As was foretold, we've added advertisements to the forums! If you have questions, or if you encounter any bugs, please visit this thread: https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/240191/forum-advertisement-faq-and-reports-thread/

[World of Warcraft: Legion] Patch 7.1 out now - Return to Karazhan!

24567100

Posts

  • DhalphirDhalphir don't you open that trapdoor you're a fool if you dareRegistered User regular
    Kai_San wrote: »
    Not everyone raids that way man, seriously.

    There are LOTS of guilds that let you do what you want. Other than the top progression guilds, most of the time you are taking someone whos performance with the best spec available is much worse than someone who is good taking a slight dps loss talent. In other words, unless you have a guild who can field a full raid FULL of top performers your success in raids will not be hinging on a mage taking a talent that has a high skill cap for a small overall gain.
    .

    We were talking about StM which is what prompted that comparison.

    I was just explaining why talents that balance being the strongest with a downside like Runner of Power or Surrender are not optional for many raid teams - you're just expected to deal with the downside. That design concept falls down there.

    I'm well aware of the existence of other raid teams, but they aren't relevant given the subject if the discussion, because, as you say, you take whatever talents you find fun, so whether or not Surrender is the best is irrelevant.

  • InfamyDeferredInfamyDeferred Registered User regular
    Dhalphir wrote: »
    Kai_San wrote: »
    Not everyone raids that way man, seriously.

    There are LOTS of guilds that let you do what you want. Other than the top progression guilds, most of the time you are taking someone whos performance with the best spec available is much worse than someone who is good taking a slight dps loss talent. In other words, unless you have a guild who can field a full raid FULL of top performers your success in raids will not be hinging on a mage taking a talent that has a high skill cap for a small overall gain.
    .

    We were talking about StM which is what prompted that comparison.

    I was just explaining why talents that balance being the strongest with a downside like Runner of Power or Surrender are not optional for many raid teams - you're just expected to deal with the downside. That design concept falls down there.

    I'm well aware of the existence of other raid teams, but they aren't relevant given the subject if the discussion, because, as you say, you take whatever talents you find fun, so whether or not Surrender is the best is irrelevant.

    There's a step between "whatever talents you find fun" and "whatever talents sim the highest", and that's "whatever talents you can realistically do the most damage with". Some specs have a couple talents that do 5% more damage, but drastically reduce the error tolerance of the spec. If you know that you don't have the reflexes or the mental acuity to not make mistakes, wouldn't it be a disservice to your raid to pick the spec that will do worse because you're not some golden god of mad gamer skillz?

  • Kai_SanKai_San Commonly known as Klineshrike! Registered User regular
    edited October 2016
    Morkath wrote: »
    Preacher wrote: »
    Simple things like fucking focus fire is beyond some people. Like even marking things with a skull seems to confuse people.

    Other MMO's let you just target the tank to attack whatever he is attacking. Which is a nice touch.

    I know you can do it via macro's on each skill, but thats way too much effort.

    Seems to be the same mentality that keeps those dps from focus firing in the first place :P (the way too much effort line)

    And nah, you as a tank should never have to tab target to gain threat. Threat comes so stupidly easy that pretty much the skills already in your rotation tend to do enough AOE to take care of it. Tanks do change targets to either interrupt, CC, or taunt though so it still might not be a great idea.

    Kai_San on
  • MillMill Registered User regular
    From last thread, really annoyed to learn that the auto WQ completion won't work on elite or dungeon quests. This kind of defeats why I invested in it a couple of days ago because some of the suramar stuff blows and it would have been nice to have the option to snag any hard ones if getting a group in time proved to be an issue. Also bullshit that Blizz did not indicate that, I'll get around to giving them feedback later today or tomorrow about how they need to specify that and refund who purchased it their garrison resources and something to instantly research the other option.

    Granted this is now two paladin tiers that I feel are largely underwhelming for most. I don't plan on being a serious raider again, so I doubt the other option is going to be great for me either. Sure I could use it to complete shitty pet battles (which I can sort of muddle through now, pet design is shit and it's like someone read up on everything that pissed people off in PvP and incorporated it into boss pets). Plus, there is only so much from those that i'm going to be motivated to farm up before pet battles can go fuck themselves. I suppose PvP quests are an option because I fucking hate PvP in these kinds of games, but meh.

