How did the game become so broken?

[potis]

To be clear, I don't care one way or another. I'm good socially. I have a few friends and family to play with and do not engage at all with people I don't know. No tears here. The game got to be immeasurably better once I checked out of our "realm community". Wrath was the best social game for me ever. Good guild, good raiding, good company. No BS with the community. I still play with a few of those people.

Which is why its the "Get a guild"is the default answer.

I am the same, last 5 years i have an IRL friends/e-friends raid group pretty much, now a guild but generally still a raid group, i barely pug anything outside of these 10-15 people and when i do, 99% i regret it the first 5mins but i signed up for that so i suck it up and keep going.

People expect to do "pick up 30min content" as is the mentality of gaming the last few years in a game that isnt designed to be like this and never was.

Blizzard its forcing it and implementing it everywhere but it simply doesnt work this way, other games have "Ranks" and all that jazz for the same reason.

You cant have the Heavyweight Champion in boxing fight seriously with a 10 year old thats why we have "Arena rating".

But in PvE there is no way to differentiate, therefor tools are created to do so.

First Gear Score and it was abused to hell because majority of the community was as today, terrible at the game and they think ItemLevel = skill.

Secondly you had open raid creating raids for pugs, then restrictions came for ninja looters and leavers and all that sort to clean it up.

Then the openraid addons and all the LFG addons that did the same.

Now we have raider.io which same as Gear Score is being abused by people that shouldnt be using it.

It isnt anything different.

Get a guild, stick with it or get that much better than no one will deny you in pugs.

[TheSerialSniper]

Final Fantasy 14 has a bit of an interactive practice dummy you can use to gauge your DPS. You talk to an NPC they will drop you in a timed battle where you have to do a certain amount of damage based on the difficulty (Normal, Savage...etc). If you can run the dummy out of HP in time you are doing enough DPS for that difficulty level.

Parsing is widely used in the savage raiding scene of FF14. https://www.fflogs.com/ and people use ACT (advanced combat tracker) just like details! is used in wow.

[Kokolums]

Would all of you please settle on the one thing that "destroyed realm communities?" I've been reading that comment for years. First LFG and then LFD and then CRZ and then LFR and then sharding and there's probably more.

All of it did. You can't just remove 2 of them and leave 4 others at this point. Blizz basically went on this massive antisocial bender like a lush hitting dive bars and added a slew of antisocial features.

They gotta be careful about whom they get input from. Like with leveling. Every time they revamp leveling, a crowd cheers them and say its great. I say its horrible. Then in about 6 months everyone says leveling is horrible. They are listening to the wrong people and they keep breaking leveling more. Lveling right now is absolutely destroyed because Blizz listened to people who HATE to level. As a result, the people who love to level hate the changes, and the people who hate leveling still hate leveling. So its a total mess.

The same thing has been going on with the social aspect. Those who HATE other people have been cheering them on to make sharding, phasing, LFR, etc. As a result, the people who love social community left in droves, and the people who hate other people still hate other people and want more antisocial features.

[Sentynel]

You can always just look up a random player with high score, lie about them saying it's your main char. You just don't have them linked together on the site.

Easy access to sub-15s.

[Super Kami Dende]

I'm late to the expansion (for M+ and Mythic raiding, that's the content i liked in legion).

Was lucky enough to get back into mythic raiding, but I simply am unable to progress M+ (I don't necessarily need the gear i just wanna go up the keys). It hadn't gone past me that r.io score is the new way of checking player skill & knowledge since ilvl is way too easy to acquire now.

BUT even realizing that, I can't even get into a key group that would result in a raise in my .io score therefore how the Fdo you even get going?
Do only my own key until I am lucky and get one that raises my .io?

This whole new grind (of .io instead of ilvl to get into groups) seems so painful, unfun and I just wish I hadn't bought bfa because I can literally not play what I want to play (progressing M+ keys)

Sounds like an .io and community problem rather than a game being broken problem.

[Super Kami Dende]

Raider.io was designed because:

Gear is being handed out like candy. Too much high iLevel gear from stupidly easy sources.
Titanforging is fucking stupid and awards bad players with insanely high level loot.
Gear progression path is dead so people don't properly learn their class.
Server communities killed by tonnes of changes like CRZ, sharding, LFG, free gear etc etc


Sounds like the community came up with a solution to a problem that the developers created.

