Yeah, blizzard are pretty good about dealing with scammers. As long as it's clear in in-game chat what you've requested and that the other person has agreed to do it, they'll usually force the agreement to be honored (adding/removing items as necessary). I experienced this once back in the day when someone tried to make off with my Arcanite Reaper materials. Henceforth I always make sure to invite the crafter of an expensive item to my party, and make sure our ends of the deal are both clearly stated in party chat before anything goes down.
Played through the new Deadmines last night for the first time. Hilarious.
I guess that's how the cookie . . . crumbles.
YEEEEAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!
Westfall and the Deadmines are so awesome now.
Did anyone else /mourn the death of Ol' Blanchy?
YES.
Actually, I was playing through with a friend who never rolled Ally, and we got to Westfall. When we got to that first quest node, I had to explain to him how damn depressing it was.
Blizz really did a good job of progressing things.
Yes. Speaking of neat quests, I was in Northern STV and...
It turns out I ressurected Bloodlord Mandokir (who was killed in the former ZG raid) and he stole my baby raptor that was following me around. I'm just about to go into ZG now to continue the questline. I want my raptor back!
I'd wager it's simply because of situational awareness.
On a PvP server, you're using your mouse to move or you get schooled pretty hard, all the time.
On a PvE server, it doesn't matter. You won't get ganked, and you can keyboard turn all you want.
On a PvP server you learned really damned fast to keep looking behind you, be aware of your surroundings.
Stuff like that doesn't matter when you're on a PvE server, because as long as you look kinda in front of you, you should be good.
I mean, my experience, at least, showed this was the case through most of BC.
In Wrath, I transferred over to a PvE server. Anecdotally, my experience is like Bowen's. I mean, to be quite honest, the guild I'm in is terrible. In all of the guilds on the PvP server, if you weren't on vent, and you didn't know what you were doing, you were booted. It's cold hearted like that. You aren't getting carried, and we're playing to win.
Yet I keep seeing more people get carried on PvE servers, such as the now 6k GS Warlock we have that still can't out-dps their imp pet. It has taken more than a couple of months to kill LK, with a good month and a half on Sindy, simply because we'd always wipe because everyone would crowd around the guys who are about to get ice cubed during the second (or is it third) phase, or the ice cubed person wouldn't know it and not run out and get all the melee DPS.
And LK. Yeah. Don't get me started on that.
At least, this is what my experience shows.
Wow it's like we're in the same guild or something.
We used to have the absolute best geared feral druid on our server. I've told you guys about this. He only did 2.3k dps in ICC.
My server (original PvP server) is pretty awesome. I imagine it's because a big chunk of our population was "raised on the streets" and are thus more "hard" than "PvE carebears".
I leveled to 70 on a pvp server, and have leveled 2 characters past that on a pve server. Honestly I can't stand pvp servers, because I dislike being interrupted while I am in a rhythm, and also because I think that WoW pvp is a joke.
But I did it. I don't know if I've noticed PvP server people being better or worse than people on a PvE server, but I really think that there's not all that much of a difference. On the pvp server I leveled on I was invited into karazhan as a guest by a guild whose members I healed once in Black Morass, before I had even started my dungeon set. I was evidently an impressive enough priest that they wanted me to raid with them as soon as possible, so I did, etc.
But I know quite a few really really good players (one person who had nax on farm during vanilla, one who made it through all of BC a month or so after launch), that never played on PvP servers because they just didn't like WoW PvP.
I'll give you that people who are bad will tend to populate PvE servers more than PvP servers, because PvP servers are indeed much harder. But I don't really think it's fair to make a generalization about it.
I can safely say that playing on a pvp server has done absolutely nothing for my skill, that a pve server would not have. If you benefit from a population imbalance like I do, ganking is just not a big issue overall, meaning I do not have to adapt to it.
man pvp servers aren't much harder. I've leveled on both, and it makes hardly any difference at all. In the past there have been a few high-population areas where it was a big deal, but those were basically nonexistent in wrath.
Eat it You Nasty Pig. on
hold your head high soldier, it ain't over yet
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
The only beggar I've given anything to was a guy who was begging for bags. I was impressed by the novelty of it because I hadn't seen it before (or since). Plus if you gotta beg it is the most sensible thing to beg for.
fwiw anyone who begs me for anything, I ask them what they need it for, and then I just give them 100g regardless if they can come up with a second statement that isn't also "gold plz need gold"
but I park all of my Horde characters in Thunder Bluff, and for some reason the new players/underleveled people I meet there are usually actually pretty tolerable
man pvp servers aren't much harder. I've leveled on both, and it makes hardly any difference at all. In the past there have been a few high-population areas where it was a big deal, but those were basically nonexistent in wrath.
Yeah.
On release being on a PvP server made some difference maybe? The world was much smaller and there was actual world PvP.
