Running Without A DBM...

[Gorsameth]

A big thing of it is I believe is that nowadays games are afraid to let people fail.
Everyone has to feel like they can "beat" the game no matter how bad they are, this is only made more apparent in mmos because the makers need you to commit to yet another month of subscription.
Call me elitist but i miss the time when games would tell you that you sucked with a giant game over screen.

[Maenerd]

TOR is really starting to remind me of WOW a bit circa classic/BC.

Hopefully that's good

[kynthrus]

I use DBM because I am a raid leader, and as much as I would love to trust my raiders to do everything right without me calling out when things are happening, I would rather not take that chance and just make it easier on everyone. That being said I didn't get to far into SWTOR beta except for the first imperial flashpoint, and there was much to look out for really, kill some adds, when the jedi bitch pulls everyone in just run out. It was really simple stuff, yet it was more fun.

[flarecde]

The flashpoints are fun as hell, when you have players that know how to play.

And when you have players who would be fine with a boss mod, but can't manage without one, it kinda sucks. I'd rather have a larger pool of competent players than some pseudo-challenge based on how the game is presented to me.

[Blood Crusade]

Yes, there are players who don't understand their class and have reached max level, there are players with low situational awareness, there are players who get angry when they're told they're playing wrong. The misconception repeated here, and in the community in general, is that players who are your "obstacles" regardless of their deficiency are grouped into one all encompassing "bad" description.

Some of these things can be easily corrected with time, others can't. In any case, I believe the ones that can't are really the exception and not the rule.

Edit: When I say I won't queue up unless I know what I'm doing, I mean along the lines of tanking, dpsing, and healing. I don't mean that I won't queue up for an instance i've never done before.

My only question is why is it my duty to have the patience to deal with these people? Personally (talking from WoW experience here) I will not queue up for an instance unless I know what i'm doing, and the people I generally ask for help in these situations are friends, not people from a random instance queue that don't have the time to deal with me. An actual example, when I made the switch from Ret to Prot back in Wrath because my guild needed a new prot paladin, I didn't just grab a missmatched tank set and go for it. I spent the time to ask the other tanks in the guild how it worked, I spent the time reading up on EJ and Maintankadin when they couldn't/didn't want to help me. Why is it my job to do that for players that have access to the same internet I do? Especially when there are times that people will lash out at me, just for trying to help, why even stick pixilated neck out for them?

OT: When first learning a fight/flashpoint I think it will be about the same. Personally, DBM helps me more when I have become so accustomed to the fight that I would likely forget something. "OMG SHADOWTRAP ON MELEE" After wiping on the fight 200 times.

[nazrakin]

Bossmods don't play the game for you. If someone is bad without it, they are bad with it. If they can't see the giant circle of flames at their feet, they sure won't take the time to read that they are standing in shit they shouldn't.

I hope Bossmods aren't needed because BW kicks off with smart raid design. Half of what DBM does is just take information that the game gives the player in the chat/battlelog and put it in the center of their screen where its much more natural to read. The other half are the timers, which is easy enough to rememdy by simply not making predictable boss fights.

[flarecde]

Bossmods don't play the game for you. If someone is bad without it, they are bad with it. If they can't see the giant circle of flames at their feet, they sure won't take the time to read that they are standing in shit they shouldn't.

Hopefully they won't have all the crap on the ground like WoW. I can't see the flame at my feet because I have two green circles, a blue circle, a bright white circle, a red circle, a glowing yellow circle, and someone's kitchen sink / mother plastered to the floor.

The other half are the timers, which is easy enough to rememdy by simply not making predictable boss fights.

The problem with making things not predictable is that you have to tread a fine line between making things trivial and invoking the RNG gods.

[Deleted]

Any new game will take players a while to get used to. That said, I never had DBM in WoW and raided heroic modes of all raids in Wrath when relevant and normal modes of Cata till I quit. So it's not really a necessary tool. It helps, yes, but after 2-3 tries you can guess when a boss is going to do something and it's more fun if you're right. I remember guessing when Lich King will summon a valkyrie... that was fun, never missed But anyway, if you do like DBM, I'm sure someone will invent one for SWTOR assuming they allow mods.