    The other tier that is kind of meh is the one where paladins can either get one more of every follower or spend resources to get follower items. The follower items are RNG based, so the route here seems to be either go with buying follower resources, gear up followers and get a some spares for future upgrades. Followed by switching to the other talent. Other option is to ignore the getting follower items with resources and spend a longer time getting followers up to par via follower quests.

    Though now that I think about it, the other two tiers with "options" aren't that compelling either. Tier one, always get upgrade chance on gear. Tier three seemed kind of underwhelming overall, I think I grabbed the one where I got upgrades silver hand and if I pair them up with squires, I could get an extra 15% mission success rate. Other option IIRC was like 5% mission success rate if I did something, I think it was if had fodder troops.

  • RendRend Registered User regular
    Dhalphir wrote: »
    Kai_San wrote: »
    Not everyone raids that way man, seriously.

    There are LOTS of guilds that let you do what you want. Other than the top progression guilds, most of the time you are taking someone whos performance with the best spec available is much worse than someone who is good taking a slight dps loss talent. In other words, unless you have a guild who can field a full raid FULL of top performers your success in raids will not be hinging on a mage taking a talent that has a high skill cap for a small overall gain.
    .

    We were talking about StM which is what prompted that comparison.

    I was just explaining why talents that balance being the strongest with a downside like Runner of Power or Surrender are not optional for many raid teams - you're just expected to deal with the downside. That design concept falls down there.

    I'm well aware of the existence of other raid teams, but they aren't relevant given the subject if the discussion, because, as you say, you take whatever talents you find fun, so whether or not Surrender is the best is irrelevant.

    There's a step between "whatever talents you find fun" and "whatever talents sim the highest", and that's "whatever talents you can realistically do the most damage with". Some specs have a couple talents that do 5% more damage, but drastically reduce the error tolerance of the spec. If you know that you don't have the reflexes or the mental acuity to not make mistakes, wouldn't it be a disservice to your raid to pick the spec that will do worse because you're not some golden god of mad gamer skillz?

    There's a spectrum as in anything. A guild which wants to progress with a group of friends is more likely to ask people to switch than a guild of friends which wants to try out raiding. Likewise, they're less likely to ask people to switch than a progression focused raiding guild, and onward and upward.

  • PMAversPMAvers Registered User regular
    edited October 2016
    To be fair, S2M isn't a "5%" increase talent. It gets absolutely ludricrious, especially since it combos incredibly well with Mass Hysteria.

    It also probably doesn't help that the other talents on that point in the tree are... kind of bad?

    A interesting idea I had earlier would be to have Legacy of the Void make mastery affect Void Eruption and Mind Blast's damage. Would give you a actual benefit for cycling in and out of Voidform fast, and give a excuse to actually gear for mastery. Shadowy Insight would be more valuable too, with being able to fire off insta-cast MB's off the normal cooldown.

    PMAvers on
    persona4celestia.jpg
    COME FORTH, AMATERASU! - Switch Friend Code SW-5465-2458-5696 - Twitch
  • MorkathMorkath Registered User, __BANNED USERS regular
    Kai_San wrote: »
    Morkath wrote: »
    Preacher wrote: »
    Simple things like fucking focus fire is beyond some people. Like even marking things with a skull seems to confuse people.

    Other MMO's let you just target the tank to attack whatever he is attacking. Which is a nice touch.

    I know you can do it via macro's on each skill, but thats way too much effort.

    Seems to be the same mentality that keeps those dps from focus firing in the first place :P (the way too much effort line)

    And nah, you as a tank should never have to tab target to gain threat. Threat comes so stupidly easy that pretty much the skills already in your rotation tend to do enough AOE to take care of it. Tanks do change targets to either interrupt, CC, or taunt though so it still might not be a great idea.

    I dunno, there is a difference between making a macro for every single offensive skill you have, so that it can do target of target, and making sure you are attacking the thing that's life bar goes down. I am not going to fault people for not making 20 different macro's for their character.
    I mean, I made macros for most of mine, but it is not something I expect others to do.

