Perhaps it's just me...


All the talk about healing, heroics, and content...and the expac is only 3 weeks old.


People honestly expected to have the "switch" flipped on for Cata, jump into heroics, and be roflstomping face after 23 days?


Ok, granted, some people play 19 hours a day, in a guild full of people that play 19 hours a day, and of course they will be "further" along than most..but all in all, from what I am reading, it seems the (stealing this from George Carlin) "microwave oven" mentality is at fault here. Players want it, and want it right NOW.


Vanilla...lets face it, level from 1-60 before endgame, and things were so very different then. It took a lot of time just to get to maxlevel, let alone gear up once you were there.

TBC....10 more levels to 70...this took a bit as well, then there were 500 keys to obtain, and rep grinds, but no one seemed to mind most of that, it was all just part of the gig.

Wrath...70-80 got a lot faster. By the end, we have heirlooms, EXP in battlegrounds, and the RDF. Obtaining maxlevel was insanely easy, with people skipping entire zones in the process. Run a few regular TOTC for some starter epics, and boom: flop into Heroics with 4 other people with 5-6k GS, and get it done. From there the timesink was grinding badges, running the same "heroic" dungeons 500 times over and over again, and popping out your raids every week.


Cata. 80-85 is a joke, measured in hours, not days or weeks as maxlevel has been in the past. (or months like in Vanilla).

Has anyone stopped to think that all Blizzard has done is change the method of the timesink? From spending hour upon hour questing and leveling,(vanilla, tbc) or spending hour upon hour grinding no brainer 5 mans (wrath).. to spending hour upon hour obtaining rep, running regulars, and crafting?? Instead of "grinding" heroics for badges as a fresh 80, actually spending time learning to complete the dungeons as an 85? Learning your character to a "tee" in order to survive in heroics? Spending your time actually playing the game, rather than spamming AOE through 6,000 heroics while watching re-runs of whatever show you like?


I am as casual a player as they come. But I have to admit I am somewhat amazed that 23 days into an expansion, that people expect to have already "won" the game, without putting in any time whatsoever. (in a relative sense, of course, to past time expenditures)


I say the timesink is still there, even though 80-85 can be attained over a single weekend, and that it is just presented to the players in a different manner. It is still the same old timesink, and 3 weeks in is just seems like hardly any time at all.

 

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PUGs in general are just now getting used to the normal instances. I still quite often run with people who are new to a particular instance and it takes a few wipes to learn the ropes. IMO, heroics are not currently meant for random PUGs. It takes a lot of timing, teamwork and, someone, just plain luck to have a full heroic run. 99% of the PUGs I have run with, on my warrior and mage combined, have not fully cleared the instance we were in. After a fww wipes, people get discouraged and leave. I think I will just level alts and work on rep while running the normal instances for now.

For me it more the game mechanics than anything else. I am pissed with the way they have changed the healing pali play. I was enjoying it, and even adjusted to the holy power change. And then Cata hit and I got a big FU for being a casual. They changed the mechanics of the game so where I am no longer having fun healing on my pali. And that really sucks, because I have played off and on (mostly on) since classic beta, and I have alway healed on my pali.... even when it was considered not fun, nor the best healing choice.

but this.... this feels like effing work, and last I checked... I don't pay to work, I pay to play. Playing should be fun, period.

So if the current devs want to harken back to the days of the old EQ Raids, eff them to all hell. They can enjoy watching thier subscriptions leave. I believe they have a bigger casual base more than anything, which would make sense with the changes they made in WOTLK. If they seriously want to cater to a smaller minority, and say L2P to the majority of their base... so be it. I am currently leveling my mage to see if the fun can be had there end game for me... if not, I'll un-subscribe. I don't need pretentious pricks for devs telling me I'm not good cause I don't want to play to their vision, when their vision seems to be a 180 from where they took the game last.

Jared, having new people will get better with time, as it always does.

Bean, while I can relate on some level with your dilemma, we could also state that just about any aspect of this game could be construed as "work"...whether it be leveling, grinding badges, or gathering trade materials.

Or is it just time spent?


I love fishing IRL. I absolutely, 100% enjoy taking my son out and seeing what we can't hook. But I would be lying if every trip did not involve work of some type. Loading the gear, unloading the gear, getting from a to b, maintaining the boat, cleaning the fish, cleaning the equipment.....

Truth is, I bust my arse, but it is still fun.


WOW is the same way. Yes, sometimes it seems like you are busting arse..but if you have lost sight of the fun in that, there is no longer any reason to login.

 

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That's the kind of player they've been carefully cultivating for the past couple years, and now they are surprised those players aren't too keen on things challenging up a bit?

Blizzard doesn't know their own playerbase very well.

 

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I wouldn't agree with that statement. Why? Because if you think back, what was one of the biggest complaints for players at the end of Wrath? That people were running through the same dungeons over and over in order to get frosties. The runs were fast and they got annoying. So they changed it. NOw you'll still dungeon crwawl, but it'll mean something. People even said it was made easier by the LFD option...okay. So now they've given you a ton of incentive to join a guild. And incentive not to use the LFD for PUGing dungeons.

I don't think using the LFD to run through wrath dungeons in 5 minutes was thier vision. LFD was a tool that has progressed over time to be what it is today. I remember, back in vanilla having ti spam chat to find a group to go to RFD. IT took an hour ot find a group then an hour to run the dungeon...I quit for a while and came back.

It blows my mind that people complain about it being 'too easy' then complain about it not being 'easy enough'. Instead of pulling a group of 10 now you pull 2 or 3. You don't like it..leave.

I have no problem taking 2 hours out of my SAturday evening to run a regular dungeon, if I had to work at it and it was fun.

 

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One other thing....


When I started playing years ago I was working on getting to 60 and I thought to myself 'at 60 that's it' My friend who introduced me to the game said 'no, at 60 you're just begining' I'm glad they are bringing this feeling back.

 

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Yea, the general consensus is that Blizzard made their customers grow accustomed to a more laid back and casual experience, only to replace it with a ramped up difficulty at the tail end of this expansion. I feel bad for healers most of all, it seems like they're always taxed and basically just cast one spell over and over and over and over. Such a drastic change from WotLK.

 

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But it almost seems that people want the "end of wrath" gameplay, at the beginning of Cata, and none remember the "beginning of wrath" gameplay.

They want to overgear the content, without overgearing the content.


That is not Blizzard's fault.

Edit: Keep in mind, I'm not saying there are no issues with mechanincs. I'm not saying everything is perfect.

I'm just iterating that it's only been 23 days.

 

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WHO were saying that? The bitter old vets on the boards? Yeah. The vast majority of the people in game? I don't think so. They liked it brainless, they wanted it easy, keep the purple pixels rolling was their motto.





Yeah but it's what they created. Now they are trying to force the playerbase that they themselves have created and are so proud of to a playing style that doesn't suit most of them ("play the way we want you to play, comrade!" being one of the B-team's most cherished ideals). They are the casual army that is responsible for Blizzard's adored subscription numbers and trying to turn them into challenge-loving rpgers isn't going to work.

They already had to nerf the heroics once, just before release, and its starting to sound like they'll need to do it again or face revolt.





It never occurred to you that it might be two distinct groups making each complaint?





Yeah but will the casual playerbase Blizzard is so proud of say the same?

We'll see.

 

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