Archy, Mysterious Fortune Card, Thrall Then and Now, Kinect WoW, Blue Posts

[zrankfappa]

Hrm...well lets examine this shall we? We're three weeks in, so that means you could have only done BH 3 times, whats the easiest way to gain rep? oh right heroics! , how many people have the money to pay some of the rediculous prices for the BoEs? escpecially casuals? and crafted pieces that are worth anything require the new orbs which are BoP and come from where? the end of a heroic! So supporting the idea that casuals can easily obtain gear outside of heroics is rediculous.

I lawl at your "L2Tank or Heal", so if the queue is full of tanks and healers, who is going to DPS? And I don't know if you noticed, but neither tanking or healing are cake walks anymore, so they require as much if not more skill than DPSing.

And really? calling pure DPS classes lazy cause they have to wait in LFD queues? Some people don't have guilds, some guilds don't do guild heroics, most people will not run with a scheduled cross-guild group.

Failtards? really? I complain not at the fact that these things are hard so much as they are too hard for the majority of the player base, I play 6+ hours a day, I have no life, I'm the definition of hardcore, I know how to play my toons, in whatever role they're in. However, most people have lives, and cannot dedicate the same time that others do to this game, now does that mean they are automatically less skilled than hardcore? not necessarily. What it does imply though is that as they don't dedicate much time per day/week to playing they don't want to wait an hour in a queue just to fail or sit in a heroic for 2+ hours, so they don't queue.

how about this angle: if your a casual player, say 10 hours a week, your guild doesn't do anything organized or your not in a guild. Why exactly do you need current tier epics?

again, we go back to the Health Club analogy. You are paying a monthly fee for access to tools to attain your goals and the enjoyment you derive from those activities. It may be necessary for you to adjust your goals to those which reflect the time you can dedicate to them.

no where is it written that the person who uses the tread mill for a half hour a day be allowed to win Mr/Mrs Universe because they pay the same amount for membership.

[Mokz]

I have to say that I enjoy learning the new fights and I generally don't mind the difficulty.

However, on the other side of the coin: "players were conditioned to mow throw heroics at lightning speed" is the fault of Blizzard. Blizzard designed those encounters. They were easy once learned and then proceeded to nerf them in a series of patches. Blizzard designed the game to be very casual and accessable. And now, the blame for things being too hard has been put on lazy or unattentive players. It is completely Blizzard's fault here than there are a great number of unhappy players, if that is the case.

I have also read recently that if players want to zerg content, run normal dungeons. After the first "random", is there really any great benefit to this? There is a reputation grind there with a couple of epic pieces per character at Exhalted.

Blizzard had a decent balance at BC, lowered the bar for WoTLK and then raised it for Cata. Makes sense that some folks are unhappy about that.

In my experience some of the heroic bosses are tank spanky, some are a decent challenge and then some are "OMG, am I in a raid?". I've also noticed that in terms of drops, far more healing and tanking things drop. I think that's great for those roles, I really do, but the distribution seems skewed. With DPS having the jobs of applying CC, Interrupts and performing as if you are in a raid environment, it's no longer faceroll across the keyboard, pew pew.

In conclusion I do enjoy some of the complexities but I don't feel Blizzard need to go so far in tuning up the heroics. IMHO, more of a middle-ground would have been nice to re-condition those folks that THEY turned into facerollers into expectations of skill. Maybe the heroics should have been tiered themselves somewhat. I do like a good challenge but I can't blame anyone for being a bit surprised and upset.

[Clockwerk]

Microsoft Kinect

Tens of thousands of dollars on software and hardware, but yet they can't buy a tripod, and a better camera man?

[Kotiria]

I have to say that I enjoy learning the new fights and I generally don't mind the difficulty.

However, on the other side of the coin: "players were conditioned to mow throw heroics at lightning speed" is the fault of Blizzard. Blizzard designed those encounters. They were easy once learned and then proceeded to nerf them in a series of patches. Blizzard designed the game to be very casual and accessable. And now, the blame for things being too hard has been put on lazy or unattentive players. It is completely Blizzard's fault here than there are a great number of unhappy players, if that is the case.

I have also read recently that if players want to zerg content, run normal dungeons. After the first "random", is there really any great benefit to this? There is a reputation grind there with a couple of epic pieces per character at Exhalted.

Blizzard had a decent balance at BC, lowered the bar for WoTLK and then raised it for Cata. Makes sense that some folks are unhappy about that.

In my experience some of the heroic bosses are tank spanky, some are a decent challenge and then some are "OMG, am I in a raid?". I've also noticed that in terms of drops, far more healing and tanking things drop. I think that's great for those roles, I really do, but the distribution seems skewed. With DPS having the jobs of applying CC, Interrupts and performing as if you are in a raid environment, it's no longer faceroll across the keyboard, pew pew.

In conclusion I do enjoy some of the complexities but I don't feel Blizzard need to go so far in tuning up the heroics. IMHO, more of a middle-ground would have been nice to re-condition those folks that THEY turned into facerollers into expectations of skill. Maybe the heroics should have been tiered themselves somewhat. I do like a good challenge but I can't blame anyone for being a bit surprised and upset.