    Also I have never once needed to tab target off the main target on my bear tank. Part of my rotation is AoE, and I have my taunts on mouse over cast. It is literally braindead simple to tank now. All of the work is on the healer.

  • DhalphirDhalphir don't you open that trapdoor you're a fool if you dareRegistered User regular
    edited October 2016
    Dhalphir wrote: »
    Kai_San wrote: »
    Not everyone raids that way man, seriously.

    There are LOTS of guilds that let you do what you want. Other than the top progression guilds, most of the time you are taking someone whos performance with the best spec available is much worse than someone who is good taking a slight dps loss talent. In other words, unless you have a guild who can field a full raid FULL of top performers your success in raids will not be hinging on a mage taking a talent that has a high skill cap for a small overall gain.
    .

    We were talking about StM which is what prompted that comparison.

    I was just explaining why talents that balance being the strongest with a downside like Runner of Power or Surrender are not optional for many raid teams - you're just expected to deal with the downside. That design concept falls down there.

    I'm well aware of the existence of other raid teams, but they aren't relevant given the subject if the discussion, because, as you say, you take whatever talents you find fun, so whether or not Surrender is the best is irrelevant.

    There's a step between "whatever talents you find fun" and "whatever talents sim the highest", and that's "whatever talents you can realistically do the most damage with". Some specs have a couple talents that do 5% more damage, but drastically reduce the error tolerance of the spec. If you know that you don't have the reflexes or the mental acuity to not make mistakes, wouldn't it be a disservice to your raid to pick the spec that will do worse because you're not some golden god of mad gamer skillz?

    Yes, I know. That was literally my point.

    In any guild that cares about your max performance, saying "I do better with the worse talent" isn't acceptable. You're expected to get better with the best talent.

    Guild that aren't like that are different, but in those guilds your talent selection isn't important at all so take what's fun to play.

    If you can't make Surrender to madness work, and you want to take an easier talent because you personally will get more out of it, then that's great if you're in the latter type of guild. Go for it.

    But if you are in the former type of guild, and you can't make Surrender to Madness work for you, then you'd better figure out how to improve that. Taking the worse talent because you're not capable of the best one isn't really an approach you'll get away with for long.

    Dhalphir on
  • PreacherPreacher Registered User regular
    Mill wrote: »
    From last thread, really annoyed to learn that the auto WQ completion won't work on elite or dungeon quests. This kind of defeats why I invested in it a couple of days ago because some of the suramar stuff blows and it would have been nice to have the option to snag any hard ones if getting a group in time proved to be an issue. Also bullshit that Blizz did not indicate that, I'll get around to giving them feedback later today or tomorrow about how they need to specify that and refund who purchased it their garrison resources and something to instantly research the other option.

    Granted this is now two paladin tiers that I feel are largely underwhelming for most. I don't plan on being a serious raider again, so I doubt the other option is going to be great for me either. Sure I could use it to complete shitty pet battles (which I can sort of muddle through now, pet design is shit and it's like someone read up on everything that pissed people off in PvP and incorporated it into boss pets). Plus, there is only so much from those that i'm going to be motivated to farm up before pet battles can go fuck themselves. I suppose PvP quests are an option because I fucking hate PvP in these kinds of games, but meh.

    The other tier that is kind of meh is the one where paladins can either get one more of every follower or spend resources to get follower items. The follower items are RNG based, so the route here seems to be either go with buying follower resources, gear up followers and get a some spares for future upgrades. Followed by switching to the other talent. Other option is to ignore the getting follower items with resources and spend a longer time getting followers up to par via follower quests.

    Though now that I think about it, the other two tiers with "options" aren't that compelling either. Tier one, always get upgrade chance on gear. Tier three seemed kind of underwhelming overall, I think I grabbed the one where I got upgrades silver hand and if I pair them up with squires, I could get an extra 15% mission success rate. Other option IIRC was like 5% mission success rate if I did something, I think it was if had fodder troops.

