Monday, June 17, 2013

Monday Random Thoughts

- Weekend time means marvel heroes time again, for the time being, so a few lines on that first.

- I've been making an effort to avoid the LFRs so playing a little on my new game for a bit.

- I'll get bored of it soon eough.

- More so now that I reached end game.

- Finished the main story on daredevil and started end game, so to speak.

- There really is no end game.

- Does boring and repetitive mean anything to you?

- Yeah, that describes end game at the moment.

- They need open world zones to continue leveling in instead of being the only way to level once you are done with the story is doing instance content.

- So I'll start leveling another char.

- Once you finish the story with one char you can reset quests on a new one.

- So I guess I'll level one at a time.

- They need to fix that so each character has their own quest line progression otherwise you will have to finish one to do the other because resetting it resets it for all.

- Not a very good design.

- Back to warcraft.

- I did a grand total of zero LFRs this week outside of the 2 on my hunter to try and get runestones.

- At least I got the one guaranteed one now that we always get one off the last boss.

- Otherwise it would have been another week with none.

- I am going to be raiding the next raid before I finish this damn quest.

- The LFRs have become undoable if you do not get them done that first day or two.

- Was listening to guild mates complain about groups all weekend.

- We are talking 5 or 6 wipes on almost every single boss.

- We are talking wiping in last tiers LFRs.

- One of my guild mates just hit 90 on an alt and was running his characters through the older ones.

- He was giving the play by play and all I kept hearing was wipe, wipe, wipe.

- Multiple times he said, I did not know this boss had an enrage timers.

- People in terrace doing 25K DPS, he said the top four were roughly like this.

- Top 128K, second 85K, third 72K, forth (him with his faked 470 item level) 64K.

- Not to horrible right?

- 5th was 45K and no one else even reached 30K.

- Now that is horrible, there is no other way to describe that.

- Did I mention he was the tank doing that in a faked 470 item level.

- Now remove the top 4 DPS and and his tank and that is what a group of damage dealers that are not raiders would look like in the LFR.

- Not one person over 30K once you remove those 5.

- And this is why I say that the LFR is too hard for the people that it is aimed at.

- Those people doing 20K in 470 gear is who the LFR is made for and if you get a group with just people of that skill level in them, they become impossible.

- I think I figured out a way to fix horrible DPS in the LFR.

- Have the game compensate for low DPS by having a "nobody" deal damage to offset those under a certain threshold.

- At 460 item level the absolute minimum you would do, at LFR skill level that is, is 40K.  A real player would do better of course.  So the system could round up anyone below that to 40K.

- 50K at 470 and 60K at 480.

- Yes, those are low numbers, but for the content we are talking about they should be fine.

- Those should all be easily attainable.

- A player in my guild that has never played a mage just hit 90.

- We crafted him some gear to get him to 460 the second he hit 90 and he tabbed out and read about the rotation.

- Switched to frost having never once played it in his life and gave it his best.

- Went into the LFR and pulled at least 70K on all 6 MV fights.

- No loot love so he could not do the other ones.

- Now that is how the average player SHOULD be.

- Hit 460, read up on your class, do 70K instead of going into the LFR and being your normal horrible self.

- I can't figure out some sort of catch up mechanic for the tanks and healers that enter there without the minimum required skill but at least I offered some sort of solution to the damage dealers being bad.

- It is a start.

- But you know there is a better way to fix things than having to add mechanics to help bad players.

- Make the LFRs easier, so the bad players can do it at their skill level.

- Some might say you could not see this coming, that there would be groups this bad and not capable of doing it.

- Some might say that because they are really not all that bright.

- Like the people that design these for blizzard.

- Very smart coding and design wise, not so smart human nature wise.

- I called it as soon as I first stepped into them.

- If you do not have an appropriate amount of actually decent people these would never get done.

- We are seeing that now.

- Determination buff is garbage.

- You could give people a 10,000 percent increase to what they can do and they will still find ways to die to stupid things and you will still wipe.

- Now that we have flex raids coming with easier fights, perhaps even only slightly above the LFR skill level, the LFR needs to really be broken down to a simple tank and spank, with no enrage timers, for the masses.

- Those decent players, the actual raiders, and the ex raiders and skilled but not on a schedule type players that could not commit to an actual raid will go do a flex raid.

- At least if the pug world begins to happen again like the good old days of wrath when raiding was at its highest point ever and there was a pug going 24/7 all the time that could at least get half way through the content in a reasonable time frame.

- I would so love that to return.

