fewer is something to be proud of.

[klogaroth]

Well I don't think it comes as much of a surprise to many that MMOs are one big Skinner Box. I fail to see how being successfully trained by Blizzard to keep pressing the button whilst the rewards become fewer and fewer is something to be proud of.

At that point it becomes more about beating the challenge than receiving the reward, for the most part. Although the reward's perceived value becomes inflated by the difficulty of obtaining it. A new loot drop, mount or title for completing a quest is nice, but people tend to be more proud of the titles, loot and mounts that have been more difficult to obtain.

The sweet spot for this, for some, comes right before it becomes too hard for them to beat. A similar thing can be seen in many, many activities that people like. The point at which they enjoy it most is the furthest they can push it and still win.

This isn't exclusive to raiding either. If someone has worked to obtain the insane title or loremaster they are more likely to use that than some of the easier to obtain titles.

[someotherguy]

That's about the percentage of highschool to professional sports.
So imagine getting wow account is like subscribing to wow, and heroic raiding is like getting into professional league.
http://www.hsbaseballweb.com/probability.htm

Student-Athletes Basketball Football Baseball Ice Hockey
High School to Professional 0.03% 0.09% .5% .4%

[Pann]

At that point it becomes more about beating the challenge than receiving the reward, for the most part. Although the reward's perceived value becomes inflated by the difficulty of obtaining it. A new loot drop, mount or title for completing a quest is nice, but people tend to be more proud of the titles, loot and mounts that have been more difficult to obtain.

This isn't exclusive to raiding either. If someone has worked to obtain the insane title or loremaster they are more likely to use that than some of the easier to obtain titles.

That is what a Skinner Box is supposed to do. Anyways it always good to see a heroic raider admit that it is all about the gear.

I have had the Loremaster title since no long after Wrath was released and have never used it.

[klogaroth]

That is what a Skinner Box is supposed to do. Anyways it always good to see a heroic raider admit that it is all about the gear.

I have had the Loremaster title since no long after Wrath was released and have never used it.

Did you not read the first sentence?

Just the fact you've beaten it is the main reward, although the other things also gain increased value.

As I said a mount from a heroic end boss has more perceived value than a mount obtained from something easier.

You might not come for the gear, but the perceived value of gear that drops from a difficult boss is greater than the perceived value of gear from an easy boss. Whether you turn up for it or not.


Also, sometimes it can be about the gear, much less so after many years though. I'm pretty sure the very first people to walk get their hands on full tier one were pretty please to have done so, and looked pretty badass in a world before transmog and raid tiers into 2 figures. This effect wears off pretty quickly though, as once you've replaced a couple of gearsets you don't really care.

Some games rely almost solely on it being about the gear, although WoW isn't one of them. I'm not going to pretend that bosses don't drop loot, and that especially end of expansion boss loot is for any purpose other than trying to rank on farm and to say "look I beat Garrosh heroic". Same as I'm not going to pretend that the titles are for anything other than that. They are there to say "look I did a thing".

[Pann]

Did you not read the first sentence?

Just the fact you've beaten it is the main reward, although the other things also gain increased value.

As I said a mount from a heroic end boss has more perceived value than a mount obtained from something easier.

You might not come for the gear, but the perceived value of gear that drops from a difficult boss is greater than the perceived value of gear from an easy boss. Whether you turn up for it or not.


Also, sometimes it can be about the gear, much less so after many years though. I'm pretty sure the very first people to walk get their hands on full tier one were pretty please to have done so, and looked pretty badass in a world before transmog and raid tiers into 2 figures. This effect wears off pretty quickly though, as once you've replaced a couple of gearsets you don't really care.

Some games rely almost solely on it being about the gear, although WoW isn't one of them.

I did read the first line I just wondered where you were going with your posts. It appears to be yet another post about the lowly casuals wanting instant gratification whilst heroic raiders are above such petty nonsense.

It is laughable to suggest that WOW is not all about gear, no-one would run the content on offer multiple times if it was not for gear.

[klogaroth]

I did read the first line I just wondered where you were going with your posts. It appears to be yet another post about the lowly casuals wanting instant gratification whilst heroic raiders are above such petty nonsense.

It is laughable to suggest that WOW is not all about gear, no-one would run the content on offer multiple times if it was not for gear.

I mentioned nothing of the sort regarding anyone.

Gear upgrades are a factor in any level of gameplay right from level 1 questing, but they aren't the only factor in play. Maybe you want to see where the questline is going, maybe you just want to do all the quests, maybe you want the XP, maybe you want the gear.

I don't know all the reasons why people who have beaten Garrosh did so.
I do, however, know that people will run content even when they can't get any gear from it. So there must be reasons beyond gear. Including just wanting to practice, wanting to get DPS/HPS ranks, wanting to spend some time with your guild, even possibly, as shocking as it sounds, because you actually enjoy the content.

The reason instant gratification was brought into things was the mention of games which functioned purely on this idea.
My argument is that WoW does not exist solely on that, and that there are other factors in play, throughout the game.

The reason heroic raiding is the opposite of instant gratification is simply that the end boss is the end boss. It's the biggest delay that you can have in PvE, because it's the boss that by default you are furthest from, however close or far you are from killing it.

That says nothing about who LIKES instant gratification and who is above it and whatnot. It just says that the endboss is the boss furthest away. People do tend to get the most satisfaction from being on the edge of what they can do though. If beating normal modes or flex feels like a real challenge then it'll feel like an accomplishment when you beat it.