    They made the wq completion one better by reducing it from a 3 day cooldown to 18 hours. Which again since it doesn't complete anything but the regular quests means at least once a day you can clear one.

    I would like some money because these are artisanal nuggets of wisdom philistine.

    pleasepaypreacher.net
  • DhalphirDhalphir don't you open that trapdoor you're a fool if you dareRegistered User regular
    That's not too bad, if you tend to be pressed for time that could help with the daily emissary.

  • BubsBubs Not Burbs ChicagoRegistered User regular
    There's inevitably one quest of the four that's annoying to me so I'll happily take that

    PSN: thewheelz
  • PreacherPreacher Registered User regular
    Now that I've finished the Suramar rep I've found my tolerance for their shit greatly diminished.

    I would like some money because these are artisanal nuggets of wisdom philistine.

    pleasepaypreacher.net
  • Kai_SanKai_San Commonly known as Klineshrike! Registered User regular
    Dhalphir wrote: »
    Kai_San wrote: »
    Not everyone raids that way man, seriously.

    There are LOTS of guilds that let you do what you want. Other than the top progression guilds, most of the time you are taking someone whos performance with the best spec available is much worse than someone who is good taking a slight dps loss talent. In other words, unless you have a guild who can field a full raid FULL of top performers your success in raids will not be hinging on a mage taking a talent that has a high skill cap for a small overall gain.
    .

    We were talking about StM which is what prompted that comparison.

    I was just explaining why talents that balance being the strongest with a downside like Runner of Power or Surrender are not optional for many raid teams - you're just expected to deal with the downside. That design concept falls down there.

    I'm well aware of the existence of other raid teams, but they aren't relevant given the subject if the discussion, because, as you say, you take whatever talents you find fun, so whether or not Surrender is the best is irrelevant.

    I thought you had more awareness of the average player but I guess not?

    As was said, its not comparable to talk about Rune vs that other mage one (forget the name, sorry) and StM vs basically both other choices in that tier. One is a very small loss for less skill cap, one is basically a must take because the positive is an IMMENSE gain.

    If StM was balanced similarly to the rune tier option, it would be fine too. As it stands, the numbers don't even remotely compare.

    And no, those other raid teams are relevant because they make up a larger portion of the player base than you think. Just because they will not shit on someone for taking a small damage loss to not have to worry about a huge skill cap, doesn't mean they also don't consider it. Again there is something inbetween "extreme elitist" and "extreme casual".

  • DhalphirDhalphir don't you open that trapdoor you're a fool if you dareRegistered User regular
    edited October 2016
    Kai_San wrote: »
    Just because they will not shit on someone for taking a small damage loss to not have to worry about a huge skill cap, doesn't mean they also don't consider it. Again there is something inbetween "extreme elitist" and "extreme casual".

    That is a fair point, and something I'd not thought of. That said, I've never known of a raiding guild where you had people on different pages like that. Either taking the best, difficult-to-master talent was expected regardless of cost, and everyone did it, or taking that talent was unnecessary because everyone wanted to take it easy.

    Dhalphir on
  • StraygatsbyStraygatsby Registered User regular
    Suramar is a garbage town for garbage people.

  • PreacherPreacher Registered User regular
    Suramar is a garbage town for garbage people.

    This is also true.

    I would like some money because these are artisanal nuggets of wisdom philistine.

    pleasepaypreacher.net
  • DhalphirDhalphir don't you open that trapdoor you're a fool if you dareRegistered User regular
    I still love Suramar city.

    The hardest thing about the rest of the zone is travelling anywhere is really hard because I keep seeing Starlight Rose pop up on my map. And I could ignore it, but everytime I do my brain is like "dude, 150g right there, all you have to do is take two steps off the path".

  • Kai_SanKai_San Commonly known as Klineshrike! Registered User regular
    Dhalphir wrote: »
    Kai_San wrote: »
    Just because they will not shit on someone for taking a small damage loss to not have to worry about a huge skill cap, doesn't mean they also don't consider it. Again there is something inbetween "extreme elitist" and "extreme casual".

    That is a fair point, and something I'd not thought of. That said, I've never known of a raiding guild where you had people on different pages like that. Either taking the best, difficult-to-master talent was expected regardless of cost, and everyone did it, or taking that talent was unnecessary because everyone wanted to take it easy.

