Monday, May 11, 2015

Monday Random Thoughts

- Watcher posted an explanation addressing player concerns about the legendary ring.

- About time they said something about.

- You can find it here.

- I like watcher because he is direct and to the point.

- He doesn't seem to suffer (often) from the snide remark syndrome that most of the other blue posters do.

- Even with his well presented explanation of why the legendary will be as it is I still do not like it.

- Basically what he said was simple, let me sum up his long post for you in a TL;DR paraphrasing sort of way.

- "Your opinion does not matter, we know what is best for the game."

- Basically that is what his post all comes out to mean.

- Sadly even if I like watcher I do not trust that assessment.

- No flying will bring world PvP back.

- That didn't work did it?

- So do you really know what is best for the game?

- Making rare mobs one kill and done with no repeatability is good.

- Bored the hell out of people that had fun hunting them.

- That really worked to better the game didn't it?

- Devaluing leveling professions.

- I bet you can see how so many people have been hating what you did with professions this expansion.

- I am sure that was good for the game.

- Having no dailies and no repeatable out of your garrison content was a good idea.

- Not.

- A bone headed move if I ever saw one.

- Removing valor gear.

- Now bad luck streaks have no consolation prize and alts have to raid like mains to keep geared up.

- Really killed a lot of players desire to play and it is a large part of why I rarely even log in any more.

- Working as intended?

- If pushing people that love the game away and making them not want to log in is doing what is best for the game blizzard is doing a bang up job.

- Sorry watcher, your post was great and very well said, but it is also wrong.

- Just because you (you the company not your the person) think it is a good idea does not make it a good idea.

- Just the same as me thinking it is a bad idea does not make it a bad idea.

- I do understand that.

- The difference is this...

- I pay you, you do not pay me.

- So my opinion matters more than you thinking this might be cool.

- How come blizzard responds to something stupid like that "player spotlight" on the launcher near instantly and addresses the players problems with it.

- Who cares, leave it be.

- But when it is something important that involves actual game play they ignore people?

- They change a ships name, which has absolutely no impact on game play, because of whiners acting like big babies throwing a temper tantrum.

- But people presenting honest concerns about something that actually impacts game play blizzard tells us to go screw ourselves?

- Let me explain something to you blizzard.

- You should have told the people complaining about the ships name "suck it up buttercup."

- You should have reconsidered the legendary ring.

- You did both wrong, you caved to something that had no reason to cave for and you stand tall against something people have legitimate concerns about game play with.

- WTF is wrong with you blizzard.

- I love the game, but I hate the people running it.

- When you look up clueless in the dictionary there is a staff picture of the blizzard staff.

- They should leave the on use on the legendary ring as it, but let everyone have their own control over it.

- Shouldn't every damage dealer that worked for the ring benefit from it and have an on use?

- Shouldn't every healer that worked for the ring benefit from it and have an on use?

- Shouldn't every tank that worked for the ring benefit from it and have an on use?

- Yes, yes and yes, if you ask me.

- No, no and no, if you ask blizzard.

- Sad face.

- I was hoping that they would open their eyes and I was once again let down.

- Playing this game is sometimes like dating someone that is bad for you.

- You keep hoping they will change but they never do, they keep letting you down.

- Funny part is, every time I have ever considered quitting it almost felt like a relationship.

- Like if I quit it would be breaking up with someone I still care about but just couldn't be with.

- I think that is the best way I can describe it.

- Now on to happier things and leaving the fact that blizzard let me down once again behind us.

- I finally got my horde hunter into WoD content.

- Opened up the garrison at least.

- I am going to try and level it on weekends.

- Should only take 2 saturdays I am guessing, if I actually play it.

- Leveling this expansion is the best thing to come out of it.

- In my opinion at least.

- The story is good, the flow is nice, and being able to find things out in the world kind of breaks up the kill 10 rats mentality.

- I avoid the pop up quests usually.

- Does anyone else do that?

- I did them on my main, but that is about it.

- Of my 9 100s I did one or two here and there but mostly I do not bother with them.

- Might go back and do them at some point just to get them off the map.

- I don't think the reward is worth the effort.

- When leveling it gives nice experience, but if you are leveling an alt and have rested you will be 100 way before even hitting nagrand, so they are not needed.

- I would like to see them offer something more to make them worth doing.

- More how?

- More gold, maybe some more reputation.

- Add in garrison resources and apexis crystals, and then maybe, just maybe, they might be worth doing.

