I have read it, and I would like you to point out where - specifically - he tells players that are not having fun is that it will be fun if they hop through hoops?

Blisteringballs pointed out above that "they've stated that the content will be easier once players (the community as a whole, I presume) acquire better gear, particularly in the next update." Ghostcrawler does indeed state that the content is "only going to get easier from here on out," which is of course true.

But what he is not saying is "hard is not fun, when you outgear it and it becomes easier, it will become fun." He is saying that Blizzard understand that it is not fun for everyone; that a different approach would be not fun for a different segment of the playerbase; and here are some tips which hopefully might make it more fun for you if you're not having fun now. Not "hoops" for you to hop through - ideas you might like to try.

Look, obviously there is no tuning point which is going to be right for everyone. The differences in skill, dedication, experience and knowledge across the whole spectrum of WoW's playerbase are almost incomprehensibly immense. Everyone knows this, Blizzard knows this, and I think they have given a very good explanation for their tuning: it can't be right for everyone, and it's better to tune it middle of the road now, too hard for some, too easy for some, in the knowledge that it's only ever going to get easier. The alternative would be to make it too hard for nobody, too easy for almost everybody, just so the least skilled, dedicated, experienced etc. players could cruise through it. Imagine the state of the game when it got even easier from there. Actually you don't have to imagine: you just have to have zoned in to a WotLK heroic at any time during 2010.

But as I asked on page one of this thread: where is the arrogance? Where is the arrogance in Ghostcrawler's blog. It was as far as possible from "this is right because I said so", he explains in great detail the thought processes behind their decisions, apologizes to those whose enjoyment has been hurt by these design decisions, and offers a bunch of advice for how they might be able to increase their enjoyment. What is arrogant about this post? Nobody can answer that simple question.

 

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What really po's me is, they nerf the crap out of AOE on most of the tank classes, and say "Well you won't have to AOE as much"

But every single dungeon i've been in so far, You've got to AOE your balls off..

Plus maintain CC..

The new Heroics are not challenging.. They're just unfun period.

It takes 30-40 Mins to get in a dungeon as a DPS... and if it wipes, I've just wasted all that time + however far I got in..

i'm not going to sit another 30-40 mins doing squat while I wait..

 

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Actually you're probably right, I was just ticked off lol. I was on a 14 hour ML 3 raid.

Yup exactly I am used to CC from old Vanilla WoW problem is that lfd tool needs to be worked on if they wanna plan on using it to that degree.Nothing sucks worse as a healer to jump in that queue and see the team fill up with a tank druid,2 dps warriors and a dk.These ppl have sat in queue for 45 mins not fair to dump them and have them wait again and it sure as hell isn't fun to try to heal that mess.

I don't understand how this expansion is any different than other expansions.

Don't take RDF into account because to ensure successful RDF runs, they will need to design the game with lowest common denominator. Don't forget RDF was added in patch 3.3 where most of the early content in wrath was already trivialized by gear inflation.

Once we take out RDF, I do not see heroics being hard at all. They are challenging, but which content isn't challenging when its newly released? How many people successfully completed Halls of Reflection or one of the new ICC heroics when they were released in instance appropriate gear? I don't remember anyone pugging ICC until the buff kicked in either. I play on low progression servers, so things maybe different on higher progression servers.

When a new content is released, it is meant to be done with a premade group who communicates and coordinates. If you remember wrath, remember skadi gauntlet in ilvl 187 gear? remember insanity on last boss of old kingdom? They weren't easy and you needed guild group or well known pug groups to complete most of them.

I am not gonna touch fun or unfun part because thats subjective opinion.. but I reckon these heroics will just be as faceroll as wrath heroics in patch 4.3 except you have to avoid those one shot mechanics.. they are not very hard to avoid tbh.

And the content will only get easier, not harder.

St0rmie,

In one sentence, he states the he "hears" the crowd that is not having fun, and that he understands....