This post is perfect.

[mstieler]

Holy cow, I can't believe how awesome Archy is. It solves practically every trivial issue with Archaeology (the only missing thing would be some form of triangulation, but I'm not sure that would work).

[ctk4949]

I do not mind the heroics being difficult or challenging, but there are too many boss/trash in each heroic. I do NOT want to spend 1-3 hours per heroic dungeon. That is what my raiding time is for!! I am seeing a few ppl talking about quitting this game.

[Naatee]

Blue comment on heroic dungeon difficulty is absolute outrage. Not only Zarhym obviously bit a troll, he also quite blatantly insulted wide range of players that play WoW casually--meaning they have to prioritize when and for how long they can play, the term does not determine their performance in-game.

I was great supporter of LFD tool when it was introduced during mid-WOTLK and avid supporter of it for the rest of it. It is with great disappointment to finally admit that Cataclysm killed LFD, at least until time when general public will overgear these instances again. Zarhym said they wanted to make Cataclysm game play challenging and fun. I fully support such statement and determination, however, such intention should not go against previously implemented solutions--e.g. LFD tool. This tool bring to life true meaning of term pick-up group: random people joining random instance with varying levels of game knowledge, gear, experience and time available. Expectation that such group will work at high level of coordination, communication and within performance limits to allow for smooth clearing of challenging content is far too stretched. It can, it sometimes does but more often than not it is not the case.

I'm currently at verge of completely abandoning any attempts to join LFD with my characters because it just does not work anymore. Introduction of CC requirements, at least in early stages of Cataclysm, and damaging mechanics that are avoidable but deal significant amount of damage if not avoided have pushed "difficulty" of instances far away from what you can reasonably expect from LFD PUGs. I intentionally put difficulty in parenthesis as this is difficulty is artificial. Problem with the difficulty is in fact it works in a binary manner. It is either there, when you do not have CC, or it is not there, when you bring lots of it. LFD tool is not able to ensure you have class composition with viable CC similarly it cant ensure you get competent players. If shit hits the fan, you not only get little or no CC at all but also incompetent players to top it off. Unfortunately, the later situation is what I have been experiencing with LFD for quite some time now.

At the end, this rant only addresses issues with LFD as Cataclysm content is very enjoyable with friends and guildmates so far.

I agree with Baron01. I have been playing Wow for many years, often in large guilds but smaller ones as well. Big Guilds with solid core teams are using LFD to complete instances and gain additional Valor tokens. They even are dragging a few casual players (whether guild-mates or puggers) thru as well. But the majority of PUG attempts with other casual players are mostly failures. I managed to complete 10 days worth of PUG style LFD out of 13 days of trying. The other 3 nights I gave up after wasting 4 to 5 hours trying to complete the daily random. 2 of the LFD were lucky draw groups where 3 or 4 player where from a single guild and they knew the instance, they were done with few to no wipes. The other 8 took repeated wipes, very often the groups would lose a skilled player who gave up on the others and many times the whole group disbanded causing me to needed to re-queue 2, 3 or 4 times to get the random done.

In my opinion casual tanks and healers are having too hard of a time with LFD which is why there are too few willing to tank or heal them causing the queue times to be so long for DPS. I have queued as healer and gotten quick queues, and struggled to keep groups alive due to tank or dps not having gear, skill or knowing the boss fights. Even trying to communicate and be proactive doesn't solve many issues with casual puggers.

I believe the top 5 or 10% are doing good, if they are large guilds of good players willing to run daily heroics. Another 10 or 15% are managing with slight time constrains in less than all guild groups. But the majority of casual puggers are struggling beyond their time they can dedicate to the game. If you can't dedicate 5+ hours a day to the game, you will fall further and further behind. I have seen several casual tanks and healers give up trying to complete daily's or in some cases they are no longer willing to play the game.

[Arcanediety]

how about this angle: if your a casual player, say 10 hours a week, your guild doesn't do anything organized or your not in a guild. Why exactly do you need current tier epics?

again, we go back to the Health Club analogy. You are paying a monthly fee for access to tools to attain your goals and the enjoyment you derive from those activities. It may be necessary for you to adjust your goals to those which reflect the time you can dedicate to them.

no where is it written that the person who uses the tread mill for a half hour a day be allowed to win Mr/Mrs Universe because they pay the same amount for membership.

I'm not talking about tier epics, I'm talking about heroic blues. And some people are part of casual guilds or small guilds or a combination of the two, ones that raid maybe 1-2 nights a week, which means they need this gear but are at a severe disadvantage against larger, hardcore guilds.

[Grayem]

That Kinect WoW is a great idea. The blue posts are blue posts, nothing new. Casuals are bad they say. Rather then maybe as a causal I don't have a few hours to spend waiting and completely a random. Seems to me the new Blizzard motto is, keep them in game as long as we can. As for the "new" grinding gear thing, normals, heroics, raids. That's how BC was. Looks like Blizzard is trying to stretch out content to make it last longer. All that gear you're trying to get now is going to be obsolete come may anyway.