I can't remember the last time I was ganked in WoW in Wrath (granted, I've been out of the game for a while now). It's pretty rare these days, particularly since dungeon queues because now no one leaves the cities to go to meeting stones and real world locations. The biggest thing I remember in wrath was wresting control of meeting stones for your side. Mostly for the daily heroic.
I did miss the release of Wrath by a month or so. Perhaps things were brutal when horde and alliance 70s were swarming the borean, eager to get to level 80.
My point here being that "heightened awareness and constant vigilance for ganks" is pretty much dead at this point on PvP servers. I haven't played much on PvE servers though so I can't make sweeping generalizations about the difference in players though.
The drive by ganking is mildly annoying, the "sit and camp you because I lost my WSG match and am waiting for a dungeon queue" is the worst kind and is really popular still. The good thing is now that there are so many zones I have a lot of choices to get away. Or just park my ass in a goblin town and watch the fuckhead get steamrolled when he kills or tries to kill me. Nessingwary's camp just got awesome because of the hired guns. I was getting stalked by a level 80 rogue, finished my quest and walked into it, then he tried to one shot me but somehow I dodged him and he got stomped by the guards. I /hugged, got my chievo, and hearthed back to BB.
bowen on
not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
From what I have heard and read, Wrath, as an expansion, has been a little bit mind numbing and toxic, is that at all true?
What I mean by that is, if you allow me to clarify, I have been reading and hearing all over the place (some sources reputable, some not as much) that a really stupid mainstream culture has developed due to WotLK, causing people to do things like chain pull in dungeons no matter what happens, regardless of the situation, people not knowing that they even have CC on their bar, stuff like that.
While leveling my priest up recently I healed some instances, and I would sometimes run into mana problems because the tank would never stop pulling, the dps would pull agro from the tank constantly because they didn't have any target discipline, we would take on entire rooms at once because of a lack of CC, and if I had no mana and stopped to drink, the tank would literally ignore my "need mana" and continue pulling immediately. I didn't know why this was happening, since the last time I played WoW before this was when burning crusade was somewhat new, and I remember never going into an instance without using at least 3 marks to designate targets and CC.
So I was pretty confused when people looked like they were pretty much trying to smash their face on the keyboard to get through these instances. Some of the things I am reading in this very thread make me come to the same general conclusion.
Rend on
0
L Ron HowardThe duckMinnesotaRegistered Userregular
I'll give you that people who are bad will tend to populate PvE servers more than PvP servers, because PvP servers are indeed much harder. But I don't really think it's fair to make a generalization about it.
Isn't that a generalization?
And has been said, in Wrath, I don't know if there really is any difference any more. My experience at 80 is almost entirely on a PvE server. And most of my PvP experience with raiding is Naxx.
I'll give you that people who are bad will tend to populate PvE servers more than PvP servers, because PvP servers are indeed much harder. But I don't really think it's fair to make a generalization about it.
Isn't that a generalization?
Well, yes, but a smaller one. Generalizations have to be made, but I was referring to a larger scale of generalization. One of those I think is pretty fair, one of those I do not.
That was a problem in BC too. Except when people did this they'd get ostracized on their server and have to transfer or something. I can remember tanks not waiting for me to get mana between the harder pulls, dying, cursing me out, and then ragequitting because they thought they could do it like their T6 tank buddy with 18K hp could with 10k hp.
bowen on
not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
I'll give you that people who are bad will tend to populate PvE servers more than PvP servers, because PvP servers are indeed much harder. But I don't really think it's fair to make a generalization about it.
I don't think anyone is making the argument that everyone on a PvE server is garbage. There are some great players on PvE servers.
The average skill level just has always appeared to be higher on the PvP servers due to he mindsets / perserverance factors.
And it's actually not anecdotal about guilds. In the beginning of the game, the guilds that were most progressed were the ones on the PvP servers.
Like I said, now? I have no idea, I haven't been keeping updated, and the way Blizzard has reduced the value of world pvp makes it so that there's not as much of a difference anymore. There IS, but not s'much.
"Back in the day", though? Shit, I and comrades would go out in 5 man roaming teams and hunt Alliance in Felwood, Burning Steppes, and Searing Gorge. We even once had a raid of 40+ people blockade the teleporter and denied Alliance access to Blackwing Lair all night.
It was glorious and it was when world pvp mattered. Blizzard has killed that, so, now? Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if PvE = PvP.
There were very real reasons, imo, that PvP > PvE in terms of skill level, on average, "back in the day".
Bizazedo on
XBL: Bizazedo
PSN: Bizazedo
CFN: Bizazedo (I don't think I suck, add me).
