Should "competing by default" go away completely?

[Caprias]

I mean, some people say, that Wow should stop being toxic. But what if it's so popular vs other games exactly because it's only game, that caters to toxic players? For example it's only game, that allows such sociopathic things, as ganking low level players and overall getting fun via ruining game for someone else.

You haven't played that many online games, right?

[T-34]

I mean, some people say, that Wow should stop being toxic. But what if it's so popular vs other games exactly because it's only game, that caters to toxic players? For example it's only game, that allows such sociopathic things, as ganking low level players and overall getting fun via ruining game for someone else.

You can only be ganked if you turn on Warmode, and in the case of Classic and TBC you can only be ganked if you either flag yourself or play on a PvP-server.
When you make a character on a PvP server you are specifically warned that anyone of the opposing faction can gank you.
This is also specified in the game policy.

Complaining about ganking is as intelligent about complaining about getting the shit kicked out of you after entering a no-rules and no-weight class fighting tournament.

[Yriel]

Exactly right. As someone with an Alliance main, this is really annoying. It adds on to all the other disadvantages of playing the much less populous faction.

I completely agree. On my realmpool Alliance is massively overpopulated so that during the questing phase of an expansion/patch as a Horde player it's hard to tag a mob because in every area there is a big orange blob aoe'ing nonstop.
It's just annoying, i'd love if they'd remove that.

[Akibaboy]

but all of a sudden recently Blizzard started to push exactly this "sandbox" design more and more, like if they would want to push more competition on players

This post reads like a chronic case of baby's first buzzwords, except that you don't even know what the buzzwords mean.

1) WoW is not and have never had "sandbox" design. Sandbox games are games like Minecraft where you just have a world full of parts and stuff... and you're completely free to make what you will of those parts barring the game world's diegetic limitations. Like a kid in a sandbox, the entertainment is what they make out of the things in it.

Alternatively, WoW is widely considered a theme park MMO these days. You visit a number of fixed, designed attractions that you have largely no ability to alter or break down. You view and engage the attraction as the designers intended.

2) If by "all of the sudden", you mean basically the entire history of the game, then yeah... except no, it hasn't been sudden at all. Even the most recent additions of congregant zones are largely repackaging of the Timeless Isle formula, which is 9 years old. When you say "freedom of flying", that's also been a feature that has existing in its current form for 7 years. The selfsame expansion that introduced flying also told you that you can't fly in its endgame zone, the Isle of Quel'Danas.

Beyond that though, if you dial back and play Classic you'll notice that because end game activities are focused into a small handful of areas due to a lack of any scaling... that yeah, you run into the exact same issues. Modern WoW allowing for all zones to have objectives of some fashion at max level, allowing for multi-tag, and a myriad of other conveniences has been a response to making solo play and congregant content more accessible and time friendly, not less. I rarely compete with anyone for anything when I play solo. Resource nodes remain for me to gather after another has tapped it, rares are shared infinitely across faction, I get quest credit for lightly brushing against an enemy that someone else killed, I get zone event credit for just standing in the area some times even.

[Schizoide]

I completely agree. On my realmpool Alliance is massively overpopulated so that during the questing phase of an expansion/patch as a Horde player it's hard to tag a mob because in every area there is a big orange blob aoe'ing nonstop.
It's just annoying, i'd love if they'd remove that.

Yeah I heard it's reversed in the Oceanic region. This is a problem caused by faction imbalances in general and it could impact either side. Faction tagging needs to be removed from the game.

"Rare" (starred) spawns and resource nodes are excellent examples of the correct approach. You're never bummed out by someone else attacking your rare or picking a herb right in front of you. It's either an advantage or neutral. That's how it should be everywhere, in PvE with warmode off.

[Polybius]

This post reads like a chronic case of baby's first buzzwords, except that you don't even know what the buzzwords mean.

1) WoW is not and have never had "sandbox" design. Sandbox games are games like Minecraft where you just have a world full of parts and stuff... and you're completely free to make what you will of those parts barring the game world's diegetic limitations. Like a kid in a sandbox, the entertainment is what they make out of the things in it.

Alternatively, WoW is widely considered a theme park MMO these days. You visit a number of fixed, designed attractions that you have largely no ability to alter or break down. You view and engage the attraction as the designers intended.

2) If by "all of the sudden", you mean basically the entire history of the game, then yeah... except no, it hasn't been sudden at all. Even the most recent additions of congregant zones are largely repackaging of the Timeless Isle formula, which is 9 years old. When you say "freedom of flying", that's also been a feature that has existing in its current form for 7 years. The selfsame expansion that introduced flying also told you that you can't fly in its endgame zone, the Isle of Quel'Danas.

