Is wow's problem that it lacks proper feedback?

[Lost controller]

I feel a lot of the anguish I see on these forms and in game is that wow never really lets most roles know if they are actually doing their jobs properly. A weak healer can be carried by a good tank and vice versa. A strong dps can carry weaker ones.

Would the game benefit more from having bosses that had a mechanic that individual players had to pass without outside interference to help make it clear when someone is doing something wrong?

[schwarzkopf]

No - Wow's problem is that they started listening to player feedback rather than focus on building a better game.

For example - the community feedback is that we need LESS loot and MORE loot.

The community feedback is that we need LESS hand holding and MORE hand holding.


The community feedback IS the problem.

Dungeons, raids and bosses need to be less complex and more difficult.

[clevin]

No.


First off, we had proving grounds and they didnt really change much. You can't gate access to mid-range content behind elite challenges and most people can do mid-range challenges so they didnt really affect things.


But also, you're trying to think of a technical solution to a human problem. There are 2 main factors here:

First, a dungeon group or a raid group are a team. You compensate for each other's weaknesses and use common strengths synergistically. If people are dickswinging about how uber they are, they're missing the point. The point of a dungeon group is to kill bosses and complete the dungeon. If you do that, you succeeded and if you succeed, is there really a problem?

That leads to....

Second, we have tools to figure out when a DPS is subpar or a tank isn't using CDs or a healer has low HPS. It's up to the group to use those and ask a truly underperforming member to improve.

HOWEVER, the problem is that tools measure raw output and ability usage. They don't (without some relatively sophisticated help) really tell you if you're using that defensive CD at the precisely right time or 1.5 seconds too late. Yay, you have good DPS... but is it on the right mobs? Your HPS looks awesome... but did people die?

A simple, healer example... two healers, one of which focuses on the tank and melee, the other on the ranged primarily. Healer A struggles to keep the tank up but does so. Healer B is keeping the ranged, who aren't taking too much damage, topped off.

Healer A might have lower HPS than healer B... but what they did was more important to winning the fight since if the tank dies it's usually a wipe. Healer B has higher HPS but was topping off ranged who weren't really in any danger of dying (in this example). Meters will tell you that B was 'better' but... were they? Not really.

[Hellobolis]

theres no good way to put in such mechanics.

you have things like proving grounds which are not comparable to dungeons/raids.
leveling/world content doesn't prepare you for encounters longer than a minute orso.
mage tower for some specs was nice, but for other specs had gimmicks/tricks that didn't compare to dungeon/raid combat.
and in dungeons/raids you can't really put such a mechanic in without scaling gear down.

logs are pretty much the solution for this, since they show you how good you do for your ilvl compared to others. and i doubt blizz is ever going to put some "you did this well (or in reality: bad) compared to others" metric in the game.

[schwarzkopf]

First off, we had proving grounds and they didnt really change much.

Proving grounds was a joke - almost impossible for some class/spec and trivial for others.

[clevin]

Proving grounds was a joke - almost impossible for some class/spec and trivial for others.

Which is kind of my point. Different class/spec combos bring different abilities and so it's very hard to design something like that unless you do a proving ground design for every spec in the game which isn't a realistic idea.

[Stardrift]

No - Wow's problem is that they started listening to player feedback rather than focus on building a better game.

For example - the community feedback is that we need LESS loot and MORE loot.

The community feedback is that we need LESS hand holding and MORE hand holding.


The community feedback IS the problem.

Dungeons, raids and bosses need to be less complex and more difficult.

Don't ask me how I know but you're wrong lol. The problem is it's very hard for Blizzard to find constructive feedback.

Feedback where players don't devolve into dick-measuring contests with one another, flame wars directed at themselves and the developers, etc.

My old, casual as fuck parents who play the game have been reached out to for constructive feedback, which they gave. (Couldn't help but sneak my feedback in too)

Developers are afraid of coming to places like MMO-C or the official forums. We all act like babies here and there.

[Garybear]

No - Wow's problem is that they started listening to player feedback rather than focus on building a better game.

For example - the community feedback is that we need LESS loot and MORE loot.

The community feedback is that we need LESS hand holding and MORE hand holding.


The community feedback IS the problem.

Dungeons, raids and bosses need to be less complex and more difficult.

Why not just add a poll system like osrs has? I think the confusion is that no one knows if they are in a small minority or if they are the majority. Everyone likes to think they are in the majority though.

[Zig Zug]

Proving grounds was a joke - almost impossible for some class/spec and trivial for others.

Impossible is not the correct word, and grossly mischaracterizes proving grounds.

Challenging is more appropriate.

If anything, they've gotten easier, for everyone.

Why not just add a poll system like osrs has? I think the confusion is that no one knows if they are in a small minority or if they are the majority. Everyone likes to think they are in the majority though.

Automation.

[Unholyground]

I think the problem is they keep trying to reinvent the wheel but it doesn't need to be reinvented. They need to stop putting in systems that hold part of your character's functionality back and take stuff to give you back every expansion, this isn't Metroid for Christ sakes.