- If they were a weekly repeatable thing, so you could get reputation each week with them, that would be a cool way to get reputation up on alts.

- As they are implemented in the game they are useless as I see it.

- Outside of them, the entire leveling experience is something I really like this expansion.

- Sadly there is nothing worth doing at 100 with alts to inspire me to level more alts.

- So what I am doing now on alts, as there is no reasonable way to get them raid ready without spending a boatload of gold thanks to the absence of valor gear, is turn them into gold making machines.

- They will never leave the garrison.

- Just as blizzard wanted it, it seems.

- I'll just log on every so often and send out on missions and make whatever I can.

- My standard game play for the rest of this expansion is now hit 100, make gold, and hope and pray that the next expansion comes out really freaking soon.

- I always liked the gearing of alts process, just not digging it this expansion, so I am not going to bother like I had in the past.

- My alts are just going to get to 100 so they do not have to do it later.

- And I will try my damn hardest not to get garrison burn out for the third time this expansion.

- Or forth if you count beta garrison burnout, which I reported saying this would happen, and blizzard ignored me and everyone else that said it on the beta, as usual.

- But hey, what can an elf do, garrisons are all this expansion has to offer.

- So it is either do it and deal with it or quit.

- And I am not ready to give up on this relationship yet.

- I still like the game.

- It just hurts that it keeps letting me down.

- Have a great day.

19 comments:

  1. I have a question for you grumpy.

    How about all the people that like the idea of that ring?

    Like basically.....all my guild (and we're raiding mythic, 9/10 right now), but I know anectdotal evidence.

    Essentially, it's like everything else in this game and everywhere : you only hear the unhappy people, that doesn't make them the majority.

    My point of view on this is : let them TRY it at least, even if it's turn out to be a bad idea, and we're going to be stuck for it for the remainder of the expansion, at least they're trying something new.

    I like the fact that it's not a proc (so you can control it) and I like the fact that it's not basically a 3rd trinket.

    Players, and even developpers have absolutely NO idea of how it will turns out to be, not even theorycrafter.

    I have a good example of what I just say, comming from another blizzard game : hearthstone.

    When the cards of the expansion were shown, people were like "OMG, trogzor will be awesome, dr.Boom is meh". Guess wich card is in all the decks now, and which we're not seeing ever?

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    1. This is a MMO, which means more than 1 person. For something to be best it should include the most people, don't you think?

      If someone likes it, fine. For the someone that likes it then that means it works for "them". If the cooldown was singular for each person that it works for "everyone".

      Now, lets step back. Which should a multiplayer game design for, one person or everyone?

      When it is something this simple the answer is clear. Even the person that likes it as is still benefits from it if it is an individual cooldown. Whereas the person that does not like it is screwed.

      So fine, if someone likes it it is their right to have that choice. We all have our own opinions. That is the beauty of opinion, there is no right or wrong, so to speak. But we can try to sway people to change their opinion. That is all I am trying to do.

      I am trying to do that and it should be easy because the major difference is my opinion is backed by the fact more people benefit from it if it is a singular effect than would if it were a group effect. This is an absolute non negotiable fact that no one can deny.

      I agree, no one complains when they are happy, they only complain when they are unhappy. But I am not the average joe because I will always fight for the "right" path even if I disagree with it. Funny part is, even if I loved the ring idea I would still be against it. Because it is not a good design. Not for this type of game.

      I disagree with the let them try it idea. They do not know how to "read" feedback. They have proved this over and over again. Like people complaining about dailies in mists so they removed them completely.

      Did they ever read any of the posts? Absolutely not. Or they would have known that people were not saying they did not like dailies. They were saying they did not like gating valor gear behind dailies, they did not like gating dailies (SP and AC) behind dailies (GL). They never said they did not want dailies, they said they did not like the gating of the dailies. Huge difference and being it was said a million times and blizzard never noticed it is proof they do not actually read past the title that said "I hate dailies" to find why people hated them.

      So no, do not "let them try it". They will read any response to it wrong and screw it up even worse, just like they did by having no dailies this expansion.

      You can not compare hearthstone to warcraft. Not even in the same league. A "good" player knows that the "meh" cards are what winning decks of made of. Someone that is a bad player will read things and not notice how they can interact with other cards but a good player will know which card is really better.

      So this is not even in the same universe as that. You can not compare judging a card wrongly to knowing that someone else has control over your ring.

