FFXIV Criticisms

[Moralgy]

Off of the top of my head, Kazutoyo Maehiro, the MSQ writer from ARR through Heavensward, and the tonal shift after is obvious. Hiroshi Takai, assistant director from ARR through HW. Lead game designer Nobuaki Komoto left after Stormblood. The lead battle content designer was replaced around ShB, the same time when the fights started being designed around one shot mechanics and everyone having to perfectly execute every mechanic or wipe with no in between and etc. There is also the statement from Yoshi-P on job design on how they replaced the healer main of the test team because they were too good at the game.

I mean, raids would be way too easy if you could just take a red mage and power through every mechanic. Hell, even the current savage tier is like that if your dps is even mid tier level of skilled. I like extremes but that specific reason is why they are too easy. It would need a complete rework of the rez system and reworking red mage entirely to make body checks be not important. That being said most savages only get like one, maybe 2 of those mechanics in a 10min fight so idk what the issue with that is, and ultimates should require near perfect execution to complete so idk if that complaint can be applied there. Like even then, people do 7man uwu and ucob so ya know, its not the be all end all lol.

Body checks aren't just "everywhere", you just tend to wipe to them more as people learn the "one mechanic" so I guess you are over focused on them?


For this xpac

p1 - 1 body check in 4 fold
p2 - 1 body check, but just healer/tank lb3 it
p3 - 3, i could say 4 body checks prob but it was the hardest of the tier.
p4p1 - 1 body check, every other mech you could rez through if someone died
p4p2 - many body checks, but you just got a DD in a few of them, 2 major ones that generally killed.

p5 - 1 body check, everything else could be rez'd through
p6 - i dont remember this fight it was a joke fight no one cares xdd
p7 - 1 body check, just rez through anything else if people messed up
p8p1 - 2 body checks, everything else you could rez through.
p8p2 - there were a decent amount of body checks in this one

p9 - 1 body check, people can mess up though and get through it
p10 - id say 1 major body check, you can just get a DD or rez through other people messing up.
p11 - 1 major body check but its braindead easy, everything else in this fight can be rez'd through
p12p1 - 2 body checks, 1 can have mess ups and u just rez through them
p12p2 - 5 body checks actually, but it does stay in line with the "last fight of the tier" generally.

These are all for 10ish min fights.

[MsSideEye]

You remember wrong.

The only thing going into BA (besides an optional mount if you want that) there gets you for the relic and gear is increased elemental stats on the last step for continuing to do content inside of the zones themselves afterwards. If you don't want to do that, both the visuals and the stats on the relics and equipment itself for regular content is identical to the step before BA, and DRS has no relic "upgrade" like that at all for the weapons.

Besides, nobody ever said anything about doing things alone, but there's this thing called a chatbox with a shout channel people can use inside of the game itself to interact with other people in the zone you're in and group up with them that doesn't require any external communication tools.

If you want to grind for exp or crystals in there, use it. Cause god forbid there's content inside of an MMO that requires you to talk to other people right next to where you are in the game...

I wouldn't know about Eureka, but I'm pretty sure it was required to finish the story in Bozja to finish the relic, which required you to do their raids. So there's already discord required there.

Also, yeah, shout and party finder are things, but that doesn't mean anyone will actually USE them. The last time I used shout in Bozja, there was ONE other player in the instance I was in, and was behind me in story to where they couldn't even do the skirmishes I was doing. I ended up staying in Party Finder for over an hour and a half before giving up. On a super rare occasion, I've seen Bozja full, but you want to know how that's happened? Oh, guess what, a Discord group got that together because they wanted to help people run the content. Oh, and this is with me being on the third most populated server one of the most populated data centers in the game, so you can't use the excuse of 'I'm on a smaller server'.

Bozja and Eureka, whether you want to acknowledge it or not, are DEAD CONTENT. They're slogging, mind numbing time wasters to do solo, are near impossible to get groups for unless you're part of a specific discord server, and because they're side content you've got a huge amount of the playerbase that won't only just skip them entirely, but a chunk that don't even know it exists because they're wanting to do the stuff everyone else is doing. You know, current content that's ACTUALLY populated.

Can you get lucky and find a group now and then? Sure. But it's self centered and over expecting to think shouting into the ether is going to magic you up someone else interested in doing that same content with you.