[Gurbz]

The most amusing part of this thread so far is how obvious it is that certain people only read the thread title, and did not bother reading the actual post before responding.

[Belloc]

No - Wow's problem is that they started listening to player feedback rather than focus on building a better game.

For example - the community feedback is that we need LESS loot and MORE loot.

The community feedback is that we need LESS hand holding and MORE hand holding.


The community feedback IS the problem.

Dungeons, raids and bosses need to be less complex and more difficult.

I agree with part of your post, but that last line is contradictory. More complex is really the only kind of difficulty that works in this game. The alternative is borderline-broken tuning, which isn't fun for anyone. Complex mechanics can be learned and dealt with, but extreme-tuning puts fights out of reach for the vast majority of players until they've farmed a lot of gear, and fights should never be play-checks for the top-10 guilds and gear-checks for everyone else.

- - - Updated - - -

Proving grounds was a joke - almost impossible for some class/spec and trivial for others.

I can't speak for WoD proving grounds, but MoP proving grounds was fine for every class and spec, afaik. The only question was how far one could get in the endless version.

[lolmmofuture]

wows problem is the core

its very very very evident

[LordVargK]

The most amusing part of this thread so far is how obvious it is that certain people only read the thread title, and did not bother reading the actual post before responding.

Right?

The title could have been more clear, though.

OT:
If there are tools that can analyze Warcraftlogs for you, then Blizzard should be able to produce such logs for the game as a system for players to know how well they perform. It's of course easier to do this for raids than for m+.

- - - Updated - - -

wows problem is the core

its very very very evident

Yeah, Molten core was way too easy. I agree.

[Lost controller]

Define "proper" feedback.

Oh..you can't...

And then ofc people on forums will claim that devs are also not able to identify "proper" feedback.

And my cynical side say that people think "proper" feedback is whatever they, or the people they agree with, excrete. Yup..deliberate choice of the word "excrete"

Have situations where a player must perform or the group wipes. For dps this can be to be put into a duel with an add they can only target or a positioning maze type attack.

Healers it would be healing npcs or dispelling them and tanks well to be honest tanking is rather trivial so it would just devolve into positioning or kiting tests.

[Drench]

No problem is they listened to the idiot playerbase.

Also they always follow current gaming trends to stay relevant. Which alienates all the original wow players who don't like lootbox style gameplay.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

The players give feedback. This has been shown in both of the last betas.

The problem is either that Blizz doesn't act on it, disagrees with it, or just isn't looking.

[Jujudrood]

I feel a lot of the anguish I see on these forms and in game is that wow never really lets most roles know if they are actually doing their jobs properly. A weak healer can be carried by a good tank and vice versa. A strong dps can carry weaker ones.

Would the game benefit more from having bosses that had a mechanic that individual players had to pass without outside interference to help make it clear when someone is doing something wrong?

I'm gonna do something crazy and actually reply to your post and not the thread title.

As far as in-game feedback, it's rally hard to do that live from run to run, where factors are very different from one group to the next.
What I wouldn't mind is a "practice mode" for WoW, like an enhanced Proving Grounds where you can pick a boss to learn the mechanics, basically being interactively taught through the Dungeon Journal.
Let's say the first boss in HOA, the rock dude (Hakrius? something like that).
You pick your role, then NPCs fill in the rest, so let's say you pick DPS.
When you choose it, the Dungeon Journal teaches you the mechanics for your role, such as the red aura thing, the glassy nonsense on the ground, and the lasers.
In order to beat the fight, you don't have to DPS him to death, and the NPCs are just there as placeholders (they don't do much in the way of significance other than "move the boss out of bad" type stuff) but rather you have to succeed at executing the mechanics, where there will be a threshold of failure for failing them (insta-fail for beam, more than 3 ticks of glassy stuffs, more than 3 sec outside aura, for example).
If you fail, the game would stop the encounter, explain the mechanic, and allow you to try again.

I could see something like this actually getting a fair bit of use from the more casual playerbase as it would give them the ability to practice bosses to build confidence in execution.
Today, you can queue for normal or heroic, but odds are the group will outgear it to the point where mechanics won't matter, and M+0 are usually dead in queues unless it's the "run 4 mythics" week, so making the jump to M+ for those players is intimidating.
Having a place to go to learn by actually playing, not just watching a video, could benefit them.

There are those "ready for raiding" achievements, too, so you could make a new set of achievements in the similar vein for people who clear these.

[shoc]

WoW's problem is that it is designed like a mobile game casino endless treadmill grinder than an actual role playing game.

[Razion]

They tried insta wipe mechanics before. Getting only one chance to notice a mistake and correct it commonly just resulted in a lot of collective wipes and made content more punishing for casuals, which apparently make up the bulk of the populace even though everyone seems to optimize like they aren't.

This didn't work before, it just puts more pressure on thise who carried before to pull more of the dead weight and didn't actually teach anybody anything anymore than they did before.