      At least with hearthstone the only person that is hurt by one persons misjudgement is that person. In warcraft everyone gets hurt because of one persons misjudgement. See the difference?

      Maybe 10 years ago this would have been awesome with tightly knit groups. Maybe in todays game with top guilds it will still be good. But with the vast majority of raiding being done in pugs, LFG system, LFR, and loosely assembled guild groups this does not fit. Not at all.

      A third trinket would be worlds better than letting someone else control my ring. No doubt about it.

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    2. BTW, you fit into the top guilds I was talking about. My guild is in the same place as you, but only heroic. We are dregs compared to you, but guess what, we are still way the hell ahead of the majority of players.

      Your guild and even my guild would both get good use out of the ring. Doesn't mean it is good for everyone just because you or I might be lucky enough to be in a group that will use it correctly. You are part of the 0.1% and I am part of the 5%. What you and I do with it should not matter, we are the minority. It can not be made for "us".

      If they want a group effect legendary make it a drop in mythic only like the old school legendary ones. That way the people that would get the most use for it will be the only people that have it. At least that is how I see it.

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    3. I guess I don't quite see it. I see the buff that the ring provides as just another Time Warp or Bloodlust, except limited to only those people who have the ring. Question, does it stack with these buffs?

      In a good group the ring proc will be well timed and used appropriately. In LFR, it will probably be fired off as soon as the fight begins. Solo, it will be like Garrison:Call To Arms, when I remember it's there..

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  2. > - How come blizzard responds to something stupid like that "player spotlight" on the launcher near instantly and addresses the players problems with it.

    It's the same reason they changed the boat name because people were offended, then denigrated people on twitter for calling them out for caving on such nonsense.

    https://twitter.com/CM_Lore/status/590695703401340929

    > @CM_Lore Re: "Tyrande's Silence" - it's not a "Hush, Tyrande" reference, but we can see why it'd be taken that way, so we're going to change it.

    > @CM_Lore @Brotund @ohgoditsranor Offending people for no reason is not a "gun" we'd like to "stick to," sorry.

    Because it's easy, and because it makes them feel good even though they aren't doing squat.

    Meanwhile, we still have a limit to how many people we can add to our ignore list, and it is not battle.net account wide (our list neither travels with us between our own alts, nor does it ignore the offending party regardless of which character they are on). And meanwhile you still can't set your status to "invisible" in battle.net chat.

    (this in response to me recently leveling a monk tank and getting told I fing suck my 3rd time through hellfire citadel - although i tanked 2 times in there with no problem prior.)
    --
    Regards,

    regardsanon

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    1. I wrote this before I read your next few sentences.
      --
      regards,

      regardsanon

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    2. I still think them changing the boat name showed how really clueless they are. They should have said "suck it up". It was not made as a reference to hush tyrande, and even if it was, who really cares, a character said that to another character. both are works of fiction, but they need to have personalities conveyed, and if one happens to be rude to women, that is is adding depth to the character. Let me guess, whoever complained has never read a book in their life? Or do they complain about the character development there as well?

      If someone thinks the name matters to them, that is on them, it is just a name. Blizzard should have never caved for such nonsense.

      I believe it to be a direct insult to every person that plays the game that blizzard gave more of a response to a bunch of people whining over a name that has absolutely zero impact on game play with no real thought out reasoning why it should be changed yet they refuse the change something that has extremely large ranging impact on the game and people have given honest and clearly presented feedback about.

      Blizzard is indeed clueless.

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    3. As you state, Blizzard is grabbing the low hanging fruit. The programmer in me, says it's stored in a single location and we all reference that single database.

      The way a legendary item works has to involve just a slightly more complex algorithm than a single entry in the NPC database.

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    4. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    5. "but they need to have personalities conveyed, and if one happens to be rude to women, that is is adding depth to the character."

      There is nothing in the story that implies that the person who named the ship has it in for Tyrande. What character would possible name it that? This reasoning is invalid. It's sort of like when Garrosh called Sylvannas a bitch to show how evil he is, but I don't think he insults anyone else ever again besides from the mild "alliance dog".

      Also, there is a very good reason they are changing it, they are still trying to make up from the horrible faux pas at that blizzcon where metzen or someone said that WoD was a "boys trip" that probably angered every one of their female players (I literally couldn't believe he said that when I was there). So like the gameplay, they now knee jerk the other direction so that they are safe.