[Frolk]

God i want kinect for my prot warrior, wonder how charge could work, something like "charge, ends up headbutting the screen and breaking it"

[zrankfappa]

I'm not talking about tier epics, I'm talking about heroic blues. And some people are part of casual guilds or small guilds or a combination of the two, ones that raid maybe 1-2 nights a week, which means they need this gear but are at a severe disadvantage against larger, hardcore guilds.

what "disadvantage"? that word indicates that some sort of competition exists between the two ... what are you talking about?

[LibrarianKay]

I play on the Battlegroup that contains the Latin American servers.

When Zarhym started going on about communication I lol'd pretty hard.

That said...the expectation required by heroics is not unreasonable from the player base as a whole.

It IS an unreasonable expectation of pugs, and is effectively killing LFD.

[Grayem]

I do not mind the heroics being difficult or challenging, but there are too many boss/trash in each heroic. I do NOT want to spend 1-3 hours per heroic dungeon. That is what my raiding time is for!! I am seeing a few ppl talking about quitting this game.

And That's just what I've done. I'm a casual because of the time I can give to this game, not my level of play. I liked the fact that in wrath I could jump on for an hour and get a random done. Now that's wait time. I just can't do it anymore. Since justice points buy that ilvl 346 stuff, which is basically dungeon set 1 for cataclysm. I'm thinking there's going to be a dungeon set 2 come tier 12 stuff. I see this game getting more and more like the time sink vanilla was. I won't play that.

[Kainan]

Heroics won't change at all because they probably don't have anything done for the next expansion so there extending the games life by making things really hard for everyone. I laughed when I saw someone say this game is becoming more like everquest lol. The irony of that is because the people who worked on everquest on working on WoW now so yeah the game is going to become very similar to what everquest was back in the day. The people with little time to play won't have any place in the future of WoW. I've always said minimum dedication time to playing any MMO is 4 hours of playtime any less then that your not going to get anywhere near endgame content or get anything done sufficiently.

[Buu]

About those cards... They are part of Fortune Cookies recipe, which gives you a HUGE replenishment and HUGE status bonus, AND a chance at the big card.
So that Cooking recipe is pure win.

[Critterbot]

Neat! But...no. xD

[Buu]

In conclusion I do enjoy some of the complexities but I don't feel Blizzard need to go so far in tuning up the heroics. IMHO, more of a middle-ground would have been nice to re-condition those folks that THEY turned into facerollers into expectations of skill. Maybe the heroics should have been tiered themselves somewhat. I do like a good challenge but I can't blame anyone for being a bit surprised and upset.

Does Blizzard even KNOW what that means?
All the news I did read on Cata Beta, and PTR were about nerf under the ground or buff above clouds.
They should cut their name to Blard, because they don't have a middle term.

[Deleted]

Gotta love Archy =) I've been playing with it for a week or so now and it made getting my second 525 sooooo much easier (the first wasn't an alchemist /wrists). Not sure why people seem to think it's bloated and as for being messy you can customize what parts of the display it shows and where they're placed, not to mention titan support and a 1 touch UI hide when you aren't scouring digs. Do I use every feature it offers? No. Does it provide everything I need in a convenient switch-free UI? Definitely.

[Rolly]

Zarhym is a hypocritical asshole, plain and simple. If I was to post what he did I would get banned. He once banned me for using an in game emote that he himself used later that day.

@ Buu "They should cut their name to Blard, because they don't have a middle term."

bwahahahah that is perfect, I shall for evermore call Blizzard Blard.

edit: oh yea almost forgot. This development team has mistaken "long and tedious" for challenge. There was a reason we bitched about trash in vanilla and like with so many other things in Cata they've just re-introduced tedious mechanics from that and the BC era, I guess they just thought the players would "forget" ( too much trash, random enchants on crafted gear( oh yes blizz I want to farm for hours on the off chance I might make gear my rogue can use thank you /s), BOP crafting mats, fears/horrifies whatever the fuck they want to call it loss of character control) all of these things on top of bizarrely fast leveling(so stupid on a mmo level and a business level it boggles), linearity worse than console games, locking out content by phasing.
I'm actually quite surprised they never re-introduced attunements .

Anyhoo I'm done, all that and the abysmal community(hello arronwolf) is just too much. It's been a fun ride, 6 years and change. sure hope some of the new games coming out are good.

[CaldusAuch]

The only problem I have with the new heroics is the length of the run. I do find the some of the fights to be exceptionally challenging, but I think that it's still reasonable. I just hate that it takes an hour an a half to two hours to clear a heroic dungeon, it would be nice if they could reduce the amount of trash from instances like Grim Batol, (Although I find Halls of Origination was very nicely balanced in this regard) but if it doesn't happen, that will be okay with me too I'll just have to start doing heroics on the weekends.

Honestly, if players are really struggling to clear heroics and want to "zerg" content to improve gear, you can always put together a group and go back and grind WLK heroics and raids. I haven't run any recently, but I think they still drop justice points. It certainly doesn't sound like fun to me, but if you're jonesing for "zerg"-able content fun probably isn't a major concern to begin with.