Shun the Light, It's WoW Classic Time

[Kish]

Or do crafting professions require a certain level? A guildie is tailor/alchemist so actual crafting is not the issue for raiding.

You'll need to be level 10 to raise any profession to Journeyman, level 20 to raise a profession to Expert, and level 35 to raise it to Artisan.

You'll also need to be able to reach the Master Trainer for each profession to raise it to Artisan and learn anything above 225, and they're found in high-level areas, with the Master Enchanting Trainer being deep inside the dungeon Uldaman.

[Silverraptor]

I'm back into it. Does anyone have a server and guild for the playgrounders?

[Psyren]

For me, I define hard like this: Even knowing what you're supposed to be doing, it's not easy to do, and nothing in WoW, or any other hash-table driven combat system, really qualifies. Maybe healing whack-a-mole for a raid healer, but I feel that's a problem which can largely be addressed through dividing up responsibility, and good UI optimization. Same with DoT juggling for an Affliction lock. Is configuring an addon hard? Is paying attention to GTFO hard?

Addons like DBM and GTFO are the minimum for clearing progression mythic (and I'd argue even heroic for most people) raids, not the win button. They very much fit your definition above - i.e. "even knowing what you're supposed to be doing, it's not easy to do."

And healing triage (what you call "whack-a-mole") is similarly the bare minimum to be an effective healer in such content. Healers have fight mechanics too, and they aren't just moving out of red zones on the ground. You have to know your kit, how to kite/CC in some fights, when it's safe to dps, and you not only have to know your own mechanics, you have to know everyone else's so that you know when they might have to do something dangerous.

Sure after a while everyone starts to overgear the content and it does get easier over time, but if you're looking for absolute challenge then it's there, just challenge yourself to clear the content within that smaller window. You can be one of the folks testing those addons in the first place for example, going into those fights on the PTR with nothing but the Dungeon Journal to guide you so that the rest of us know where the prompts are. And Blizzard rewards you for it - the sooner your guild clears the whole raid, the more weeks you can farm it, which means better gear for your group, more of the raid-only mats as bad-luck protection or even BiS hunting, and more chances at the status symbol rewards like rare mounts.

The increasing reliance on add-ons and macros was another of the reasons I quit. To me, using an add-on is modding the game, and as such cheating. By the time of WotLK they were pretty much required, because Blizzard was amping up the difficulty to keep up with people using add-ons. Some people would outright kick you from a group for not using the correct add-on. Simply playing the game with the provided interface was actively frowned upon!

I can understand this frustration, addons provide some features that really should be baseline to the game. I remember how Blizzard themselves ended up using the community-created dps and threat meters back in Vanilla to help them design fights because they had never thought to make one themselves.

With that said, for the most part if you're not using specific addons nobody can tell but you. Even when they can, you can get the addon and simply disable it or its alerts. If you're really skilled enough to have the same level of output without them as someone else is with, that can be a personal challenge for you. As I covered above with Jackal though, for myself and many others, "knowing what to do" does not remove all challenge from the execution of that thing.

[Rodin]

I can understand this frustration, addons provide some features that really should be baseline to the game. I remember how Blizzard themselves ended up using the community-created dps and threat meters back in Vanilla to help them design fights because they had never thought to make one themselves.

With that said, for the most part if you're not using specific addons nobody can tell but you. Even when they can, you can get the addon and simply disable it or its alerts. If you're really skilled enough to have the same level of output without them as someone else is with, that can be a personal challenge for you. As I covered above with Jackal though, for myself and many others, "knowing what to do" does not remove all challenge from the execution of that thing.

The problem was that people were getting really competitive with it even in casual content.

Don't have a shot rotation macro, causing you to do sub-par DPS? Mockery and getting tossed out of a group. No matter that your gear and skill level were sufficient to easily complete the non-heroic dungeon you were in - everyone had their DPS tracker, and if you didn't do the DPS they expected it was "LMFAO GTFO NOOB". The Lich King era community was downright toxic and destroyed all desire I had to do even 5-man dungeons.

If I was trying to do Heroics (or Mythic, whatever that is) and the group was failing because I was there to play casually, that's one thing. When people are getting angry at me for not playing the game the way they think it should be played, even if we're winning? Buh-bye.

And it absolutely did keep me out of guild-based 20-man raiding. If everyone else is taking cues from an add-on (the boss will AOE in 20..19...18...) and you are not, it very quickly becomes obvious. Why would I even put myself in that situation to have 19 people justifiably mad at me for not hacking my game to make the content possible?

[The_Jackal]

Addons like DBM and GTFO are the minimum for clearing progression mythic (and I'd argue even heroic for most people) raids, not the win button. They very much fit your definition above - i.e. "even knowing what you're supposed to be doing, it's not easy to do."

Well,it is and it isn't. You can explain what to do in raids in 2 seconds: Don't stand in fire, execute your rotation. Where things get difficult is all the fruit-loop mechanics they pepper into the encounter. But again, none of these mechanics is hard to execute, so long as you have the presence of mind (or, more accurately, have repeated the exercise ad-nauseum) to do the right thing at the right time, it's very, very, VERY simple. And that mirrored my experience raiding: There were those members of my raid group which could largely be relied upon to pay attention and learn mechanics after a couple of tries, and then there were those complete derps who could be relied upon to screw up even the most simple instructions. Hence my conclusion that raiding is more about staffing than anything else. I could tell based on who showed up on any given week whether or not we were going to down progression content, before we ever cleared the trash.

[Spore]

Hence my conclusion that raiding is more about staffing than anything else. I could tell based on who showed up on any given week whether or not we were going to down progression content, before we ever cleared the trash.

Effort is the first and most important metric in the game, however vague it is. But your success is always a mix of equipment, adapability of your rotation/priority in case of retail to the raid.

You can simply fail a fight by not presenting enough numbers. I would know, I was stuck on Garalon normal mode for three weeks.

[Psyren]

Spoiler: @Rodin

Show

The problem was that people were getting really competitive with it even in casual content.