      And I don't know why you hate having a second time warp so much. You are in a stable guild which is the best case scenario for this item. I only run LFR and I think it's fine.

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    6. "What character would possible name it that?"

      I believe it was illidan that uttered the hush tyrande line. As illidan did not name the ship the name was never an insult to tyrande. That is why people that complained were off base and wrong to complain.

      I believe he was saying that if it was named for that reason, not that it was named for that reason. Just if, to stress the point that even if it was meant as an insult, people still should not have complained.

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    7. Actually, if it was meant as an insult in game, then people wouldn't have complained because they know it comes from a unlikable and/or evil person. It was because it seems to have no reason for it that people were complaining. And no, people are not wrong to complain. If you use that logic, no one can complain about anything because they are wrong to not see it how the creator sees it. Like how grumpyelf is completely wrong and off base because this legendary ring effect is a new and exciting gameplay element and he is just being Mr grumpypants because he wants his own private cooldown. (That last part may be sarcasm).

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  3. Anon, Grumpy's former Guild Leader:

    I really do want to return to raiding at least on a part-timer basis as a reserve player. That discussion and blue response reminded me of why I left raiding in the first place: gear as progression. The need to crunch numbers as if I were in a stats class or some such, is not now nor has it ever been enjoyed by me. At more than one point in that forum posting, my eyes wanted to glaze over before I could even get to the blue posting. I appreciate some people are enjoying the number crunching as a form of intellectual game play, but it bores me silly. If I want to crunch numbers, I will go find me another Strat-o-matic baseball league to join. When I play my paladin, I want to be Lancelot or Galahad, not Fermi or Einstein.

    Best I can tell from what I have read, the ring's proc will be a group wide effect for either the tanks or healers or dps with only one person of each type hitting the button to activate the effect for everyone. That is not going to work well. Don't care whether the numbers are better or even the best, it won't work well when you leave the realm of math behind and enter the world of raiders.

    Some will find cooperation easy and natural and even then, the number crunchers will still disagree about when is exactly the right time to use a proc. For the ones who do not cooperate so well or have computers that lag even slightly, the effect will be misused time and again causing a loss of potential dps or healing. (Not really sure what effect the ring has on tanks but I don't play a tank and haven't since vanilla.) That is going to break guilds. Maybe not ours and ones which are even better than us, but any guild of our level of competency or less will surely see a strain develop over this proc and its use.

    I do not have faith in Blizzard anymore to figure out what is best for the game. I lost that a good long while back, during Wrath. My perfectly fine mana battery Shadow Priestess in BC suddenly was not that any longer. Why? Because Blizzard's developers decided to change their approach to the class. Did they make it better? Not for me but for others who wanted to top the DPS charts, it was a boon...for a time. See, Blizzard decided that support classes were not really fun to play and created a situation where all the support classes (specs really) were now to be a part of their "holy trinity" and no other type of play would be supported.

    Honestly, I love being able to log into a guild that will provide me support and help as needed. The fact that I no longer can be of use to that guild bothers me greatly. To be fair, I should remove my characters from our public guild and put them all into my private guilds where my play style no longer impedes or calls upon the guild resources. I have not done so because I keep hoping and hoping against all logic and insight that I am wrong and that Blizzard will eventually come to their senses about the direction the game is going and change course. This ring debate diminishes that hope.

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    1. re: the ring

      I haven't been following it closely, but it seems at a minimum that the tank CD should be independent and not shared.

      re: private guild

      As grumpy has said in the past, the social aspect of the game is one of its main draws at this point. Your mere presence in the public guild provides support to the guild. When I log on at x o'clock and see other guildees logged on too, it tells me wow is not dead and it's not yet time for me to unsub (or leave guild).
      --
      regards,

      regardsanon

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    2. Anon, Grumpy's former Guild Leader:

      Regardsanon, you are 100% correct about the logging in being a show of support. It is precisely for such a reason that I keep my main characters in a guild that my paladin was a part of the very creation story for it. Five paladins set out to acquire Verigan's Fist. Four paladins made up the officer corp of the guild founded as a result of that long ago quest. My paladin is the last one standing of that group 10+ years later. I can't leave the guild for that reason alone. Like it or not, I am part of the history of the guild, the continuity from the beginning to current. I recognize that is a responsibility to both myself and to others, to be the one who remembers, the historian, the record keeper.