I mean, raids would be way too easy if you could just take a red mage and power through every mechanic. Hell, even the current savage tier is like that if your dps is even mid tier level of skilled. I like extremes but that specific reason is why they are too easy. It would need a complete rework of the rez system and reworking red mage entirely to make body checks be not important. That being said most savages only get like one, maybe 2 of those mechanics in a 10min fight so idk what the issue with that is, and ultimates should require near perfect execution to complete so idk if that complaint can be applied there. Like even then, people do 7man uwu and ucob so ya know, its not the be all end all lol.

Body checks aren't just "everywhere", you just tend to wipe to them more as people learn the "one mechanic" so I guess you are over focused on them?

And the thing is? I frankly PREFER the system where Rezzes are free like that. Because it means I keep playing and I'm not just dead on the ground for the rest of the entire fight like it is in Wow. It makes sure that the players are engaged much more often. This isn't even mentioning the fact that penalty for rezzes are STILL THERE. Oh hey, you died? Welp, chances are unless we're DRASTICLY overgeared for something means we're likely going to be missing the DPS check.

Also, let's be fair that it's much more appealing to see people master a dance and work together as a unit to do things then watch you entire party die because 'oh, the boss used an ability randomly, lol'.

[Shinchi Migi]

FFXIV has been in the managed decline phase for years. A lot of the key talent who originally made ARR and Heavensward what they are have left. Content is continuing to be made, but the corporation wants to increase profits by lowering costs, so the new stuff is lower budget. Thus why we have gotten less and less contents and features with each expansion and the release schedule keeps becoming longer and longer, and the milking has steadily increased with more microtransactions.

Funny. I was thinking the same thing with WoW. Just not as severe. People who were key talents that made the game...mostly gone. Content is being made but feels somewhat kinda of lackluster. And Blizzard is definitely getting out of hand with store microtransactions. Thing is both games have their pros and cons. Just enjoy what you can from both and play them if you want.

[Yarathir]

I kinda feel like XIV swings a little too far in the, "Don't 'force' people to do content." direction with the end result being that there ain't shit to get from a lot of things.

And as sad as it might be, the impetus for most people to do content at all is to get the shiny. Yes, content can also just be fun to do, but lets be honest here.

Completely subjective.

I like having things to do when I want to do them. Not when the developer says I gotta hop in the skinner box and work the treadmill or lose out on goodboi points or some FOMO shit. If you want that, literally every other MMO is out there for you.

[Ghost of Cow]

Completely subjective.

I like having things to do when I want to do them. Not when the developer says I gotta hop in the skinner box and work the treadmill or lose out on goodboi points or some FOMO shit. If you want that, literally every other MMO is out there for you.

That's a lot of buzzwords (you fit like...all of them in. Bravo.) that really had nothing to do with what was said, though.

[Wrecktangle]

Off of the top of my head, Kazutoyo Maehiro, the MSQ writer from ARR through Heavensward, and the tonal shift after is obvious.

While I wasn't a fan of SB, ShB and EW did come after, the tonal shift there is better than HW and ARR IMO by a pretty sizeable margin. Subjective though so YMMV.

The lead battle content designer was replaced around ShB, the same time when the fights started being designed around one shot mechanics and everyone having to perfectly execute every mechanic or wipe with no in between and etc.

Uh, did you play ARR or EW? Nearly every fight had one shot mechanics. Multiples of them. Even Extremes had them.

There is also the statement from Yoshi-P on job design on how they replaced the healer main of the test team because they were too good at the game.

Fuck healing design in this game. It was always awful, it's just differently awful now. They really need to improve it somehow. That said, I'm not sure about that statement, do you know roughly when it was made (Expansion/Tier)? I'm curious because I know for a fact they used to do all their testing in god mode which was part of the problem they had to change to actual testing.

Occasionally logging in to do Eureka.

You LIKED nameless mob grinding or zerging FATEs? Or am I missing something?

Also, let's be fair that it's much more appealing to see people master a dance and work together as a unit to do things then watch you entire party die because 'oh, the boss used an ability randomly, lol'.