Don't have a shot rotation macro, causing you to do sub-par DPS? Mockery and getting tossed out of a group. No matter that your gear and skill level were sufficient to easily complete the non-heroic dungeon you were in - everyone had their DPS tracker, and if you didn't do the DPS they expected it was "LMFAO GTFO NOOB". The Lich King era community was downright toxic and destroyed all desire I had to do even 5-man dungeons.

Rotation macros have never been necessary to do competitive dps though; I myself have never used them, ever, and I've played since Vanilla. (I have used mouseover macros for healing once I started healing raids, but eventually I replaced them all with the likes of Healbot/Vuhdo, and will likely use one or the other if/when I heal in Classic.)

If I was trying to do Heroics (or Mythic, whatever that is) and the group was failing because I was there to play casually, that's one thing. When people are getting angry at me for not playing the game the way they think it should be played, even if we're winning? Buh-bye.

Mythic is the third difficulty they added in Warlords of Draenor to both raids and dungeons when they realized two difficulties wasn't enough for the playerbase. Or more accurately, they renamed their existing hardest mode (Heroic) to Mythic and then created an "in-between" difficulty for folks who wanted more challenge than Normal but didn't want to bother with the exacting compositions and dances of Hard modes previous.

And it absolutely did keep me out of guild-based 20-man raiding. If everyone else is taking cues from an add-on (the boss will AOE in 20..19...18...) and you are not, it very quickly becomes obvious. Why would I even put myself in that situation to have 19 people justifiably mad at me for not hacking my game to make the content possible?

Again, clearing all the content without any boss addons is quite possible. We know this for a fact because people have to clear that content in order to program those addons in the first place. Those cues and warnings in DBM didn't spawn magically from the ether - they were supplied by people that learn every fight on every difficulty the hard way, beating it blind. But just because something is possible doesn't mean most people want to bother with it, which sums up nearly every video game challenge really.

If you truly view them as a form of cheating, playing without boss mods is even easier in live now thanks to the Dungeon Journal that was created back in Cataclysm - an in-game resource that gives everyone at least a general idea of everything each boss does, which mechanics are specific to certain difficulties, and which mechanics in particular the tanks, healers and dps need to watch out for.

Well,it is and it isn't. You can explain what to do in raids in 2 seconds: Don't stand in fire, execute your rotation. Where things get difficult is all the fruit-loop mechanics they pepper into the encounter. But again, none of these mechanics is hard to execute, so long as you have the presence of mind (or, more accurately, have repeated the exercise ad-nauseum) to do the right thing at the right time, it's very, very, VERY simple. And that mirrored my experience raiding: There were those members of my raid group which could largely be relied upon to pay attention and learn mechanics after a couple of tries, and then there were those complete derps who could be relied upon to screw up even the most simple instructions. Hence my conclusion that raiding is more about staffing than anything else. I could tell based on who showed up on any given week whether or not we were going to down progression content, before we ever cleared the trash.

Look, at the end of the day a video game is a video game, you can become a pro at any of them by "repeating it ad nauseam." Ultimately these challenges are designed to be beaten after all. I'm still having trouble seeing why you seem to think WoW is somehow different from, well, every other PvE game ever made in this regard. "Repeating it ad nauseam" can get you through Dark Souls and Sekiro and Mario ROMhacks too unless you're deliberately trying to fail; does difficulty not matter for those games?

As for "staffing" - time played is one factor that helped you draw that conclusion about your attendees, sure, but their skill level does matter too.

[The_Jackal]

Look, at the end of the day a video game is a video game, you can become a pro at any of them by "repeating it ad nauseam."

That is simply not true. Some games do have the facility to reward raw physical talent (reflexes, hand-eye coordination, visual acuity) which do comply with normal distribution in the human population.

For a very specific example, I play a fair amount of The Division 2 with my buddy, who has very poor vision, and even corrected, his peripheral vision is not great, and his reflexes suffer thereby. He can spend as many hours as he wants to doing aim practice, and he may *improve*, but he will not, no matter how much practice he puts in, become "a pro".

For another, look at the amount of multitasking and actions per minute are required of a professional RTS player. Some of the expressed potential of the pros is certainly the result of practice, but you can't simply drop in any bloke, give them 10,000 hours, and calmly convert them into Maru

World of Warcraft, of the many other RNG-mediated RPGs which share its fundamental mechanical design, do not have that facility. There is a very, very, VERY modest upper-bound as to the mechanical challenges offered to the player. The top WoW player's APM might peak as high as 90, though I strongly suspect that far less is adequate to defeat even Mythic raids.

I'm still having trouble seeing why you seem to think WoW is somehow different from, well, every other PvE game ever made in this regard. "Repeating it ad nauseam" can get you through Dark Souls and Sekiro and Mario ROMhacks too unless you're deliberately trying to fail; does difficulty not matter for those games?

Again, you're comparing a game which is mediated directly by player input with a game that's (mostly) mediated by a random number generator. There is little to no jump puzzle gameplay in a WoW raid. There is absolutely no challenges to player reflexes. WoW gameplay, especially in raid encounters, is Simon. It's stimulus/response. It's pattern recognition. In my experience, the people who were unable to competently execute their job in a raid encounter were not paying attention. People who didn't want to expend effort properly itemizing their character, learning their rotation, or making macros to help manage WoW's native UI-bloat. They just wanted to show up, wearing whatever loot pushed them over the item level threshold, follow someone else, and collect their loot at the end. And at times, I've even been that person. At the end of MoP, I wanted to get the artifact bow from the end of Siege of Orgrimmar, so I got myself a carry. I couldn't be arsed to repeat the same raid ad nauseam until I had good enough gear to get accepted into a raid group on my own merit. I had come back to WoW after a long break, and wanted a cool piece of Hunter gear for when WoD dropped. If I'd known what a turd it would wind up being, I wouldn't have wasted my time.

As for "staffing" - time played is one factor that helped you draw that conclusion about your attendees, sure, but their skill level does matter too.

