I am hoping that all we see about the brawlers club is just something that is still in the idea phase and some changes will be made. Everyone seems to have a problem with it and I agree with everyone's problems.
Buying an invitation:
I don't have as much of an issue with this as others do. I do agree with their point however. Why should they need to buy an invitation and base buying it on a little bit of luck and a lot of bit of who has the most gold. If a vendor sold the invitation for 20K and you could buy it whenever you wanted I am sure people would have less of a problem with it. It would just be a cost of the game, like the 120K mount or the 5K flying. Options you can get at any time when you had the gold to do so. It is the whole idea that you need to get lucky enough to win the auction for it that is a bad idea, one thing do not like and one I agree is a bad idea.
I have the money, I have no issues buying it. I'll find one on the auction house, put a high bid on it, let everyone else fight over the others and be comfortable in knowing that even if I over paid I am guaranteed one. No harm no foul. But why should I have to do that. The auction house for invites is a horrible idea.
Selling an invitation:
I am not completely sure how this works yet but I have read some complaints that people could lock up all the invitations and basically control who gets in and who doesn't. I don't see that happening. Even if someone were to spend the type of gold needed to do that people would still find their way in grabbing an auction here and there.
The issue they have, and I agree with, is that even if it seems impossible that someone could corner the brawler invitation market the fact that it is possible using this route of distribution is wrong.
If someone could lock up the majority of invitations they could basically make a fortune reselling invitations to others and while I have no issues with buying and selling there is a huge difference between buying and selling items and buying and selling content. How would you feel if you needed to pay another player to be allowed to raid the new raid, or having to pay another player for the right to create an arena team, or perhaps even pay another player to open up your shado-pan dailies for you. Any time you have people in control of who gets to participate in content you are going to have problems. Even if it is extremely unlikely, the fact it is possible shows that this is wrong.
Waiting to fight:
They said they are doing this limited invitation system to keep the brawlers club from being over crowded immediately. The reason they need to do this is because the fights are not phased. If you want to fight and there are 25 people ahead of you waiting to fight you have to wait for all 25 to finish. That is complete bull shit, excuse the language.
There is enough to do this expansion between reputation grinds, valor grinds, gearing grinds, all of that on alts if you want to get them up, farming, pet battles, etc. Does the player that actually participates in all of that stuff, the type of player that would love to do the brawlers guild, really have the time to sit around of an hour or an hour and a half just to fight? No. And we should not have to.
This is the design part I have an issue with from what I have read others complain about and I hope it changes. If it makes it live it will be right near the top of the list of the worst additions to the game ever. This expansion has so much to offer, which is fantastic, so to add another thing, that you have to stand around and wait to do, is horrible. This expansion is all about doing as much as you can do and there is a lot to do. Why did they not add this in cataclysm when there was no reason to leave your main city. When people were just standing around doing nothing to begin with. Standing around and waiting for something to do was the cataclysm way, it should not be the mists way.
Now, they have finally created content that makes us want to leave our own city as often as we can and they are adding something to the game that will make us stand around our home city waiting. Excuse me? I just don't get it. Do you want us out in the world or standing around SW/Org waiting for something to do? Please, pick an option and stick to it.
One quick fix:
Do not make the fights have a timer where you need to wait in line. Phase them and you fixed that problem that people are complaining about, no more waiting. If there is no waiting that means there is no reason to limit the number of people that enter it, so no longer is there a need to sell tickets on the black market auction house. Another problem solved. If there are no tickets, there will be no one that can corner the market. There you go, all the above mentioned problems are now fixed.
Hunter's dream:
This is an addition that has hunter love written all over it. Unless they make some changes to our pets that make them all squishy any hunter, even a bad one, can easily solo every single boss in the brawlers club. I am looking forward to this, I will pay for it and I will wait for it. I will not be happy about either, but it is content I want to play, something that was made for me. I just wish blizzard would use their head more and realize that letting people wait in line for something like this is not a good idea.
The problem with lines:
Problem one, the waiting, is a big problem. Say 20 people are ahead of you, say all 20 are decent players, that means nice and quick 3 minute fights, that means an hour before you can do one battle. How is waiting an hour to do one 3 minute fight fun?
With so much you need to do in the game, like I mentioned earlier, waiting an hour to do something that takes a few minutes is not a good choice for your time investment. It is bad design.
Now add something else to the problem with lines, the players. Not all players will be good. Some will be, not so good. This means it might not be 3 minutes fights, it could be 10 minute fights and if all 20 of those not so good people all take10 minutes each that means that you have to wait 200 minutes, 3 hours and 20 minutes. To do a 3 minute fight? Who the F came up with this idea? Had to be ghostcrawler, he has a knack for coming up with horrible ideas.
Now add in other factors, the fights could take 20 minutes or more if the player happens to be a healing class that can keep it going. Or, as you know this will happen, someone could drag on a fight all day long just to screw with other people. The game is filled with jerks and you know they will be in this part of it as well.