- That leaves only the least of the players to do the LFR.

- The ones you would not even invite to a flex raid because they are so bad.

- Those are the people the LFR is made for.

- Healers that can not even keep up tanks if they concentrate completely on them.

- Tanks that never use a defensive cooldown at all.

- Damage dealers that think doing 25K DPS means they are leet.

- Name one boss in the LFR that those people could down?

- If only those types of people were in it.

- I'm waiting.

- Can't think of one right?

- That is because there aren't any.

- And once again I will say what I have been saying since the beginning.

- The LFR is way to hard for the audience it is aimed at.

- It is aimed at healers that can't keep more than one target up, tanks that don't know how to use defensive cooldowns and damage dealers that could not fight their way out of a paper bag.

- Remember those first days of the ToT LFR when we were wiping 10+ times on some bosses?

- With the, presumably, better players in there too.

- Now think about going back to do them when the new LFR comes out and no one with any skill is in them.

- How are those people supposed to do it if it took real raiders that were willing to learn a couple of attempts?

- These people are not raiders because they have no heart for progression.

- They have no heart for wiping.

- So give them something their pace with no real difficulty and no chance at wiping.

- Those LFR heroes are making their way to real guilds.

- I've invited a few to my guild recently under the guise they wanted to raid.

- What experience do they have, none.

- No big deal, I have had many beginners in my time, people that never stepped into a raid, I too was one of those my first time in one.

- All of us wanted to be raiders, I had voice chat downloaded, I hare deadly boss mobs and other addons so I could do my job, and I had read everything I could find on the fights and watched the videos.

- Whenever a new raider joined us it was like that.  I would ask if they had vent and DBMs and they said yes.

- I would ask if they knew the fights and they would say, I looked it up and have a basic idea.

- Okay, lets rock.

- Three times this week I needed to explain to someone how to set up vent.

- One time I had someone tell me, I don't need vent, I did these in the LFR.

- Bye bye.

- If the raid leader tells you to get on vent you do not say no.

- Common sense here.

- Even more so when you have never entered a real raid in your life and even more than that when it is your first time trying to get into a real raid with a new guild you joined for the sole purpose of raiding.

- I did not kick him from the guild, of course not, but I found someone else to join the raid.

- When I next saw him he asked me what else he would need to raid.

- At least he is trying, or so it seemed.

- I said deadly boss mods.

- He said he doesn't need that, he knows the fights because he has done them in the LFR.

- I said, he does need that, the fights are slightly different and things all hit for more, it will help with mechanics and when to move from the bad.

- His response secured the fact he will never raid with me.

- The healers can just heal me through it, my job is to do damage.

- I said, then your job is in doing damage in someone elses raid because I will not raid with someone with your attitude.

- Had to waste 30 minutes walking someone through setting up vent two times for two people this week.

- Did they tell us they did not have vent in the hours or days before they had signed up to raid?

- Nope, they wait until we zone in and I tell everyone to drop to 10 man to speak up and ask, how do I get vent?

- We are pulling in 1 minute and you wait until now to ask?

- These are the LFR generation of players.

- The we don't need vent, just go in and beat on it, and people will carry you generation.

- Sorry, it does not work that way.

- Want to hear a funny LFR story?

- Sure you do.

- A couple of weeks ago I was doing terrance and someone died and started yelling rez me rez me over and over.

- The tank said, don't.

- He asked why.

- The tank said, when you can manage to do over 20K in 470+ gear maybe we will consider it.

- Said person did 18K on the first boss, 19K on the second, 16K on the third and 22K on the last.

- We have a new rogue in our guild like that.

- Almost 500 item level now and he still can no manage to break 30K.

- And he was one of the people that said he doesn't need vent.

- And then complains when we do not invite him to the raids.

- You refuse to get the needed requirements to raid, you can not do your job at an acceptable level of play, and you are a damage sponge because you refuse to move from the avoidable.

- No, you can not raid with us.

- Go back to the LFR and abuse those people because I will not let you do it to us.

- My druid has still not done all the LFRs.

- As in not ever, not even once in the LFR.

- This means no legendary for me yet.

- It only enters the real raid when we need a tank.

- Kind of amazed without doing anything to get gear or valor except real raids, no dailies, no dungeons, not even the new heroic scenarios and it still has a 510 item level.

- That is a character that will really benefit from flex raiding.

- Heck, I still have 1 476 (hands) and 1 489 (weapon) piece on it.

