How can blizzard balance the NA vs EU race?

[Otimus]

Reminder :

that's actually the opposite : the USA has less population than Europe, but Europe is an amalgam of plenty of countries which have different cultures and language. Most of the population simply can't play with the rest, if only because of the language barrier.
So it's actually the USA which has the advantage in players pool.

I'd honestly still be surprised that the english speaking European pool still didn't dwarf all of the entirety of the NA pool. (I really think the game has been in a much dire state in NA for a long time than anyone wants to admit and or care about)

[Akka]

Again, Its nothing to do with pride, I love my job, I enjoy it nearly everyday, and I do overtime because I like getting paid nearly 50$ an hour on overtime. If I could do more than 20 hours of OT I would.

As far as vacation, vacation is entirely a privilege you earn unless you live in a socialist state that tells your job you have to be given vacation.

- "it's nothing to do with pride !"
- Follow by displaying opinion entirely backed by pride and looking down on people who have a much healthier approach so he can rub his ego.

Thanks for proving my point, I guess. And congrats for being happy of being a corporate drone.

[Kumorii]

Remove the 16 hour headstart for NA... boom, balanced.

[Akka]

I am personally rather impressed by this notion that European countries can have such robust strong economies while simultaneously not having people working at all. If this assertion of arkaledus is true, then the issue isn't with Europe but the US. Apparently, societies can be prosperous and fully functioning with everyone sitting home all day playing World of Warcraft and not working at all.

The funnier part is that somehow the dumbasses in this thread seem to imply that Europeans should be ashamed of it.
So we have the guys who praise the "winner" mentality and the "can do" attitude and the "let's get result" and other "manly boast", who are facing people able to do the same in vastly less time, and they end up saying it's a shame. They don't seem to realize their own claim that Europeans don't work, combined with the fact that Europe has a similar lifestyle, would mean that Europeans are just vastly more competent (as they seemingly are able to keep the same level of comfort while doing far less work).

Of course the kind of people who rely on dick size contest about how much more manly they are because they are no-lifing themselves into work (while calling others "no-life", the irony is thick) are not the kind of guy smart enough to realize it, but it's still amusing to see.

[Chillside]

Let me get this straight, the fact that guild A is objectively better than guild B leads you to believe that game publisher has to do something about it? Wh... what?!

Noone can currently bench press more than Kiril Sarychev... why don't we do something about "balancing" the powerlifting competition better, what the actual fuck is wrong with the way you perceive things in this world

[Irian]

Why would they ever need to? The world first race means nothing. It's a player-created competition that has zero impact on the vast majority of the game.

[Kill Broccoli]

I'd honestly still be surprised that the english speaking European pool still didn't dwarf all of the entirety of the NA pool. (I really think the game has been in a much dire state in NA for a long time than anyone wants to admit and or care about)

English speaking EU community who is willing to play in english is way smaller than you think.
We have language localization because:
- Ignorance, you'll be suriprised by how many people can barely understand english today (and i'm talking about young gamers)
- Pride. We really like hate our neighbours and we don't want to speak their languages even if we know them.
- Slang and accents. I speak english and i regularly use it for business and such, i keep the client in english and use the EU EN forum rather than the Italian one, still i play on the Italian servers because when i tried one Uk based, i was missing a lot in raid due to accents, slang, reference to specific culture. It's much harder than you think. I'm sure in a pro guild everyone will speak a perfect business english through a high quality mic, but on average, it's a nightmare.

[Loveliest]

I think Limit did fine. Method just did a little better.
It's like asking what can the school do so the kid who won 3rd prize can win 1st prize.

[Obsession]

people are still acting like 16 hours is an advantage and not a disadvantage. could you imagine if method wasted gear on mages like limit did because NA was told about a hotfix on jaina hours after servers came up and they started clearing? could you imagine if NA didn't beta test bosses so EU can get to them and they aren't unkillable disasters. 16 hours to watch other guilds kill bosses so you don't have to waste any time learning strats, because they can watch it.

yeah, that "16 hours" advantage is only real in your heads.

[Loveliest]

Europe's superior labor laws allow their players to have more stability and free time to get good at the game. American's won't be able to compete.

Because all of Europe is exactly the same! Europe is one big nation with unified laws!

- - - Updated - - -

You sub to games to watch their twitch streams?

In case it's not obvious, a newcomer watching a video of a raid wouldn't even comprehend what he is watching, and therefore would be highly unlikely to be interested in it.

You'd think that, wouldn't you? Because it makes sense. But I have colleagues at work who watch streams and have never played it and don't actually plan to. I can't even begin to tell you how idiotic it seems to me, but I don't understand the fun in watching others play anyway. Their logic, get this, is that that's exactly why they are watching it, because they'll never play it - if they would, they wouldn't watch others play it.

[Nathanyel]

So you're quitting WoW then? Blizzard is already doing this for Warmode.

NA needs to be given quests for 400 gear that aren't available to the EU. Also a 50% WQ buff.

EU and NA are not opposing factions, they're not even a construct of the game. My point was, you can't fix player mentality, dedication or just plain numbers.

