So I tried WoW today for the first time

[chuixupu]

"serious" MMOs

 

lol

[branmakmuffin]

lol

That's why I put "serious" in quotes.

[ItachiZaku]

I played and yeah, there is story there but you really have to do a lot of it to get it, but the leveling is so quick that you do miss a bunch of it.

 

End game is laughable. For instance, they introduced a "Timeless isle" that drops end game gear like candy. Yes, literally. You can get a full set and do normal mode raids (there are 4 levels of difficulty... yes, 4, "normal" is the 3rd hardest) and with this free gear, it is difficult, but doable for sure.

 

You have the standard pvp end game and also these cool pokemon battles.

[Trollokdamus]

the leveling is so quick that you do miss a bunch of it.

Yeah, you level way too fast this days, even without heirlooms and guild xp boost. IMO they should slow down the core leveling pace and make heirlooms more powerful (in terms of bonus exp) instead. However, you can still do gray quests or stop xp gain from time to time if you are interested in the story.

 

they introduced a "Timeless isle" that drops end game gear like candy. Yes, literally. You can get a full set and do normal mode raids (there are 4 levels of difficulty... yes, 4, "normal" is the 3rd hardest) and with this free gear, it is difficult, but doable for sure.

Lol, you have absolutely no clue, don't you? It's like saying you could jump straight into hm Ops with the starter Tionese set pre-RotHC. This "end-game gear" from timeless isle can barely make you somewhat capable of doing raid finder, the lowest difficulty mode.

Edited December 23, 2013 by Trollokdamus

[ItachiZaku]

Lol, you have absolutely no clue, don't you? It's like saying you could jump straight into hm Ops with the starter Tionese set pre-RotHC. This "end-game gear" from timeless isle can barely make you somewhat capable of doing raid finder, the lowest difficulty mode.

 

Oh, you certainly can. Mind you, it's not in a tank/healer capacity, but you can as dps. Only normal mode or lower (flex or LFR), not heroic mode. To quote my roommate "I dunno, had the reborn weapon and nothing but TI gear and they needed numbers, ended up 8 on damage, go figure". I guess they didn't want flex, but actual normal mode.

 

I did fine in LFR with TI gear, but I sorta try when I'm in there. Not great, but I don't die and get people out of prisons, was even on belt duty and "guy on the ledge" duty without issues in LFR.

[Trollokdamus]

Oh, you certainly can. Mind you, it's not in a tank/healer capacity, but you can as dps. Only normal mode or lower (flex or LFR), not heroic mode. To quote my roommate "I dunno, had the reborn weapon and nothing but TI gear and they needed numbers, ended up 8 on damage, go figure". I guess they didn't want flex, but actual normal mode.

 

I did fine in LFR with TI gear, but I sorta try when I'm in there. Not great, but I don't die and get people out of prisons, was even on belt duty and "guy on the ledge" duty without issues in LFR.

Trust me, if all of your dps are using ilvl 496 gear and 476 weapons, you have no chance of killing anything in SoO normal unless they are experienced professionals from top guilds which strive for world firsts. But even in that case, they could down only a limited number of entry bosses and would need extremely good geared tanks and healers to compensate.

However, the majority of the playerbase is still struggling on normal bosses even with ilvl 540 and higher from the previous tier of raiding, isle, raid finder and flex.

 

As for flex, yeah, it may be possible with 496 dps, but then again, not all bosses and you need to have much better geared healers and tanks for that. Not to mention you need to be in an organized group, PuGs still have no chance with this level of gear.

 

But anyway, that's not my point - my point is, noone will ever take you for flex runs if you're lower than 510-520 and for normal runs if lower than 535-540. And this is at best - people tend to ask from you much, much more in order to have smooth runs.

 

So your statement:

End game is laughable. You can get a full set and do normal mode raids

is invalid.

Edited December 23, 2013 by Trollokdamus

[Hambunctious]

WOW wasn't my first mmo, and I didn't play it until WotLK came out. I quit months before Cataclysm, and never went back after I read about some of the upcoming changes. I enjoyed my time playing, leveled a bunch of 80s, but constant raiding wore me out.

 

The things I enjoyed most at max level were AV, and Wintergrasp. The severe class imbalances ruined that eventually, and the hackers were annoying as well.

 

I can't see myself ever going back, but for people who never played it, I can see them having fun.

[Jeweledleah]

Yeah, you level way too fast this days, even without heirlooms and guild xp boost. IMO they should slow down the core leveling pace and make heirlooms more powerful (in terms of bonus exp) instead. However, you can still do gray quests or stop xp gain from time to time if you are interested in the story.