PvP servers don't make anything harder. Just more irritating. Once you're at the cap it's no different really from a PvE server at all. You just have to suffer through the chance at getting ganked and camped at lower levels and the usual annoyance of griefing for stupid shit like going through the dark portal or what have you. Things like having quest hubs camped by opposing factions happens on either server type.
Nothing about what makes the servers different actually makes a better player, particularly in regards to PvE content, at all. The extra few hours it takes to get to the cap due to the annoyances that can pup up doing leveling makes no overall difference.
Besides, if it keeps the type of jackhole who enjoys killing lowbies and camping their corpses, to a specific server set then we're all the better for it.
Anyway, in regards to the bad habits formed in wraith, well...two sides to every story.
One, it's hard to blame the players. Chain pulling and AoE'ing the shit out of everything actually was the best way to complete the vast majority of content in Wrath. You can't blame it on a kid for not knowing math if the only subject a school teaches is english. It was what the game presented and players followed suit. Yes, there's a certain extent where it just becomes someone being a douche, not stopping for mana or not paying attention to aggro, what have you. But the core of bad habits picked up in Wrath in this regard was handed to us on a silver platter by blizzard. So this mindset in lower level instances, played by people who are alts of 80's who are told to play that way, is entirely expected. Right or wrong for the instance, it's what was bound to happen.
On the other hand, those bad habits could very well stay with wrath. There will be a learning curve when people jump into Cata heroics, and there'll be a lot of wipes and frustration. But I think people will learn, fairly quickly, that they have to do things "right" (right in this regard being the playstyle that blizzard chose for this xpack, the next xpack could very well go back to aoefests) or their frustration at that point becomes their own fault. The danger is that some players, who might not be as good of players, will just give up entirely and not participate in content. Then you go back to TBC levels of bitching about elitism of raiders or whatever and that's not exactly a positive outcome. Plus, it's hard to be too hard on a bad player if they're honestly trying their best. Sometimes people just aren't amazing gamers. Be it the cliche significant other, or what not, you are bound to come across players who by no fault of their own have their "best" be pretty sub-par in the grand scheme of things, and that sort of player could be very off put by the new challenge in content, till it is terribly overgeared.
All in all, I think many of the bad habits formed in Wrath will filter themselves out relatively quickly, at least among the playerbase that cares enough to play well. In the end though, it can't be said enough times....if you want to save yourself a lot of frustration for the first few months of Cata, only do heroics (and raids) with friends and guildmates you can rely on to learn the content and do it "right", or at least well.
FairchildRabbit used short words that were easy to understand, like "Hello Pooh, how about Lunch ?"Registered Userregular
edited December 2010
My Undead hunter's leveling path in the Eastern Kingdoms continues:
- The Hinterlands. Similar to Tirisfal, the zone is largely unchanged but the questlines have been shortened and streamlined. Jindra'lor is still there, the wolves still need to be stomped, and Lard is still missing his lunch. The Wildhammer dwarves have pushed out into the zone and are in full-fledged combat with the Revantusk trolls. As before, it's still a good zone for leveling up your professions. 7/10
From what I have heard and read, Wrath, as an expansion, has been a little bit mind numbing and toxic, is that at all true?
What I mean by that is, if you allow me to clarify, I have been reading and hearing all over the place (some sources reputable, some not as much) that a really stupid mainstream culture has developed due to WotLK, causing people to do things like chain pull in dungeons no matter what happens, regardless of the situation, people not knowing that they even have CC on their bar, stuff like that.
While leveling my priest up recently I healed some instances, and I would sometimes run into mana problems because the tank would never stop pulling, the dps would pull agro from the tank constantly because they didn't have any target discipline, we would take on entire rooms at once because of a lack of CC, and if I had no mana and stopped to drink, the tank would literally ignore my "need mana" and continue pulling immediately. I didn't know why this was happening, since the last time I played WoW before this was when burning crusade was somewhat new, and I remember never going into an instance without using at least 3 marks to designate targets and CC.
So I was pretty confused when people looked like they were pretty much trying to smash their face on the keyboard to get through these instances. Some of the things I am reading in this very thread make me come to the same general conclusion.
The problem with WotLK is with the old combat mechanics, gear and heroic dungeons were just too damn easy. It really is at the point you have to do some serious facepalming to wipe.
You had tanks with crazy amounts of health compared to the mobs they were fighting. You have healers who don't have to worry about mana. And I think part of it is tanks are more effective at AoE tanking then in the past.
So the end result is heroics going from something that should be challenging, or at the least respected, to something you try to finish as quickly as possible. That means literally grabbing everything you can and just AoEing the hell out of them because you can. No need for CC. No need to mark targets. No real need to even pay that much attention for 3 of the 5 people in the party.