Storytime!
I remember my first 5 man heroic dungeon. It was Violet Hold. Xevozz came out (the ethereal boss you have to kite). I thought he was really hard. Constantly moving and trying to tank a boss at the same time. In the end when we killed him it was with my guildmate taunting him off me when the orbs spawned. It felt really good to finish that dungeon.
Now everyone knows that violet hold was, in the grand scheme of things, not a difficult place. At that time though, it felt like the hardest MMO content I had ever done, and probably was. The more I killed 5 man heroic bosses though, the more I was comfortable with killing them, so I felt less accomplishment from doing so. They were no longer on the edge of what I could do, so I looked for more difficult content. If you can believe it, I found Naxxramas fell under the more difficult content bracket for me and moved into raiding from there.

The fact that at that around that time people were killing Algalon 25 and progressing on Yogg +0 didn't detract from me working my way through heroic 5 mans and Naxx.

People killing Garrosh doesn't mean that people working on their first level 90 5 man need to feel any less accomplishment when they beat it than I did when I finished Violet Hold.
He is out there though, standing in a room underneath Orgrimmar. Whether people want to kill him or not he is the current end to the PvE progression road.

And people who find Violet Hold difficult can kill him.

[Normie]

WoW (particularly the endgame dungeons/raids) is primarily about loot. If they drop the exact same loot then why even have a higher difficulty level? No one would do them.

Even better - put a chest in each capital with all the loots you want and remove all other content. Problem solved earnings maximized.

People always reduce the argument to "why not just click on the mailbox for your loot."

On the one hand, it makes (profoundly good) sense for more challenging content to give better rewards.

But on the other hand, let's look at the snag in that, which is that WoW content is much, much easier for players in coordinated groups -- and for many players in WoW, coordinated groups of like-minded people are not that easy to find these days.

* Creating new guilds with small numbers of close friends is not really a thing any more thanks to "guild perks."
* You have your choice of high-pop/full realms with continuously scrolling chat spam dominated by idiots (who run in huge packs), or medium-pop realms where you might be able to find 3 people who are fun to be around but never 4, or low-pop realms where you can farm Pandaren rares to your heart's content but you are the only lifeform in the zone
* You are just not given means to find people of your "ilk" in this game, not by Blizzard, especially if what you want is somewhat restrained, adult behavior

Given that a randomly assembled group of 5 adventurers probably has a harder time with a normal 5-man than a group of guildies does with a heroic 5-man where the mobs have 2-4x the health and damage, I would be comfortable arguing that solo queued random players should be HUGELY more rewarded than coordinated groups, because content is faceroll for coordinated groups, while it is difficult in many different ways for solo players.

I might be arguing the wrong side, and I'm not sure I even agree with myself, but the game is so easy for groups that I wonder if they should even be rewarded for playing that way.

[rebecca191]

Subs plateaued when multiple raid modes were added. The elite like to think it was the lower of the two that was to blame. I'm suggesting that's backwards: the presence of the higher difficulty mode was responsible. That design emphasizes to the masses that they aren't going to get into that higher mode (they can barely do the lower one). The more clearly the game tells most of its players they are bad, the more the game loses values to those players.

And you think that drives away players more than having only one mode that is hard so that they can't raid at all? Because that was BC and subs grew a lot.

[cFortyfive]

Given that a randomly assembled group of 5 adventurers probably has a harder time with a normal 5-man than a group of guildies does with a heroic 5-man where the mobs have 2-4x the health and damage, I would be comfortable arguing that solo queued random players should be HUGELY more rewarded than coordinated groups, because content is faceroll for coordinated groups, while it is difficult in many different ways for solo players.

At least quite an original concept I suppose and somehow fitting the theme of players having a difficult time socializing. Getting punished for playing a multiplayer game with friends instead of strangers found by pressing a button. That's really something and it'd be really entertaining if other developers would go for that.

And you think that drives away players more than having only one mode that is hard so that they can't raid at all? Because that was BC and subs grew a lot.

It's naive at best anyways to presume that only specific design decisions lead to lower subscriber numbers on any side of that argument.

[Anzen]

From a brief read of these forums I'd assumed the figure was about 90% of all players have killed HC Garrosh and that he was way too easy!

[Raiju]

I did read the first line I just wondered where you were going with your posts. It appears to be yet another post about the lowly casuals wanting instant gratification whilst heroic raiders are above such petty nonsense.

It is laughable to suggest that WOW is not all about gear, no-one would run the content on offer multiple times if it was not for gear.

In reference to a previous post of yours - every good game is a skinner box. That's what gaming is built on. It is not an insult to WoW no matter how much you try to make it one.

Secondly, look at all the content in WoW that offers 0 gear upgrade and is still run. There's your argument gone in one. WoW is NOT all about gear, people DO run content multiple times with no gear upgrade.

[Normie]

In reference to a previous post of yours - every good game is a skinner box. That's what gaming is built on. It is not an insult to WoW no matter how much you try to make it one.

Secondly, look at all the content in WoW that offers 0 gear upgrade and is still run. There's your argument gone in one. WoW is NOT all about gear, people DO run content multiple times with no gear upgrade.

It's impressive how many people will do things simply for achievement points or titles, and how difficulty or grindy or both some of those things are.