Look, BRO, I agree with you. This game isn't difficult - for me. I used to have this thought process too, 'why is everyone around me so horrible at this game?' But then I developed friendships with other people in this game and then you don't realize that someone doesn't have what it takes until you meet that brick wall boss and find out Johnny DPS can't perform his rotation while kiting such and such to the green marker. Because if he could, you could use that extra 20k dps he isn't doing to push the boss into the next phase where you hope Sally Healer doesn't get that debuff because she cannot move far enough out of the group in less than 5 seconds.
These people exist, and they make up more of the player base than you think. For a group of 10/25 individuals who consistently are pushing the envelopes of what their class is capable of, that's what heroic mode is for. Near-flawless execution of mechanics and playstyle. But to require that for normal mode is asking a little too much of today's population - whether that mindset is correct or not is irrelevant.
I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy.
It's a joke for me. But I am not the average raider. I know people, personally, who are struggling with the content. It's no fun to be slamming your face against the second or third boss for months at a time. Casual raiders do not have the intestinal fortitude that heroic raiders have (that, or the level of masochism, because, well...180+ wipes on H Durumu is only for the masochistic, imo). They aren't supposed to have it. They're better than LFR, but the wonky tuning and overall tuning level of Normal modes is putting them off. I'm tired of seeing guilds of friends fall apart, and I don't think that hardcore raiders realize this situation is destroying the very guilds that feed us players.
Edited to Add: I also want to put forth the idea that, well, content is a lot easier when you are playing with skilled people. I don't work near as hard, as a healer, with skilled players as I did when I was a healer with a group with some very heavy members. (Well, unless we underheal the fight! xD)
Last edited by TirielWoW; 2013-05-17 at 02:08 AM.
Haha that reminds me of the old catholic neighbor I had who could just not understand how the children of another neighbor neglected to go to church every sunday. I wondered how his world would collapse if he ever followed other people around just for a whole day...
Yes there are many many people out who think reading tactics or playing the game differently from any other game (like mage is mage no matter what you shoot fireballs don't ya) is completely ridiculous and after doing the campaign of a certain game they jump into the pvp or whatever and think they win with just only masses of the most strongest numbers - before even thinking that there could be a counter-system or whatever. There are enough people who would never read a WoW website or even think that there are people who could get mad because they studied all these mechanics, numbers and read actually guides for some little ingame content. And even then there are those who know all that and just think "what a drag". Yet all these people play the game somehow... and the sad thing for the catholic neighbor is that sometimes even the bible is used as weight to do all possible things..
But yeah. You can actually play the game for yourself in all different ways and there is not "one" way that's better or more correct. If the game as you play it doesn't make fun you quit. That's what is happening and it seems blizzard is sad about that and wants to actually add content for "different styles of playing the game"...
Last edited by mmocd6d7b58413; 2013-05-17 at 02:12 AM.
Ok heroics are great and i love them. Normals though are pugged and ran on alts every week cleared in one night. I take casual friends along for the full clear and they leave angry because they realize IT ISNT HARD as we walk though each boss fight. They go back to their guilds motivated and start talking to people to find out why they arent performing.
People don't realize that at all. 'Oh, this content is so easy my friends and I were able to 5 man up to Durumu - on ALTS! GET BETTER NOOBS!' Congratulations, you guys are very skilled and the fact that you can pull that off is amazing. Regrettably, the vast majority of WoW's raiding population is nowhere near that level. There are guilds out there, when trying to fill those last two spots, have to settle for a 'bad'. So, either you don't raid because you only have 8 people, or you swallow the bitter pill that LFR is your end-game content for the tier.
I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy.
That is the part most dont understand. Heroic Raiders normally arent quitters as casuals do all the time. So people wonder why blizzard caters to heroic raiders or puts so much money into heroic raiding etc, a good amount of progression oriented raiders never quit when its hard because they like a challenge. While a wrath baby will quit the game when it is too hard because they dont want to put the effort out. So who would you rather have as subscribers?