Add all that up and you have a lot of gamers with some very bad habits and IMO much lower WoW IQs compared to other expansions. and there are certainly a ton of incredibly geared players out there who got carried by their guilds and have no idea how to play their class effectively.
i've said this before, but there's literally an entire generation of players out there who have no idea what mana management is, don't know how to pull, don't know how to effectively CC, have no idea what focus fire is, never pay attention to their threat, etc.
I don't really blame the players, it's just a huge shock to me. Aside from leveling past 70, I have never played Wrath before. No instances, no raids, I basically skipped the expansion. The first thing that tipped me off was people talking on (i think) the official forum about healing as discipline spec, and people were talking about when to use Penance.
There were actually people ignoring the ones who said "use penance when you can because it's very efficient" and saying "no just use flash heal always, you don't need any other spells."
That really, honestly blew my mind. Flash heal is so expensive, but I am told that in Wrath, mana simply does not matter. If mana doesn't matter, Flash heal is the best heal, but I come from a place where having enough mana isn't always something that happens.
The Dude - From what I've seen that learning curve you speak of is going to start right off the bat with the two lvl 80 dungeons. Both require crowd control on pulls and focusing on a specific target.
A lot of tanks are going to run in their first run, try and grab a pack of four and proceed to get wtfstomped.
Almost all of the fights have some trick to them you need to be aware of. Whether dodging stuff on the ground, moving the boss around, or coordinating who stands in beams.
And in Throne of Tides there are already a couple of pulls dubbed "The pull of death" because if you screw it up you're wiped.
PvP servers don't make anything harder. Just more irritating. Once you're at the cap it's no different really from a PvE server at all. You just have to suffer through the chance at getting ganked and camped at lower levels and the usual annoyance of griefing for stupid shit like going through the dark portal or what have you. Things like having quest hubs camped by opposing factions happens on either server type.
Nothing about what makes the servers different actually makes a better player, particularly in regards to PvE content, at all. The extra few hours it takes to get to the cap due to the annoyances that can pup up doing leveling makes no overall difference.
100% correct....now. Blizzard has basically neutered the ways I as Horde can stop an Alliance from doing what they want.
As for quest hubs being camped...kind of a bad comparison since on a PvP server they can kill you in addition to the NPC's.
If we're talking about Crossroads, that's kind of irrelevant.
Honestly, I still think the whole thing is more about mindset, anyways, not about specific situations. It WAS just different.
As for Wrath teaching people bad things..
Yes, it did. The death toll will be enormous next week.
People will adapt quickly, though. Cata instances aren't BC level difficulty, now.
Of course, I miss the difficulty of vanilla lower blackrock spire w/just 5 people, but that'll never come back .
Bizazedo on
XBL: Bizazedo
PSN: Bizazedo
CFN: Bizazedo (I don't think I suck, add me).
From what I have heard and read, Wrath, as an expansion, has been a little bit mind numbing and toxic, is that at all true?
I can't speak to the higher levels, but I ran a warrior 1-60 several months ago (and about to do it again starting today). I usually did >50% of the group's dps, although it was certainly possible for a top dps to do >2x my damage. Point being these were not great groups.
The expectation was pulling at least 2 packs at once. 3 in most instances if the healer was any good. No CC. Don't worry about pats, or casters at a distance.
I had a night where I caught a good dps and healer and we 3-pulled SM GY, repeatedly. The wipes I experienced were along the lines of: healer DC after pulling 3 packs in gnomer, or healer LOS after pulling 4 packs in uld. I should be able to keep myself up through a 2 pull with no healer if I worked at it. The healer should never, ever drink unless they are terrible. Geared healers were healing 2 packs with renew. (Followed by whispering, "pull more.")
You get the idea.
I honestly was planning to hook up with people but I quit because I was sick of doing hallways of AoE, over and over and over (and sick of soloing too).
Nissl on
360: Purkinje
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L Ron HowardThe duckMinnesotaRegistered Userregular
edited December 2010
I'm totally with Bizazedo on this.
Currently, I'm sure there isn't much of a difference. When I was leveling on a PvP server to get to 80, I think there was very, very sporadic PvP that actually happened.
It's exactly as you say now, HerpesDude.
But I think the main difference is the people who played and leveled during vanilla and BC on PvP servers. I mean, I remember having to have several friends around because when PvP happened, everyone would go running. I played Horde, and back in vanilla there was a LOT more Alliance than Horde on most PvP servers - so you learn real fast to be situationally aware, to move with your mouse, etc.
I'm sure that someone who has joined for Wrath on a PvP server isn't any better than someone who has joined on a PvE server.
I'm sure there's a minimal difference, if there is one at all.
L Ron Howard on
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Kevin CristI make the devil hit his kneesand say the 'our father'Registered Userregular
edited December 2010
I'm going to dust off my old Seduce macro. Well used Succy, Glyphed Fear and Banish will make Locks quite popular for CCing.
I think it is a matter of scaling and slow but steady power-creep.