That is your subjective opinion and not a fact. Personally I prefer having room to carry people and not having so much personal responsibility be an instant reset to a 10+ minute encounter. That shit is for the fucking birds and why I think Ultimates are garbage content. I love challenging content, but duration and DDR isn't it. IMO of course.

Completely subjective.

I like having things to do when I want to do them. Not when the developer says I gotta hop in the skinner box and work the treadmill or lose out on goodboi points or some FOMO shit. If you want that, literally every other MMO is out there for you.

What? I don't even know what you mean by this. You say every other MMO, but I don't have any FOMO playing WoW?

[Moralgy]

And the thing is? I frankly PREFER the system where Rezzes are free like that. Because it means I keep playing and I'm not just dead on the ground for the rest of the entire fight like it is in Wow. It makes sure that the players are engaged much more often. This isn't even mentioning the fact that penalty for rezzes are STILL THERE. Oh hey, you died? Welp, chances are unless we're DRASTICLY overgeared for something means we're likely going to be missing the DPS check.

Also, let's be fair that it's much more appealing to see people master a dance and work together as a unit to do things then watch you entire party die because 'oh, the boss used an ability randomly, lol'.

Yea I def prefer this system by far over the wow system regarding rezzing. Like outside of the 8 person body checks that insta kill the entire raid, you can mess up learning new mechanics and still get to keep going in the fight. As you said, ur gonna hit dps checks with too many deaths anyways. Most 8 player body checks just give a damage down if just one person messes up, in savage at least, so its not like the fight just ends for the dreaded "dance failures".

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That is your subjective opinion and not a fact. Personally I prefer having room to carry people and not having so much personal responsibility be an instant reset to a 10+ minute encounter. That shit is for the fucking birds and why I think Ultimates are garbage content. I love challenging content, but duration and DDR isn't it. IMO of course.

That is exactly what I love, learning the mechanic and completing it flawlessly with 7 other people. Idk, ultimates are the most challenging content ive encountered in an MMO so that stuff just feels so good to learn and complete. Stuff like extremes where u lose a person to the "hardest mechanic" and are still fine by a long shot gets pretty boring ngl, but I dont really enjoy carrying people unless they are paying me gil.

[deenman]

It's a good thing you quit the game right? So that you don't get irrationally angry at a game you irrationally hate, right? Though it doesn't matter because your thread history already tells me that your "criticism" isn't worth the bandwidth you used to type it.

a perfectly valid criticism of the game is irrational hate?jesus dude,tone down the fanatism,the game cant actualy have sex with you

[Arlette]

So we went from, "You don't like anything, hater!" to "You like the wrong thing, dummy!"

Kinda feels more personal than anything at this point.

lol no it was, "You like the one thing nobody else likes and hate everything else, you're clearly just an edgy contrarian who shows up to hate every single thing in this game, why are you even playing the game for a feature that will never be updated again and hasn't in 6 years and from the sound of it, you don't even really like it that much?"

But thanks for trying.

It would be like me saying, "The only thing I find somewhat fun in World of Warcraft that I still log on for occasionally is archeology." The thing that hasn't been updated since Battle for Azeroth and hasn't been a feature for 2 entire expansions and I'm complaining about literally every other feature of WoW. It's entirely reasonable to look at someone like that and to say, "Why the fuck are you still playing the game then?"

[Calfredd]

a perfectly valid criticism of the game is irrational hate?jesus dude,tone down the fanatism,the game cant actualy have sex with you

Bit late on that reply there, eh? Speaking of "valid criticism", you have no room to talk.

[Yarathir]

That's a lot of buzzwords (you fit like...all of them in. Bravo.) that really had nothing to do with what was said, though.

I accept that you don't feel like you're able to contend with what I have to say so you just sidestep and gripe a bit about buzzwords when the message was perfectly conveyed.

Please don't respond to me if you aren't able.

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lol no it was, "You like the one thing nobody else likes and hate everything else, you're clearly just an edgy contrarian who shows up to hate every single thing in this game, why are you even playing the game for a feature that will never be updated again and hasn't in 6 years and from the sound of it, you don't even really like it that much?"

But thanks for trying.

It would be like me saying, "The only thing I find somewhat fun in World of Warcraft that I still log on for occasionally is archeology." The thing that hasn't been updated since Battle for Azeroth and hasn't been a feature for 2 entire expansions and I'm complaining about literally every other feature of WoW. It's entirely reasonable to look at someone like that and to say, "Why the fuck are you still playing the game then?"