You mean /played? No, sorry, being AFK in Ogrimmar adds to time played. Fishing adds to time played. It's the lack of good facilities to evaluate player skill which makes the process of recruiting for PVE content so elitist and onerous. Most people seem insistent on only recruiting players who demonstrably don't need the rewards from content, and the only attempt at creating a "challenge mode" which let players demonstrate raid skills competence was so inadequate that it wound up providing no value, as it could be easily brute-forced. But neither of these address my core problem with WoW's design philosophy: It's a social game which rewards being anti-social. You want to best stuff in WoW? Don't play with people you like, find the sweatiest bunch of cellar-dwellers you can find, who will then insist that you spend hours faceplanting on content that nobody is adequately geared for yet.

Make no mistake, I'm not casting aspersions on WoW, or the people who enjoy it. It's a fun game, and I've enjoyed it for many years, though I'm kind of done with it now. But it is, fundamentally, a game where you're rolling dice, or at least, dice are being rolled on your behalf, and the latitude for exceptional execution is very limited.

[deuterio12]

But neither of these address my core problem with WoW's design philosophy: It's a social game which rewards being anti-social. You want to best stuff in WoW? Don't play with people you like, find the sweatiest bunch of cellar-dwellers you can find, who will then insist that you spend hours faceplanting on content that nobody is adequately geared for yet.

If you're claiming that you consider getting bigger virtual numbers is more important than the people you like, I'm honestly not sure what we're supposed to reply to that.

WoW doesn't even have money tournaments or anything. All the "reward" you get for dumping your friends is slightly larger values for your pixel character. And if you consider that's the best part of the game instead of teaming up with the people you like for adventuring, then it's your personal choice. But not everybody needs to have the biggest screen score to feel satisfied. Heck by definition most people won't get the biggest screen score. Many people consider that slaying a dragon with their friends is already the best part of WoW, even if they don't end up with the highest value at the leader boards.

[Psyren]

That is simply not true. Some games do have the facility to reward raw physical talent (reflexes, hand-eye coordination, visual acuity) which do comply with normal distribution in the human population.

For a very specific example, I play a fair amount of The Division 2 with my buddy, who has very poor vision, and even corrected, his peripheral vision is not great, and his reflexes suffer thereby. He can spend as many hours as he wants to doing aim practice, and he may *improve*, but he will not, no matter how much practice he puts in, become "a pro".

Disabilities don't prove your point at all, because the specific disability can impose a hard ceiling on progression in any video game. For abled players, your point is still wrong.

For another, look at the amount of multitasking and actions per minute are required of a professional RTS player. Some of the expressed potential of the pros is certainly the result of practice, but you can't simply drop in any bloke, give them 10,000 hours, and calmly convert them into Maru

And that's why I specified PvE. PvE games are designed to be beaten, yes even Dark Souls and the like. I can play Starcraft 2 on Brutal just fine and I am nowhere near tournament level.

There is little to no jump puzzle gameplay in a WoW raid. There is absolutely no challenges to player reflexes.

Reflexes are absolutely challenged in raids. Cooldowns, special action buttons, sudden movement are all required on various fights. I can only conclude you haven't raided above LFR in some time.

You mean /played? No, sorry, being AFK in Ogrimmar adds to time played. Fishing adds to time played. It's the lack of good facilities to evaluate player skill which makes the process of recruiting for PVE content so elitist and onerous. Most people seem insistent on only recruiting players who demonstrably don't need the rewards from content, and the only attempt at creating a "challenge mode" which let players demonstrate raid skills competence was so inadequate that it wound up providing no value, as it could be easily brute-forced. But neither of these address my core problem with WoW's design philosophy: It's a social game which rewards being anti-social. You want to best stuff in WoW? Don't play with people you like, find the sweatiest bunch of cellar-dwellers you can find, who will then insist that you spend hours faceplanting on content that nobody is adequately geared for yet.

You couldn't be more wrong here either. The "cellar dwellers" as you disparagingly refer to them are only if you're trying to farm bleeding edge difficulty and go for world first. Nobody needs that in order to get "best stuff," unless you count world-first achievements as "stuff."

Make no mistake, I'm not casting aspersions on WoW, or the people who enjoy it. It's a fun game, and I've enjoyed it for many years, though I'm kind of done with it now. But it is, fundamentally, a game where you're rolling dice, or at least, dice are being rolled on your behalf, and the latitude for exceptional execution is very limited.

It's pretty clear you're done with it, and have been for some time, because frankly you don't know what you're talking about at all. Not for the current state of the game anyway.

[The_Jackal]

If you're claiming that you consider getting bigger virtual numbers is more important than the people you like, I'm honestly not sure what we're supposed to reply to that.

I'm not claiming it is, which is why I stayed in the scrub-filled RP guild that had my friends in it, and kept carrying those muppets week after week, but the game does have graphics, you know. I would have liked to have gotten the Mythic version of the mantle of prestidigitation in purple to match my character's look. But that stuff is mythic only.

But the loot is the tiny part of the picture. What really makes WoW's four-tiered endgame bad is how it locks portions of the community away from each other. It stratifies the player-base into groups that have little reason to play and have fun together. It makes finding a group much more annoying and difficult than it needs to be, and to no good gain in return.

Disabilities don't prove your point at all, because the specific disability can impose a hard ceiling on progression in any video game. For abled players, your point is still wrong.

No it doesn't, because my point is that WoW, by it's fundamental underlying mechanics, is incapable of offering a high skill ceiling, and other games are not.

And that's why I specified PvE. PvE games are designed to be beaten, yes even Dark Souls and the like. I can play Starcraft 2 on Brutal just fine and I am nowhere near tournament level.

But you didn't specify PvE, you specifically chose the word "pro". What professional PvE gamers are you referring to?

You couldn't be more wrong here either. The "cellar dwellers" as you disparagingly refer to them are only if you're trying to farm bleeding edge difficulty and go for world first. Nobody needs that in order to get "best stuff," unless you count world-first achievements as "stuff."

Well, I like how you're able to dictate to me what my experience in various guilds was. Any of the tryhard guilds I was in, at the time I still thought being a tryhard was worth the hassle, demanded a big commitment in terms of their raider's free time. Frankly, just coming up with a 25 man raid group with the correct composition who had schedules compatible with my own job proved astonishingly difficult, more difficult than beating the content.