Lets say for instance I put my pet on stay and passive, so he does no damage but make sure he keeps growling and I can keep the fight going for years if I wanted to. Mend pet to keep the mob on him, feign death once in a while so I do not take aggro when I can not follow up a mend pet with a growl. Now while I might not do something like that because I am not a jerk and I value my time in game way to much to waste it in a way like that you know there will be players that will do exactly that just because they like to screw with other people.
Perhaps there is a timer on the fights that I have not read about yet but if there isn't, they better add one. Something like if a winner is not decided in 5 minutes the challenger loses. Forcing people to actually fight and try to win or suffer a timer loss.
From what I read you are not even allowed to go and do other things while waiting your turn. Not sure if that is true as I have not tired it, but based on what I've read so far you need to wait for your turn. Sure, I need to wait at least 1 hour, maybe 3 hours and 20 minutes and possibly more. No thank you. I want to play the game, not wait all day for 3 minutes of fun.
Endnote:
I am really looking forward to this. I want to kill all those bosses, I love to solo things and this is right up my alley. But I do not have much faith in the way it is being added to the game. In a mmo you should never have something that you need to form a line to do. It is not in the spirit of multi player games. In multi player games it should be about who gets there first, or a group effort. It should be a battle to see who gets the kill and not about who can wait the longest for their turn. I hope some changes happen because as it is the brawlers guild has a hell of a lot of problems before it even starts. Too bad, it sounds awesome in theory. Too bad it won't be in practice if they keep it the way it is.
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Far as I can recall, every previous PvE arena-style combat area in WoW has been of the "wait your turn" variety, not sure how everyone has managed to forget that. My biggest hope is that Brawler's Club prevents viewers from grief-tagging the mob, if they can do that, BC will be superior to anything that came before it, and I don't recall the backlash (was there any?) against those arenas to be anything compared to what I'm seeing for BC. If they didn't stagger the invitations in some way, it'd be overly busy for the first few days, sure, but would find its base queue level soon enough. Staggering the invites potentially minimizes the mad rush the first few days.
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, while phasing would avoid the queue entirely, it would also completely negate what Blizz is trying to do here. They want people to stay and watch - cheer and mock, clap and boo. If someone doesn't have a raid group or a PvP group, they can show off their skills to an appreciative crowd, some of whom might be looking for raiders or PvP partners. Blizz wants it to be an EVENT. They want skilled players to be appreciated by the viewers and they might even want poor players who view themselves otherwise to get a dose of reality. The trade troll who was "5/6 HM" and mocks LFR for being too easy will either have to avoid it, or will be shown to be an unskilled fraud. If you're sitting in a 15m LFD queue and don't feel like doing dailies, or pet battles, or any of the other options out there, you can pop over to BC and watch some combat. I can't speak for anyone else but I expect I'll find time to watch occasionally.
I love this idea. Sure, they could hand out invitations differently, but any sort of staggered invitation system will be biased in one direction or another, BMAH at least is a somewhat known quantity by now.
The difference is that in previous versions it was a group effort and if you wanted to get your turn up faster you could help the other people (or grief them if that is your thing) to push it along. This is completely different. It is one on one and no one can help you or grief you. Unless you are talking about something I never experienced and have no clue what you are referring to, so if that is the case, ignore what I just said. lol
DeleteI do love what you said here "The trade troll who was "5/6 HM" and mocks LFR for being too easy will either have to avoid it, or will be shown to be an unskilled fraud." because I know a lot of people like that. I find the people who talk the biggest crap are usually the worst players.
As for me, I like to quest, I like to solo things, I like to play the game for fun. Waiting my turn, what could possibly be hours, is not my idea of fun.
How do you think raiders would feel if they could not raid because another guild on the server was raiding and they needed to wait for them to finish? How would you like it if you went to do your shado-pan dailies and you couldn't because someone else was doing them? I do not want to wait to raid, I do not want to wait to do my dailies and I do not want to wait to fight in the brawlers guild.
I log on to do things at specific times based on the time I have available to play, not to wait to be allowed to do them. While this is something I will most likely just wait and do it later when the rush is over if it stays like this, it is still bad design, to make people wait.
People pay to play the game, they do not pay to watch others play the game. Okay, maybe some do, but I don't.
The group fights like CoC are things you do once for the quest to get XP and gear. Blizz even made the one this time a scenario instead of open world.
DeleteThey should make it instanced and they can keep the spectator part by letting spectators jump into the different active instances. It can be a test for potential arena/raid spectating in the future.
Enter Viewing box
Pick a boss or a player you want to watch
Watch them fight
It could have popular picks or random viewing, etc. You could watch from the web as well or the Mobile App.
Instead, it sounds like they want it to be super exclusive.
No thanks. If I want to solo stuff, I'll do what I've always done and just solo a dungeon or raid. If I want to watch, I'll go hit YouTube or somebody's live stream.