Beyond that though, if you dial back and play Classic you'll notice that because end game activities are focused into a small handful of areas due to a lack of any scaling... that yeah, you run into the exact same issues. Modern WoW allowing for all zones to have objectives of some fashion at max level, allowing for multi-tag, and a myriad of other conveniences has been a response to making solo play and congregant content more accessible and time friendly, not less. I rarely compete with anyone for anything when I play solo. Resource nodes remain for me to gather after another has tapped it, rares are shared infinitely across faction, I get quest credit for lightly brushing against an enemy that someone else killed, I get zone event credit for just standing in the area some times even.

Off topic but, the new survival game that's in development seems to be the first time Blizzard is experimenting with sandbox design. The new Everquest game was supposed to be *it* but it got shafted.

[Hey There Guys its Metro]

How can it be called some other name, if we have limited resources, we have to fight for?

The biggest misconceptions here is "No competition = no MMO". Cooperation and competition - are two equally viable ways to play MMO. And not all players prefer competition. They have their WarMode off for reason.

A matter of stealth - another example of such badly designed WQ. I literaly want to break my keyboard, when I do this WQ. Can we have some way to ban some WQs not to see them popping?

Because there is no competitive reason to finish the quest.
Take your time, get it done. Its no where near that bad, even if its one of the worst offenders.

If you want to break your keyboard over an optional world quest though, might be time to reassess your interest in the game. Not a healthy thing to hear some one say about something so trivial.

[WowIsDead64]

This post reads like a chronic case of baby's first buzzwords, except that you don't even know what the buzzwords mean.

1) WoW is not and have never had "sandbox" design. Sandbox games are games like Minecraft where you just have a world full of parts and stuff... and you're completely free to make what you will of those parts barring the game world's diegetic limitations. Like a kid in a sandbox, the entertainment is what they make out of the things in it.

Alternatively, WoW is widely considered a theme park MMO these days. You visit a number of fixed, designed attractions that you have largely no ability to alter or break down. You view and engage the attraction as the designers intended.

2) If by "all of the sudden", you mean basically the entire history of the game, then yeah... except no, it hasn't been sudden at all. Even the most recent additions of congregant zones are largely repackaging of the Timeless Isle formula, which is 9 years old. When you say "freedom of flying", that's also been a feature that has existing in its current form for 7 years. The selfsame expansion that introduced flying also told you that you can't fly in its endgame zone, the Isle of Quel'Danas.

Beyond that though, if you dial back and play Classic you'll notice that because end game activities are focused into a small handful of areas due to a lack of any scaling... that yeah, you run into the exact same issues. Modern WoW allowing for all zones to have objectives of some fashion at max level, allowing for multi-tag, and a myriad of other conveniences has been a response to making solo play and congregant content more accessible and time friendly, not less. I rarely compete with anyone for anything when I play solo. Resource nodes remain for me to gather after another has tapped it, rares are shared infinitely across faction, I get quest credit for lightly brushing against an enemy that someone else killed, I get zone event credit for just standing in the area some times even.

1) That's why it's "sandbox", not just sandbox. "Sandbox" in Wow - is location without explicit objectives. It's considered, that players have freedom of choice what to do there, instead of being told to by quests. Example? Timeless Isle, Mechagon, etc.
2) "All of a sudden" means, that even while these locations existed in every xpack, they weren't mandatory and Blizzard weren't trying to bring "sandbox" design to whole outdoor. For example do you remember, that Tol Barad even existed?

- - - Updated - - -

Because there is no competitive reason to finish the quest.
Take your time, get it done. Its no where near that bad, even if its one of the worst offenders.

If you want to break your keyboard over an optional world quest though, might be time to reassess your interest in the game. Not a healthy thing to hear some one say about something so trivial.

Sorry, but time is resource too. Isn't being able to do things quicker a reason, that is competitive enough?

P.S. What I want to add, is that time is tied to enjoyment. When player "sits in a queue", he idles, i.e. doesn't actually play game. And it frustrates him. So, limited resource, we fight for - is actually enjoyment.

[Alkizon]

I still don’t understand what is being discussed here, but based on nature of messages (we are clearly talking about PvP and organization of activity within server organization), I can only say that "we" need PvP servers and removal of WM, as it was “before” (however, with current trend towards organizing PvE, which is discussed in news, you know, a return to adequate version is becoming less and less likely to happen, we can even use word "improbable"), with "children's zones", with defence channels... with right stats, with right class hierarchy... you get the idea, right?