Reflexes are absolutely challenged in raids. Cooldowns, special action buttons, sudden movement are all required on various fights. I can only conclude you haven't raided above LFR in some time.
<...>
It's pretty clear you're done with it, and have been for some time, because frankly you don't know what you're talking about at all. Not for the current state of the game anyway.

Well, you would be wrong, unless there have been some incredible changes in WoW raiding since Legion, but I think we both know there have not. If you're under the impression that pressing a button within a 500 millisecond window is challenging, then that's probably the foundation of our disagreement. That's as quick an event as the WoW game engine is capable of presenting to the player. And, of course, with the benefit of add-ons like DBM, the important events are scripted and fairly predictable, especially after repeating the same encounter a few times.

[Psyren]

But you didn't specify PvE,

Ultimately these challenges are designed to be beaten after all. I'm still having trouble seeing why you seem to think WoW is somehow different from, well, every other PvE game ever made in this regard. "Repeating it ad nauseam" can get you through Dark Souls and Sekiro and Mario ROMhacks too unless you're deliberately trying to fail; does difficulty not matter for those games?

^ I did, as you can see.

No it doesn't, because my point is that WoW, by it's fundamental underlying mechanics, is incapable of offering a high skill ceiling, and other games are not.
...
If you're under the impression that pressing a button within a 500 millisecond window is challenging, then that's probably the foundation of our disagreement.

Putting aside that "pressing a button at the right time" can describe literally any game from Cookie Clicker to Super Meat Boy and Cuphead and is thus reductio ad absurdum, the mere act of pressing that button isn't the source of challenge - the challenge comes from pressing that button at multiple right times along with everything else going on. You are never only doing one thing in a raid (well, maybe some fights in Classic ), nor only pressing one button for that matter, and keeping all your designated plates spinning for the duration of a fight does in fact take skill provided your group doesn't massively overgear the content.

That's as quick an event as the WoW game engine is capable of presenting to the player. And, of course, with the benefit of add-ons like DBM, the important events are scripted and fairly predictable, especially after repeating the same encounter a few times.

This might come as a shock, but all boss fights everywhere have "scripted and predictable mechanics", from WoW to Dark Souls to Zelda and Mario to Portal and so many others. Merely having a predictable pattern does not make something unchallenging, because you still have to execute that pattern.

On top of that though, plenty of WoW boss fights have RNG components too, even in Classic. Bosses may have different abilities to choose from during a phase, or certain mechanics can coincide awkwardly due to timing, or they can target different people or locations in the raid at random, and so on; dealing with RNG-based misfortune without getting thrown out of your rhythm (or becoming a resource burden for the rest of the raid) also takes skill.

Well, I like how you're able to dictate to me what my experience in various guilds was. Any of the tryhard guilds I was in, at the time I still thought being a tryhard was worth the hassle, demanded a big commitment in terms of their raider's free time. Frankly, just coming up with a 25 man raid group with the correct composition who had schedules compatible with my own job proved astonishingly difficult, more difficult than beating the content.
...
But the loot is the tiny part of the picture. What really makes WoW's four-tiered endgame bad is how it locks portions of the community away from each other. It stratifies the player-base into groups that have little reason to play and have fun together. It makes finding a group much more annoying and difficult than it needs to be, and to no good gain in return.

I'm not dictating what your raiding experience was - I'm telling you that it's wholly irrelevant to the current game, and I suspect was an extreme outlier even when you did raid. I could go home and jump in a Normal/Heroic PuG right now if I wanted to, and given how popular Legion was I'm betting many others could have done the same. If your specific guild was having trouble getting together, that's not a universal problem. I'm therefore not seeing the deleterious effect on grouping that letting people self-select their own endgame is having.

That does bring us once more back to Classic, and the fact that you're at the mercy of your server when it comes to who is available to do what activity at any given time, but Retail solved that problem long ago, and it's not likely to be a problem in Classic for a while given the current surge of interest.

[The_Jackal]

^ I did, as you can see.

And the SPECIFIC piece of evidence I was referring to did not relate to PVE versus PVE, but to mechanics.

Putting aside that "pressing a button at the right time" can describe literally any game from Cookie Clicker to Super Meat Boy and Cuphead and is thus reductio ad absurdum, the mere act of pressing that button isn't the source of challenge - the challenge comes from pressing that button at multiple right times along with everything else going on. You are never only doing one thing in a raid (well, maybe some fights in Classic ), nor only pressing one button for that matter, and keeping all your designated plates spinning for the duration of a fight does in fact take skill provided your group doesn't massively overgear the content.

Yes, that is reductio ad absurdum, but it's YOU who is doing the reducio when you try to put Dark Souls and WoW on the same tier of skill ceiling. For, like, the hundredth time, WoW does not have a physics engine. It does not have clipping checks for your weapon. It does not have collision detection. You can walk right through another player, or a NPC, who will politely reposition itself. WoW also has to design its timings around its massive server-side lag. For a FPS game, an action game, multiplayer play requires, at the most, 100 milliseconds of latency in order to present a coherent experience, and a player who enjoys, say, a 50 millisecond latency advantage, courtesy of network geography, has a massive, massive advantage. WoW routinely runs updates at 200 milliseconds or higher, and operates at a much lower tick rate, because the engine is designed to have one server handle hundreds of players concurrently. I don't know exactly what the zone cap is in WoW these days, but the engine can support three full 40 man raid teams trying to tackle a world boss, easily. Well, you can't offer that kind of scalability at the same time as you're tracking a bunch of sub-second events from every player. That, as much as anything, is why the Global Cooldown exists. It's there to throttle events from players so the workload becomes more predictable. You do get some variety with interrupts off the GCD, but those are also cooldown limited, so there is an overall limit to the work rate of your server, and that, inevitably, limits player skill ceiling.

This might come as a shock, but all boss fights everywhere have "scripted and predictable mechanics", from WoW to Dark Souls to Zelda and Mario to Portal and so many others. Merely having a predictable pattern does not make something unchallenging, because you still have to execute that pattern.