Heroics were not designed to be like BC heroics. I never got that feeling from Wrath.
Rather, they were supposed to be level 80 dungeons. They were designed to be done right after you hit level 80. You did normal dungeons to level but you did heroics after that to get gear.
Heroics in BC were challenges to simply access let alone beat. You had to do the non-heroic version of the dungeon several times over to get the reputation to get the key and then they were quite difficult indeed.
There's nothing in wrath that really compares to the heroics of old.
I will be interested to see if Wrath's System of "heroics are the new dungeons for 80s" will persist.
At the time though, heroics for a fresh 80 in leveling blues and greens were tough. They were relatively challenging, you were wise to use crowd control, etc.
Now that the average item level has gone up 30-40 points and the average item color is purple they are incredibly trivial. Not to mention class buffs and changes and that everyone is pretty much better at what they do with 4.0.0.
This power creep has trickled down to lower levels as well. Older dungeons were not designed with mastery +25% damage boosts in mind, they were not designed with the new, robust talent trees in mind...
Players have gotten more and more powerful. Old challenges have become trivial. And so they are treated as such.
The Dude - From what I've seen that learning curve you speak of is going to start right off the bat with the two lvl 80 dungeons. Both require crowd control on pulls and focusing on a specific target.
A lot of tanks are going to run in their first run, try and grab a pack of four and proceed to get wtfstomped.
Almost all of the fights have some trick to them you need to be aware of. Whether dodging stuff on the ground, moving the boss around, or coordinating who stands in beams.
And in Throne of Tides there are already a couple of pulls dubbed "The pull of death" because if you screw it up you're wiped.
This sounds GLORIOUS!
Decomposey on
Before following any advice, opinions, or thoughts I may have expressed in the above post, be warned: I found Keven Costners "Waterworld" to be a very entertaining film.
Actually, Corp, they are now. Bosses have way bigger health pools. Instead of seeing Trash with 1900 HP and a boss with 3500, it's more like trash with 4000 and boss with 24k.
Actually, Corp, they are now. Bosses have way bigger health pools. Instead of seeing Trash with 1900 HP and a boss with 3500, it's more like trash with 4000 and boss with 24k.
Pretty much this- there's a reason I had some issues. I mean, if we just rolled through without problem I would have been confused, but I would not have thought much of it. It's the fact that people would sometimes die, regardless of my actions, that I started to be genuinely concerned.
I've been leveling up a pally tank recently and from what I've seen a lot of people have no situational awareness. I've lost count of the number of times someone has face-pulled a random trash pack or how many times a hunter has been careless with their pet or shots and pulled extra.
No one wants to wait when I try to line of sight pull a pack around the corner either. I do this to reel the casters/ranged mobs in and pull them away from other trash packs so there's more time to finish off runners. Usually the dps just kinda stands there going wtf and then opens up on the mobs before they've rounded the corner. And they're not getting out the fire, half the time they don't finish off runners, they've never heard of crowd control, they've no idea about focus fire or prioritizing targets, and if they think you're not pulling fast enough they'll "help" you by rounding up everything in sight.
People do stupid crap all the time that leaves me thinking if this were actually hard at all that would have just caused a wipe. Next week school will be in session.
Glyph of Psychic Scream I think will make good CC for priests. That glyph seems to me to be immensely powerful, especially for a Major glyph.
Is that the one that turns fear into a cower? Because warlocks get that too, and its AWESOME. Between banish and fear I can now effectively CC pretty much anything that isn't undead.
People do stupid crap all the time that leaves me thinking if this were actually hard at all that would have just caused a wipe. Next week school will be in session.
Hmm, so the leveling dungeons haven't gotten much harder? That makes me a sad panda.
I got the impression from reading forums that you still don't need much cc at lower levels, but you really don't want to pull more than one pack at a time. No?
People do stupid crap all the time that leaves me thinking if this were actually hard at all that would have just caused a wipe. Next week school will be in session.
The Dude - From what I've seen that learning curve you speak of is going to start right off the bat with the two lvl 80 dungeons. Both require crowd control on pulls and focusing on a specific target.
A lot of tanks are going to run in their first run, try and grab a pack of four and proceed to get wtfstomped.
Almost all of the fights have some trick to them you need to be aware of. Whether dodging stuff on the ground, moving the boss around, or coordinating who stands in beams.
And in Throne of Tides there are already a couple of pulls dubbed "The pull of death" because if you screw it up you're wiped.
This sounds GLORIOUS!
Asuma on
"Extremism is so easy. You've got your position, and that's it. It doesn't take much thought. And when you go far enough to the right, you meet the same idiots coming around from the left." -- Clint Eastwood ***
I've been leveling up a pally tank recently and from what I've seen a lot of people have no situational awareness. I've lost count of the number of times someone has face-pulled a random trash pack or how many times a hunter has been careless with their pet or shots and pulled extra.