I can't believe people are still playing devil's advocate for that one.

There's an unflagging consistency there in picking the least sensible position and ardently insisting upon it. Not only with FFXIV, mind you.

[Ghost of Cow]

What? I don't even know what you mean by this. You say every other MMO, but I don't have any FOMO playing WoW?

It's just buzzword salad.

Not to mention that if you're gonna whine about "FOMO" it's not like XIV is exempt from it. Even if they're fairly small things (moogle tome uniques) or anything up to housing.

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You LIKED nameless mob grinding or zerging FATEs? Or am I missing something?

Yeah, I hated Eureka. I think I said in this thread that just seeing it made me unsub for a while, I was just so put off by the creation of such an abomination.

That said, to each their own, I suppose!

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That is your subjective opinion and not a fact. Personally I prefer having room to carry people and not having so much personal responsibility be an instant reset to a 10+ minute encounter. That shit is for the fucking birds and why I think Ultimates are garbage content. I love challenging content, but duration and DDR isn't it. IMO of course.

This is my problem with XIV content in general. It rarely feels like I'm being challenged in my gameplay, but in one Heigan dance after another.

It's purely subjective, of course. I love the fight design, presentation, etc. I just wish there was more room for players to excel in their gameplay, rather than playing the "Hall of Memory" game from that Robot Chicken piece. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDYn6a6pbZY

[Grinning Serpent]

Fuck healing design in this game. It was always awful, it's just differently awful now. They really need to improve it somehow. That said, I'm not sure about that statement, do you know roughly when it was made (Expansion/Tier)? I'm curious because I know for a fact they used to do all their testing in god mode which was part of the problem they had to change to actual testing.

I don't think XIV can have good healing design. The nature of the game and its "lag" prevents it. You will always have to heal proactively, never reactively, and damage can't be randomized. And I think they're adamant about not requiring healers to have any sort of DPS rotation. Even though WoW proves definitively that "casuals" can handle simple rotations...

[MsSideEye]

That is your subjective opinion and not a fact. Personally I prefer having room to carry people and not having so much personal responsibility be an instant reset to a 10+ minute encounter. That shit is for the fucking birds and why I think Ultimates are garbage content. I love challenging content, but duration and DDR isn't it. IMO of course.

I mean, is it an opinion, sure, but I'd think it's an opinion that stands pretty strongly by those of us who play the game. Dying and watching everyone else continue having fun while you eat the floor isn't entertaining or enjoyable. With 14's rez system, I'm up again and playing in a short amount of time usually. In Wow, unless i was the tank, a rez only ever happened after the battle was over or we were corpse walking.

Now i can't say anything for Ultimate because, honestly, I don't care for trying to last 15 to 20 minutes perfecting a fight. I'm not that good and I'm perfectly fine with admitting that. But this is also us talking about a battle that's designed to be the hardest content in the game and, let's be honest, the hardest content in MMO's in general that actually strikes the balance of being doable and fair and not just being 'lol, you died'. I'm ok with it expecting that out of the few players who are dedicated enough to go shoot for that.

I accept that you don't feel like you're able to contend with what I have to say so you just sidestep and gripe a bit about buzzwords when the message was perfectly conveyed.

While there are a lot of buzzwords around that people use to try and either stir up trouble or to put the blame on people (Woke, for example), It's kinda sad just how some people are willing to twist themselves into pretzels just to make it seem like they're on some moral high ground, huh?

[Ghost of Cow]

I accept that you don't feel like you're able to contend with what I have to say so you just sidestep and gripe a bit about buzzwords when the message was perfectly conveyed.

Please don't respond to me if you aren't able.

I mean, it really IS just buzzword salad, though. You don't even elaborate on how or why - and you even seem to ignore all the things that XIV has that fit all the same criteria.

Just typing in, "FOMO! Skinner! Treadmill!" and pressing submit does not an argument make. (Though I don't know why you caught an infraction there. That didn't seem like it was out of line or anything.)