It's not the presence of scripted events that makes WoW raid mechanics easy. Scripted mechanics are the only thing that makes them hard. It's all the other stuff, the 1.5 second global cooldown metronome, the lack of player interaction, etc., that I've been explaining previously. Dark Souls has telegraphs you need to recognize and react to, but they can be a lot more demanding, because it's a single-player game. It doesn't need to account for that 200 millisecond buffer between client and server, because in Dark Souls, they're the same thing. And you can't install an air-horn addon to tell you exactly when Great Grey Wolf Sif is going to do her sweep attack.

On top of that though, plenty of WoW boss fights have RNG components too, even in Classic. Bosses may have different abilities to choose from during a phase, or certain mechanics can coincide awkwardly due to timing, or they can target different people or locations in the raid at random, and so on; dealing with RNG-based misfortune without getting thrown out of your rhythm (or becoming a resource burden for the rest of the raid) also takes skill.

Do they, though? You can get bad luck, I'll grant you, but if you get cut off by three fire puddles spawning underneath you, what skill are you using avert that? Press W? Mouse look? No, you just run through, hope the healer keeps you upright (which is another way of saying, hope they're awake, or not busy puttying over some derp's errors), and get on with your rotation.

I'm not dictating what your raiding experience was - I'm telling you that it's wholly irrelevant to the current game

And I'm telling you you're wrong. Pure and simple. You are wrong. WoW has not profoundly changed how raids work, they haven't overhauled their mechanics or their engine, and the median player quality of the people subscribing has not improved. If anything, WoW raids have gotten easier because the designers have long since exhausted their toolkit of mechanical tricks, so you can frequently explain fight mechanics in terms of previous encounters.

That does bring us once more back to Classic, and the fact that you're at the mercy of your server when it comes to who is available to do what activity at any given time, but Retail solved that problem long ago, and it's not likely to be a problem in Classic for a while given the current surge of interest.

The "solution" of LFR and dungeon queue sucks, and you know it, which is why you keep falling back on lockout content to excuse the state of live. The reason smaller servers are viable in Classic is because the whole game is still relevant, and not just a waiting room for your lockouts. That will, of course, stop being the case once the majority of the player pool clears Molten Core, and then the endgame treadmill will assert itself once again, without daily quests to keep the pedals turning. I wonder what the Classic team does then? Just re-releases Burning Crusade, I guess.

[Psyren]

Spoiler: Non-Classic Tangent

Show

And the SPECIFIC piece of evidence I was referring to did not relate to PVE versus PVE, but to mechanics.

"Mechanics" means PvE, because PvP doesn't have "mechanics" - it's a dance of player interactions, fakeouts, ambushes, gang-ups etc.

Yes, that is reductio ad absurdum, but it's YOU who is doing the reducio when you try to put Dark Souls and WoW on the same tier of skill ceiling.

I didn't say they're on the same tier of difficulty - just that your absurdly broad litmus tests like "trying repeatedly," "pressing buttons" or "bosses with patterns" apply to both/all of them.

You've only now delved into some of the true differences between these games (physics, GCD, clipping etc.) and I don't disagree with these points - but your conclusion, that these differences somehow mean WoW is devoid of all skill, just does not follow. For example, a GCD is irrelevant to difficulty, because boss mechanics have time between them just like player abilities do; if anything, GCD makes things harder as you have to plan ahead, and can't interrupt your actions/animations on a dime if you make a mistake. Clipping is also irrelevant because adding that into any PvE game capable of 20+ players sharing a space is a recipe for trolling and disaster., and they can still design encounters where you can't share everyone's space anyway. And while I wouldn't be against a physics engine MMO, you don't need that to have reflex challenges either as previously stated.

So all of your points fall flat.

It's not the presence of scripted events that makes WoW raid mechanics easy. Scripted mechanics are the only thing that makes them hard. It's all the other stuff, the 1.5 second global cooldown metronome, the lack of player interaction, etc., that I've been explaining previously. Dark Souls has telegraphs you need to recognize and react to, but they can be a lot more demanding, because it's a single-player game. It doesn't need to account for that 200 millisecond buffer between client and server, because in Dark Souls, they're the same thing. And you can't install an air-horn addon to tell you exactly when Great Grey Wolf Sif is going to do her sweep attack.

"Lack of player interaction?" Are you sure you raided anytime in the last 5 years?

Being able to maximize every single GCD at your disposal does take skill, much like in D&D only experienced players can meaningfully utilize every single action in every round of combat.

Do they, though? You can get bad luck, I'll grant you, but if you get cut off by three fire puddles spawning underneath you, what skill are you using avert that? Press W? Mouse look? No, you just run through, hope the healer keeps you upright (which is another way of saying, hope they're awake, or not busy puttying over some derp's errors), and get on with your rotation.

Modern threats are far more varied than "three fire puddles spawning underneath you," and there's plenty more options besides the ones you've listed. This is how I know you truly haven't raided in a while.

• Moving proactively throughout the fight so that you have your build's "fast movement" ability available for a sudden reposition.
• Knowing when to use your own defensive/immunity cooldown, a consumable, or call for an external.
• If the threat is adds rather than environment, knowing how to kite, cc, and/or peel effectively.
• Knowing when not to run and simply nova the threat instead.
• Knowing when to use one of your own abilities to save someone else who has had bad luck or messed up with one of the above, saving the group a battle
• Having the reflexes, presence of mind, andforeknowledge of the fight needed to make the snap decision between all of the above.

I've done all of yours and all of mine in raids this expansion, and had a blast doing so.

The "solution" of LFR and dungeon queue sucks, and you know it, which is why you keep falling back on lockout content to excuse the state of live. The reason smaller servers are viable in Classic is because the whole game is still relevant, and not just a waiting room for your lockouts. That will, of course, stop being the case once the majority of the player pool clears Molten Core, and then the endgame treadmill will assert itself once again, without daily quests to keep the pedals turning. I wonder what the Classic team does then? Just re-releases Burning Crusade, I guess.

Uh, raid lockouts have existed since Vanilla They were introduced in patch 1.9. And yes, Classic has them too, because it's based on patch 1.12.

