Wod Season 2, ashran needs to optional

[rda]

Then what am I getting my other 4-5k from? Before logging off my druid I had 7700 as my cap for the week.

That's the catch-up system, you get 1000 points for every week since the beginning of the season which you missed. After this dries up, your cap is going to be 1700 or higher, depending on your rating.

[Raelbo]

If, out of 1000 people, 10 like Ashran, 290 dislike it and 700 have no opinion, it's a net negative.

I would tend to agree that if only 1 in 100 people like Ashran, it's a failure. However, if 499 out of 1000 liked it, 500 disliked it and 1 had no opinion it would, as per your definition, be a nett negative but, by common sense, a massive success.

The question is, how many like Ashran, and does it justify the content? And what I am saying is that you can't measure that from small sample of people who hate it. Bearing in mind that the most difficult raid setting is exclusive to less than 1% of the playerbase, I find it hard to believe that there insufficient people who enjoy Ashran to justify existence. Given the queue lengths, I am pretty certain the message Blizzard is getting is that people are wanting to do it.

ROFL

Yeah, I do that a lot when I read your arguments.

I won't even try to deal with this mess. No, my argument ain't that.

Ok, I'll bite. Let's look at your argument: "let's integrate this all over the playerbase, counting both positive opinions and negative opinions. My opinion is that the total will be negative."

Let me rephrase my argument (to make it a bit clearer): "let's integrate this all over the smartphone user base, counting both positive opinions and negative opinions. My opinion is that the total will be negative"

What I am saying is that most people don't care for iPhones. 88% in fact, choose another smartphone. They have voted with their wallets. Yet, with only 12% favouring Apple, it is still bigger and more successful than Samsung which has more than twice the market share Apple does.

What I am saying is that you don't measure the success of a product according to whether it wins the popularity contest. You measure it according to how many do vote for it and how passionately they support it. This number doesn't have to be a majority. It can be a fairly small portion, as long as it is enough to justify on some objective level the product's existence.

And as the Apple case proves, a "mere" 12% can be enough to qualify as a massive success.

You have time to write these silly posts full of non-sequiturs and pretend-points, go ahead.

Yeah, this coming from the guy who used the false equivalence fallacy a few posts back. Having read the definition of false equivalence I remain confident that my analogy is valid.

please re-read what I wrote about bonus conquest having meaning at all rating levels.

Dude, I understand what you wrote. I think you fail to grasp what I am saying. And while it is rare for me not to be understood among my peers, and while I did try to get my point across in terms that even simple folk can understand, I accept the possibility that maybe the communication failure is on my part.

More points means more gear means higher ratings.

Of course.

You don't have to be a glad to feel it, it applies to all levels.

I never said anything to the contrary.

Your excessive "unless you are bla bla bla, you can't this or that" are completely irrelevant, <snip>. That forces people to try and get this bonus conquest

Nothing forces people to do anything. People force themselves to do stuff. Sometimes they do so for stupid reasons.

If you are a top PvP contender (top 0.5 or at least 2400 rating), then I would say doing Ashran, even if you don't like it, to give yourself a shot at achieving some significant PvP outcome, then I would say that is not stupid. I would say that such people have a legitimate gripe and their feelings deserve due consideration.

If however, you are not a top PvP contender, if you're not even in contention for making it to say, the top 10%, then forcing yourself to do Ashran even though you hate it, is your own stupidity. You can't go blaming Blizzard for your lack of fun. You are doing it by your own choice because you have deluded yourself into thinking that in the grand scheme of things this is going to make a big difference. It won't.


That being said, sometimes it's a good idea to protect people from becoming victims of their own stupidity. But not when it comes at the expense of other people who haven't chosen to make a stupid choice. In the end this debate is not about the mediocre player who stupidly feels he is compelled to do Ashran.
It's about serving the playerbase at large.

Just because some people want to do something stupid is a terrible justification for spoiling soemthing for those who like it the way it is.


TL;DR: If you're in the top few % of PvP players and you feel like you have to do Ashran in order to compete, sorry for you, but that's the price you have to pay to win. Changing the feature to suit the small group you represent would spoil it for significantly more players.

If you're a mediocre PvPer and you feel like you have to do Ashran in order to compete, you're suffering delusions of grandeur. If you like Ashran, do it. If you don't like Ashran, ignore it. Your PvP results are going to be mediocre either way.

[rda]

I would tend to agree that if only 1 in 100 people like Ashran, it's a failure. However, if 499 out of 1000 liked it, 500 disliked it and 1 had no opinion it would, as per your definition, be a nett negative but, by common sense, a massive success.