[shiimmyshamm]

I've been playing wow (when I have game time) without DBM for a while. It took up too much RAM for my old PC to handle, and I just got used to paying attention to the raid rather than those popups.

[Winfernal]

Welcome to how MMOs should be.

WoW made so many "sheeps" up in the years, people that have to use DBM and over nine thousand other addons to play. It's time to go back to the older style of MMO. I hope the fanboys can stay and enjoy WoW without bashing on SWTOR or ruining the community. Even if i doubt it...

[nazrakin]

The problem with making things not predictable is that you have to tread a fine line between making things trivial and invoking the RNG gods.

If a boss can use some ridiculous raid breaking ability at random, then I'd agree. But if players are given some sort of warning that its coming, or if the abilities are such that they won't wipe the raid if you fail one. I don't think that trivializes the fight, if anything its a tradeoff where you're making the mechanics a little more forgiving, but you're also asking players to be more attentive.

[KCguy]

I've been running Firelands without DBM. I guess I had forgotten to update it and just didn't care. This was after the nerfs of course, but it went just fine. Even Rag I had no troubles. I just updated it though.

[Aurinax]

Operative Healing in the Black Talon was actually a lot harder for the first few pulls for one reason: No HealBot. This made my dependency on addons painfully obvious and I'm a bit sad about it now.

[Kirsae]

Edit: When I say I won't queue up unless I know what I'm doing, I mean along the lines of tanking, dpsing, and healing. I don't mean that I won't queue up for an instance i've never done before.

My only question is why is it my duty to have the patience to deal with these people? Personally (talking from WoW experience here) I will not queue up for an instance unless I know what i'm doing, and the people I generally ask for help in these situations are friends, not people from a random instance queue that don't have the time to deal with me. An actual example, when I made the switch from Ret to Prot back in Wrath because my guild needed a new prot paladin, I didn't just grab a missmatched tank set and go for it. I spent the time to ask the other tanks in the guild how it worked, I spent the time reading up on EJ and Maintankadin when they couldn't/didn't want to help me. Why is it my job to do that for players that have access to the same internet I do? Especially when there are times that people will lash out at me, just for trying to help, why even stick pixilated neck out for them?

"These people" you refer to are the same ones you're playing the game with side by side as part of the entire community. Albeit, the LFD has made other players virtually faceless NPCs, and the "raiding is for everyone" has put the emphasis on gear more than ever. One's responsibility is an interesting discussion, because I've found myself saying more than once "what is this idiot doing in here". Let's apply your other questions to the release of ToR and all the new flashpoints and operations:
- Who is going to know everything about their class in ToR on release?
- Who is going to know everything about every encounter?
- After what time period is one expected to know these things?

I'll admit, after running an instance in WoW for the 1000th time, I find myself having little patience with people who don't understand basics, however I believe this is part of a larger problem by making an "everyone is a winner" environment. The higher you go from doing instances to doing raiding should require less and less hand holding, but there is a time when things need to be explained to people. A lot of folks seem to have those two things confused and consider that anyone who needs to be told anything is "bad".

Perhaps the better question to ask is would you rather be part of a gaming community where everyone is expected to know everything and look down on those who don't, or would you rather be part of a gaming community where everyone is friendly and helpful?

Relating this to DBM, I think it just cultivates bad habits by having players rely on a raid warning opposed to paying attention to their surroundings.

[Deleted]

The fact that this is actually a thread of its own goes to show just how dumb and lazy the video games community has gotten.

[Lazybean]

The first time they run a flash point and dont have DBM to tell them to "run away little girl" they die. But i found everyone the last 2 betas learned what to do after a try or two. I think having DBM makes more players 'Baddies'. Since no one can have it, they know they HAVE to step up from the get go, and they will actually listen when some one experienced explains something to them.

I really hope they never allow a mod like DBM into the game.