Retail is actually better in this regard - during a lockout, not only can you still join another group to continue practicing on a boss, you can even still get rewards, through the Seals of Fate mechanic. You can also extend your lockouts in case you fought long and hard to reach a boss Monday night and don't want to lose all that progress.

And I'm telling you you're wrong. Pure and simple. You are wrong.

Back at you.
We may have to leave this here then.

[The_Jackal]

"Mechanics" means PvE, because PvP doesn't have "mechanics" - it's a dance of player interactions, fakeouts, ambushes, gang-ups etc.

No, mechanics mean mechanics. The actual computational and network techniques which are implemented by the game engine. They are endemic to the design of the program or platform you're playing. Please do me a favor and stop making lexical arguments, they're entirely spurious.

I didn't say they're on the same tier of difficulty - just that your absurdly broad litmus tests like "trying repeatedly," "pressing buttons" or "bosses with patterns" apply to both/all of them.

Yes, you have. Repeatedly. Incessantly. Insisting that WoW raiding is just as hard as Dark Souls is what you just got done saying. For example:

I'm still having trouble seeing why you seem to think WoW is somehow different from, well, every other PvE game ever made in this regard.

So, yeah.

You've only now delved into some of the true differences between these games (physics, GCD, clipping etc.) and I don't disagree with these points - but your conclusion, that these differences somehow mean WoW is devoid of all skill, just does not follow.

Okay, then, lower skill ceiling than many, many, many other games. If you're going to compare WoW to Bejeweled or Nintendogs, I guess you can say it's hard. For someone. Who is not very good at video games.

For example, a GCD is irrelevant to difficulty, because boss mechanics have time between them just like player abilities do; if anything, GCD makes things harder as you have to plan ahead, and can't interrupt your actions/animations on a dime if you make a mistake.

What? No, that's not remotely true. You can't interrupt your animations at all, because your animations are only rendered client-side. They're window-dressing, and have nothing to do with what's transpiring between your game client and the server. The closest to "planning ahead" is judging cooldown usage, which is not that hard. Any encounter guide for any raid boss will tell you what spells need to be interrupted, what phases you should use your burn, etc., and those all are frequently, once again, announced via a DBM air-horn.

Clipping is also irrelevant because adding that into any PvE game capable of 20+ players sharing a space is a recipe for trolling and disaster.

That explains why they don't use it, not why it's not relevant to making a game more challenging. However, in any case, mostly when I'm talking about clipping and hit detection, I'm focused on "Did my weapon strike something or hit air". Scrutinized dispassionately, watching a WoW fight can look like a bunch of humanoids with palsy trying to dance near each other, because the hit mechanic is just that range check plus a hash function.

and they can still design encounters where you can't share everyone's space anyway.

Never found those mechanics to be particularly difficult to adjust to. In fact, the fights where the requirement is just 'keep everyone spread out' tend to be the easier ones than 'everyone stand and move as a group', because, again, we get back to the subset of derps in the raid who can't follow simple instructions. I can keep myself out of trouble, it's the systems that let other players get me killed that really offer what passes for difficulty.

And while I wouldn't be against a physics engine MMO, you don't need that to have reflex challenges either as previously stated.

No, you don't need a reflex challenges in them. Animal Crossing has a 3-D engine. But having a proper phsyics engine in your MMO would make such challenges possible.

So all of your points fall flat.

Whut?

"Lack of player interaction?" Are you sure you raided anytime in the last 5 years?

Okay, let's recast that sentence, I wrote it fast: "Lack of granual feedback between client and server."

Being able to maximize every single GCD at your disposal does take skill, much like in D&D only experienced players can meaningfully utilize every single action in every round of combat.

In D&D, they'd just take longer to take their turn, unless the GM is running with a stopwatch. And as for making optimal use of your GCDs, there's this wonderful site called "Icy Veins" which gives detailed instructions on how to run your rotation optimally, if one can be arsed to read and understand it. But in truth, you don't need to, you just need to have a sufficient grasp of your class's mechanics to execute your action priority/rotation. Now I've only raided with a Mage, a Rogue, a Warrior, and a Hunter in my WoW career, but I can't say as any of them have taxed my faculties to the point where I was unable to fulfill my role. Because, again, this is a test which involves pushing one button at a time, once a second, with maybe an off-GCD action every few seconds. Not that hard.

Modern threats are far more varied than "three fire puddles spawning underneath you," and there's plenty more options besides the ones you've listed. This is how I know you truly haven't raided in a while.

I didn't use the fire puddle to illustrate the full gamut of threats which a raid encounter can present. I used that example to specifically address your assertion that raid encounters have RNG mechanics, as a rebuttal to my "DBM hold your hand" argument.

• Moving proactively throughout the fight so that you have your build's "fast movement" ability available for a sudden reposition.
• Knowing when to use your own defensive/immunity cooldown, a consumable, or call for an external.
• If the threat is adds rather than environment, knowing how to kite, cc, and/or peel effectively.
• Knowing when not to run and simply nova the threat instead.
• Knowing when to use one of your own abilities to save someone else who has had bad luck or messed up with one of the above, saving the group a battle
• Having the reflexes, presence of mind, andforeknowledge of the fight needed to make the snap decision between all of the above.

Again, if you think any of the aforementioned things are actually difficult to execute, I know exactly what the foundation of our disagreement is.

I've done all of yours and all of mine in raids this expansion, and had a blast doing so.

Good! I'm glad you're enjoying it. Doesn't make it challenging to anything but my patience and managerial skills.

Uh, raid lockouts have existed since Vanilla They were introduced in patch 1.9. And yes, Classic has them too, because it's based on patch 1.12.

Retail is actually better in this regard - during a lockout, not only can you still join another group to continue practicing on a boss, you can even still get rewards, through the Seals of Fate mechanic. You can also extend your lockouts in case you fought long and hard to reach a boss Monday night and don't want to lose all that progress.

