Nothing in this game takes much skill (yet I know some people manage to be bad at it, that's not the point). Things take time and effort, you can argue this legendary item takes less of these then past ones, but the question is "so what?". I didn't get past legendary items and I'm unlikely to get this one. Others having them does not detract from my enjoyment of the game.
It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion. It is by the beans of Java that thoughts acquire speed, the hands acquire shakes, the shakes become a warning.
-Kujako-
You're comparing a physical achievement which actually requires a great deal of time and training, to getting an item in a game?
This legendary is only different in one way from the previous legendaries, you don't need a full premade raid of players (usually guild members) to help you get it. Apart from that, please state how it is different from the Ulduar mace? Collect rare drops, give them to someone who can use them, help them with quests etc. This cloak is the same, except everyone gets the satisfaction of a reward, rather than 24+ people helping on a weekly basis to give one person a reward, everyone gets the reward for the effort they put in.
Oh no! Blizzard is rewarding people for time they spend on the game, what ever will this massive games company do?! How will the cope with all the players getting rewards for the time they spent playing their game?!
Basically, this legendary isn't anymore easy, or anymore difficult to get than say, the Ulduar mace, or Shadowmourne, or the DS daggers. Just more people get the reward for the time they put into it. You can say you afk through all the LFR raids, but hey, its only you that's missing out on the epic storyline Blizzard has constructed to go along with it. Plus, something you seem to continually neglect, previous legendaries were bound to individual or certain classes. The fact every class has a chance for a reward means its obviously going to be more common. I see no harm in it, its still a legendary item, so who gives a rats ass if other people have it, good for them, they obviously spent as much time playing as I did, and I hope they equally enjoyed the storyline.
Now, stop whining like a spoilt little child, move on, and start preparing your whiney stories and flawed statements for the next thing Blizzard introduces to reward its player base.
Skill is a subjective thing, but the legendary being attainable thru LFR I think was the major problem this expansion. Compare it to many of the other legendaries, like the Fangs of the Father, you had to go in a regular raid at least and put in a lot of time, or to the extreme something like Atiesh from Naxx which is considered to be one of the most difficult raids ever made, long story short there was an element of time and skill involved.
Now with LFR, you have dps that gem for stam and that do 30k and can get it, people that afk can get it lol.... at that point I think the legendary has been underwhelming. Especially when you consider how many got it the first day, I don't know anyone that's linking it in trade or that is genuinely excited to get it. In fact, I had one of the wind seeker bindings drop on my monk a few weeks ago and that felt like a bigger deal then the legendary cloak, I doubt i'm the only one who is in this boat lol.
History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people - Martin Luther King, Jr.
I guess it comes down to people thinking exclusivity is a bad thing. I guess you prized your trophy you got in little league that the rest of your team got as well?
The fact that you needed a group of people to get you the legendary in past expansions also means that you have to be good enough to do that content. Who would carry you through to get you the legendary? Right now you don't need a group, because you can do it via LFR, which seems to be the main problem. It's perfectly alright to give the legendary, or the legendary quest items, to everyone in the raid, so that there doesn't have to be a group of 10 or 25 people to work and get the legendary for just one person. But you can do that while keeping it limited to heroic raiding. That way every heroic raider could get it, and it would require effort, time and skill.
You want to set yourself apart in a world that disapears the moment the electricity goes out? You want your tombstone to say, "Here lies X, was great at warcraft, had seven legendaries!" The thing about special snowflakes is that they are still just a snowflake among millions and if one were to melt and go away it ultimately wouldn't make a difference. That special snowflake in all reality is not special and ultimately not missed.
I can understand the point of view of not doing something because someone else doesn't have to do anything, but thats not solving the problem. I would agree with you that some fights could use a bit of a LFR difficulty tune up, fights that no one ever wipes on like Immerseus. An LFR fight should be a fail if someone is AFK but not so difficult that you wipe because some people have less skill. It is a hard thing to balance.
Currently in SoO LFR Immerseus is way too easy, Protectors feel about right, The 3rd boss was too easy and Sha of Pride would be easy if people understood the mechanics, which they don't. Its like they just dont make a connection with that bar of pride and what it means to them.
You are STILL ignoring my point. I mentioned every other person in the raid. All people who raided in BC and progressed to Illidan and killed him multiple times. The only thing separating those hundreds, if not thousands of people, from someone with glaives is being the wrong class and/or RNG.
I get that, in a perfect system there could of been a piece for each class. But a lot of times the people that got the legendary were vital to the guild, either by being one of the veterans that saw the guild through to that point or by being a class leader or some sort of role responsible for the organization of the raid that got them to that point.
The point that flew over your head is that there is obviously a point beyond which competitiveness hurts rather than helps.
And you are resorting to the usual canard of "vanilla/BC grew blah blah blah", ignoring that the reason they grew was because they were chewing through, turning off, and spitting out large numbers of rather casual players. Retention in WoW has been terrible all along, and the hardcore part has only ever been attractive to a relatively tiny numbers of customers.
"There is a pervasive myth that making content hard will induce players to rise to the occasion. We find the opposite. " -- Ghostcrawler
"The bit about hardcore players not always caring about the long term interests of the game is spot on." -- Ghostcrawler
"Do you want a game with no casuals so about 500 players?"
In a game like WoW, obviously it's a bad thing. You have to tie your thought processes into pretzel knots to believe otherwise. The reason is that people who are excluded are, in general, not going to be happy. And if they're not happy, they stop sending Blizzard money.
"There is a pervasive myth that making content hard will induce players to rise to the occasion. We find the opposite. " -- Ghostcrawler
"The bit about hardcore players not always caring about the long term interests of the game is spot on." -- Ghostcrawler
"Do you want a game with no casuals so about 500 players?"
i have this image of taking a normal LFR group today, adding 15 more (correct class/spec setup for each encounter, of course), and putting them in a classic game engine with MC gear as level 60s, and stick them in razorgore's room. give them 5 hours. heck give them 5 hours for 7 days straight. with each /drop, bring another random of correct role in. turnover alone is going to be phenomenal.
I bet not 1 in 1000 of those groups would get past first boss.
the difference in raid tuning then and now is night and day.
i base this from the experience of seeing a bc level 70 and some 60x's pug try, it was a pitiful joke (and I was part of the joke then). the amount of coordinated effort needed vs. LFR isn't even the same type of gameplay in my opinion.
Last edited by Deficineiron; 2013-09-20 at 06:08 PM.
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History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people - Martin Luther King, Jr.