    Consider that, if someone is overperforming, you likely don't need to worry if they took a worse talent. If someone is underperforming, chances are they would lack the skill needed to get the most out of a high skill cap gain like rune.

    In most guilds not pushing Mythic raids, the skill level is the biggest hurdle for performance before talent choices.

    I think I raided with 4 guilds now, and not one ever even looked at my talent choices.

  • DhalphirDhalphir don't you open that trapdoor you're a fool if you dareRegistered User regular
    edited October 2016
    Kai_San wrote: »
    Consider that, if someone is overperforming, you likely don't need to worry if they took a worse talent.

    While you're not likely to look at someone's talents if they are doing top DPS, I do want to say something about the attitude you're referring to.

    I'm not saying this is your opinion, for what it's worth.

    When you see someone playing suboptimally, like, for example, clicking their buttons instead of keybinds, or using bad talent choices, or a wrong rotation, a common reply you get is (paraphrased) - "I'm the top DPS in my guild every raid, so it's fine."

    It's not fine. If you're playing wrong, and still coming out on top, it doesn't mean you're not playing wrong, it just means you're better than the rest.

    When it comes to evaluating your own performance, the only relevant metric is your performance compared to yourself, and possibly also performance compared to others of your gear level & class/spec.

    The most common time I hear this attitude is in defense of clicking instead of keybinding. Great, you stay alive in boss fights and outplay everyone in your guild while clicking all your buttons. That doesn't mean clicking is as good as keybinding - you'd outplay them by even more if you keybound your spells.

    Great, you outplay everyone in your guild while using <talent that is bad> or gearing for <stat that is bad>. That doesn't mean that <talent or stat> is good - you'd outplay them by even more if you used the correct talent builds and gearing priorities.

    Dhalphir on
  • Eat it You Nasty Pig.Eat it You Nasty Pig. tell homeland security 'we are the bomb'Registered User regular
    with most talents, the difference in DPS is relatively small. One is 'best' in a given situation, but the gain is often not large (maybe not even large enough to compensate for more difficult gameplay.)

    with StM though, the difference is overwhelming. On fights where you can properly leverage it during execute time you'll be hundreds of thousands of DPS ahead of the other two talents on its row. That would be a problem with the other two talents in any case, but it's exacerbated by the fact that StM has to be tuned around even though you can't use it in most gameplay circumstances.

    NREqxl5.jpg
    it was the smallest on the list but
    Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
  • DhalphirDhalphir don't you open that trapdoor you're a fool if you dareRegistered User regular
    with most talents, the difference in DPS is relatively small. One is 'best' in a given situation, but the gain is often not large (maybe not even large enough to compensate for more difficult gameplay.)

    with StM though, the difference is overwhelming. On fights where you can properly leverage it during execute time you'll be hundreds of thousands of DPS ahead of the other two talents on its row. That would be a problem with the other two talents in any case, but it's exacerbated by the fact that StM has to be tuned around even though you can't use it in most gameplay circumstances.

    That's definitely a fair complaint. If they tune shadow priests as a whole around surrender to madness, then those who don't use it will be far behind on DPS. If they don't tune around it, then Shadow Priest will be far and away the number 1 DPS on any fight where it can be used

  • Kai_SanKai_San Commonly known as Klineshrike! Registered User regular
    Just gonna leave this here

    Tnn487x.png

  • BubsBubs Not Burbs ChicagoRegistered User regular
    Kai_San wrote: »
    Dhalphir wrote: »
    Kai_San wrote: »
    Just because they will not shit on someone for taking a small damage loss to not have to worry about a huge skill cap, doesn't mean they also don't consider it. Again there is something inbetween "extreme elitist" and "extreme casual".

    That is a fair point, and something I'd not thought of. That said, I've never known of a raiding guild where you had people on different pages like that. Either taking the best, difficult-to-master talent was expected regardless of cost, and everyone did it, or taking that talent was unnecessary because everyone wanted to take it easy.