No one wants to wait when I try to line of sight pull a pack around the corner either. I do this to reel the casters/ranged mobs in and pull them away from other trash packs so there's more time to finish off runners. Usually the dps just kinda stands there going wtf and then opens up on the mobs before they've rounded the corner. And they're not getting out the fire, half the time they don't finish off runners, they've never heard of crowd control, they've no idea about focus fire or prioritizing targets, and if they think you're not pulling fast enough they'll "help" you by rounding up everything in sight.
People do stupid crap all the time that leaves me thinking if this were actually hard at all that would have just caused a wipe. Next week school will be in session.
Glyph of Psychic Scream I think will make good CC for priests. That glyph seems to me to be immensely powerful, especially for a Major glyph.
Is that the one that turns fear into a cower? Because warlocks get that too, and its AWESOME. Between banish and fear I can now effectively CC pretty much anything that isn't undead.
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Yes. Speaking of neat quests, I was in Northern STV and...
I leveled to 70 on a pvp server, and have leveled 2 characters past that on a pve server. Honestly I can't stand pvp servers, because I dislike being interrupted while I am in a rhythm, and also because I think that WoW pvp is a joke.
But I did it. I don't know if I've noticed PvP server people being better or worse than people on a PvE server, but I really think that there's not all that much of a difference. On the pvp server I leveled on I was invited into karazhan as a guest by a guild whose members I healed once in Black Morass, before I had even started my dungeon set. I was evidently an impressive enough priest that they wanted me to raid with them as soon as possible, so I did, etc.
But I know quite a few really really good players (one person who had nax on farm during vanilla, one who made it through all of BC a month or so after launch), that never played on PvP servers because they just didn't like WoW PvP.
I'll give you that people who are bad will tend to populate PvE servers more than PvP servers, because PvP servers are indeed much harder. But I don't really think it's fair to make a generalization about it.
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
but I park all of my Horde characters in Thunder Bluff, and for some reason the new players/underleveled people I meet there are usually actually pretty tolerable
Yeah.
On release being on a PvP server made some difference maybe? The world was much smaller and there was actual world PvP.
I can't remember the last time I was ganked in WoW in Wrath (granted, I've been out of the game for a while now). It's pretty rare these days, particularly since dungeon queues because now no one leaves the cities to go to meeting stones and real world locations. The biggest thing I remember in wrath was wresting control of meeting stones for your side. Mostly for the daily heroic.
I did miss the release of Wrath by a month or so. Perhaps things were brutal when horde and alliance 70s were swarming the borean, eager to get to level 80.
My point here being that "heightened awareness and constant vigilance for ganks" is pretty much dead at this point on PvP servers. I haven't played much on PvE servers though so I can't make sweeping generalizations about the difference in players though.
... Someone, somewhere, make this happen.
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Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
What I mean by that is, if you allow me to clarify, I have been reading and hearing all over the place (some sources reputable, some not as much) that a really stupid mainstream culture has developed due to WotLK, causing people to do things like chain pull in dungeons no matter what happens, regardless of the situation, people not knowing that they even have CC on their bar, stuff like that.
While leveling my priest up recently I healed some instances, and I would sometimes run into mana problems because the tank would never stop pulling, the dps would pull agro from the tank constantly because they didn't have any target discipline, we would take on entire rooms at once because of a lack of CC, and if I had no mana and stopped to drink, the tank would literally ignore my "need mana" and continue pulling immediately. I didn't know why this was happening, since the last time I played WoW before this was when burning crusade was somewhat new, and I remember never going into an instance without using at least 3 marks to designate targets and CC.
So I was pretty confused when people looked like they were pretty much trying to smash their face on the keyboard to get through these instances. Some of the things I am reading in this very thread make me come to the same general conclusion.
Isn't that a generalization?
And has been said, in Wrath, I don't know if there really is any difference any more. My experience at 80 is almost entirely on a PvE server. And most of my PvP experience with raiding is Naxx.
Well, yes, but a smaller one. Generalizations have to be made, but I was referring to a larger scale of generalization. One of those I think is pretty fair, one of those I do not.
I don't think anyone is making the argument that everyone on a PvE server is garbage. There are some great players on PvE servers.
The average skill level just has always appeared to be higher on the PvP servers due to he mindsets / perserverance factors.
And it's actually not anecdotal about guilds. In the beginning of the game, the guilds that were most progressed were the ones on the PvP servers.
Like I said, now? I have no idea, I haven't been keeping updated, and the way Blizzard has reduced the value of world pvp makes it so that there's not as much of a difference anymore. There IS, but not s'much.