[Wrecktangle]

I don't think XIV can have good healing design. The nature of the game and its "lag" prevents it. You will always have to heal proactively, never reactively, and damage can't be randomized. And I think they're adamant about not requiring healers to have any sort of DPS rotation. Even though WoW proves definitively that "casuals" can handle simple rotations...

I agree, with how they've designed the combat system and encounters I just don't see how to make healers interesting, but I am NO expert on healing paradigms so I can't offer much more than superficial insight.

I mean, is it an opinion, sure, but I'd think it's an opinion that stands pretty strongly by those of us who play the game. Dying and watching everyone else continue having fun while you eat the floor isn't entertaining or enjoyable. With 14's rez system, I'm up again and playing in a short amount of time usually. In Wow, unless i was the tank, a rez only ever happened after the battle was over or we were corpse walking.

1) What do you mean "those of us that play the game"? I play the game and I don't share that opinion.

2) You're moving the goalposts. I wasn't talking about watching everyone else playing while you lay dead on the floor. That wasn't my point nor did I refute that statement as I personally agree with that. You said and I quote "Also, let's be fair that it's much more appealing to see people master a dance and work together as a unit to do things then watch you entire party die because 'oh, the boss used an ability randomly, lol'." I don't think placing so much personal responsibility with auto fail mechanics is good design. It's rigid and INCREDIBLY unfun when you have something that 1 or 2 people just can't figure out with dozens of pulls, especially when it comes 10+ minutes into a fight. I said this is subjective and an opinion and you tried to argue otherwise.

3) I don't quite understand your Battle Rez comment re: WoW though. I am assuming you're speaking about raid content here, because it's unequivocally false for M+. If you aren't being ressed in a raid it's because:

A) You're not a tank/healer.
B) It's already too far gone a situation (i.e. no resses left, multiple people down)
C) You're not pulling your weight as a DPS.

Now i can't say anything for Ultimate because, honestly, I don't care for trying to last 15 to 20 minutes perfecting a fight. I'm not that good and I'm perfectly fine with admitting that. But this is also us talking about a battle that's designed to be the hardest content in the game and, let's be honest, the hardest content in MMO's in general that actually strikes the balance of being doable and fair and not just being 'lol, you died'. I'm ok with it expecting that out of the few players who are dedicated enough to go shoot for that.

What really grinds my gears here is you actually LITERALLY agree with me here, but it sounds like you're just arguing with me cause? Also fun fact, Ultimates are "lol, you died" mechanics back to back. 75%+ of them aren't intuitive and just straight wipe you over and over until you get the debuff spam and patterns identified. Again make no mistake, my issue isn't the difficulty that's manageable it's the duration of them that's exhausting and unfun. I hated when WoW did super long bosses where they're only challenging towards end and you waste 10+ mins just trying to see the mechanic a few times to understand it.

[MsSideEye]

1) What do you mean "those of us that play the game"? I play the game and I don't share that opinion.

You're the minority. Especially from those of us who came from WoW, nearly everyone I've talked to or met online has pretty much said the same thing. They'd rather be active or doing something than dead on the ground. It's the literal difference between active or not.

2) You're moving the goalposts. I wasn't talking about watching everyone else playing while you lay dead on the floor. That wasn't my point nor did I refute that statement as I personally agree with that. You said and I quote "Also, let's be fair that it's much more appealing to see people master a dance and work together as a unit to do things then watch you entire party die because 'oh, the boss used an ability randomly, lol'." I don't think placing so much personal responsibility with auto fail mechanics is good design. It's rigid and INCREDIBLY unfun when you have something that 1 or 2 people just can't figure out with dozens of pulls, especially when it comes 10+ minutes into a fight. I said this is subjective and an opinion and you tried to argue otherwise.

I mean, I don't know about you, but I'd rather be PLAYING the game then afking to make a sandwich because I died and the rest of the team decided that it was more important to fight without me. And I still stand by what you quoted. Having a boss showing a predictable, understandable attack that I could probably time down to the second IS better design then 'Oh, hey, the boss has this ability he'll randomly cast every once in a while that wipes out the entire party and there's no way to predict it' that WoW has suffered through in the past.

Your focus on seems to be entirely on Ultimates here, which I already told you that isn't for me and I don't care for them. Savages have this to a certain extent, but I'll still fully state that I've had more fun in a learning group (Something wow never had), trying to peace together what we'd do then I ever had in all my years raiding in WoW.