- I could do the LFR to get 502s if I wanted to, but I am more than capable of tanking normals with it and pieces will drop sooner or later.

- I am starting to think perhaps, if I could pug all my alts, that I could just avoid the LFR completely.

- I will never have the maximum gear potential a character could have without it, but avoiding it would be a good thing.

- It would really make me enjoy the game more if I could get my gear and enjoy raiding without ever needing to make contact with those people.

- At least until they make the LFR easier, as it should be, then maybe I could really get into the tank and spank get it done quick and easy loot dispenser.

- That is how LFR should be.

- I hate wiping to the enrage timers in the old LFRs, happened to me a few weeks ago on the third boss in terrace, three times we wiped to the enrage because of horrible damage dealers.

- I can wipe for weeks in a row on the same boss and deal with it, even if it gets frustrating, I have no problem with it.

- Yet I can not stand wiping in the LFR.

- I guess it is a difference with who you are playing with what your tolerance level for failure is.

- In random assembled groups my tolerance for failure is absolutely zero.

- So I just complained about the LFR for a few dozen lines.

- Now you know why I am playing marvel heroes instead of running the LFR on my alts on the weekend like I should be.

- Because I am sick of it and the game is a needed break for me.

- Do you think that blizzard is going to make the LFR a lot easier knowing that most of the players with actual skill will have even less reason to do it now thanks to flex raiding?

- Have a great day.

14 comments:

  1. Agreed. You said better here what I wrote about yesterday re: LFR. Great post.

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    1. I have to go over and take a look. I like your stuff and you are usually a lot nicer than I am about it. I guess it is my grumpiness that gets out of hand from time to time. :P

      Glad you like it.

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    2. I'd say that what I wrote is much more cynical than what you're accustomed to reading on my blog... :)

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    3. It was a good post even if you thought it was a little cynical. It was honest and to the point based on your feelings.

      I do agree with it, as you could have guessed.

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  2. Heh what have I done? You're the second warcraft player I have taking a vacation in Marvel Heroes.

    I disagree about the endgame, yes it's the same, but it's a Diablo hack and slash game, so it's supposed to be the same. Plus there's no real gear grind here, or at least I don't feel that there is. As it's all random there's no "I should run x and y" it's just "let's go have fun flinging lightning bolts about" or "lets level another hero" or "lets run a couple of terminals".

    Maybe it's just me but I don't feel the same pressure here, I feel that I can just do what I want to do and not have to get on the gear treadmill. That's what wears me out in Warcraft, I love the game, but trying to keep geared or get geared is just no fun for me. I don't care about gear, I just care about playing the game and I need gear in order to do that. When a weapon change can add 30k dps then gear matters. It's "run this for that drop" "grind valor to buy this" "grind valor to upgrade" now you've done your main but what about the alt for mount farming with your friend, for raiding alt runs, for this, for that, it just never stops.

    I like Marvel Heroes as yes it's grindy, it's all the same, but it's also relaxing, there's no pressure there. So I'm not bothered about endgame being all the same, as to me whatever map I'm running around in, it's all the same, and I don't mind that in this game.

    Plus if you don't like endgame now wait a few months. They left a cliffhanger at the end of the story which is just ripe for a part 2. So they will be adding more there I'm sure of it. Anyway, I like this game more, the more I play it. It's not very polished, the lack of a fullscreen windowed mode is very annoying, the chat doesn't have most of the functions it should have, the loading screens are too long, the optimization isn't brilliant and then there's the gameplay issues. Regardless I think it's got a reasonable foundation.

    Not much to say about the rest of your post. I loathe LFR too. I believe as you do that it is tuned too hard. I hope it will be better when flex is introduced. With flex I'm certainly hoping I never have to queue LFR again, we shall see. I certainly hope it is tuned easier for T16.

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    1. Oh and random thought. I just bought some G's in Marvel Heroes and you said they didn't take PayPal? Do you not play through Steam? As Steam do take PayPal and a whole host of other options too if the sidebar full of icons is to be believed. Just a thought.

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    2. If I had people to play with and could make my own groups of 5 for them it might be different but doing it solo is not as much fun.

      I just added a week two review if you want to take a peek with my normal grumpy gripes.

      Hey, I guess that means I like it if I am willing to spend time complaining about it. ;)

      I downloaded from them directly not through steam. I have since went to steam so I could get enough Gs for bags. I am not sure if I would be willing to spend much more than that, at least not until it is out of its beta stage, and yes, I still think it is a live beta. It is surely not a finished game.

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  3. Ugh... LFR...