 

 

Lol, you have absolutely no clue, don't you? It's like saying you could jump straight into hm Ops with the starter Tionese set pre-RotHC. This "end-game gear" from timeless isle can barely make you somewhat capable of doing raid finder, the lowest difficulty mode.

 

1... considering that early normal difficulty drops dropped the started tionese gear i na first place? yes, you most certainly COULD jump into ops with it

2. the minimum gear requirement to start group finder raids in WoW is what was it 470? or 460? I forget. something of that nature. and early raids are tuned low enough that you can more then manage even if half your group is semi afk lemmings. by the time I stopped playing in Pandaria again, my main was at 490 which made her eligible for every single group finder raid at the time. and yes, I did them (for the reference - resto shaman, and I would occasionally go ele) I didn't get to play my 7 free days during release of timeless Isle patch for real life reasons and never bothered resubbing afterwards to check it out, but my friend kept me mostly up to date. it takes several hours to grind up a full set of gear for a fresh 90 with few pieces here and there left over for alts. timeless Isle gear is 496 from a quick refresher search. more then enough to start group finder raids, which have been updated to drop gear more often nowadays.

 

now.. this may not open up all the content on normal mode, but... and this is something that I always found ridiculous in MMOs. as the expansion progresses, people get more and more unreasonable in their demands for both minimum gear and minimum performance, asking pugs to wear gear above the level of what the raid they are running actually dropping. this is major part of the reasons why Blizzard created group finder versions of gear in a first place. simplified encounters and gear checking is sone by the system, not overzealous pug organizer who thinks gearscore is everything.

 

the system is not perfect. far from it. and I've encountered some of the vilest specimens in group finder chat. but... it allows even a super casual player to basically experience the entirety of the content that the game offers. which was Blizzard's intention.

 

the unfortunate drawback is that fewer and fewer people bother doing progression raiding. but that's the thing with trying to make all these different people happy at once. you can't. there is no such thing as one size fits all.

[Vaeladin]

Oh, you certainly can. Mind you, it's not in a tank/healer capacity, but you can as dps. Only normal mode or lower (flex or LFR), not heroic mode. To quote my roommate "I dunno, had the reborn weapon and nothing but TI gear and they needed numbers, ended up 8 on damage, go figure". I guess they didn't want flex, but actual normal mode.

 

I did fine in LFR with TI gear, but I sorta try when I'm in there. Not great, but I don't die and get people out of prisons, was even on belt duty and "guy on the ledge" duty without issues in LFR.

You might be able to do the fist handful of bosses with a 490 ilvl, but there's no way you can compete with properly geared players after the first 3-4 bosses. That's just not possible regardless of what you may say.

[Jeweledleah]

You might be able to do the fist handful of bosses with a 490 ilvl, but there's no way you can compete with properly geared players after the first 3-4 bosses. That's just not possible regardless of what you may say.

 

maybe you are confusing lfr and regular difficulty? becasue they are not even remotely in the same category.

 

lfr is incredibly simplifies, with a whole bunch of mechanics either removed or neutered to the point of people just ignoring them completely and still winning.

 

there are very few insta kill mechanics left (on of them being that boss that looks like dragon version of Algalon, forgot the name) lfr difficulty is MEANT for people in heroic blues. that's why 490 is the requirement for the last bosses. inability of some groups to complete it has nothing to do with the lack of gear and everything to do with ratio of stupid to semi competent. some times you luck out and have enough people to make a difference. sometimes? you don't.

 

Tanks are the only role that carries much of responsibility at all, as they are the only ones who need to have at least some prior knowledge of the fight (knowledge that you can get from reading an in game dungeon journal)

 

last but not least, unless they removed that mechanic after I started playing... each subsequent wipe cumilitively buffs the players. so as long as you stick around, you are basically guaranteed to win. (hell if I could go there with my rusty resto shaman wearing blues with like 3 purples - all starter ones - boots from Sha, crafted chest, things like that, with NO prior knowledge of the fights and still top the healing and we win? yeah, you don't need the overkill of gear that WoW players like to ask for for everything.)

 

Normal difficulty however is much much different from lfr. I have tried it as well, and you do need to account for mechanics and you cannot just ignore them and power through, and you cannot lose half the raid and still win.

 

but most super casual players who have neither time nor inclination to find a guild capable of teamwork needed to kill bosses on normal difficulty and beyond? just go for raid finder.

[Trollokdamus]

1... considering that early normal difficulty drops dropped the started tionese gear i na first place? yes, you most certainly COULD jump into ops with it

Sure, you COULD jump into hm Ops like that, but only if it was EV/KP and only if the group was willing to carry you. Want to try something more serious? Go grind rakata and black hole gear.