And the point here isn't organization of racial hostility, no pffff, what a heresy, but banal full-fledged organization of corresponding activity completely consistent with elements of sandbox
- - - - -
while servers were organized correctly, game was like one (but lore driving), it was possible to add some other forms of activities, but within framework of existing design, so to make game "wider in activities", but for some time now it has really turned into theme park, due to the fact that most "new activities" not only didn't supplement, but duplicated existing ones, but also superimposed on top of structure of existing ones without observing their original rules, which naturally led to its destruction, result was quite predictable and obvious for people who noticed trend earlier than others... but not for everyone
- - - - -
Hostility has nothing to do with it, rather common competitive element within server, but you need to properly organize those same servers for this (guild = "class", faction = "school", server = "competitions within country", world first kill = "world Olympiad", is meaning approximately clear? - servers don't interact with each other almost even at macro level).

ps. On such days I'm once again convinced that leaving wasn't kind of temporary "weakness". Models or not models, just right design understanding has long been buried.

[chiddie]

It must be amazing that the game survived at all, because even same faction shared tagging didn’t exist for first 6 years of the game life (through its peak).

- - - Updated - - -



Players are the ones that made the game competitive.

Gearscore, Warcraftlogs, parses, wowprogress, etc. is all player driven PvE competition.

Yes… and no.

Tier lists are created by players, but they are created because the game itself drives players in that direction.

It’s just normal when the progression is tied to high level difficulty grouped content only.

There’s no rio in arpgs and no one feels it’s missing.

[Venziir]

TL;DR Overall better and shorter explanation is - we need opt in for competition instead of opt out.

At least we need outdoor faction imbalance fix. Playing Alliance is pain even with WarMode off due to "orange sea" and "grey mobs" around.

Yeah, we will have cross-faction instances in 9.2. But outdoor stays the same. You still compete with other players by default, even if they're from your own faction. And you still need to explicitly group with not more, than 4 other players, if you want to cooperate with them. I'm not 100% sure, but I think Wow is only game, that has such design. Don't you think, that such design is obsoleted and isn't acceptable for PVE game with WarMode off? Don't you think, that in PVE game players should cooperate by default and compete only if they voluntary choose to?

My opinion. You don't have to agree with it. I just want to remind, that PVP is literally playing versus other players. Killing them isn't necessary in this case. You don't kill other players in card games or chess. Competing also falls into "playing against" category. Because you can also win or lose. Don't you think, that "cooperating to play versus NPC" - is only right way to play PVE game?

You won't. You'll have those in 9.2.5.

[Geckoo]

Yes. Ideally if you make a choice to not fight the other faction (WM off) then any player, no matter what faction they belong to, should be treated as an ally with the ability to help each other (tagging), talk to each other and even trade stuff if you want to.

[WowIsDead64]

I still don’t understand what is being discussed here, but based on nature of messages (we are clearly talking about PvP and organization of activity within server organization), I can only say that "we" need PvP servers and removal of WM, as it was “before” (however, with current trend towards organizing PvE, which is discussed in news, you know, a return to adequate version is becoming less and less likely to happen, we can even use word "improbable"), with "children's zones", with defence channels... with right stats, with right class hierarchy... you get the idea, right?

And the point here isn't organization of racial hostility, no pffff, what a heresy, but banal full-fledged organization of corresponding activity completely consistent with elements of sandbox
- - - - -
while servers were organized correctly, game was like one (but lore driving), it was possible to add some other forms of activities, but within framework of existing design, so to make game "wider in activities", but for some time now it has really turned into theme park, due to the fact that most "new activities" not only didn't supplement, but duplicated existing ones, but also superimposed on top of structure of existing ones without observing their original rules, which naturally led to its destruction, result was quite predictable and obvious for people who noticed trend earlier than others... but not for everyone
- - - - -
Hostility has nothing to do with it, rather common competitive element within server, but you need to properly organize those same servers for this (guild = "class", faction = "school", server = "competitions within country", world first kill = "world Olympiad", is meaning approximately clear? - servers don't interact with each other almost even at macro level).

ps. On such days I'm once again convinced that leaving wasn't kind of temporary "weakness". Models or not models, just right design understanding has long been buried.

We don't talk about PVP. We talk about grey zone between PVP and PVE, that is PVP, because you literally play versus other players, but isn't considered to be PVP, because it's not about killing them. And PVP servers fall into "forced enjoyment" category. Same as "remove LFR to force players into normal raids". Removing options wouldn't make players love forced content. It would make them quit game.

[Gaidax]

I am sure once they eventually remove most faction barriers sometime during 10.x, they will also change tagging rules accordingly.

I can certainly understand the annoyance of faction based mob tagging and I do think it should not be a thing in 2k22 anymore.

[Alkizon]

We don't talk about PVP. We talk about grey zone between PVP and PVE, that is PVP, because you literally play versus other players, but isn't considered to be PVP, because it's not about killing them. And PVP servers fall into "forced enjoyment" category. Same as "remove LFR to force players into normal raids". Removing options wouldn't make players love forced content. It would make them quit game.