@Jaeger
DeleteYou seem to be in the same school of thought I am. The waiting thing just has to go.
I would love to see them doing a viewing option and use that as a test for future additions of that. I always wanted a raid viewer option. A great way for backups to learn the fights while not being in them. This is a good chance to give that a test. Same as the farm is a test for player housing. Everything has to start somewhere and this is a great place for that to start. But instead, they just want us to wait in lines to play. That is not what MMOs are about.
PVP anon: I get that they are thinking people will stay around and look at how others fight, oohing and aahing excitingly, but I am absolutely, one hundred percent sure this just won't happen. Why would it?
ReplyDeleteGranted, I am a PVP'er, but if I had to wait in line for arenas, no amount of looking at how others fight would save it. I mean, I am not against looking at good fights of skillful players, but these are rare, and, most of all, I am here to play, not watch, I can watch fights on youtube or elsewhere outside of the game.
I imagine the above is even more the case for PVE. I am regularly watching movies of top arena / rated BG players and am regularly watching streams. I do this both to pick up strategies and tricks, and also because I enjoy it, when you know enough to understand what's going on in the scenes, it's like watching football - pretty interesting for many. Do any of you guys, regularly watch streams of raiding guilds? For pleasure? I never heard of anyone doing that.
To sum:
There will be some crowds at the start, and in a week or two there will be just close friends, and in a month there will be noone except random strangers. That's it. The great game of "waiting while looking" will turn into the game of "waiting while not caring and being super-bored", people will try queuing in unusual times, etc.
I watch the PvP stuff on youtube also, a good way to try and get some tips as I am not a good PvPer, but I never once sat and watched in goldshire or in front of org. Unless I was the one fighting or waiting for a friend I prefer to play, not watch others. If I want to watch I watch to learn and I watch on youtube.
DeleteYou are right and I agree, 100% certain people will not sit around and watch. Not sure what brain dead person on the blizzard staff thinks people will.
Just imagine a full server that is really busy. There could be 100s of people that want to do this at the time same. Do they really expect all these players to sit around for hours on end waiting their turn? They need a dose of reality if they really think people will do that.
(same original Anon)
ReplyDeleteI don't disagree with what anyone is saying in terms of how they'll use it, I just think Blizz has a better grasp of what it's general user is looking for than any one person does, including me. Sure, this could crash and burn, but I'm pretty sure it won't. You guys apparently won't park there to watch fights during downtime or while queuing for things, but that doesn't meant others won't, I already mentioned that I can see myself doing it which means that thousands (or tens of thousands) of others could see themselves doing it, too. I'm not THAT unique of a snowflake, I don't think, especially since enough people at Blizz thought it was a good idea that it's actually going live.
(and no, making the cut at Blizz doesn't assure success, or even that it isn't a horrible idea... for instance, CRZ should die in a fire, far as I'm concerned, but I don't think that was ever intended to make things better for players)
Blizz is strongly positioning BC as a minor feature in the patch... I think in practice it'll play out very similarly to a solo CoC, you'll do it once and be done, or you'll get your ass handed to you at some point and vow to go back later to finish it off (and might actually do that). Since there aren't rewards, there's little incentive to re-run it beyond personal satisfaction &/or (if people do actually hang around to watch) to show off a bit. Where's the harm?
I still don't think queues will be too long, either, especially if you're forced to stay there while queued. If the queue gets too long, most people will just leave and come back later. Not being able to do other stuff while waiting will make queue length self-limiting... at some point, after enough time has passed, the length will be short enough for anyone to queue. To respond to a direct quote, "Do they really expect all these players to sit around for hours on end waiting their turn?" No, and that's exactly why queues won't be that long.
Have to admit, though, BBB had a fantastic idea on how to hand out the limited invites to get it started, I like his idea even more than BMAH. To summarize, tie the invitation (or a pre-cursor to a questline to leads to the invitation) into the rare elites as a quest item you loot from the bodies.
Picking up another point, though, I'd LOVE to have viewable raids (ghosts, etc). It's not that I'm against that idea, I just don't think it's necessary for BC.
I like BBB's idea that you have to beat a challenging opponent to get an invitation.
DeleteI also agree that once the rush is over it will be easier to get in. But with achievements tied to having people watch while you fight people will want to be first in line to get them and it would make it harder on people later. Things like that have to be throught of and blizzard is not doing that. Just think of the ring of blood had an achievement for having 20 people watch you, how would you get it now? Beg people to come out and stand there? Hope you have a fair sized guild with many people willing to help or you are not getting that achievement for sure.
There is much more that is bad about it than just the invitation system. The idea of waiting and watching and people wanting to get in first will make the start hell and make the later on horrible for people that want achievements. The idea is amazing, the implementation is horrible. At least from my point of view and like I said, I always try to look at things long term, and long term, this is a loser, no matter how good it is. It is not the solo content people wanted. Nice try but it is a swing and a miss as planned.