Oct 16
Too Used To Facerolling?
Posted on October 16, 2009 under Thoughts | 7 CommentsWorld of Warcraft is an ever-changing game. While reading this post, keep the date it was written in mind—changes may have occurred since then!
I thought I would share with you this post by Ghostcrawler on the forums, posted in response to a rant about people obsessing over gear scores:
We actually talked today about adding an item level 300 shirt that did absolutely nothing but mess with mods that attempt to boil down players to gear scores.
The interesting part, though, is the next post, in which he elaborates a little, and I agree 100% with his point. Emphasis below is mine:
The ubershirt solution would be pretty easy to bypass unfortunately.
Ultimately, we’re really not that interested in trying to shut mods like this down. Players will always have the Armory and to a lesser extent Inspect with which to judge other players.
It’s not an easy problem to solve. On the one hand, we can recognize that there is value in being able to determine if that guy you are considering for your pug is much less experienced and talented than he claims to be and is going to drag everyone else down and cause other players to leave. On the other hand, the WoW community seems to have become so obsessed with efficiency and so adverse to wiping that there is, in my opinion, an unreasonable demand for player skill and gear requirements even for relatively easy content. It’s one thing if your VoA tank is in all blues. It’s another if you’re asking for Ulduar gear for your Naxx run.
Many players are perfectly reasonable. However we’ve all run into That Guy who takes any attempt at measuring his awesomeness in the game (gearscore, achievements, dps meters) way too seriously and looks for the same in others.
While I agree with the OP that some people really do seem to be obsessive about their gear scores and much, much less about their skill or attitude (two things that are, in my opinion, much more important), what I’m really interested in is the other point GC makes.
Last night, a guildie got mad and quit a ToC 10 Normal run because we wiped four times on Northrend Beasts (each time at a different spot), even though we were running in the “second group,” a group put together by a couple of go-getter non-officers when the “official” Thursday ToC 10 run filled up. Apparently, four times is far, far too many times to wipe on Northrend Beasts.
Now, I can understand getting frustrated when people make the same mistakes over and over, won’t listen, etc. But many, many times this isn’t the case. Many times, some of your players just aren’t as geared as you’re used to. Maybe they’re new to the fights (as was the case in this ToC 10).
So my question is, what is it that has made the WoW community so “obsessed with efficiency and so adverse to wiping?” I will share my opinion: I believe this is mostly because of the decreased difficulty in content in Wrath. Things are much easier, on the whole, and people have become accustomed to facerolling through anything but the hardest content–any semblance to something that may be the slightest bit hard or even take a little effort is too much.
What do you folks think?
Related posts:
- Pissed, but for Different Reasons
- Forum Post of the Week: The End
- Two Pugs Enter: Stupidity vs. Ignorance
- Why Gearing for Naxx Matters to Me
- Dual Specs Not Dead Yet
by Errun, on October 16 2009 @ 7:50 am
I don’t think it’s the content that has put such an emphisis on gear over skill. The content isn’t that bad. What’s happened is that overall too many people don’t want to work for things anymore. As the content (and acquiring gear) got easier, the level of patience towards learning (and wiping) has plummeted. It’s a shame. The environment now is one that never would have succeeded in Vanilla. 40-man wipes on MC trash to learn the pulls and fights? Those days are long gone….as a whole. Luckily, though, it is still possible to find guilds who enjoy the learning curve of content. It’s the PuGs that will never happen.
by Leiandra, on October 16 2009 @ 8:18 am
I think a lot of it really depends on what you’re used to. Take Onyxia for example. We’ve now had years where she was just… well… easy. Practically every class solo’ed her. And now, she’s tough again. Probably about where she was when she was first introduced. But there’s people that don’t respect the whelps, or that stand in the deep breathes, etc. So, it’s a bit of a challenge, and yeah, they’re not used to it.
There’s also probably a question of efficiency and risk/return. I can run these heroics for Emblems, or I can wipe 4 times on Northrend Beasts. Hmm…. For the return, I’d much rather run Heroics. But if there’s a chance that we could take down the Beasts, then I’d want to be there. Yes, kind of silly to leave when you’re “progressing” and only after 4 wipes, but what if he thought everything was going to be 1-shotted? His expectations, and what he could have been doing with his time is now not the same.