Sounds like the same stupid shit reasoning People gave when Gearscore got out of control because of pseudo-elitist idiots. "ItS jUsT FixInG WhAt BlIzZaRd DiD".

Raider.io is fine as a system. The idiots using it and treating it as Gospel is what causes the issues.

Also Bad players have always had access to high level loot outside of Vanilla. And there have always been People in good gear that don't know how to play their class.

[Th3Scourge]

This is what happens when heroic-level loot is handed out like candy.

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Also Bad players have always had access to high level loot outside of Vanilla. And there have always been People in good gear that don't know how to play their class.

This argument is used quite a lot, and yes, there have always been bad players with good gear, but never as many as now. It was certainly harder to acquire top tier loot in the past and this was generally acquired by the best players.

[Berndorf]

I recall the game being broken beyond repair back in WoD and even Cata. Are you telling me its even more broken now?

[Frolk]

This is what happens when heroic-level loot is handed out like candy.

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This argument is used quite a lot, and yes, there have always been bad players with good gear, but never as many as now. It was certainly harder to acquire top tier loot in the past and this was generally acquired by the best players.

The baddies got the gear they cried for, now they cry for not being invited to difficult content for not being good enough and thats somehow everybody else`s fault than themself for not bothered to properly learn the game.
I feel all warm and fuzzy inside when i see ppl bitching over raider.io, S T O P treating the game as a singleplayer game.

[Doctor Funkenstein]

Too much reliance on addons and numbers now, rather than knowing people and making groups of friends

This. 100% this.

Why Blizzard not only facilitates but encourages that behavior is beyond me.

[Ange]

This. 100% this.

Why Blizzard not only facilitates but encourages that behavior is beyond me.

If you play M+ in R.IO PUG's and play well, your friendlist will grow very fast. Whats the magic alternative, spamming the trade chat all day or changing your guild just for M+? R.IO keeps a lot of LFG spam away.

[Super Kami Dende]

This argument is used quite a lot, and yes, there have always been bad players with good gear, but never as many as now. It was certainly harder to acquire top tier loot in the past and this was generally acquired by the best players.

The amount difference is irrelevant to my point. Which was Idiots will excuse other Idiots using things like Gearscore and Raider.io as gospel and then blame Blizzard when it goes too far.

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Nowadays? Head out to your nearest WQ and punt 10 squirrels. Ding ding ding you just got Heroic Raid quality loot.

I know you love using hyperbole, but even that is a stretch.

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Imagine having to get better to get rewarded. What a shocking concept.

Imagine caring so much about what other people have in a Videogame. Highest Level content still requires Skill and is still the fastest and best way to high level gear and Items that are not available to lower difficulties.

The chance that most people will be geared anywhere close to mythic raiders by just doing WQ's is small.

[MoanaLisa]

Which is why its the "Get a guild"is the default answer.

Yeah, it's true. The guild is really the base social unit in WoW. It's not the realm. Maybe someday communities will help with that but for years, even after Blizzard broke guilds during Cataclysm, the guild is still the only social unit in WoW (other than your private circle of friends which can be highly variable) that has a chance to work.

I've come around to the notion that Blizzard's doubling down on random groups and situations where everyone is forced to play with total strangers to do more difficult group content was a mistake and something they need to rectify.

[potis]

Yeah, it's true. The guild is really the base social unit in WoW. It's not the realm. Maybe someday communities will help with that but for years, even after Blizzard broke guilds during Cataclysm, the guild is still the only social unit in WoW (other than your private circle of friends which can be highly variable) that has a chance to work.

I've come around to the notion that Blizzard's doubling down on random groups and situations where everyone is forced to play with total strangers to do more difficult group content was a mistake and something they need to rectify.

It isnt a mistake to allow people to do group content.

Its a mistake not teaching or showing or having something in the game that shows "Yo, you are fucking up, you need to improve".

I doubt it requires much of actual programming work, it would be like a database of mini-warcraft logs.