"Back in the day", though? Shit, I and comrades would go out in 5 man roaming teams and hunt Alliance in Felwood, Burning Steppes, and Searing Gorge. We even once had a raid of 40+ people blockade the teleporter and denied Alliance access to Blackwing Lair all night.
It was glorious and it was when world pvp mattered. Blizzard has killed that, so, now? Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if PvE = PvP.
There were very real reasons, imo, that PvP > PvE in terms of skill level, on average, "back in the day".
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how about the winterspring witnersaber mount dude>?
The venomhide raptor guy is still in un'goro and still gives the quests
Nothing about what makes the servers different actually makes a better player, particularly in regards to PvE content, at all. The extra few hours it takes to get to the cap due to the annoyances that can pup up doing leveling makes no overall difference.
Besides, if it keeps the type of jackhole who enjoys killing lowbies and camping their corpses, to a specific server set then we're all the better for it.
Anyway, in regards to the bad habits formed in wraith, well...two sides to every story.
One, it's hard to blame the players. Chain pulling and AoE'ing the shit out of everything actually was the best way to complete the vast majority of content in Wrath. You can't blame it on a kid for not knowing math if the only subject a school teaches is english. It was what the game presented and players followed suit. Yes, there's a certain extent where it just becomes someone being a douche, not stopping for mana or not paying attention to aggro, what have you. But the core of bad habits picked up in Wrath in this regard was handed to us on a silver platter by blizzard. So this mindset in lower level instances, played by people who are alts of 80's who are told to play that way, is entirely expected. Right or wrong for the instance, it's what was bound to happen.
On the other hand, those bad habits could very well stay with wrath. There will be a learning curve when people jump into Cata heroics, and there'll be a lot of wipes and frustration. But I think people will learn, fairly quickly, that they have to do things "right" (right in this regard being the playstyle that blizzard chose for this xpack, the next xpack could very well go back to aoefests) or their frustration at that point becomes their own fault. The danger is that some players, who might not be as good of players, will just give up entirely and not participate in content. Then you go back to TBC levels of bitching about elitism of raiders or whatever and that's not exactly a positive outcome. Plus, it's hard to be too hard on a bad player if they're honestly trying their best. Sometimes people just aren't amazing gamers. Be it the cliche significant other, or what not, you are bound to come across players who by no fault of their own have their "best" be pretty sub-par in the grand scheme of things, and that sort of player could be very off put by the new challenge in content, till it is terribly overgeared.
All in all, I think many of the bad habits formed in Wrath will filter themselves out relatively quickly, at least among the playerbase that cares enough to play well. In the end though, it can't be said enough times....if you want to save yourself a lot of frustration for the first few months of Cata, only do heroics (and raids) with friends and guildmates you can rely on to learn the content and do it "right", or at least well.
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- The Hinterlands. Similar to Tirisfal, the zone is largely unchanged but the questlines have been shortened and streamlined. Jindra'lor is still there, the wolves still need to be stomped, and Lard is still missing his lunch. The Wildhammer dwarves have pushed out into the zone and are in full-fledged combat with the Revantusk trolls. As before, it's still a good zone for leveling up your professions. 7/10
The problem with WotLK is with the old combat mechanics, gear and heroic dungeons were just too damn easy. It really is at the point you have to do some serious facepalming to wipe.
You had tanks with crazy amounts of health compared to the mobs they were fighting. You have healers who don't have to worry about mana. And I think part of it is tanks are more effective at AoE tanking then in the past.
So the end result is heroics going from something that should be challenging, or at the least respected, to something you try to finish as quickly as possible. That means literally grabbing everything you can and just AoEing the hell out of them because you can. No need for CC. No need to mark targets. No real need to even pay that much attention for 3 of the 5 people in the party.
Add all that up and you have a lot of gamers with some very bad habits and IMO much lower WoW IQs compared to other expansions. and there are certainly a ton of incredibly geared players out there who got carried by their guilds and have no idea how to play their class effectively.
i've said this before, but there's literally an entire generation of players out there who have no idea what mana management is, don't know how to pull, don't know how to effectively CC, have no idea what focus fire is, never pay attention to their threat, etc.
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I don't really blame the players, it's just a huge shock to me. Aside from leveling past 70, I have never played Wrath before. No instances, no raids, I basically skipped the expansion. The first thing that tipped me off was people talking on (i think) the official forum about healing as discipline spec, and people were talking about when to use Penance.
There were actually people ignoring the ones who said "use penance when you can because it's very efficient" and saying "no just use flash heal always, you don't need any other spells."
That really, honestly blew my mind. Flash heal is so expensive, but I am told that in Wrath, mana simply does not matter. If mana doesn't matter, Flash heal is the best heal, but I come from a place where having enough mana isn't always something that happens.
A lot of tanks are going to run in their first run, try and grab a pack of four and proceed to get wtfstomped.