Eh, nah. First of all, Seals are just another form of the same lockout mechanic. I will grant you that earning them will keep you somewhat busy, but unless something has drastically changed since I used them in Legion, they were mostly a gold sink, and a mechanism permitting players to get extra rolls on bosses which dropped specific gear. So getting one extra drip in my itemization IV is not exactly electrocuting my adrenal glands. What I'm really looking for, out of any progression game, is what Diablo III gives you: As many pulls on the slot machine as you're willing to play for, instead of getting N rolls per week. And that's what I'm talking about when I talk about Classic's reward economy working better: There's still mountain to climb, there's still levels to gain, there's still gear to earn. Once people have their first MC clear, it's back on the treadmill.

Back at you.
We may have to leave this here then.

Suits me.

[Spore]

{Scrubbed}

[Anteros]

{Scrubbed}

On the one hand, I agree with your point entirely. On the other hand, it's not like anyone here is actually talking about Classic. Can't derail a discussion that doesn't exist.

[Corsair14]

I am trying to do a macro for my hunter and google searching doesn't seem to be helping. I want to hunters mark my target, send the pet to attack, and fire an aimed shot. This is what I have
/cast Hunter's mark
/cast pet attack( or something, whatever it is it works)
/cast Aimed Shot

The first two work, it marks it and the pet happily goes after my target. The aimed shot or anything else I have tried does not work. How do I get the third ability to go off?

[Winthur]

I am trying to do a macro for my hunter and google searching doesn't seem to be helping. I want to hunters mark my target, send the pet to attack, and fire an aimed shot. This is what I have
/cast Hunter's mark
/cast pet attack( or something, whatever it is it works)
/cast Aimed Shot

The first two work, it marks it and the pet happily goes after my target. The aimed shot or anything else I have tried does not work. How do I get the third ability to go off?

Aren't both Hunter's Mark and Aimed Shot on GCD? In that case it won't work.
If you want HM and AS on one button try something like
/petattack
/use [mod:shift] Hunter’s Mark
/use [nomodifier] Aimed Shot

Then Hunter's Mark will work if you press Shift+button and otherwise the default is Aimed Shot.

[Corsair14]

Whats GCD?

[The_Jackal]

Whats GCD?

Global Cooldown. For most classes, it's 1.5 seconds. For Rogues (and later, I think, Hunters), it's 1 second. Once Haste enters the picture, cast spells can also shrink global cooldowns as low as 1 second as well. The point brother Winthur is making is that macros will not permit you to perform multiple actions. It's designed to prevent the use of macros to fully automate your class, and one of the main constraints is that it's 'one press per action' save for actions which are unaffected by the global cooldown, like interrupts (Counterspell) or giving your pet orders, moving, etc.

[Spore]

Also as I understood it, Vanilla WoW HAD a function where you could incorporate wait time to account for the GCD and thus REALLY automate your class. This feature was removed from macro functions.

Also the GCD is actually in the game so people can't just use all their abilities simultaneously to nova in PvE and PvP. I always see it as "turns" or "actions" in pen and paper/tabletop.

[Spore]

Sorry for the double post but my classic experience has gotten sour.

1) There are still people that struggle to play a game this old. I expect someone who deliberately levels as a healer (i.e. a resto druid) to still be able to play the rest of their class. A holy priest has dots, a affliction warlock has direct damage, a fury warrior has (or should have) a shield and a def stance. People are so caught up in the retail mindset of restrictive class roles that they refuse to do anything beyond their job description, it is mind boggling.

Healers stand next to mobs doing nothing, even though they could wand or cast a cheap DoT (I understand mana preservation but being at 90% mana with mp5 ticking has got to be enough mana).

Hunters with extremely inefficient pet guidance. Not everyone needs to be at their A game when researching pets but at the very least have the pet reach the elite mob BEFORE it reaches zero life.

This might sound elitist but I am just looking for people that WANT to improve. If I play a game I personally want to be good at it because that is the most entertaining. I get that people just play it to fill time. But isnt it incredibly selfish to play not to your capabilities?

2) Tanks and Healers with god complexes. Yes, we get it, you are important in the groups. But when we are fighting Lv 23 mobs in BFT on almost lv 30 characters, it should not warrant a group kick that my hunter engages pretty quickly and my pet pulls aggro. I get it that you feel pretty superfluous when "tanking" grey mobs but they're just stuff to slow you down from repeatedly farming this instance. Mow them down and be happy with it. Why some tanks are mad that they DONT take damage but my pet does instead is weird to me. I understand if it would endanger the group but these are grey mobs. More often than not they don't even hit my ****ing pet.

3) Group with reserved loot. Jesus flipping Christ, dudes. I am as much a part of this group as you are. Why can you reserve item x y and z for yourself? Why would you even reserve a Lv 23 blue for yourself? How incredibly petty must you be to do that? I get it in the endgame, and even then we are at a pretty low pop server so gearing to raid is an issue for 1-2 guilds and a few individuals.

Most of this is caused by me failing to make real connections with a guild. I am in both a big guild that is more loosely connected and in a small "friends" guild whose levels vary so much they can't play together. Because many of these problems would've been mended by simply talking via voice com. But holy crap, I haven't been kicked from a group for "overperforming" in a long time. I don't pull mobs but heck if my pig isn't at the mob with the tank simultaneously. I can't help it that subsequent autoattack crits pull aggro. Should I watch TV, pleasure myself and just rightclick mobs for the poor tank to feel validated?

Cheers, an incredibly irate and pissed Spore

[Rodin]

This might sound elitist but I am just looking for people that WANT to improve. If I play a game I personally want to be good at it because that is the most entertaining. I get that people just play it to fill time. But isnt it incredibly selfish to play not to your capabilities?

Honestly? No, it is not. If I'm playing a video game, I'm playing it for my enjoyment. If that means playing a dungeon on auto-pilot while most of my attention is on the TV, then so be it. The only point where it becomes harmful is if I'm playing so poorly that I risk the party. Your mindset is the sort that ultimately drove me away from the game - the idea that I can't have a turtle for a pet because it's sub-optimal, or because my DPS isn't high enough I'm somehow ruining the game for another player.