Quick example:

End of HC dungeon which is joke content:

"Your average score of your item level for your class in your spec is for this instance is"

Boss 1:70

Total:50

I dont really wanna type an essay about it, but the same reasoning and i cant believe i am typing it, some games have all these SSS and S+ Ranks in their P2W shitty MMOs is exactly what WoW needs but with an actual database of the active players and not some random crap algorithm Eastern MMOs use.

But that would never happen cause it would hurt peoples feelings, and Blizzard already stated, when people are being told "To get better", they quit the game.

[Th3Scourge]

The amount difference is irrelevant to my point. Which was Idiots will excuse other Idiots using things like Gearscore and Raider.io as gospel and then blame Blizzard when it goes too far.

Blizzard is to blame. Gear is too easy to obtain and ilvl is a terrible metric. So the community finds a better way to gauge player competency.

[Doctor Funkenstein]

If you play M+ in R.IO PUG's and play well, your friendlist will grow very fast. Whats the magic alternative, spamming the trade chat all day or changing your guild just for M+? R.IO keeps a lot of LFG spam away.

I feel so sad for people like you who have no idea how to join guilds or make friends. I really, truly, sincerely do.

"DEWD, ur frinds list only grwos if u pug w/ elitist fucktardz, y u sew bad?!"

That whole mindset is just fucking pathetic.

[Depakote]

Then don't to Mythic Plus. That whole scene is toxic af anyway.

[Jazzhands]

I'm late to the expansion (for M+ and Mythic raiding, that's the content i liked in legion).

Was lucky enough to get back into mythic raiding, but I simply am unable to progress M+ (I don't necessarily need the gear i just wanna go up the keys). It hadn't gone past me that r.io score is the new way of checking player skill & knowledge since ilvl is way too easy to acquire now.

BUT even realizing that, I can't even get into a key group that would result in a raise in my .io score therefore how the Fdo you even get going?
Do only my own key until I am lucky and get one that raises my .io?

This whole new grind (of .io instead of ilvl to get into groups) seems so painful, unfun and I just wish I hadn't bought bfa because I can literally not play what I want to play (progressing M+ keys)

I did a little experiment for another thread on the same topic. As a ~392 fury warrior, I got into a +5 with a raider.IO score of like, 10, after about 3 minutes of applying to groups. I had done one +2 this season. Sounds like you're trying to start too high if you can't get into groups. Also Not everyone uses raider.IO, especially at lower keys. You can also try pushing your own key to get a few runs in, if you know you can do a +9 then push your key to +9.

If it's unfun to run the dungeon a few times at lower keys, you probably won't enjoy them at higher levels. It really doesn't take long to get your score to a decent level, you just have to kinda like, try. Think of it from the other end, why would I invite someone with very little experience when I have 4-10 people with plenty of it?

Also LFM Normal ICC 6k+ GS only link heroic LK or no invite. LFM Kara, come to bank for inspection full epic only. This was in the "Golden Days" of WoW.

This isn't anything new, it's just a bit more thorough since M+ requires a good bit of knowledge for each dungeon.

[david0925]

i still fail to see the issue, after countless threads, where people that want to succeed in a dungeon that you can fail, have a tool to filter people.

Why should the group leader be open to either needing to randomly select people from trade chat or go through a really long interview to make sure that you know the dungeon and your spec? Because without these filtering tools, which are not perfect by any means, those are basically the choices you have.

It's always harder to start off fresh building up your raider.io score, or whatever metric, but once it's developed it's much easier to continue from there. I don't think you'll enjoy selecting random people from LFG or trade chat for your group either, especially when they can potentially downgrade your key.

[Lazuli]

They handed out gear too easily and made the game far too accessible, but it went full circle and now is inaccessible as fuck unless you already have an active guild (seemingly non existent in 2019) or friends. I don't know anyone personally that plays WoW anymore. I had the same issues, it's almost like.. playing a dead game xD

It's funny how a game so focused on vertical progression destroyed itself by making the only arbitrary reason for people to play the game no longer a metric for being a good player. Without a good working system and balanced progression its just a hollow husk with nothing to do but hurry up and wait in LFG.

Try something else, there are 3 other good MMO's out there with far better structure.