I wish more people were in your situation. I really do. I love the raiding scene that this game offers, and I've been hard pressed to find that in other games. But look at the info and the amount of threads started over this issue, and clearly it's not as black and white as you think it is. But, that's not the case, and people are looking to other avenues, because Blizzard isn't giving them what they want - when are you going to realize this is bad for the whole game?
Imagine, if you will, that we were at a place where even 10% of the population raids. Going with conservative numbers, that's almost 1 million people (I know I know, rounding and such, I'm going for the emotional appeal!). Wouldn't that give the developers more justification to spend more time working on raid content? How awesome would raiding be then?
I'm not suggesting that lowering Normal difficulty is the answer to everything, but it's a good start. A lot of people actually enjoyed the LK model. You're saying with the amount of people that Blizz could employ, they couldn't find SOMETHING that could work?
Last edited by NRL1515; 2013-05-17 at 02:19 AM. Reason: English is kinda hard sometimes
I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy.
I have skipped weeks of raiding before while looking for a skiller player. There is no reason to go in and wipe with a bad player. We pay for server transfers and factions changes, because there arent that many good players out there anymore.
Nerfing content does not build good players, they simply wait for nerfs and then down bosses thinking they are good raiders then. Then the next tier launches and there is no nerf to carry them so once again the tier is too difficult and the process of saying content is too hard starts again.
This is the point... and why the elitist's who seem to think the small little bubble that is their raid is indicative of the entire raiding scene is mindboggling in the extreme.I know people, personally, who are struggling with the content. It's no fun to be slamming your face against the second or third boss for months at a time. Casual raiders do not have the intestinal fortitude that heroic raiders have (that, or the level of masochism, because, well...180+ wipes on H Durumu is only for the masochistic, imo). They aren't supposed to have it. They're better than LFR, but the wonky tuning and overall tuning level of Normal modes is putting them off. I'm tired of seeing guilds of friends fall apart, and I don't think that hardcore raiders realize this situation is destroying the very guilds that feed us players.
Stuff like this:
Gratz to you and yours... you are not an average raider... so why are you here? HeatherRae is a top notch raider and she "gets it" Many simply are not able to do what you can, get over yourself and understand that this is a fact and no matter how much you put them down or be condescending its not going to improve the situation.Its like a circle jerk of really bad players. We pug alt/pugs every week on alts and full clear normals in one night easily
/facepalm
In my opinion difficulty isn't the issue, it's the inclusion of LFR which takes players (who could potentially be fairly casual, normal mode raiders - like myself nowadays) out of the raiding pool because they can get a similar "raiding" experience without any commitment.
Whether that's a bad thing overall is subject to debate. If a large group of players are getting what they want from the game by facerolling through LFR with other people who only seem to communicate to belittle someone's DPS or lack of situational awareness then, as much as it confuses the hell out of me I can't say they're "wrong". Unfortunately LFR does limit the amount of people who could make up the numbers in smaller guilds and, by throwing 5% bonuses at you every time you wipe it's not exactly promoting skill-improvement.
Making the game super easy or nerfed to the core isnt going to fix anything. People will not become better players, if anything they develop worse habits becoming even worse at the game. You cant kill something? Look at your WOL and see who is doing what numbers, Dps?Hps? Tanking. Who is standing in fire and so on then make the changes.
Swap people out that arent performing or pull them aside and work with them. If they wont try to get better why would you want to gear them?
Nerfing does not fix anything and nerfing is the reason we are in this thread to begin with, people used to nerfs of content making them feel like raiders when in fact they probably shouldnt be raiding at all.
---------- Post added 2013-05-17 at 02:21 AM ----------
I am here because people think nerfing is the answer when it is not. People only become worse players each tier of content because they believe in their heads they are really good players because they cleared a tier with a 30% buff then the next tier starts with no nerfed content and guess what? It is too hard for them because they didnt have to get better to down bosses, they were carried by nerfs. Every tier is like this now.
It's really not rocket science, you're right. I guess it's a matter of personal opinion, but do you think it's appropriate that content is designed and tuned around downloading and setting up numerous 3rd party addons just to be able to perform at an acceptable level?