Almost all of the fights have some trick to them you need to be aware of. Whether dodging stuff on the ground, moving the boss around, or coordinating who stands in beams.
And in Throne of Tides there are already a couple of pulls dubbed "The pull of death" because if you screw it up you're wiped.
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100% correct....now. Blizzard has basically neutered the ways I as Horde can stop an Alliance from doing what they want.
As for quest hubs being camped...kind of a bad comparison since on a PvP server they can kill you in addition to the NPC's.
If we're talking about Crossroads, that's kind of irrelevant.
Honestly, I still think the whole thing is more about mindset, anyways, not about specific situations. It WAS just different.
As for Wrath teaching people bad things..
Yes, it did. The death toll will be enormous next week.
People will adapt quickly, though. Cata instances aren't BC level difficulty, now.
Of course, I miss the difficulty of vanilla lower blackrock spire w/just 5 people, but that'll never come back
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I can't speak to the higher levels, but I ran a warrior 1-60 several months ago (and about to do it again starting today). I usually did >50% of the group's dps, although it was certainly possible for a top dps to do >2x my damage. Point being these were not great groups.
The expectation was pulling at least 2 packs at once. 3 in most instances if the healer was any good. No CC. Don't worry about pats, or casters at a distance.
I had a night where I caught a good dps and healer and we 3-pulled SM GY, repeatedly. The wipes I experienced were along the lines of: healer DC after pulling 3 packs in gnomer, or healer LOS after pulling 4 packs in uld. I should be able to keep myself up through a 2 pull with no healer if I worked at it. The healer should never, ever drink unless they are terrible. Geared healers were healing 2 packs with renew. (Followed by whispering, "pull more.")
You get the idea.
I honestly was planning to hook up with people but I quit because I was sick of doing hallways of AoE, over and over and over (and sick of soloing too).
Currently, I'm sure there isn't much of a difference. When I was leveling on a PvP server to get to 80, I think there was very, very sporadic PvP that actually happened.
It's exactly as you say now, HerpesDude.
But I think the main difference is the people who played and leveled during vanilla and BC on PvP servers. I mean, I remember having to have several friends around because when PvP happened, everyone would go running. I played Horde, and back in vanilla there was a LOT more Alliance than Horde on most PvP servers - so you learn real fast to be situationally aware, to move with your mouse, etc.
I'm sure that someone who has joined for Wrath on a PvP server isn't any better than someone who has joined on a PvE server.
I'm sure there's a minimal difference, if there is one at all.
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Heroics were not designed to be like BC heroics. I never got that feeling from Wrath.
Rather, they were supposed to be level 80 dungeons. They were designed to be done right after you hit level 80. You did normal dungeons to level but you did heroics after that to get gear.
Heroics in BC were challenges to simply access let alone beat. You had to do the non-heroic version of the dungeon several times over to get the reputation to get the key and then they were quite difficult indeed.
There's nothing in wrath that really compares to the heroics of old.
I will be interested to see if Wrath's System of "heroics are the new dungeons for 80s" will persist.
At the time though, heroics for a fresh 80 in leveling blues and greens were tough. They were relatively challenging, you were wise to use crowd control, etc.
Now that the average item level has gone up 30-40 points and the average item color is purple they are incredibly trivial. Not to mention class buffs and changes and that everyone is pretty much better at what they do with 4.0.0.
This power creep has trickled down to lower levels as well. Older dungeons were not designed with mastery +25% damage boosts in mind, they were not designed with the new, robust talent trees in mind...
Players have gotten more and more powerful. Old challenges have become trivial. And so they are treated as such.
This sounds GLORIOUS!
Pretty much this- there's a reason I had some issues. I mean, if we just rolled through without problem I would have been confused, but I would not have thought much of it. It's the fact that people would sometimes die, regardless of my actions, that I started to be genuinely concerned.
No one wants to wait when I try to line of sight pull a pack around the corner either. I do this to reel the casters/ranged mobs in and pull them away from other trash packs so there's more time to finish off runners. Usually the dps just kinda stands there going wtf and then opens up on the mobs before they've rounded the corner. And they're not getting out the fire, half the time they don't finish off runners, they've never heard of crowd control, they've no idea about focus fire or prioritizing targets, and if they think you're not pulling fast enough they'll "help" you by rounding up everything in sight.
People do stupid crap all the time that leaves me thinking if this were actually hard at all that would have just caused a wipe. Next week school will be in session.
Is that the one that turns fear into a cower? Because warlocks get that too, and its AWESOME. Between banish and fear I can now effectively CC pretty much anything that isn't undead.
I am a freaking nerd.
Hmm, so the leveling dungeons haven't gotten much harder? That makes me a sad panda.
I got the impression from reading forums that you still don't need much cc at lower levels, but you really don't want to pull more than one pack at a time. No?
Yes, yes, a thousand times yes.