Well, except with ridiculous ideas like yours, but realistically, this will cause EU guilds to reroll on NA, still take world firsts, and point out that they're still technically EU players, even if they didn't care about that before (like most other players)
Only way to fix that would be to have an orange-haired Goblin campaign for a firewall to be built around the NA network, to keep put these EU immigrants, stealin are wurld fursts! - and he's even willing to shut down the servers for over a month to blackmail the funding for that. Of course, you'll still have to pay your subscription - and with all servers down, you can't even login to cancel it!

[Playintrafic]

- "it's nothing to do with pride !"
- Follow by displaying opinion entirely backed by pride and looking down on people who have a much healthier approach so he can rub his ego.

Thanks for proving my point, I guess. And congrats for being happy of being a corporate drone.

Wait, Because I like making money, thats prideful?

Nah m8 you are twisted. Pride is when you go oh hey look what I did. My motivations to be at work, as much as I choose to do so, are financially backed.

On the other hand, if you aren't working 40 hours a week and don't have children at home that require you to be home (day care is expensive as hell I get that, it makes better financial sense for a parent to stay home for some couples) and aren't physically incapable of working, then you should be searching for more gainful employment. I guess that would include the majority of Europeans whose standard work week is less than 40 hours. They are part time workers.

I was working 40 hours a week in high school and still made top marks in Advance classes and graduated with Advanced Diploma. I am proud of being able to make top marks and get an advanced diploma. The work was just because I enjoyed spending money. Same as now, I like working overtime because allows to do the things I want to do. If I work hard enough to get a promotion, I'll be proud of that too. But just punching the clock like an adult should, not something to be proud of. Working less than 40 hours a week, thats something to be ashamed of. Be productive.

And Europeans think Americans are lazy yet we work you lot under the table. Again, this is not pride, its simple facts. We work more. Its a difference of culture.

[Aphrel]

They can start by restarting the servers at the same time. It really shouldnt be that hard.

[Akka]

Wait, Because I like making money, thats prideful?

You wear the amount of work you do like a badge, openly claiming that it makes you superior to others. That's the definition of (misplaced) pride.
The fact that you say "no it's pride, it's greed" as if it were better is just adding humour on top of proving you wrong.

I was working 40 hours a week in high school and still made top marks in Advance classes and graduated with Advanced Diploma. I am proud of being able to make top marks and get an advanced diploma. The work was just because I enjoyed spending money. Same as now, I like working overtime because allows to do the things I want to do. If I work hard enough to get a promotion, I'll be proud of that too. But just punching the clock like an adult should, not something to be proud of. Working less than 40 hours a week, thats something to be ashamed of. Be productive.

Spoken like a true mindless drone. I pity you, you take pride in being an ant and living to work instead of working to live. That's being a literal no-lifer.
BTW, what are you doing wasting your time posting here instead of adding more work ? Quick, go work more, you might have some wasted free time gnawing at your productivity !

And Europeans think Americans are lazy yet we work you lot under the table.

Europe manages to have equal to superior life standards by working much less than USA and actually having holydays. Seems to me it proves that the USA are the ones being inefficient here.

[zlygork]

Because all of Europe is exactly the same! Europe is one big nation with unified laws!

- - - Updated - - -



You'd think that, wouldn't you? Because it makes sense. But I have colleagues at work who watch streams and have never played it and don't actually plan to. I can't even begin to tell you how idiotic it seems to me, but I don't understand the fun in watching others play anyway. Their logic, get this, is that that's exactly why they are watching it, because they'll never play it - if they would, they wouldn't watch others play it.

Wow, that does baffle me indeed even as an (admittedly casual nowadays) wow player, I have to really focus to understand what is going on in a raiding video, I can't imagine someone that never put their hands on the game following it with interest.

[Bumbasta]

Why would Blizzard care about this race. It is making a game for the average players and not for the less than 100 people who are doing this race. Also, it is already skewed towards NA as they get to play the Raid earlier. Blizzard can't help it that EU has the superior players.

[legendaryusername]

They cant balance it? US just needs to get better.

[Jujudrood]

Lol @ this thread, in general.
It's a goddamn game.
Method is sponsored, so they get money for playing the game, thus it's their job.
Being their job, they have mastered their classes and how to operate as a team, or in other words, they do their job as well as they can.
No one should help anyone else out because they are not as good, it just is what it is.

That would be like saying "well, LeBron James is just better at basketball than <insert rando from someone's bench here>, so <rando> should be given a new set of rules where he's allowed to push and punch the opposing players to make up for his lack of skill and be awarded double points for making a shot".

Man, you guys and this silly mythic race stuff.

[malviouz]

Git gud NA scrubs.

[Alcsaar]

Lobby for better PTO/Vacation laws in the U.S.

Average PTO for US Employees per year: 10 days

MINIMUM required PTO for EU employees per year: 20 days

Sponsors don't pay 20, 30, 40 core raiders full time salaries. Most of these people are still working normal jobs and can't afford to take enough time off work for a world first race in a video game. Means that US guilds have to rotate raiders in more often, which just extends the time it takes to get a challenging boss down.