Yes, it would be a net negative, both "per my definition" and in reality. If they could somehow get to know ahead of time about a feature that half people will like it and half will hate it, they would change that feature significantly or drop it entirely, because staying course is a big waste of time, the value of the feature is almost zero yet the effort isn't zero at all, there are vastly better things to do.

No, it wouldn't be a massive success by any means. How stupid can this get?

I won't even read the rest of your post. Write more.

[Raelbo]

Yes, it would be a net negative, both "per my definition" and in reality. If they could somehow get to know ahead of time about a feature that half people will like it and half will hate it, they would change that feature significantly or drop it entirely, because staying course is a big waste of time, the value of the feature is almost zero yet the effort isn't zero at all, there are vastly better things to do.

No, it wouldn't be a massive success by any means.

If WoW got rid of every feature that wasn't well liked by more than 50% of the playerbase, I don't think there would be much left of the game (if anything). Certainly not enough to make the game as a whole worthwhile.

Only 41% of players actually killed any SoO boss on Flex mode or harder. By your logic all raiding except LFR is worthless, and Heroic and Mythic modes are a complete failure.



In a game of 10 million players, there is simply no way that every player will like every feature. You can't even make it so that you don't have features which tons of players actively dislike.

The whole design philosophy of WoW is that every player will like some of the features. What they think of the rest of the features is irrelevant as long as they aren't forced to participate.

The only problem is when stupid people delude themselves into believing that they are forced to do something they don't enjoy when in reality they aren't.

How stupid can this get?

Keep writing. Then we'll see.....

[rda]

If WoW got rid of every feature that wasn't well liked by more than 50% of the playerbase, I don't think there would be much left of the game (if anything).

Another post, another non-sequitur in the very first sentence. I am talking about the net of like (positives) + hate (negatives) + neutral (zeros). You are talking about like (positives), leaving hate + neutral out of the picture. To say nothing about measuring all that at the time when the feature comes, because that's where most of the effort is spent, and not ten years after.

[alucardtnuoc]

I think the OP is actually mad that they lack self control, 200cp every week, cheapest piece is what, 1250? You have to wait a MONTH to get one piece of gear. The cheapest piece that is... the one that matters the LEAST.

If you were in the top 1% of pvpers, striving to be the best, maybe you would have a leg to stand on. But otherwise you just seem to be bitching because you feel *forced* to do things when it's you doing the forcing.

[rda]

I think the OP is actually mad that they lack self control, 200cp every week, cheapest piece is what, 1250? You have to wait a MONTH to get one piece of gear. The cheapest piece that is... the one that matters the LEAST.

If you were in the top 1% of pvpers, striving to be the best, maybe you would have a leg to stand on. But otherwise you just seem to be bitching because you feel *forced* to do things when it's you doing the forcing.

Right, he should forfeit 1.5 pieces (we are already two months in) out of, say, 8-9, and rank lower. Because he's not top 1% and you say only top 1% are allowed to worry.

[Deleted]

It's definitely a bad thing that the Conquest gear is better for PVE (due to how it is itemized and how easy it is to get) than most heroic non-warforged/socketed drops in Highmaul. As a pure PVE player, I couldn't care less about PVP balance, and the only thing I am looking for is the easiest possible way to get Conquest gear. And that means Ashran, as I can without having to actually pvp in about 2 hours. On top I can use my honor to buy bonus rolls for Mythic raids.

I expect lots of people will choose to flood Ashran with alts because the Conquest gear is FAR better than the Looking For Raid stuff and takes relatively little effort. The design is so obviously flawed and the end result is what we have now.

[alucardtnuoc]

Right, he should forfeit 1.5 pieces (we are already two months in) out of, say, 8-9, and rank lower. Because he's not top 1% and you say only top 1% are allowed to worry.

Wod release nov 13, pvp season, dec 2nd, any conquest earnt before than was removed and conquest gear was removed.

If you did ashran every week for those 200 points, you earned about 1600 conquest. Congrats, you still only made enough for the crappiest piece. So, please tell me why you are forced... are you SERIOUSLY saying that you're being held back in pvp because you're unable to afford bracers?

[Thelxi]

I was so excited for ashran, I was expecting everybody to be there from pve casuals to mythic raiders and gladiators, spread out over a big map doing side objective and killing rares.. I was not expecting this contrived unbalanced piece of shit.

Blizzard had YEARS to study and get inspired (copy paste - improve) big scale pvp from other successful games like GW2, and this is the best they could come up with?!