    Had a group that just had no clue how to do Durumu on Saturday.

    Had been having decent groups in LFR but this one was just bad...

    At least 15 people died right off the bat during the maze. 10 or so died again the second time.

    Haven't seen that since the first weeks it was released.

    Also, those that lived had no idea how to run the beams around. Had one person just standing there each time while the group is yelling at them "Run!" Felt like saying "Run Forrest! Run!"

    Downed the boss anyways thanks to the few raiders in the group who knew how to not die...

    I killed Iron Qon 4 times on Saturday!!! Used up all of my coins + 1 leftover, so 5 loot rolls. All gold... All I wanted was the tier shoulders, but noooooo.

    Got exalted with SPA though, so I bought the 522 shoulders. My 522 chest piece will continue to collect dust in the bank.

    Only need runestones now from LFR. At least I got 3 this week so I have 5 total now...

    I have 1.5 pieces left to upgrade before I have nothing left to do with valor. iLvL is 522 now.

    Can't find the 522 LW boots so I'm gathering the mats and will spam trade to find someone with the pattern.

    Haunting Spirits are a pain to get. Not enough raiders on the server, so limited quantities available. Only consistent supply seems to be from lvl 1 dupers spamming trade.

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    1. Played the DK some. Did another world boss tour on a Sunday afternoon and did the Barrens stuff.

      Galleon fight was crazy. Taunts weren't working and I somehow ended up with aggro. I was just focusing on adds so wasn't really paying attention to the boss. Then noticed my health dropping a lot and was like wtf? Then saw the boss was chomping on my ass... So I switched to tanking Galleon instead of adds. Disclaimer: I'm not a good tank! So I was trying to keep my self healing up and use my CDs as best I could but I was still getting hammered. We had 5 or 6 healers and they were just pumping the heals to keep me up. I died just before the end of the fight.

      My damage taken was like 95% of the total raid damage. I was #2 on damage done and #4 on healing done because of all the Vengeance. This is in a shitty mix of crafted blues, dungeon blues, pvp epics, and other random epics. 474 iLvL. It was crazy... No loot though.

      We did Sha after that and it was messy as well. I just focused on adds and tried to stay away from the boss. Lots of people getting MC'd though and I think I was the only one tanking adds because healers kept getting mobbed. Got him down though after a couple of near wipes.

      Nalak was much smoother. I didn't tank that fight, just tried to do as much dps as I could (which isn't much single target in blood spec). Thinking back, I should have changed presence at least to try and get a little more dps. Got two drops off Nalak though. So my DK has 2-pc T15 set now and another pvp item.

      Did a random heroic after that with a guildie just to get some vp. That was messy. I was with a couple of heavy hitting dpsers so I was losing aggro all the time and they kept pulling stuff since I was going too slow (too slow for them at least). It was my first time tanking that instance so I didn't 100% know what to do. Also, did I mention that I'm not a good tank? Healer died once but otherwise we all lived.

      It was funny. After the healer died at the end of one boss fight (not actually sure how they died), I just went into the next room and pulled the next pack of trash. Only then did I notice the healer was dead... Didn't actually need the heals since I wasn't pulling entire rooms but still... bad tank...

      Got a small upgrade in there at least for one of my 458 pvp items and nobody bitched. Guildie (who is a very good player, btw) didn't even complain, just said tks for the quick valor.

      DK's iLvL is up to 486 now after buying a valor piece and upgrading some stuff. Never stepped into LFR yet and only done 3 heroics. Just geared from Barrens, AH, quests, and world bosses. Really need trinkets and a better weapon though.

      Looking forward to the Proving Grounds in 5.4 to hopefully improve my tanking skills. I'm getting better at soloing larger packs in the Barrens but I'm still not good at group content, especially with adds/trash.

      Our Guild Leader is trying to start another raid group on Fri/Sat nights again. I'll probably try to tag along on my hunter (hope he doesn't ask me to bring my DK...). He said they'd start with older content first and then move into ToT. I don't need anything from T14 except achievs but it'll just be fun to raid. Hopefully, I'll have time to go with them and hopefully we get enough people together.

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    2. There you go, the perfect example of what I said. You finally downed it because you had a few raiders in the group. What are these poor LFR only people going to do when they do not have a few actual raiders to carry them? LFR needs some really huge nerfs.

      You got 3 this week? Maybe my time to be lucky will come this week. I only got the 1 that is from the last boss now. If not for that one it would have been my forth week with zero.