 

2. the minimum gear requirement to start group finder raids in WoW is what was it 470? or 460? I forget. something of that nature. and early raids are tuned low enough that you can more then manage even if half your group is semi afk lemmings. by the time I stopped playing in Pandaria again, my main was at 490 which made her eligible for every single group finder raid at the time. and yes, I did them (for the reference - resto shaman, and I would occasionally go ele) I didn't get to play my 7 free days during release of timeless Isle patch for real life reasons and never bothered resubbing afterwards to check it out, but my friend kept me mostly up to date. it takes several hours to grind up a full set of gear for a fresh 90 with few pieces here and there left over for alts. timeless Isle gear is 496 from a quick refresher search. more then enough to start group finder raids, which have been updated to drop gear more often nowadays.

Not sure what this reply has to do with my post tbh.

The minimum gear requirement to start the latest LFR is 496, exactly the level of gear that drops from timeless isle. Ilvl 496 is the minimum you need to have in order to not be dead weight there. If you want to do something harder than LFR, you have to grind better gear through other means (i.e. upgraded isle gear, world bosses, crafts, previous raid tier, etc). You can't just jump into the recent normal mode raid (and even flex) with the starter 496 set and do fine, despite what ItachiZaku says.

[Jeweledleah]

Sure, you COULD jump into hm Ops like that, but only if it was EV/KP and only if the group was willing to carry you. Want to try something more serious? Go grind rakata and black hole gear.

 

 

Not sure what this reply has to do with my post tbh.

The minimum gear requirement to start the latest LFR is 496, exactly the level of gear that drops from timeless isle. Ilvl 496 is the minimum you need to have in order to not be dead weight there. If you want to do something harder than LFR, you have to grind better gear through other means (i.e. upgraded isle gear, world bosses, crafts, previous raid tier, etc). You can't just jump into the recent normal mode raid (and even flex) with the starter 496 set and do fine, despite what ItachiZaku says.

 

right, so you are expecting people to grind gear they would get from raids as drops... before they can do those raids? yeah, that's logical. content is tuned for a gear that's one tier below of what drops in a raid itself, becasue raid drops are supposed to be upgrades, not alt rolls/vendor trash. sure its more challenging that roflstomping through content while overgeared, but that's kind of the point of tuning in a first place.

 

as for WoW you are making 2 assumptions.

1. that they want to bother trying to find a group capable of clearing the most recent raids on a normal difficulty?

2. that they want to jump into latest content straight away, bypassing all that has come before.

 

neither is a necessity to "see" the content. hell, with DBM telling you exactly what to do, when - you barely even need to know anything about content at all.

 

and your deadweight comment is very much nearsighted. gear can only amplify what player can already do. you can have the best gear in a world and still be a deadweight and you can have a bare minimum gear and do great. sure at some point you hit the wall that cannot be circumvented by anything other then better gear, but that wall rarely happens in normal modes.

[ItachiZaku]

if all of your ...

 

No no, not all. Certainly not. A lot of guilds will take knowledgeable bodies for DPS, even if undergeared. Not "/2 LF2Deeps be leet 590 ilevel, link HM cheeve pl0x" for their monkey runs.

[Trollokdamus]

right, so you are expecting people to grind gear they would get from raids as drops... before they can do those raids? yeah, that's logical. content is tuned for a gear that's one tier below of what drops in a raid itself, becasue raid drops are supposed to be upgrades, not alt rolls/vendor trash. sure its more challenging that roflstomping through content while overgeared, but that's kind of the point of tuning in a first place.

I never said i'm expecting that, stop putting words in my mouth. Upgraded timeless gear is 535, recent LFR is 528, previous content is 522/535, flex is 540, while recent normal mode drops are 553.

 

as for WoW you are making 2 assumptions.

1. that they want to bother trying to find a group capable of clearing the most recent raids on a normal difficulty?

2. that they want to jump into latest content straight away, bypassing all that has come before.

 

neither is a necessity to "see" the content. hell, with DBM telling you exactly what to do, when - you barely even need to know anything about content at all.

Once again... i'm not assuming anything, i'm merely replying to this statement: "End game is laughable. You can get a full set and do normal mode raids".

And don't even start with that "DBM is playing for you" stuff, please.

 

and your deadweight comment is very much nearsighted. gear can only amplify what player can already do. you can have the best gear in a world and still be a deadweight and you can have a bare minimum gear and do great. sure at some point you hit the wall that cannot be circumvented by anything other then better gear, but that wall rarely happens in normal modes.

Seriously, it's like you see just what you want to see instead of what is actually written. I've specifically stated that you need to have the minimum required gear level in order to not be dead weight.

 

No no, not all. Certainly not. A lot of guilds will take knowledgeable bodies for DPS, even if undergeared. Not "/2 LF2Deeps be leet 590 ilevel, link HM cheeve pl0x" for their monkey runs.