It just blows my mind how terrible Ashran is, and this is coming from a horde player that used to love big epic throttled AV fights.

And I also wish Blizzard would stop bribing people to get people interested in their new features. Just think of how much Blizzard bribed people to do RBGs and heroic scenarios, and now ashran. Enough already, just make things fun.

[rda]

Wod release nov 13, pvp season, dec 2nd, any conquest earnt before than was removed and conquest gear was removed.

If you did ashran every week for those 200 points, you earned about 1600 conquest. Congrats, you still only made enough for the crappiest piece. So, please tell me why you are forced... are you SERIOUSLY saying that you're being held back in pvp because you're unable to afford bracers?

The less gear, the lower ratings. It's a no-brainer.

If someone is 1700 instead of 1750 or 1800 because they lack at least 1600 points now and because they were constantly lacking points during the weeks compared to others (and others were increasing the gap by getting more conquest from higher ratings weekly / by getting into better groups because, say, they had weapons one week earlier), that's significant and they have every right to be upset.

[Deleted]

Wod release nov 13, pvp season, dec 2nd, any conquest earnt before than was removed and conquest gear was removed.

If you did ashran every week for those 200 points, you earned about 1600 conquest. Congrats, you still only made enough for the crappiest piece. So, please tell me why you are forced... are you SERIOUSLY saying that you're being held back in pvp because you're unable to afford bracers?

I've had this scenario happen to me:

Some weeks, i dont have alot of time to play the game - so i acquire an awkward amount of points, say 1350. Then, another week i have alot of time to play so i cap my points, leaving the ashran segment. The ashran segment though would help me afford an item for that week. I either queue for ashran and pray to the gods that i get in, or i wait another week.

The ashran cap is awkward and a terrible incentive.

[Kyulan]

I can undestand that some people you could call "serious" PVPers do not like Ashran that much. They are used to the numbers game and playing where this class and ability counters that class and ability. Ashran has so much factors, many of them one could think as PVE factors, so no matter how much you are used to min-max and tune to perfection your PVP gameplay you might have zero control of what happens. It is those min-max PVPers that also would propably like the extra 200 CP similar to how PVE players can pay thousands more of gold to get that only slightly better enchant to an item. I personally like Ashran and I am not one of those people who pursue Conquest Points.

[Deleted]

My only real complaint about Ashran is the queue.

my only complaint about ashran is the queue aswell , because i never managed to go past that to see if i like it or not

[Raelbo]

Another post, another non-sequitur in the very first sentence.

Nah you're just pissed that I had the audacity to call you out on your use of false equivalence. So in retaliation, you're grasping at straws to try and discredit me in the hopes that it will discredit my argument. It's not a very constructive approach mate nor is it likely to result in any kind of resolution.

I am talking about the net of like (positives) + hate (negatives) + neutral (zeros). You are talking about like (positives), leaving hate + neutral out of the picture.

Yes, that is exactly what I am doing. With good reason. I even quoted an example (the Apple iPhone) of where reality contradicts your assumed outcome.

The key logical failing in your assertion is your assumption that for something (in WoW) to be deemed worth the effort of making it, it must appeal to more than 50% of the playerbase. Where did pull that number from? What logical principle dictates this?

The first logical foundation of your premise lies in the following:

The greater the number of players to whom a feature appeals, the greater is its value.

But there is no magical number (% wise) at which some feature has value since the nett value is a function of both how many players the feature appeals to and how much the feature appeals to those players.

For example: Mythic raiding appeals to a very small percentage of players. Yet those players value it very hightly. Ergo Mythic raiding (as a feature) has a significantly higher value to the game than the number of participants might suggest.


Now with regards to some players "hating" a feature, I would agree that at some point a feature can detract from the game, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it will. I'll use some easy example: If I hate using a mouse to play PC games, this is going to have a severe impact on my enjoyment of the game. If I hate using a 3D glasses, the fact that WoW supports 3D monitors will make zero difference to me, because I can easily choose not to use that feature.

Secondly, just because one person "hates" something like Ashran does not mean that his "hate" cancels out someone else's "like" of it. There is no standard unit of measure of "hate" and "like" (stop thinking in terms of social networking like/dislike buttons). Both Liking and Hating a feature are analogue concepts and can vary in intensity.

You can't just put down some kind of mathematical formula and say that if X people like the feature and Y hate it, and if Y>X then the feature is objectively worthless.

How much do the people who like it, like it? How much do the people who hate it, hate it and how much of it are they forced to do? If someone hates a feature intensely but never has to interact with it, is his hate any more detrimental to the game than the neutrality of another player?