You're looking at it one-sided, I have already explained difference between PvP server and WM many times. For example, what you are talking about (free interaction) is exactly PvP server (freedom of choice, you can kill, you can help, "game design" doesn't impose specific solution), but WM falls into category of forced activity - that is, its direct purpose is "for killing" . We have been discussing this issue in great detail for several years now already.

And in general about everything, even what person above says about mob-tagging, and this is also small one of elements of social regulation (sometimes even being little mechanism of impact ~no need to "report/ban" anyone, community itself, if it's strong enough, able to punish @sshole; however, if it's weak and indifferent, as it's now, it will serve as one of its detectors)... a trifle, but it's also important for formation of certain behavior, for evaluating specific decision of one or another member of "community" (it gives choice between good and bad, and without it player remains "unidentified"). However, this is another topic.

8. Servers+ type/org (WM&MMO+changes'soc.psycho.res+auto/subscr) +(+/+/+/+/+)+(+)+(+/+/+/+/+)+(+/+/+/+)

first 6 "pluses" are mostly what related to WM vs PvP-servers

[WowIsDead64]

You're looking at it one-sided, I have already explained difference between PvP server and WM many times. For example, what you are talking about (free interaction) is exactly PvP server (freedom of choice, you can kill, you can help, "game design" doesn't impose specific solution), but WM falls into category of forced activity - that is, its direct purpose is "for killing" . We have been discussing this issue in great detail for several years now already.

And in general about everything, even what person above says about mob-tagging, and this is also small one of elements of social regulation (sometimes even being little mechanism of impact ~no need to "report/ban" anyone, community itself, if it's strong enough, able to punish @sshole; however, if it's weak and indifferent, as it's now, it will serve as one of its detectors)... a trifle, but it's also important for formation of certain behavior, for evaluating specific decision of one or another member of "community" (it gives choice between good and bad, and without it player remains "unidentified"). However, this is another topic.


first 6 "pluses" are mostly what related to WM vs PvP-servers

I don't want to discuss PVP servers, because they're completely unrelated to problem, that is discussed here. What would happen on PVP servers or in WM, if Blizzard would restrict "competing by default" to them only, wouldn't bother me, as I wouldn't be there. Only thing, I want to say. Your core problem, is that you don't understand or don't want to accept major reason, why PVP servers were removed. Because "PVP server is voluntary choice" argument doesn't work. Players go to there by mistake. For example I'm the best example of this problem. I picked PVP server, because my friend was playing there.

[Alkizon]

I don't want to discuss PVP servers, because they're completely unrelated to problem, that is discussed here. What would happen on PVP servers or in WM, if Blizzard would restrict "competing by default" to them only, wouldn't bother me, as I wouldn't be there. Only thing, I want to say. Your core problem, is that you don't understand or don't want to accept major reason, why PVP servers were removed. Because "PVP server is voluntary choice" argument doesn't work. Players go to there by mistake. For example I'm the best example of this problem. I picked PVP server, because my friend was playing there.

You can't imagine how many times I've heard this lie They did it to reduce cost of providing servers, because it's easier to have 1 type of servers only, just like that. Not for the sake of solving any problem, but for the sake of simplifying their work. And now about lie itself - problems of players, who "made wrong choice", are solved by moving them to PvE servers and... that's all, system shouldn't worry about their mistakes, it works correctly/as it should/as intended/in accordance with its requirements.

Either you obey rules and solve problems, or you are the problem yourself. If they leave, then for the better. Everything is simple, absolutely easy and cheerful. Players must adapt to system's requirements, but not "break" working/functioning/closed&thought out system at their request.

..but, as I said, it was not "you" that was the reason for changing it, rather just a good excuse

ps. To solve problem of those who were to blame, they punished those who were innocent (who made right choice, who liked it... in this regard, for example: surv hunters were lost in same action). Somewhere I have already heard that "punishment of innocent and rewarding of uninvolved" ingenious solution *shakes head hopelessly and walks away*

[Rucati]

I definitely get both sides of the argument here. For me personally though, I want my outdoor experience to be as painless as possible, less competition would definitely be good in my eyes. I wanna just go out, do my dailies as fast as humanly possible, then go back to arenas/m+/raiding so I can actually enjoy the game.

That being said I don't think it's too terrible now. You can still tag mobs with other people for most of the important ones, and they respawn fast enough that it's usually not a huge problem. The worst part is when you get to an elite when it has 5% hp and you can't get close enough to tag it, but nothing they do can fix my unluckiness.

[Schizoide]

It isn't bad now, but for a couple months after Korthia released on my Alliance characters it was a giant sea full of grey tagged mobs, where I was constantly competing with easily ten times as many Horde players to get a tag and progress on my daily.