It's different if you're playing something that's highly competitive, or something that requires a great deal of skill. Level 30-ish WoW dungeons don't meet either criteria. If your party wipes while the priest has full mana, then you can yell at them. But yelling at them for not acting in the most optimized way possible? No. As long as you are comfortably clearing the dungeon, let people act however they want.

The same goes for those high-strung warriors you mentioned. That's the same issue coming the opposite direction. It is sub-optimal for your pet to be taking damage. It is dangerous for a hunter to pull too quickly. The complaints would be valid...if you weren't 10 levels above the monsters you're fighting and could faceroll the place with just a couple people.

Your complaints sound exactly like the ones you're in turn complaining about.

[Kish]

If your party wipes while the priest has full mana, then you can yell at them. But yelling at them for not acting in the most optimized way possible? No. As long as you are comfortably clearing the dungeon, let people act however they want.

The same goes for those high-strung warriors you mentioned. That's the same issue coming the opposite direction. It is sub-optimal for your pet to be taking damage. It is dangerous for a hunter to pull too quickly.

Yes, this. I'm going...pick one. Either demand the level of optimization that makes it make sense to complain that the healer isn't also doing damage, or play the "I don't need to worry about optimal dungeon play here" card; both at once just totals out at "everyone should be accommodating ME!"

And the "everyone will be really good at it because it's old" line of reasoning was always goofy. No one's been spending the last fifteen years practicing WoW Classic; even people who were playing on private servers ever since 2006 were playing a version of the game with changes. Someone who had been playing for two months in 2005 likely had a worse computer than someone who's been playing for two months in 2019, but that's the only inherent difference.

[Anteros]

Well, I think there's probably some middle ground between optimal play and "auto-pilot where most of my attention is on the tv". I agree that not everyone needs to play optimally, but it's still a team game, and if your attention isn't there enough to put in more than the bare minimum to not wipe the party, I don't want to play with you.

That isn't me being elitist so much as it's me asking you to stop wasting my time because you're lazy or don't want to pay attention. It isn't about whether we clear the content or not. It's about whether I enjoy my time in a group with you. We all play the game to have fun, and if you aren't doing more than the bare minimum, it isn't fun for the rest of your party.

[Seerow]

Well, I think there's probably some middle ground between optimal play and "auto-pilot where most of my attention is on the tv". I agree that not everyone needs to play optimally, but it's still a team game, and if your attention isn't there enough to put in more than the bare minimum to not wipe the party, I don't want to play with you.

That isn't me being elitist so much as it's me asking you to stop wasting my time because you're lazy or don't want to pay attention. It isn't about whether we clear the content or not. It's about whether I enjoy my time in a group with you. We all play the game to have fun, and if you aren't doing more than the bare minimum, it isn't fun for the rest of your party.

But the scenario isn't about wiping the group. It's about being suboptimal.

The scenario presented is a level 30 party clearing a mid-20s dungeon. If I'm watching TV while I heal and keeping the party alive, I've done my job, and you expecting me to also be dealing damage because I have damage dealing spells may be reasonable if we are doing cutting edge content, but not for something like this.

Yes if you are playing badly and as a result the party wipes and everyone wastes a ton of time, that's when you can and should say something. But saying the whole experience of the game is ruined for you because others aren't living up to your personal arbitrary standards of correct play is exactly the sort of attitude that turns so many players away from any group content at all. It is only made more hilarious by these complaints being made by a hunter ignoring aggro and failing at pet management, while saying it doesn't matter.

[Psyren]

*snip*

Cheers, an incredibly irate and pissed Spore

I sympathize with your plight. Unfortunately the design solutions to it - scaling mobs, more engaging rotations, and faster mana regen so that people don't feel either compelled to hoard it all and/or resort to very boring wanding instead of casting - are solutions that Classic will never be able to implement. So unfortunately, this is more or less what you signed up for.

And the "everyone will be really good at it because it's old" line of reasoning was always goofy. No one's been spending the last fifteen years practicing WoW Classic; even people who were playing on private servers ever since 2006 were playing a version of the game with changes. Someone who had been playing for two months in 2005 likely had a worse computer than someone who's been playing for two months in 2019, but that's the only inherent difference.

There's way more differences between then and now than crappier internet and computers; one of the biggest ones was lack of optimization guides or number-crunching tools. Back then we were lucky if we found a Gamefaqs for our class that was up to date, and now we have wikis, youtube, Icy Veins, Discord and many other sources.

There are certainly always going to be people who don't care about their performance or don't care about optimizing DPS or XP/hour in a dungeon setting. But for those that do want to push themselves, the barrier to figuring out how is lower than ever.

But the scenario isn't about wiping the group. It's about being suboptimal.

The scenario presented is a level 30 party clearing a mid-20s dungeon. If I'm watching TV while I heal and keeping the party alive, I've done my job, and you expecting me to also be dealing damage because I have damage dealing spells may be reasonable if we are doing cutting edge content, but not for something like this.

Yes if you are playing badly and as a result the party wipes and everyone wastes a ton of time, that's when you can and should say something. But saying the whole experience of the game is ruined for you because others aren't living up to your personal arbitrary standards of correct play is exactly the sort of attitude that turns so many players away from any group content at all. It is only made more hilarious by these complaints being made by a hunter ignoring aggro and failing at pet management, while saying it doesn't matter.

The irony here though is that he was the one to get kicked out when his pet pulled a grey mob. Seems like it's a double-standard whereby the group tolerates suboptimal play when it's not a hunter, but punishes it swiftly when it is.

Though in retrospect, that is the authentic vanilla experience, so maybe that's a win?

[Spore]

The irony here though is that he was the one to get kicked out when his pet pulled a grey mob. Seems like it's a double-standard whereby the group tolerates suboptimal play when it's not a hunter, but punishes it swiftly when it is.

Though in retrospect, that is the authentic vanilla experience, so maybe that's a win?

I've pulled a LOT worse shift like that when I played my priest, but for some reason when a hunter joins, 15 years of rejudice barrels down on you.

[Kish]

Are you sure it wasn't "the guy who's been nagging the healer to do damage and jabbing at other hunters for not sending their pets in fast enough for him, just told his pet to attack an enemy the tank didn't have yet"?