    Consider that, if someone is overperforming, you likely don't need to worry if they took a worse talent. If someone is underperforming, chances are they would lack the skill needed to get the most out of a high skill cap gain like rune.

    In most guilds not pushing Mythic raids, the skill level is the biggest hurdle for performance before talent choices.

    I think I raided with 4 guilds now, and not one ever even looked at my talent choices.

    I was in a guild for a long long time that raided 20 hours a week and still didn't care what spec people were. They were trying to get through raids as soon as they possibly could to stay on top of realm progression (marginally successful) and were just too disorganized or clueless to min/max. It was infuriating at times. When I got there nobody knew what hit rating was, for example.

    But they'd been around since early vanilla, so everybody was friends, and there was a strong element of inclusion when it came to raid teams. So it was a fun guild that could have helped themselves a lot by learning how the game worked.

    I've been in or knew people in quite a few guilds with this m.o., so they're out there. Progression minded raid guilds who were, for whatever reason, unconcerned with individual performance. The type who were very susceptible to guild hoppers once they had a couple raids on farm.

    Granted, my time in this guild started late vanilla and ended when I skipped cata, but there were still plenty of resources available back then for improving your performance.

    PSN: thewheelz
  • DhalphirDhalphir don't you open that trapdoor you're a fool if you dareRegistered User regular
    I do think that there is this perception among part of the player base that it's rude to expect people you play with to improve themselves.

    And I don't really get where this perception comes from.

  • EnigmedicEnigmedic Registered User regular
    I think it's mostly that the game turned away from players actually having to do things in fights. Rotations for most classes are pruned way down and more or less all variations of builder and spender. So if bosses are being killed everyone just thinks, "good enough". If bosses arent being killed, most people just get more gear from the 10 other ways to get gear, then just come back and brute force it doing the same thing as before. If people couldn't get gear from WQs this expansion, a lot of people probably would have hit a huge wall at 825ish ilvl.

    But because there are essentially work-arounds for lack of skill, you can join a mythic group with someone at 840+ ilvl who has never done a mythic before. Those people severely bring a group down by not doing mechanics, and doing crap dps or whatever. But because they meet the "ilvl threshold" that group makers arbitrarily set they are invited and allowed to play their low speed cruise control because their ilvl is higher than necessary.

    People always expect others to suck, and always just assume that a higher ilvl is more important than having others actually develop some skill. People would be forced to either stay in the kiddie pool or "git gud" if there weren't so many alternate ways to gear. That's why there is kind of a stigma against expecting others to improve themselves, they can just improve their numbers instead.

  • italianranmaitalianranma Registered User regular
    I'm going to update the second post throughout this week as I have time. I'd like to turn it into a nice little FAQ to cut down on the number of questions we get from returning players. Please whisper me or @ me if you have something you think should be added. It's a work in progress right now, so you're just seeing a little bit of my outline for what I'm going to write next.

    飛べねぇ豚はただの豚だ。
  • Kai_SanKai_San Commonly known as Klineshrike! Registered User regular
    Good groups of people shouldn't expect people to improve themselves.

    You should be doing it naturally, because otherwise why are you even playing a video game?

  • EvermournEvermourn Registered User regular
    Kai_San wrote: »
    Good groups of people shouldn't expect people to improve themselves.

    You should be doing it naturally, because otherwise why are you even playing a video game?

    What?

  • DhalphirDhalphir don't you open that trapdoor you're a fool if you dareRegistered User regular
    Evermourn wrote: »
    Kai_San wrote: »
    Good groups of people shouldn't expect people to improve themselves.

    You should be doing it naturally, because otherwise why are you even playing a video game?

    What?

    I think his point is people should naturally strive to improve themselves and get better without having to be told, coaxed, or coerced.

    I agree to a point.

  • EvermournEvermourn Registered User regular
    A more coherent response to Kai San's post, now I have a sec:

    People play video games for lots of different reasons, and for some of them to strive to improve is definitely not one of them. They might just be chilling out, having fun without pressure. I'm struck by that example of the guild of friends which had been raiding together for ages, but wasn't focussed on the individual performances - that may actually be why they are still together. Because they enjoy it, and aren't stressing themselves.