      We have those dupers as well. You can really talk them down if you keep on them. That is how I got mine early on when they were 20K+ on the AH. I kept at him and ended up buying them for 5K each. Now I can get them from a duper for 2K while they are still going for 8K at auction.

      That is the best way to learn sometimes. Trial by fire. Since the change to active mitigation for all tanks I believe a DK tank is now the easiest tank to play where it used to be the hardest. Unless you are pressing heroic content your passive abilities are usually enough to keep up you with some minor cooldown usage. Having that heal as part of your regular thing really helps. If you are interested in tanking a DK tank is a nice way to break into it.

      Proving grounds sound nice but you know the only people that will use it are the raiders to practice and the people that want to be raiders to learn. And people of each category on alts of course. The people that would actually need to use it won't. Maybe they should make that a gate to raiding. If you do not do it and pass it you can not raid. I doubt that would happen. The rage on the forums would be so loud it would echo across the world and people would hear it that did not even play the game. How dare we make people know how to raid before they raid.

      Might as well go with the older content. If they are trying to rebuild a raid team it is important to start there and it could be a great time for a team to bond and learn together. Good luck.

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  4. I'd still say a solid 90% of my LFR groups are at least tolerable... max 1 or 2 wipes on bosses you kind of expect to wipe on (Dorumu, Lei Shen, Dark Animus, etc), tanks who sorta know what they're doing, healers who can mostly keep non-suicidal folks up, dps who do ENOUGH dps as a group overall.

    I did the full 4 ToT LFRs on my shammy on Mon night, first time in on that toon (~i479 equipped, so bare minimum), though, and it was bad. Tanks pulling bosses while we still had dead from the last trash pack. DPS pulling bosses. Inane raid chat. Impatient dps who then pull 35K. I actually had to drop one of the groups... there was no chance they were getting Tortos down, just wasn't happening, none of the main tasks (tanking bats, kicking shells, KILLING shells, avoiding damage) was being done properly. After the 3rd attempt with zero progress being made I bailed. No deserter debuff - either it doesn't always apply or the game recognized my pain and let me off the hook. The next group wasn't much better but got it eventually. Painful night.

    I'd expect that LFR will slowly continue declining in quality as 5.4 approaches... most of the raiders who are really only playing one toon don't need gear from there and heroic scenarios give better VP/hour for capping. At this point I'm only running it when I feel like it or for the legendary collection quests (my normal raid isn't doing the last 6 bosses yet).

    As for your DK friend, if he's doing 70K+ on all the MV bosses in i460, you'll want to keep him around... I wouldn't have thought that'd even be possible on #2, 4 and 6 bosses in there.

    Easy solution to test out if new raiders have vent/DBM... run a 5-man with them at some point before the raid (or even before you agree to give them a raid spot) and ask them to join you in vent (and don't accept excuses). During the run, whisper them somethint innocent ("Nice dps!") during a boss fight, you should get the DBM combat alert if they're running it.

    And yeah, the reasons you're getting for not running vent or DBM are, IMO, immediate causes for losing their application to raid.

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    1. On tuesday or wednesday I usually get someone decent groups. Even the bad groups with jerks being idiots in char are okay. But weekends, I would rather put my eye out with a needle lately. It has gotten that bad.

      I only do it now for the runestones as my guilds progression is not yet on the last 6 bosses sadly. We might get to 1 of them sometimes, but still better doing the LFR for them.

      That DK is not going to be on his DK. He pulls over 200K on his feral in 510 gear and I would rather him on that. I am pretty sure you can imagine why.

      Never thought of that whispering while on a boss fight to test if they have DBMs. Nice idea. I will have to use that, thanks.

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  5. To put it lightly, seems like LFR on US servers is cesspool of morons and slackers. Being on EU I have never had this horribad experience(maybe once or twice that too i remember hitting enrage on lei shei when terrace lfr opened).All I can suggest is , to preserve your sanity and enjoyment of game , do the LFR on Tuesdays(day of reset), thats when you will find the decent players. Doing LFR on sundays or mondays is asking for trouble, as thats when weekend warriors and last minute dinged alts queue for LFR , for that one chance at loot before reset.

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    1. I do it on Tuesdays and Wednesdays on my main but I have other characters that while I do not put as much effort into keeping totally maxed I do try to keep somewhat raid ready should they be needed. So I have to run them later. I really have no choice.

      And that also means those alts usually get their play time on the weekends and the weekends are the days, Saturday mostly, where I seem to be running into these worse than bad groups.

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