First, how are the said guilds supposed to figure out that you are knowledgeable if they've never seen you before? The only thing they know about you at that point is the quality of your gear.

 

And second, sure, some guilds take undergeared people on board, but if you are that undergeared, only 2 kinds of guilds may accept you:

 

1. Extremely casual guilds whose usual progress is 1 new boss per month or something. But these guilds are focused on flex this days, not normal.

2. Desperate guilds from dead servers who are willing to carry you, gear you up from scratch, just so they can have a capable member to fill the empty spot.

 

Anyway, even if a miracle happens and you get invited into a good geared guild as 496, that in no way proves your point: "You can get a full set and do normal mode raids". The only thing it proves is that in one case out of 1000 you may get extremely lucky and get carried through the content.

Edited December 27, 2013 by Trollokdamus

[Jeweledleah]

I never said i'm expecting that, stop putting words in my mouth. Upgraded timeless gear is 535, recent LFR is 528, previous content is 522/535, flex is 540, while recent normal mode drops are 553.

 

 

Once again... i'm not assuming anything, i'm merely replying to this statement: "End game is laughable. You can get a full set and do normal mode raids".

And don't even start with that "DBM is playing for you" stuff, please.

 

 

Seriously, it's like you see just what you want to see instead of what is actually written. I've specifically stated that you need to have the minimum required gear level in order to not be dead weight.

 

 

First, how are the said guilds supposed to figure out that you are knowledgeable if they've never seen you before? The only thing they know about you at that point is the quality of your gear.

 

And second, sure, some guilds take undergeared people on board, but if you are that undergeared, only 2 kinds of guilds may accept you:

 

1. Extremely casual guilds whose usual progress is 1 new boss per month or something. But these guilds are focused on flex this days, not normal.

2. Desperate guilds from dead servers who are willing to carry you, gear you up from scratch, just so they can have a capable member to fill the empty spot.

 

Anyway, even if a miracle happens and you get invited into a good geared guild as 496, that in no way proves your point: "You can get a full set and do normal mode raids". The only thing it proves is that in one case out of 1000 you may get extremely lucky and get carried through the content.

 

with LFR? you need minimum gear to zone in. you don't need that gear not to be dead weight, they just erred on a side of caution, KNOWING that some players would have to compensate for others.

 

and I've played with dbm. it DOES virtually play the game for you, oh you still need to press the button to move, or switch targets, but it tells you when, it tells you how, it tells you where. it completely removes any and all need for situational awareness. hell - it doesn't just tell you, it counts down so that you have ample warning. the only difference between normal mode and LFR? is that you don't even have to listen to it at least half the time in lfr.

 

and yes, you can do normals with bare minimum of gear or bellow, provided you are not a dead weight of a player (which has little to do with gear). back in the olden days of wrath, there was a blogger, named "greedy goblin" fed up with insistence that gear=skill, he made an experiment. formed his own guild and proceeded to clear every available normal mode, including the last raid of the expansion? in heroic blues. fully enchanted and gemmed (with blue gems) but still - blue. before you tell me that this is not wrath, allow me to remind you that wrath saw the begginngs of major gear bloats, and yet those ilvl 200 blues were capable of getting through icecrown citadel that had minimum requirement of ToC gear - aka 232. and back in those days? itemization for blues and purples differed beyond just color (as in 200 purples were noticeably better than 200 blues).

 

being carried through content has very little to do with gear and so called good guilds that require same quality of gear or higher then drops from content that they are trying to progress through? is not all that good anyways.

 

the problem is, this is what WoW has become. this is what progression in WoW has become.

 

you either have few remaining hardcore guilds that are extremely closed in, guilds that think they are hardcore, and the bulk is guilds that are just there for the lvl 25 perks. and Blizzard is desperately trying to bring back the "middle class" those guilds that used to be the bulk of your selection, not super extremely seriously high end, but slow and steady progression nonetheless - the guilds that are dying out more and more now. they are the reason for existence of flex raiding. LFR ended up being a double edge sword. it got majority of the playerbase to see most if not all of the content, but it removed a lot of the motivation to progress through that content in any other way.

 

server I used to play on had a thriving gold DKP community. last I played? there were no GDKP runs. occasional achievement runs, but no GDKP. and many of those guilds that I used to know? are not even there anymore, with few that were left moving down to 10 man raiding from 25 that they used to do. why? pointless. why would people pay, when they can just roflstomp through for free, and so what if mechanics are laughable, you still get to see the bosses and get a few shiny purples. sure, lfr is only a small part of end game. but it might as well be THE end game content.

 

/shrug.