    Of course, if you are in a raid group which explictly is trying to improve, of course you should try to push yourself.

  • DhalphirDhalphir don't you open that trapdoor you're a fool if you dareRegistered User regular
    Evermourn wrote: »
    A more coherent response to Kai San's post, now I have a sec:

    People play video games for lots of different reasons, and for some of them to strive to improve is definitely not one of them. They might just be chilling out, having fun without pressure. I'm struck by that example of the guild of friends which had been raiding together for ages, but wasn't focussed on the individual performances - that may actually be why they are still together. Because they enjoy it, and aren't stressing themselves.

    Of course, if you are in a raid group which explictly is trying to improve, of course you should try to push yourself.

    I don't understand how there can be any fun gained from playing a game that involves overcoming obstacles and challenges and intentionally ignoring ways to overcome bigger obstacles and more difficult challenges by improving yourself.

  • LorahaloLorahalo Registered User regular
    Dhalphir wrote: »
    Evermourn wrote: »
    A more coherent response to Kai San's post, now I have a sec:

    People play video games for lots of different reasons, and for some of them to strive to improve is definitely not one of them. They might just be chilling out, having fun without pressure. I'm struck by that example of the guild of friends which had been raiding together for ages, but wasn't focussed on the individual performances - that may actually be why they are still together. Because they enjoy it, and aren't stressing themselves.

    Of course, if you are in a raid group which explictly is trying to improve, of course you should try to push yourself.

    I don't understand how there can be any fun gained from playing a game that involves overcoming obstacles and challenges and intentionally ignoring ways to overcome bigger obstacles and more difficult challenges by improving yourself.

    Because some people find it relaxing to play at a lower level and overcome it without having to face potentially frustrating challenges. Not everyone plays game to get better and do the hardest stuff. Playing at a lower level to wind down and have fun without the pressure of constantly having to do harder content is what some people want.

    I have a podcast about Digimon called the Digital Moncast, on Audio Entropy.
  • EvermournEvermourn Registered User regular
    Dhalphir wrote: »
    I don't understand how there can be any fun gained from playing a game that involves overcoming obstacles and challenges and intentionally ignoring ways to overcome bigger obstacles and more difficult challenges by improving yourself.
    Let me blow your mind some more. When my wife used to play wow with me, she enjoyed it because we were doing it together, a shared activity. She didn't care about improving her gear. At all. I'd say, "oh, this is better, look, more damage, more stats" and she'd just go blank. Couldn't give a shit. It took me a long time to just accept it since I couldn't conceive anyone wouldn't care about being more powerful. But there it was. People... :)

  • Kai_SanKai_San Commonly known as Klineshrike! Registered User regular
    edited October 2016
    How can you perform ANY life function and not in any way, shape, or form pay even a sliver of attention to your performance, and at least consider what could be done better?

    Video games on almost any level other than visual novels are overcoming a challenge. If you are overcoming a challenge, you are finding ways to improve. Unless you only strive to find video games that can quite literally be played by mashing A, you are going to have to improve in some form.

    On another note, WoW is absolutely NOT one of those games, so how could you possibly play WoW and not at least improve somewhat? Improving isn't as simple as just getting new gear. If you walk into a fight with a mob, and die, and go back and kill it, you improved. It is nearly impossible to not be doing that. I GUESS I could believe you might just shut down your brain and ignore the fact it happened though?

    Also, consider we were talking about raids. NO ONE is walking into a raid with that mindset you gave in your example (well I guess there are always exceptions). So I guess I should alter my line to say why are you even playing a video game to win or something along those lines.

    Edit: I can see that would sound condescending, but its not supposed to be. Its still early, I apologize for my wording.

    Kai_San on
  • bowenbowen How you doin'? Registered User regular
    Not everyone functions like that at all.

    I'd posit that maybe the game isn't for them, but that isn't entirely true. You can absolutely play a lot of wow and never get to the parts that require you to be the very best there ever was.

    This is where I take the stand like I do against the really psycho people in G&T about "how the game should be played" because everyone derives their fun differently. Yeah I'm still a little salty about the DS3 thread telling me I'm playing the game wrong because I don't enjoy pvp as a "critical part of the game that shouldn't be able to be turned off" (hint, it can be, just not with co-op).