"First, let me state that we do hear you. We understand some of you aren’t having fun and preferred the Lich King paradigm, or at least something closer to the Lich King paradigm. We greatly appreciate the feedback and it always makes us sad when players aren’t having fun. We're not ignoring you. We get it. We may not always agree on every point, but we understand where you’re coming from, and we want to try to help you understand where we're coming from."


"The bottom line is that we want Heroics and raids to be challenging, and that is particularly true now while the content is new and characters are still collecting gear. They’re only going to get easier from here on out. We want players to approach an encounter, especially a Heroic encounter, as a puzzle to be solved. We want groups to communicate and strategize. And by extension, we want you to celebrate when you win instead of it being a foregone conclusion."

hoops 1,2, and 3.....

"We didn't like that the Heroic dungeons in Lich King and early Naxxramas had become zerg-fests. It made the rewards feel like they weren't earned. It made all rewards except the best-in-slot items feel transitory -- why enchant or gem an item when you don’t need the performance boost and you’ll quickly replace it anyway? Furthermore, it set the expectation that everyone would eventually earn all best-in-slot items rather than those being rare and treasured goals. It made class abilities feel less useful and interesting. Who needs that crowd-control or survivability talent when nothing is hurting you? Who needs a mana-conservation talent if you’re never going to run out of mana? Who needs a crit talent if your heals often overheal anyway?"


Above is where the arrogance kicks in. WOW hit record numbers with the Wrath style, and whether everyone likes it or not, it is because so many found that style fun. He started by saying "we hear you", and has moved on to "we don't care"....


Here come the rest of the hoops....


"Strategy and Communication"

"DPS specs often get blamed the most for not knowing what is going on. It should be your business to understand the mechanics of the fights. You’re a member of a team, not a follower who can always rely on someone else to tell them what to do."

He is pretty much telling everyone that researching the fights is a must. While most of the people that post here already do this, many many more refuse to "work" to have "fun". Again, it is arrogant to expect your players to have to do research, and work, in order to enjoy your product.

"Improve"

That title in and of itself is telling players that they aren't "good enough" to HAVE FUN!!!!

"World of Warcraft supports a lot of solo play. However, we want dungeons to be a group experience. In fact, we think the game is more fun overall when you play with friends, which is why we put so much effort into encouraging players to join guilds for Cataclysm."

Play the way WE think you should (another hoop)....and it will be fun.


Then he goes on to explain that normals should have been another "hoop to jump through" (his own words)...besides just ilevel, in order to queue for heroics.


Again, even though I agree with much that he says, I still find the delivery very arrogant, and the entire post reads to me as such:

Players must jump through certain hoops, before the developers expect them to be able to have fun.
It reads as , "We hear you, we know you aren't having fun, but it is because you are doing it wrong..."

We all know GC has been pissed about healers forever...so he got his way, and healing changed.

Healers are also the ones quitting, or playing alts. The #1 reason? Because it isn't fun.


St0rmie, you may not see this post as arrogance...I might agree with most of it, but put yourself in the shoes of its intended audience, and then ask yourself if they find it to be so....

 

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Well I'm probably being too general and too assuming, I thought a lot of people used the heroics to gear up, if not for raids, or pvp, then just to gear up, because well the game tells you that's how you advance.


From what I can tell, the game was telling me that for PvE I should be doing heroics to get gear. Not, well there's this heroic thing, good chance it's above you though.


I might be assuming too much. But they are changing things, as many here predicted.


A lot is on the players, for sure - not realizing every expansion they are noob again, and not willing to wait two months if they decide they don't like heroics now (players and Blizz told them it would get easier). And of course these are the same a**hats that wouldn't let you group with them in wotlk unless you were woefully overgeared, so if you leveled guildless behind the gear curve, oh well.

 

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...which is why player crafting is such a colossal waste of time and gold.





Exactly. How many RL friends do you have who want nothing to do with the commitment that comes with joining a raiding guild? I've lost two RL friends (I know, ratsass) to other games precisely because they have no interest in joining a guild.

 

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I find it funny that they're still making posts to address the discontent from the community. Apparently people still aren't doing it their way and liking it.

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