Please don't read that as "you can't succeed without addons", that's not what I'm saying.
Edit:
Re: Clearing with alts as an argument for ease (assuming by alt you mean a character you play less, with a lower ilvl). I don't get your point - You don't walk up to a boss to have it /yell "Haha! Your group average ilvl is too low!" and insta-gib you all. Lets be generous and say your alts are sitting around 495-500 ilvl (as indeed, mine is). You're obviously a skilled player, so you're probably able to get more out a lower ilvl toon than average player. You've already cleared the content on your main, so you know the fights, the tricks, the things to watch out for. I'd expect a group full of alts who have cleared content on their mains to be more successful than a group of mains even with 5-10 ilvls difference in gear.
Last edited by Sparkidy; 2013-05-17 at 02:34 AM.
I know a few people who are pretty good players who only do LFr and the occasional pug with us. The other guilds on the server are pretty bad and they dont want to carry other players trying to clear content wiping on easy bosses because the other raiders arent that good. I know 5-6 people like this and they get on do LFR and pug with us, but they are damn good raiders who dont want to raid hardcore but dont mix well with casuals who are pretty bad.
They would be a nice addition to a smaller guild like you mentioned and actually one of my friends joined a small guild then started wiping on easy content, in his opinion,and he didnt mesh well with them. He asked in whisper about some other raiders who werent doing well and the response is they were friends, so he thanked for the invite but left the guild heading back to LFR.
So I dont know how many LFR raiders would add to small guilds having trouble.
Actually DS stands alone in it's disappointment to the community purely because it was one of those instances that ended up being around for months before we finally got a new expack Think it was about 9 months DS lingered for, only time I remember spending so long grinding the same raid was BT and Sunwell days and even then some guilds were still going back during Wotlk because of the Warglaives.
As to what I was pointing out to the OP about dailies and rep not being mandatory, I got this nagging feeling he's moaning from a casual raiding point of view rather then say, someone whose raiding 3-4hours a night 3-4 nights a week. The whole meaning of casual has gotten lost over this and the previous expansion especially with the introduction of LFR but Cata didn't help that mind set at all. Used to be, casual meant someone who played WoW because they enjoyed it, they took the game at a casual pace and just did whatever it was they had time for.
Then LFD came along which made getting groups for instances so much more simple due to the fact you didn't have to stand around waiting to form one but could be out in the world doing whatever it was you wanted to do while you waited for that queue to pop and then later with LFR. The main prob now though is that casual doesn't have that same meaning any more, now a casual player wants to be able to keep pace with a normal raiding raider but only by putting in the same effort they exerted in Cata. Indeed it's not so easy to carry people but the other side of that coin is normal raids have become distinct again in terms of how fast they are/aren't being cleared by every guild/player around.
Back in days of Vanilla, TBC and some of Wotlk, you had no hope of bringing along a casual guildie to help out but with LFR here they got a chance to get some pieces and can fill the occassional spot when/if needed but for the more casual player whose not got the time or in a clearing guild it can be heavily frustrating I agree.
As to the whole gear thing on reputation vendors, can I point out something a LOT of people are missing? Take your justice points, head to Orgrimmar, change them all into honor points, head down to the pvp vendor along the wall between Townlong Steppes and Kun-Lai Summit and buy yourself a load of epic 476 gear. This will allow you to SKIP grinding blue justice gear, allow you to gear into 476 epics faster while you're killing world bosses for those drops also and once your ilvl is high enough get into LFR and kill stuff til your hearts content and you're geared enough to progress to the next raid. Rinse and repeat til you're into ToT normal.
Doesn't require a single reputation grind to do it this way or any need to spend gold either, also you can get a nice 522 epic neck from Shado-Pan Assault vendor at neutral so that should help up your ilvl if needed too.
I am uncomfortable with this statement. In my mind, I'm pretty average and just very, very fortunate to be raiding with good people willing to give me gear.
With that said, I do think that a lot of hardcore/heroic-level raiders forget what it was like to be new, or raid with unskilled people.