    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
  • ShadowhopeShadowhope Baa. Registered User regular
    edited October 2016
    My primary goal in WOW right now is basically collecting as many cosmetic appearances, pets, toys, mounts and achievements as possible.

    Playing well and getting better gear greatly facilitates the goals above, but playing well and getting better gear are not ends in of themselves for me.

    Shadowhope on
    Civics is not a consumer product that you can ignore because you don’t like the options presented.
  • DhalphirDhalphir don't you open that trapdoor you're a fool if you dareRegistered User regular
    edited October 2016
    There are a lot of things in life that I don't do because I don't want to invest the time it takes to learn how to do them well, and I'd rather not do them at all then do them badly.

    It's a big reason, for example, why I've never jumped over to any other MMO since I started playing WoW. I know I'm always going to come back to WoW, and I don't really want to invest the time into learning how to be good at a new MMO, and I certainly don't want to play a game without being good at it.


    Dhalphir on
  • DerrickDerrick Registered User regular
    bowen wrote: »
    Not everyone functions like that at all.

    I'd posit that maybe the game isn't for them, but that isn't entirely true. You can absolutely play a lot of wow and never get to the parts that require you to be the very best there ever was.

    This is where I take the stand like I do against the really psycho people in G&T about "how the game should be played" because everyone derives their fun differently. Yeah I'm still a little salty about the DS3 thread telling me I'm playing the game wrong because I don't enjoy pvp as a "critical part of the game that shouldn't be able to be turned off" (hint, it can be, just not with co-op).

    My girlfriend keeps me grounded on this point. She plays mostly to have fun with people. She's been playing a druid healer since the beginning of the game. She's good at it, and does well when she goes on guild raids. But she doesn't dig into the numbers like I do. She doesn't run simcraft. She doesn't really keep up with the meta.

    Our guild is a mix of friends and people who became friends while playing. We kind of run the gamut between casual, raiding hardcore, and pvp hardcore. We organize an "Everybody!" raid on Tuesday that starts with a normal raid, and then we go into heroic and get down whatever we can. Thursdays we take the more hardcore people and expect the regular things- flasks, double potting, food buffs, and above all good numbers with solid mechanics.

    I've seen other guilds try this and just up and die due to the drama. But *crosses fingers* it seems to be working for us so far. It helps that people know each other IRL and that we're not pushing Mythic raiding, I think.

    Steam and CFN: Enexemander
  • DhalphirDhalphir don't you open that trapdoor you're a fool if you dareRegistered User regular
    Boss deaths are a lot like good sex in a relationship. They smooth a lot of drama. Keep getting boss kills (with a healthy mix of progression kills) and most guilds are fine.

    It's when progression stalls, or worse, regresses, that drama typically starts.

  • LD50LD50 Registered User regular
    bowen wrote: »
    Not everyone functions like that at all.

    I'd posit that maybe the game isn't for them, but that isn't entirely true. You can absolutely play a lot of wow and never get to the parts that require you to be the very best there ever was.

    This is where I take the stand like I do against the really psycho people in G&T about "how the game should be played" because everyone derives their fun differently. Yeah I'm still a little salty about the DS3 thread telling me I'm playing the game wrong because I don't enjoy pvp as a "critical part of the game that shouldn't be able to be turned off" (hint, it can be, just not with co-op).

    I have a living example of someone who plays a whole lot of wow that also doesn't function that way. One of the most important people in my guild is a player that absolutely does not play the game for the sake of overcoming challenges. She spends a lot of time online chatting in /g, and a lot of time handling profession stuff to help keep the guild stocked with raiding supplies. She also spend time running through easier group content and time expanding their collections (tmog, pets, mounts).

    She's also a really good player. We bring her to mythic raids sometimes when we have slots we need filled and she never disappoints (mechanically or performance wise). It's not that she doesn't improve herself and get better at the game, she just doesn't like doing hard raid content because self-improvement and overcoming challenges isn't something that's fulfilling for her.

This discussion has been closed.