Your entire argument just plugs in convenient numbers (for your argument) into the above equation and then you triumphantly claim you have proven something. It's a silly approach which can't really produce any meaningful conclusions.


However with a different approach, and a bit of application of reason and logic, we can draw some meaningful conclusions:

1) Most people who actively hate (or even just dislike) Ashran can quite safely ignore it without too much detriment. I can conclude this because by definition, most people aren't among the top players. Most players are close to or below average and thus would have little incentive to max their PvP performance if the process to do so starts to become particular onerous. Therefore average players who do Ashran either

a) enjoy it
b) don't feel particularly strongly against it (neutral - mild dislike)
c) are idiots (and IMO a lost cause anyway)

2) A small percentage of the playerbase (consider that the top 0.5% "win" the season) can claim a significant "need" to get the 200CP Ashran advantage. Of these some will actively dislike Ashran but will participate anyway.

The logical conclusion is that the number of people for whom Ashran becomes a detrimental feature is small. This doesn't require a particularly large portion of the playerbase to enjoy the feature to make it into a nett positive feature.

Whether the feature is worth the time spent developing it? Yeah, you could argue that Ashran might not have been the best spent time. But then again, it is foolish to trim all the features that aren't the most successful, because variety is important in a game like WoW (it's the same reason that restaurants will keep multiple items on their menu even though they aren't all equally popular).

[rda]

Nah you're just pissed that I had the audacity to call you out on your use of false equivalence.

I get that you think saying big words like "false equivalency" makes you sound important and correct, but in reality that's just another way of saying "no, that's wrong". I use analogies with the only purpose of making my point easy to understand, if someone tells me "no, that doesn't seem like a good analogy", I am all too happy to just drop the analogy and get back to the issue. You, on the other hand, seem to think that analogies can be "wrong" (LOL) and that's worthy of debate. It's even more ironic that all you are doing is saying point blank that my analogy is terrible and yours is good, just like that. No saying why, just my analogy is terrible, yours is good, and then you drone for a page about your analogy thinking you won some argument.

Not reading the wall of text, as usual, please continue.

PS: Yes, I am going to read the first sentence or at most the first paragraph of your posts and will only read the rest if this first sentence or para makes some sense. The number of tangents that you go off to and the amount of words and effort that you will spend discussing things which you frequently have no idea about are just too much, I learned that already. It looks like you are here to argue something with someone, because you enjoy arguing. That's fine, but I am here for a different reason, I am here to get some information and share some of mine. (Info, do you have any? No, you largely don't. You have your theories on how things might work in some alternate universe and some links to wikipedia on utter trivia.)

[Raelbo]

The less gear, the lower ratings. It's a no-brainer.

If one assumes it's a no brainer, one doesn't bother thinking it through. Methinks you jumped to your conclusion and now you are stubbornly refusing to apply your mind...

If someone is 1700 instead of 1750 or 1800 because they lack at least 1600 points now and because they were constantly lacking points during the weeks compared to others (and others were increasing the gap by getting more conquest from higher ratings weekly / by getting into better groups because, say, they had weapons one week earlier), that's significant and they have every right to be upset.

There are probably well over 10 000 players with a rating of >2K on EU. If someone is 1700 it's because they're not particularly good at PvP. It's that simple. If these people are getting upset about their performance it's not about WoW - it's an issue of emotional or intellectual immaturity or some sort of personality defect. Changing Ashran isn't going to fix that.

[rda]

There are probably well over 10 000 players with a rating of >2K on EU. If someone is 1700 it's because they're not particularly good at PvP. It's that simple. If these people are getting upset about their performance it's not about WoW - it's an issue of emotional or intellectual immaturity or some sort of personality defect. Changing Ashran isn't going to fix that.

If someone is 1700 without bonus conquest, they could have been 1750 or 1800 with it, same skill.

[IntellectuallyChallenged]

There are way better games out there for PvP. Personally, I don't even bother with PvP in WoW. It's not a PvP game. It's merely a game that offers PvP.

[Raelbo]

Yes, I am going to read the first sentence or at most the first paragraph of your post and will only read the rest if this first sentence or para makes some sense.

Alright I'll save the effort then: You're wrong. Your opinions lack logic and reason.

PS: The reason I bother with the "walls of text" is that simple one liners have zero chance of helping you see where our disagreement stems from.

- - - Updated - - -

If someone is 1700 without bonus conquest, they could have been 1750 or 1800 with it, same skill.

If someone cared enough about their rating to be able to justify spending time in Ashran even though they hate it, they wouldn't be sitting at that rating.