No disrespect but do you even live in the same world as the rest of us? The majority of players dont even know what a WoL is... Seriously your raiding world is NOTHING like the average persons.You cant kill something? Look at your WOL and see who is doing what numbers, Dps?Hps? Tanking. Who is standing in fire and so on then make the changes.
You understand there are what? 20 servers that have the pop to "switch someone out" What if those people are your friends? Im going out on a limb again and try to explain it... the things you take for granted and are telling everyone to do here are just not part of the average raiders world... how and why cant you get that?Swap people out that arent performing
This is the only real thing I have seen you said, the problem is many of these raiders dont have the time to hours on a target dummy, or research videos and writeups for bosses or class specific mechanics. Yet again, your world and the average raiders world are not the same.or pull them aside and work with them.
Because you are friends? You enjoy the company and companionship? There are tons of reasons people raid and they have nothing at all to do with your heroic mindset of get better or gtfo...If they wont try to get better why would you want to gear them?
Source?Nerfing does not fix anything and nerfing is the reason we are in this thread to begin with, people used to nerfs of content making them feel like raiders when in fact they probably shouldnt be raiding at all.
I see you taking alot of license with your opinions and stating them as facts, When the lead encounter designer says theres a group of raiders that got left out cause of how normals are and they want to change that... your tirades about get better or get out kinda fall on deaf ears.
.I am uncomfortable with this statement. In my mind, I'm pretty average and just very, very fortunate to be raiding with good people willing to give me gear
Thats very refreshing to see a humble heroic raider. Maybe some can take a few hints from you and tone down the condesention.
Last edited by jax; 2013-05-17 at 02:43 AM.
The UI fix was just helping him out as a RL friend but learning your priority rotation, gemming/reforge, haste breakpoints and so on all give you a better chance of downing a boss. These are just playing your toon and yes i do think content is tuned correctly. If people want to progress they will make changes or wait for nerfs like last tier. You want to play with your friends who are bad? Great people have fun but dont think progression is going to be easy because you are choosing to play with bad players.
You dont want to Learn these things then fine dont, but to think that progression is important enough to whine about but not important enough to get better at, is a joke. I dont know many people who dont have any add-ons at all and i run only 5-6.
---------- Post added 2013-05-17 at 02:43 AM ----------
When you choose friends that may not be that good over another possibly good player, you are choosing friendship over progression. So progression shouldnt really be that important right?
If you dont any of these things then maybe you should start and just maybe you will start to progress without more nerfing on top of this already nerfed content.
You cant see the logic? A guild of not so great players are given a 30% buff and they clear content. Next tier there is no 30% to help them so they believe the content is once again too hard as this subject comes along every tier, every single tier.
My casual friends tell me they didnt have time yet i see them on realid farming pets, mounts and running old content on alts. Leveling alts,yet they stil ask me questions every week on why content is too hard.
My experiences with trying to help friends obviously influences my views.
I know what you mean - it just seems like Blizzard have backed themselves into a corner with LFR.
The original draw of raiding was to band together with a group of like-minded individuals and overcome a fairly difficult challenge (relatively speaking). LFR, as an introduction to raiding teaches players that they can sink a small amount of time into the game each week and walk out with decent gear. Moving from LFR to normal raiding means a time/effort commitment and, for a lot of people the gear-upgrade is a fairly inconsequential one.
LFR just teaches bad habits. That you can kill bosses by zerging them... That you can earn gear by being half-AFK and, if you wipe then "here's a 5% bonus so you do better next time". If it was, say a tier behind normal content then maybe more people would put a bit of effort in to normal raiding, bolstering smaller guild numbers and giving raid leaders the opportunity to swap people in/out etc.
I have no idea what it means any more. Unlike my 5 nights a week, naxx40 clearing days pre-tbc - I generally raidlog, do pet battles for coins so I can use bonus rolls and do one or two 3 hour raids a week if time allows - we're starting to attempt heroic modes. I'd consider myself casual, but it's all relative as the main team are currently working on HC lei shen 25 and we're a social bunch.
Last edited by mmoc0cdb03e806; 2013-05-17 at 02:53 AM.