      A lot of folks want nothing to do with history, failing to realize that they are part of history even as they deny any importance to it. On the other hand, there are those like me who view it as one long continuous story, each of us playing a role for good, bad or otherwise in said story. Does not make me a special snowflake because I recall and remember, just makes it my job to do so for myself and for others. The past matters because that is how we got to now.

      So yes, it is not yet time for me to unsub or leave guild. Thank you for reminding me of why that is so.

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    3. I loved strat-o-matic baseball. It has to be well over 20 years, maybe even 30 since I last played it. I always enjoyed it.

      There is no need to leave, there are many people there that never raid with us but are always welcome. Don't need to raid to remain with friends. But I do understand how you feel. You want to feel like you are able to contribute and thanks to the design of the "raid or die" game now you can not because you can never catch up to where we are any longer. That is not your fault and that is not on you. That is bad game design by blizzard. Sadly we can tell them that til we are blue in the face and they will never listen because they are like a little kid with their fingers in their ears when we talk so they can pretend everything is perfect.

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  4. Here's a major issue I see that I've asked about but never gotten an answer to. What happens to the AoE proc if the guy that popped it dies before the AoE proc occurs (I would guess the DPS ring will likely be popped by a melee class each time)? Does the CD for the ring reset? Does the AoE proc get transferred to the next closest player? Or is the AoE effect just lost and the ring(s) on a 2 minute CD (essentially wasted)? My guess is the later, because that's just how much confidence I have that Blizzard Devs actually put enough time into the "thought process" for this ring.

    As is stands right now, in order to get the most out of this ring, the Raid Leader is NOT the primary person that will be calling this out. Why? Most progression guilds have Healing leads, Tank leads, Ranged leads and Melee leads. Each one of these leads will be responsible for fully understanding the CD's of each class under their leadership, fully understanding the fight mechanics and transitions as well as expected fight length and determining when is the "best" time for the use of the ring. That means the Melee and Ranged leads will need to work together to determine the best time to use the DPS ring since the DPS ring applies to both Ranged and Melee DPS classes. Here's the thing though, that's not in and of itself a bad thing, BUT... is that really the true picture of the majority of groups that will be raiding? I don't think it is! Maybe if Normal and Heroic were not as easy to PUG as they are now, that might be a more accurate picture. But as it stands now (and I'm not saying Flex style raiding with the ability to pull people from other servers is a bad thing), that's not the level of coordination you will have with the majority of players that will be raiding this content.

    Now, I applaud Blizzard for "thinking outside the box", and I do understand that they want to reward groups for coordinating the use of this ring with this ring proc. But we already have a reward for coordination... KILLING THE BOSS!!

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  5. -I agree. The snide remarks that the blue posters tend to make are definitely uncalled for.

    -Nor is there "we know best" line of BS.

    -World PvP will never come back because that's not what the game is about. World PvP was just something to do back in Classic when the game didn't have a lot of other things to offer.

    -Blizz caves on the pointless things because they are pointless. It gives a sense that they listen to the community, but it's for things that don't matter at all to their game design, so they don't care.

    -I agree that the legendary should just be a personal on use. Swap it with those class specific trinkets instead.

    -On to other topics...

    -The two alts that I've been leveling are almost 98. I got them into their garrisons and then just parked them there. So the rest was just from garrison chores.

    -I'm fighting garrison burnout with my main by:
    --not mining in my mine
    --not doing the barn
    --not doing anything with my LW building
    --not doing anything with the fishing building
    --only doing missions that actually provide a reward

    -So basically wasting half of my garrison...

    -On alts it's not too bad since they at least get XP from doing the mine and garden and I only do useful missions on them anyway since I only have a couple of followers on each (which are all fully leveled)

    -Got the 3 Isle of Giants raptors from my first 3 eggs. Lucky streak there. Just need to farm the remaining 6k bones for the other raptor.

    -Been doing a lot of achievement hunting lately (nothing better to do in game)

    -Almost finished all the Draenor quest achievs

    -Working through the remaining Wrath dungeon/raid achievs (at least the ones I can do solo)

    -Will start working on Cata ones after that and so on

    -It's funny that I'm enjoying the older content more than WoD content. Part of that is that I can fly. Part is that I feel like I'm accomplishing something. I'm not progressing but I'm earning achievements at least.

    -I guess the only real thing I like about WoD is the item squish that made soloing old content easier...

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    1. -Oh, and the leveling experience in WoD was decent, but I always feel that way, so that doesn't give much credit to WoD

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