3) I don't quite understand your Battle Rez comment re: WoW though. I am assuming you're speaking about raid content here, because it's unequivocally false for M+. If you aren't being ressed in a raid it's because:

A) You're not a tank/healer.
B) It's already too far gone a situation (i.e. no resses left, multiple people down)
C) You're not pulling your weight as a DPS.

My comment is that unless the situation is B, there should be at no point where you can't rez party members. Engaging with the game should be paramount. WoW has made it so that you're limited on how many Battle Rezs your allowed before the game just tells you 'no'. And that's when it even allowed it, since I seem to recall that it was only druids who could battle rez in the past? Going off years old memory in that instance. Regardless, 14 handles this by reducing your damage severely which, in most of the Savage fights, is fairly likely going to prevent you from hitting the DPS check to take down the boss. But you're still getting to play, getting to learn the fight. That has more value.

What really grinds my gears here is you actually LITERALLY agree with me here, but it sounds like you're just arguing with me cause? Also fun fact, Ultimates are "lol, you died" mechanics back to back. 75%+ of them aren't intuitive and just straight wipe you over and over until you get the debuff spam and patterns identified. Again make no mistake, my issue isn't the difficulty that's manageable it's the duration of them that's exhausting and unfun. I hated when WoW did super long bosses where they're only challenging towards end and you waste 10+ mins just trying to see the mechanic a few times to understand it.

I'm arguing for the Rez system as a whole. You're the one whose solely focused on Ultimates. And Ultimates are designed, by their very nature, to be tests of skill, patience, and eight people gelling together perfectly to understand a fight. The rest of the game, however, is not designed like the Ultimate. As someone else in this thread said, there's maybe one ability per boss, if that, which can be an instakill? And 9 times out of 10, those abilities are 'We're going to kill you if you stand around like a dumbass'. It's designed to make the play react, everyone from the tank to the Machinist in the corner whose not moved once the entire fight. And having the game interact with the player is much more enjoyable then saying 'Oh, you don't make the gear check, so you lose', another WoW failing.

[Ghost of Cow]

You're the minority.

Quite the scientific analysis there.

Especially from those of us who came from WoW, nearly everyone I've talked to or met online has pretty much said the same thing. They'd rather be active or doing something than dead on the ground. It's the literal difference between active or not.

I mean, also coming from WoW here, and I really don't like the "infinite rez" capability in XIV, either.

If nothing else, it's what necessitates the fight design to be the all-or-nothing way that it is. It sounds neat on paper ("I get to play more and not be dead!") but the results are kinda eh.

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Also this:

in a learning group (Something wow never had)

...huh?

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And having the game interact with the player is much more enjoyable then saying 'Oh, you don't make the gear check, so you lose', another WoW failing.

You say a lot of things that really make it seem like you never actually logged in to WoW....

[Yarathir]

I mean, it really IS just buzzword salad, though. You don't even elaborate on how or why - and you even seem to ignore all the things that XIV has that fit all the same criteria.

Just typing in, "FOMO! Skinner! Treadmill!" and pressing submit does not an argument make. (Though I don't know why you caught an infraction there. That didn't seem like it was out of line or anything.)

These are all terms that have a pretty clear-cut definition that can be gleaned from them. Just because they're common terms to describe rightfully maligned shit in MMOs doesn't mean they suddenly don't count.

And "actually if you look at this, XIV has like 1% of that as well therefore I win" is not really intellectually honest either. Housing isn't FOMO, it's just a system limited by its age. It's also never going away as a feature, nor does it have anything you need other than the ability to place more indoor furnishings than an apartment.

The PvP malmstone thing is also tentatively not FOMO (since the rewards were said to return; we will have to wait to see if that pans out). Most events return or the items are taken to the shop.

The gear progression is decidedly not a treadmill (this is explicitly what some of you are decrying in "there isn't enough quirky special gear to farm") because you can fairly reliably get what you need to.

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You say a lot of things that really make it seem like you never actually logged in to WoW....

A lot of WoW raids boil down to that.

[Ghost of Cow]

A lot of WoW raids boil down to that.

Do tell, what WoW raid boils down to, "Don't interact with the game, just make a gear check."?