Errun’s probably right about how this wouldn’t have worked in 40-man Vanilla content, but there’s also a lot more people raiding now too. A lot of those people, if they had been playing back then, probably wouldn’t be raiding. So… in opening up content to more players, you also introduce problems such as this.
by Saresa, on October 16 2009 @ 5:11 pm
Wow, it’s almost like you put my point of view in a nutshell, added some bows, and then threw it on the internet. Yes yes yes!
It really irks me that the community now seems to have this ridiculous aversion to death. Really, wipes only do 2 things:
– Cost time
– Cost money (lol)
If you have progression within your wipes, then it really isn’t an issue. I know I get personally frustrated when it feels like we are moving backwards, but wipes which are moving forward? Awesome fun.
I definitely agree that this is partially because the content is ‘roll your face on it and call it an evening’ easy. It reminds me of the old days (well, BC) when badge gear came out and all of a sudden it was impossible to get a Kara pug unless you overgeared the place. People are lazy, and want the highest opportunity of success. Even if it makes the content even more fricking boring than it is.
Anyway, I’m going to get off my soapbox now. I’m just glad to see GC hates that stupid GearScore mod as much as I do! *gnashes teeth*
by BinaryMuse, on October 17 2009 @ 1:00 am
Since I didn’t mention it in the article, I wanted to point out that I don’t necessarily think gear score mods, etc. are necessarily a bad thing. Like everything else, it’s a tool. As Ghostcrawler mentioned, the key is finding the balance between using the tools available to you to make sure people will be able to do the content you are running and turning away all but the very best of the best for content where it isn’t necessary to do so. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t turn away Heroic-geared DPS for ToC; my gripe is with the extremists.
by Badas, on October 17 2009 @ 1:07 am
Gearscore does not check for stupid. With the ese of access to “good” gear these days the score doesn’t give any relation to the skill of the layer. To a very large degree you have no clue if the gearscore is simply letting you know that this person got their diploma or if they flunked, but showed up enough after the fact to get their GED. I was in the ToC10 and I have no issue wiping with progression. It was after the “OMG! we wiped a lot. QQ” left that we filled the spot and finished the raid. There were more wiped along the way, but I personally feel that no one had a “bad” time through the rest of it. That falls back to Errun’s statement of “Luckily, though, it is still possible to find guilds who enjoy the learning curve of content. It’s the PuGs that will never happen.” and I get to consider myself lucky.
by Arkaneena, on October 27 2009 @ 10:46 am
The funniest thing to me is what is lost here, by both sides. The hardcores are missing out on what could be good players, but who need to learn. The casuals are missing out on very pretty raids, that are fun all on their own. No Naxx doesn’t have any usable upgrades for anyone, who cares it is still fun.
Ah the days when WoW was played for fun. Yup, my guild still has those days. We learn in heroics, eventually I will bring the now scrubs into raids, and they will learn there, but wiping is part of the fun. I love it when the fury warrior buttpulls and we wipe in UP. It makes it feel epic. We get to laugh about it.
I think Blizz threw out all these loot pinatas for new 80s and rerolls to learn. You know all that badge heirloom stuff, all the ease in leveling, yeah remember that. Uh huh, gear should not be the issue. Wiping is not a big deal, heck even the devs admit the game is full of gold sinks. Money is all wiping costs and that is so easy they need to liberate you from it.
No players want to invest in one another anymore. Umm you might need a tank for your vault run, and though she/he may be a scrub now, keep working with them and they may be good someday soon. Sure they may not need a guild now, but what about in a month when their Guild Leader is burnt out, and sells the guild, its bank, etc. I invest in people all the time, as a healer, and as a tank. I have a huge friends list. The list is its own reward.
by Typhoonandrew, on February 28 2010 @ 1:59 pm
“obsessed with efficiency and so adverse to wiping?”
People enjoy feeling better than others, can be rude when they are anonymous, and there are no ramifications. How can we not expect people to be horrid? Random-lfg has removed the absolute need for a leveling guild, a friends list, or even typing in party chat. And once you are past an average gear level, the strategies are basically moot as well.
I like lfg-randoms, but do not like some of the people I encounter.